The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - David Moyes Reveals The Truth About Managing The Worlds Greatest Teams

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

As he would tell you himself, the football is in David Moyes’s blood. Growing up in Glasgow he was surrounded by the game, from his dad coaching to his mum washing the kits, this devotion has continued to now. Making the jump from player to manager, David has seen every side and evolution of football, and not all of it was pretty. From the highs of being handpicked by the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson as the manager of Manchester United to the lows of his very public sacking, and his miraculous return as ‘The Moyesiah’. In this conversation David speaks about what it takes to become one of the world’s best known managers, the winning habits and values he instills in his teams and why he is constantly renewing himself for the game he loves. Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to amazon music who when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you

that listen to this show let's continue they would be out screaming at you at half time, they'd be screaming at you at the end of the game. What's the toll of that? David the Messiah Moyes. One of the best known football managers across the globe. Building teams with a clear identity. So where am I looking and who am I talking to? I was desperate to be successful as a manager and I had 11 years at Everton where we were finding it really difficult to break into the top four. The phone rang. It was Sir Alex.

And he said, I'm retiring and you're the next manager of Manchester United. No interview. Not saying, would you like to be? I met Ed Woodward the next day. Back to his house again. We met the Glazers. It was three days and that was as simple as that. To get that offer from the greatest manager maybe there ever was was a great compliment. But maybe if I'd really

looked into it in more detail and more depth, there was a huge change going to have to take place. I trusted Manchester United. Do you feel like that trust was let down? Definitely. But my biggest regret was... We start with the story that has dominated the front pages, the sacking of David Moyes. How did you find out that you're losing your job? Media. Oh really? If you've got any class or any style you have to give bad news well. What are those steps forward to get West Ham competing at the very top of the table? I want to build a new West Ham. A lot of supporters might not like the thought of that. When you look at where West Ham is now, do you worry about losing your job?

I've got to say it. David, take me back to the context that I need to understand in order to understand you. Take me back to Glasgow, 1960s. Yes. I was in a really good family who were really important. And you'll probably hear me talking a lot about it now. But we were a family who stayed in the west end of Glasgow in a tenement building. And we used to have to go up the tenement

and people who don't know what a tenement is a tenement is what we would probably think a block of flats and you go up the tenement and they were never in Glasgow at that time very, very good to look at people looked down on them a little bit but it was a great upbringing for me

that allowed me to play my football out in the street which at that time was was something which everybody considered you know street footballers everybody played football on the street and everybody in Glasgow did play football on the street played in the park so I started in Glasgow in the West End and that was probably where me and my family grew up. Your father's also called David. He certainly is, yeah. What did he do for a living? And how did that influence you? Well, this is probably, it's a really good question to me,

for me, is because my dad actually was a teacher, but he worked in the shipyards in Glasgow, which was really important. So he worked as a shipbuilder, and then he went on to become a teacher in a college. But meanwhile, what he'd done in part of his other job was that he was an amateur football manager.

And there was a very famous boys' club team in Glasgow called Drumchapel Amateurs, which was very famous. And really, all my memories come of my dad running one of the teams at Drumchapel Amateurs. Now, for the people who don't know, you know, there's people like Sir Alex Ferguson played for Drum Chapel Amateurs. There was people like Asa Hartford played for Drum Chapel Amateurs. John Watt was a Scottish international. So it was a very, very famous boys club.

My dad also ran the college where he teach. My dad was a teacher at Annie's Land College which was a college in Glasgow and he took the team every Saturday morning and then he took the amateur football team every Saturday afternoon, you've got to remember this was all, there was no money involved in this so really

part of my life was seeing my dad grow up as a football manager for amateurs but meanwhile his real job was that he was a teacher at Tannisland College. Did that make you want to pursue that as a career at that time or what kind of influence has that had on you in hindsight? Well I think when I look back now I'd say to I think your parents have huge influence in everything you do for different reasons mine definitely did but I

don't think when you're growing up as a boy you're thinking that you know I'm going to be influenced too much by my dad or my mum you don't think that till you get a bit older yourself and when you look back you go wow I can't believe that I'm quite similar to my dad or I can't believe that I followed my mum and going back to that you know my mum was part of it as well my mum had to wash the strips and hang them up outside and you know and then she'd have to wash them and I she'd wash them and iron them and I'd be folding them and putting away so probably from a really young boy I was watching my dad and my mum help young boys at that time you know fulfill go for a game of football hopefully they were all

hoping to go on to become professional footballers but if not try and be successful playing for for the boys team in Glasgow at that time one of the things we do tend to pick up from our parents from what I've seen and I certainly did myself was I guess like principles and values of like how to approach life and how to deal with life. What were those principles and values that your parents imparted on you directly or indirectly from observation about life and how to deal with it and how to confront it?

Well, I think your parents will always influence you in some way. I was sent to church when I was younger. So I went to church. A lot of people were. And I think that probably had an influence as well in its own way in the early days. But I think more to do with schooling,

more to do with education and what they try to do. And to be fair, none of them, I was never pushed on anything. I was never pushed to be that well-educated. I was never pushed to be a great that well educated I was never pushed that to be a great football player they were just encouraging really and always there to support so I had parents who really let me grow up the way the way I chose to do so but everything was guided by them you know respect no trust you know trying to be truthful all the time all those things I

think come into a good relationship did you ever have a you kind of suggested there that they weren't necessarily like pushy parents necessarily but did you ever have any idea of what career or aspiration would make them proud if I'd asked you you know what does your mum or dad want you to be when you're older when you were younger what would you have said? I think my dad would have definitely said, I hope you're a footballer. You know, I think that would, I think my dad would have always

probably thought that. He had a great love of football as well. But I think they were, they were always really supportive in anything I wanted to do. But I think, you know, as I got on and I got to an age where I was starting to get closer,

you know, 12 or 13, I think football was probably my biggest sort of love and what I got to an age where I was starting to get closer, I don't know, 12 or 13, I think, football was probably my biggest sort of love and what I wanted to do. And I was more interested in either watching football, playing football. And that was probably, they probably saw that round about that age as well. And is it 12 years old, you were in Celtic's youth system?

Yeah, what it was is at that time Celtic had a boys club and you have to remember my dad also as I said ran a very very famous boys team or one of the teams in Glasgow and Drum Chapel Amateurs so but I went to Celtic Boys Club and I played with Celtic Boys Club from I was about 12 to 16 till I went on, but they were brilliant years I had there. You know, my time at Celtic, which, you know, came after as a player and as a, you know, a senior professional, not senior professional, but a professional, I should say. But the young period when I was at Celtic Boys' Club was,

I can only remember being, winning things and being really successful and, you know, representing, you know, Glasgow schools as a school boy,

representing Scotland schools as a school boy, international. So I had really, really good days in the early days, probably from 14, 15 onwards.

Did you, if I'd asked you, even at that age, so say when you were 16, if I'd asked you about your ambitions in football what would you have responded with? I hope that I might have been good enough to to become a player I'm not sure I would be and I would love to be involved in football I always used to think that you know

I'm hoping that maybe I could run an amateur team or I could be involved. I could maybe, might be good enough to take a junior team, you know, might get paid a little bit of money. You know, maybe I'd become a youth team coach for somebody if, you know, if I wasn't going to be a football player. Always thought even at that time when we were growing up, there was lots of youth clubs, you know,

so we would go to a school youth club because it was where you would get a game of table tennis you'd play pool the gym might be there and you'd play five-a-side football whoever was there so I always thought well maybe I might be able to work in a youth club or something

if I didn't get in more better than that so those early days there was no guarantee that you were going to become a footballer every boy really wanted to become a footballer. What did you learn from your dad as a manager? Is there anything even today where you think, I think I got that from my dad or that trait or that?

Yeah. Planning. Yeah. Organization. Commitment. And if I just started planning, you know, at that time, there was no mobile phones then. So it was the phone

so he'd be phoning all the players to say look we're playing on Saturday I want you to meet at 12.30 we're meeting wherever it was and at that time

they all had to come at times with the same with their shirt and tie on they had to bring a bag you know they all had to come with the same bag shirt and tie you've got to remember

this is Glasgow in a time when you know people weren't but people had to turn up with same bag, shirt and tie. You've got to remember, this is Glasgow in a time where, you know, people had to turn up with collar and tie on. And if you didn't turn up with your collar and tie on, you might not get selected for a game. So small things like this, if you're talking about maybe disciplines or ways you were brought up, I think possibly I picked up a lot of the traits probably early on. Why does that matter?

Why do the small things matter, shirt and tie? Do you think they matter, I guess, is another question. Yeah, I do. I think they really do matter. I think that sometimes they mean, and I have to say, if you jumped on to this in my senior time, I think they've always looked better. I think people have always looked better

if they dress well and they're correct, they look prepared for the games. I jumped to Manchester United just quickly and see you know Manchester United had a rule which Sir Alex had

that they would always turn up for away games in shirt and tie now most teams would rather turn up in the track so the players can come

more casual but Manchester United always turned up with a shirt and tie on which I thought was a great thing because they wanted to show what they were,

wanted to come out there and say, look the way we approach it. You look at this Manchester United here. And I've got to say, I really admired that part of it. It's interesting. It's an interesting small psychological advantage, isn't it, to some degree? I guess it's a statement of professionalism

and attention to detail before the before the ball's even kicked it is and uh you know so that takes me back so you're saying is no maybe sir alex who played with from chapel amateurs maybe maybe had picked up from his time at from chapel amateurs you know the way they they had to turn up with certain ties on and they had a blazer on and again this was just an amateur football team in Glasgow. You played with many, many clubs over your almost 600 career games across a variety of different divisions.

That time working as a player across multiple clubs and multiple divisions, what did that teach you and it's always useful to get a variety of different experiences so that you can kind of create your own perspective on on the world but what did that teach you those 600 games as a player what are the fundamentals the fundamentals where I learned so much but my but my early days when I started at Celtic was probably engraved in me more than anything because Celtic had an incredible tradition

of winning, you know, winning now obviously Celtic had to win with style as well Celtic were, you know, the biggest club with Rangers in Glasgow in Scotland I should say and because of that Celtic had to win was always so important so I could see there was the first team, there was the reserves

there was the youth team and all the reserves there was the youth team and all the managers were under pressure to win then if you did win then it was and what was the score? you won 1-0 that's not good enough

you need to win you need to win 3 or 4-0 you need to win buy more goals and how did you play? we didn't play that well we scored a no it was a scrap

not good enough you have to win with style so I think my early days I was brought up with brilliant footballers people who showed me I don't know if you want to call it a philosophy because philosophy might be much deeper and might offer much more but it gave me something I had to say well I have to win I have to find a way of winning you know if I can win with style that's even better but more importantly I have to find a way of winning and I picked that up probably my early days at Celtic and I wasn't there that long not that I wasn't there that long but I

wasn't there that long probably as a senior player I moved on and ended up bobbing around the championship in a couple of lower leagues in England for a long time but I come across some some really great managers I come across some which weren't so good but you know I always try to be respectful to any of them because that came from from my background and my upbringing but I also was trying to pick up when I was 20 I had already qualified as a as a full-time full a license coach at the time you know to be a coach you had to have an a license it was called uh now you have to have a pro license but you have to it was it was an a license I'd qualified as a coach when I was 20 21 which was unusual the reason I'd done that was because the coaching courses were

obviously full of really experienced managers, full of really lots of players trying to get into management the only reason I went and done it was hoping that I'd become a better player, I thought that if I went on these coaching courses it'll help me become even better as a player and I had a

really good career, but not quite at the elite level, which I really wanted to be. Whose idea was that, to go and do a coaching course at 20 years old to improve yourself as a player? My own, because I thought that maybe I'd find out more about it. But I have to say,

there was a thing when we were young players, when we were 16 at Celtic, we were sent to the courses to help the coaches. So we were called players we were when we were 16 at Celtic we were sent to the courses to help the coaches so we were called the runners so we were down there

to do all the running you know you had to do all the running you had to be a fullback you had to be a midfield player and all the practices were put on for the coaches

and Scotland had great great coaches at the time you know people like Sir Alex Jim McLean Walter Smith you know I could go on and on Scotland had great, great coaches at the time. People like Sir Alex, Jim McLean, Walter Smith. I could go on and on. Scotland had brilliant coaches without naming the likes of Jock Steen

and Bill Shankly. You could go on and on. George Graham, for example. So I was sent down by Celtic and I was one of the runners for a couple of years. And once I was down, I said, I want more of this. I want to be around football people I loved listening to them I hoped that I would impress some of them who were who were managers of really big clubs at the time

and that's what I thought well now I'm going to go and do my badges myself and went on to went on to do them in Scotland. Well your time at Celtic in the first team when you got signed there was three years, right? You were in Celtic? Yeah. Yeah. You then got to experience

other cultures and clubs, but you, you cite Celtic as having that sort of winning mentality that some clubs just have where they're almost, you know,

they just, they get used to it, like develop the habit of winning. Throughout your career, you've been in clubs that have the habit of winning,

but also clubs that maybe have struggled in the opposite direction and don't have that culture of we always win every game when you think about the clubs you've worked in that have that habit of winning like Celtic did what is that how is where does that come from and what what does it look like and feel like it looks like you walk in every morning with your chest out and your head high and you're sort of confident in what you're doing. There's a motivation to keep it going, not to let it drop. There's something about having to continue to improve

to stay at the top, that you can't just do what you're doing, which is going to keep you there forever. You have to keep trying to find at the top, that you can't just do what you're doing, which is going to keep you there forever, you have to keep trying to find a way of doing it, so I did see that, and I feel that and I've seen it at other clubs since but I have to say, I think on the journey to

probably where I am today is probably more that seeing a lot of the other side as well is actually the bit which, you know I've been at clubs where I've been getting relegated I've been at clubs where I can't win, I've been at clubs where, you know, it's not going well, I've been at clubs where there which, you know, I've been at clubs where I've been getting relegated, I've been at clubs where I can't win, I've been at clubs where, you know, it's not going well, I've been at clubs where there's, you know,

it's not been as powerful as say a club like Celtic. So I think you have to see it all round for you to give yourself the best chance. And I keep saying this, you know, to do, to get to become a football manager, I don't think there's any one plan. You could be the best player best chance and I keep saying is you know to do to get to become a football manager

I don't think there's any one plan you could be the best player on the planet and not become a football manager you could be someone who's never played the game and become incredibly successful as a football manager so I don't think there's necessarily one way you do it I'm really intrigued by this this idea of like cultures at clubs and within teams and how you can just feel it almost when when a club has that momentum and they're a winning team and when they don't um on the on the contrary then when we're thinking about teams that are struggling and that aren't performing well um what are the signs of that now Rio said something really interesting was it real

wasn't Gary Gary Neville said something interesting to me he said that when he was at manchester united sir alex ferguson only came into the dressing training ground dressing room twice and he said he never needed to come in there because the culture was in there yeah so if like when burbatov came over and wasn't fitting the culture the players would correct him he then says when he went to qpr when the manager left the changing room everyone was talking about their wages and where they're going next. You can feel that like... Yeah, there is a difference. I actually think the culture, I mean, that team you're talking about in Manchester United

had incredible players and, you know, I wouldn't say self-made because they had a great manager, but if you look now, if I moved to just now, what I'd be saying is there's much more communication in life now. I came from a background where it was really tough to Scottish managers. Probably the working background they came from, they would be out screaming at you at half time.

They'd be screaming at you at the end of the game. They would be after you if you didn't do well. I don't think that culture's there and I think it's changed completely in Scottish managers. And if you look at Scottish managers, probably over history, Scotland had lots of managers in the English Premier League, for example.

Very few now. And it might be that we're having to change our culture. So going back to a little bit what you were talking about, Rio said, getting in there, I think there was a period where the players looked after themselves

or they could take the hard hitting hair dryer treatment if you want to call it that now I think it's a completely different culture now whether we've

changed or whether I feel as if management is not necessarily in that form I don't think

I don't know maybe you Steve you'd tell me even better you're head of businesses would you go in and be screaming blue murder at your staff now do you know what the thing one of my actually i think it's an advantage is i didn't grow up in that culture yes so i've never known it i've never known the the prospect of like coming into work and like whereas you hear about it in some old businesses where like the ceo would come in and throw things and throw the table over and stuff yeah i you hear about it in some old businesses where like the CEO would come in and throw things

and throw the table over and stuff. I just never grew up in that environment. I grew up in a sort of a societal expectation that a manager is like, you know, might be tough and sometimes, but is fairly nice. There's no like big glass office that I sit in away from my team members. It's a different world these days.

As you relate, you were talking about there, you said that it's kind of a different world in management you've been in you know the job since you were i guess 20 in your early 20s you're 59 now i'm 59 and i've probably been in management since i was early 30s or when i started and then so 25 30 years um you talk about the change that you've seen in the approach that is effective now. What is effective now? If once upon a time Scottish managers could come in and hairdryer it and screen it, whatever, whatever, how has the approach changed in your view?

Well, let me tell you, I remember one of the managers coming in to the dressing room and always said is, don't look up, just look at the floor look at your boots look down because if you catch his eyes he's going to come for you so so it used to be don't look up so that he couldn't have any eye contact with you and you had to you know and you probably put your head in the towel so that he couldn't see and and uh because that was the way it was we were it was that and I think that I probably had a lot of that in me when I first started. But the difference now is,

I think we're in a different, and maybe yourself, maybe you'll understand it's a different era. So as a coach and as a manager and as a man, I think you need to find a way of how you're moving on with that or you'd be left behind. And I've got to say,

I think in my position, I've got to say, I think in my position, I've got to admit, I have to keep trying to keep up, renew, invest in more work and find out how it's going on. There's so many new things. And don't get me wrong,

that doesn't mean that I've still not got the bit of anger in me when I think the players need it. And I actually think that, I think they like it. I think the players need it and I actually think that I think they like it I think sometimes they like it I think people want to be told the truth and I think one of the worst things you can do to people is

I think if you keep praising people all the time I think it makes you soft as well, so I think there's a level of praise you can give people but I think you've also got to be really tough with your praise as well. And I actually think that as I've got older, I've become better in giving praise.

I think that some of my players, I'm sure at Everton, would say that I very rarely gave them praise because I was always looking for better from them. You know, over the last, I don't know, I've been in business, what, 10 years or something. Not as long as you in terms of management, but even I've started to notice some like warning signs in people so like if i see this in the interview process i go uh well i've been i saw this before and then it ended in this way

from like pattern recognition yeah you've talked a lot about and i've read a lot about your scouting process how you find great talent great players what are the things you look for in the things that you consider to be warning signs? I always wanted someone who I thought was putting in effort. I always thought that, and you might say, well, how can that come in front of many other things? Well, I can think of many, probably you, and you'll think of plenty of schoolboys, friends who were really talented players, but maybe weren't dedicated and put in the effort to, didn't do the work. I think if you don't put the effort and the dedication to it then,

and the other thing that I use a lot is, if you don't love the game completely, then you'll probably find it really difficult. I think you'll find it really difficult to become a manager if you don't love the game or have real longevity. I think you could be a player and maybe get through your your career 10-15 years as a player with maybe without loving football but I think if you want to go longer I think you've badly got to love love the business when I became manager of Everton but

I did it before I used to always meet the players and I still do if I can you nearly wanted to see their eyes to see I need you to work hard I'm needing you to know to do this job for the team I'd like to see are you going to take that I'm going to be critical of you and I want you to get better

are you happy with it you nearly wanted to put the questions over to them to see if they were going to take it did you? I did to many players and I've got to say we've had quite a few over the time which I've got to say we've had quite a few

over the time which I've got to say who I've had in my house who I've had in offices and we've probably not taken them sometimes because

a bit like you said sometimes something just makes you go that's just not what I quite wanted to hear and that might only be a gut and it might not

it might have no reason, and some of the boys I'm talking about have gone on to be superstars and play for other clubs, but something at the moment can only give you that little bit of gut feeling if you think it sounds like it's going to fit for you, and I'm not saying you get it right,

but I think at that time, you have to have your own, your own sort of things where you say, no, I'm not going to change, this is what I want to do, and I want to keep this way and uh I some of I've missed out on some how does that process work if you're looking let's say you're looking for a striker what's the process you know because we've heard some I don't mean my only understanding of like signing players is playing like football manager on the on the playstation or whatever but I have in my

head you have all these scouts they produce reports yeah and then do you know what position you want to fill do you go to the scout or what happens uh i think you in the main the scouts will probably bring them to you i mean like if it's somebody playing for one of the teams locally or that and is available and you think there's a chance then you'll probably try and do your homework you're trying you know obviously statistically you'll try and get it right you'll try and look at their strengths and weaknesses you'll you'll take into consideration maybe the price he's going to cost where you think it's you know where he fits in for you what you can do but the ones you don't know are what you're looking for your scouts to bring to you and in quite a lot in modern football it's the agents who are bringing them you know because the agents are playing such a huge part

you know whether you see it as a positive, because the agents are playing such a huge part, you know, whether you see it as a positive or a negative, they're playing such a huge part behind the scenes in football at the moment, and these people will bring it, obviously if you're trying to sell something, you're always going to talk it up, but in the end, you know, we would, or I would always try and get my scouts to go through

it, they would probably say, yes, this is worth coming and looking at, come in, we should, we'll go and sit and we'll sit for a few hours watching if we wanted to take it even further then we would go into much further detail we'd eventually probably start trying to find out people who know the boy or has played

with the boy and try and get a bit of his character background we'd try and find out more about you know is he the right type you know is he a good boy is, you know, is he the right type? You know, is he a good boy? Is he a good trainer? Is he going to be disruptive in the training?

I think all those things are really, really part of it. I don't think any football manager wants people who are not going to fit in and work with it. And I guess, again, I reverse back to business, probably you're the same. You don't want people who are not going to fit in with what you've got

you want somebody who's going to come in and blend in and be part of it What was your best ever signing? I always say Nigel Martin I signed Nigel Martin

the goalkeeper who was at Leeds United and he was on a free from Leeds United and we took him to Everton at the time and it's only because he was a free

but not only that he was a great goalkeeper obviously he had been an England goalkeeper he was probably near at the end of the time but he gave me about four

five years of stability but see when people talk about signing your best signing over the time I've now been I've made that many signings I've got

you know it would be it's really pretty shameful of me even to name one because over the time I've now been, I've made that many signings that I've got, you know, it would be, it's really pretty shameful of me even to name one because I've got so many that I could say. You don't have to, I wouldn't ask you to name your worst signing, but where have you frequently got it wrong when signing players?

No, what I think you do is, I think it's the ones I've missed. The ones who you've said, nah, I don't think he's quite good enough I think I'm going to don't think I'm going to and I've had hundreds of them

who's the one you missed the most well just recently because it's because because we've been talking about it you know we've been Alvarez who's just played for Argentina

in the World Cup you know I brought in a new scout who says look you should go for Alvarez at River Plate and I watched him and I watched him and I said he's a very good, really good technician

I thought he'd done so many good things as a centre-forward but I thought maybe not quite the one we want, maybe didn't quite we had Mickey Antonio who'd been doing very well I thought, I don't know if he's and you see sometimes the players change in six months

but I have to say there's other other players like that who you don't take and don't go on to be a real success but that one at the moment is just one because it was probably only a year ago where I decided no I don't think it's probably the one we're going to take. So same in business no matter how many people you hire it's always still guessing. And I was speaking to my friend, Gary Vaynerchuk about this, who's hired about 5,000 people. And he said to me, he says,

you know, I've been in this game for 30 years and I'm still just guessing because we can come up with all the principles and systems we want, but how someone, people change, but also how they present in an interview can be drastically different to how they present in six months time

when they're comfortable. You know what, it's really interesting. I'm asking you, i hear now and i hear because there's so many jobs change in our our industry he says how do you pick a good football coach now you know how would you pick a football manager whatever you want but how would you pick a good football manager you know what would give him the you know the owners of the people who are doing it how are they picking it because again what i said is yes of course we can think of some real special people who would be would be in that group but if you're you're a lesser club

trying to pick a new talent you know why would you get it has he got the drive has he got the energy has he got the love for the game to to to stay with it has he got an idea that he wants to go further and he's going to put the work in it's really hard and sometimes you can't find them and I get the feeling it's the same in industry now as well yeah um yeah I I think the more I've hired the more I've realized that it's just guessing which I think people will be surprised at because people will think that you'll get progressively better or your your confidence will grow my confidence has actually fallen with experience yes so so what that means for me is that when i hire someone and i know it's not right just very quickly have to make a decision because the worst thing is indecision right waking wasting too long that's

it i've got we've we have the same situation we're talking about is we're buying players and we're spending a lot of money like you are and then you're saying and you're saying no but you can't do this but we don't think you can do that and at times maybe the older you get

you would think it becomes easier it actually becomes harder the more you're in it because you've probably seen the good ones the bad ones yeah we followed this path

to try and get a good one but not so good anymore. We're going to follow another path. So I've got to say, you know, hiring people and bringing them in is not an easy thing to do. It's slightly different, I guess, in business because as the CEO, I, in business, usually get to make the decision about who you're hiring. I mean, sometimes, of course, managers at lower levels make that decision. But in football, there's often a conversation that the board or the owner has stepped in

and has told you who to sign and who to buy. Well, I think that's one of the things really in football where you would say, if an owner was going to do that, you'd say, no, come on, it's not right. It's part and parcel of football now. It's rife in football where a lot of owners are making the signings instead of the manager Has the owner ever

asked you to sign a player? Yes yeah they have yeah What did you say to them? I've tried to say I've said no to it you know

and I've said no it's not the way I do the work now if the players are good I'd be saying great bring me them in but then what we would do

is if we get the name of a player then we would try and do our homework and try and do all the stuff and by the way we might be wrong we're accepting that but if we follow the correct process or what we believe is the correct process

and it still comes out no we have to go with what we say now if the process says hey by the way we're hearing he's a good player he's scoring lots of goals he's young you know resell, if it doesn't work. If all those other points come up, then we're saying, oh, wait a minute, maybe we have to think about it.

But I think really trusting your process and hoping that the longevity I've had will probably hope that you've made more right decisions than wrong decisions by the time by the time you get around to making the final decision i guess one of the things you can control which doesn't have to be a guessing exercise is the culture that they join so if the culture that they join is good then there's a higher chance of them being successful as a player as a new signing i agree how do how do how do you do that at the clubs you're managing now west ham have you done that in the past

to make sure the culture is right and what is that culture yeah well i think i think for me the biggest one was when i when i was at west ham the first time we came in we thought we'd done a good job and we kept the team up we were asked to come in we kept the team up and we didn't get the job and then another manager came in and we were we were out of work for. So then, to be fair to the owner, David Sullivan, he phoned me back up and he says, would you come in? I says, yeah, love to come back, no problem. I felt I had to do a bit more at West Ham or had to try. And I keep using it and I say it openly now.

I want to build a new West Ham. So what does a new West Ham mean? Well, a lot of people, a lot of supporters might not like the thought of that. But West Ham have moved what does a new West Ham mean? Well, a lot of people, a lot of supporters might not like the thought of that, but West Ham have moved to a new stadium. It's not been appreciated by everybody, but that's what we're going to be, it looks like,

for the next hundred years. That's what it looks like. The club's going to be there. So we need to make the best we possibly can of it. You know, I want to change the cut. I want there to be lots of young kids coming to West Ham.

East End of London's a huge area, full of West Ham supporters. A lot of poverty in the area. West Ham offer great ticket prices, great opportunities. They do brilliant work in the community of West Ham and East End of London. They really do.

And I want it to encourage all the young kids. Now, what do you need? You need exciting players so that the young kids want to buy a jersey so that they're not following the top two or three teams

in the country. And you want them to come. So I've tried to change. I've tried to change the team. But, you know, deep down, I'd really like to say I'm trying to make West Ham better and it used to always do

other people I was a manager at Everton I was a manager at Man United and other clubs folk would say you get a flaky West Ham you know they're not not that reliable

and you don't know what West Ham team's going to turn up well I want to change that culture there's so much room for improvement at West Ham you know I think it's got great potential to improve and I I hope that you get

I get the opportunity to keep it going we've had a couple of really really good years success for West Ham it's been success and it's how we continue that success now how we build on it and I think if you're

if you're in business I think you'll accept it you know quite often you have a couple of years or a good year and then you might not have it quite so good because of what happened

we're a little bit like that at the moment so I'm hoping that culturally I think we have changed I think we've changed a load of things at West Ham

we're not we're not milky, we're not flaky. I think there's a different atmosphere in East End of London regarding how people see West Ham. I like the way we've done it, but we've also got some exciting, really exciting young players

who those young supporters I talked about could follow. What are those next steps then? If you reflect back on what you did at Everton, you took them from being that kind of, you know, happy to survive club to in your last, I think in your last eight years,

you finished in the top, your last seven years, you finished in the top, one of the two. Your last eight years, you finished in the top eight, seven times or something along those lines. They became a consistent competitive team at the top end of the table.

When you look at where West Ham is now, as we sit here now 16th in the table, what are those? But after two amazing years in the two previous years where West Ham were absolutely fireworks, to be fair. Dangerous, very, very, very dangerous team to play against. I'm not a Manchester United fan. So I remember the last two years have been really really um incredible for West Ham what are those steps forward now to get West Ham to being that team that that is competing

at the very top of the table and I find it so interesting that in fact when you when you answer this question you don't just think oh we need to buy more players it's kind of more of a holistic wider broader job that needs to be done yeah Yeah, I actually think that we bought our players and I think that, you know, I've gone out there and said, this is what I'm doing. But I think, sometimes I think in football, not that you need to break it,

but we had a really good team for the last two years. But we had a few, Mark Noble was coming to them, one or two other players were coming to them, we had to change and we were actually short of numbers, we were really short the players had done I felt as if I nearly

had to break it up a little bit because I had seen signs now my experience my longevity was telling me if I don't do this now

then I'm going to feel I'm going to be caught out now we probably didn't do quite as well from January on last year that was my feeling we had some

brilliant nights, we got to semi-final European football we'd been challenging all year in the last game of the season we finished 7th but we were 10 minutes away from finishing 6th above Manchester United so the

margins were incredibly small in all this, but I felt that now with the age I'm nearly saying is, I don't really give a shit now, I've got to say, I'm not going to get many more goes at this, so if I don't make a go at it, and I don't really do what I think's right,

and what I want to do, then I'll regret it, so there's part of me said, yeah we had to bring in new players, and we've gone out, and we've put our head on the block, said, here we go, brought these new players in. Now what I really need is hope that I can get a little bit of time to settle and get them settled in. I think we've brought in good players. I think we have got a better squad. Maybe not a better team at this exact time than what we had last year, but we've

definitely got better players, which I believe will show that in the coming months do you worry about that um losing losing your job is that something that like sits in you might I I wouldn't in my business I mean other than when I was at social and I had a board of directors we're a public company so technically they could fire me um it's not something that I think about like if I Like if I perform badly as an executive, the company goes down. So there's no one that's going to cut, you know what I mean? That's right.

Well, what I'd say is, I think as a young manager, I worried much more. I think now in the position I'm in now, and where I'm going, I worry far, far less because it's in my blood. I love the game. I want to be here. I'm enjoying what I'm doing,

but it wouldn't be the end of the earth if something went wrong for me now where I'm at. But my pride, my determination is that I want to be successful and I want to do a really good job for West Ham. But I think when you're younger, if you look now at young managers, young managers find it very difficult. If you don't do well in your first job maybe like business you know in business maybe you have a goal and something fails nothing quite works you're nearly tentative do you think I could

go again maybe nobody will help invest with me whatever it may be so it's so important you do get it right when you do go in but going back to if i just have to because i want to i think you need people who are really supportive at the start i had a great owner at preston north end couple of great owners who really supported me when i went to west ham i had great men who who helped me at that time as well and i think sometimes you need to be a bit lucky on your journey that you know if you turn up at a club where an owner's making the signings or you're not, he's only going to give you half a dozen games to show what you can do. You're probably going to find that it's going to be very difficult to succeed. So maybe a bit lucky at the start.

But I worried much more when I was younger than I would do now. That success that you want the time to achieve at West Ham, what is that success? What time to achieve at West Ham, what is that success? What is the goal for West Ham? If we're sat here in, you know, let's say 10 years, no, five years' time. That's too long in football these days. Five years' time.

What's the goal? I think we've been successful. I think West Ham have been successful in the last two years. Really, the ones who are the great winners and the serial winners are the ones who wants to get a bit of success all they want is more of it I'd love to be sitting here and bringing my

trophies in here in front of you and putting them up and saying look at these trophies, I've not got that what have I got, I've got periods of success my teams have done well, we've got to Europe we've got to a cup final here and there we've got to semi-finals so not everybody in the industry can have success you know not everybody can you know be walking about with their medals and at the moment i'm not but i still believe there's still a big chance that i can do that is that your kpi of success is that what you know it's probably not now it's not now because

i actually think staying in the job wouldn't be a bit longevity is a really important thing in any work if you can stay in it and you can it's no it's a big thing it's shown that you've done a good enough job but you know i've had a cut i've been fortunate enough with a few manager of the year awards over over the years you know last few years i've been fortunate enough I've had a few manager of the year awards over the years you know the last few years I've been nominated for it but I've said many times

I'd swap it for one of Jose Mourinho's lemon medals if I got the chance you know or one of his trophies all day long so

that's still got to be what I'm driving to do now but I'm not going forever because I'm getting older and I don't want to be as old as Sir Alex or Roy Hodgson

when they finish, those sort of people, but I've still got the energy, I've still got the drive, I feel as if I've got a good team and I feel as if I'm still capable of keeping up with those younger ones.

Sir Alex. Sir Alex. There's been a lot said about Sir Alex. I talk about him a lot because I've interviewed so many of his former players. There was a lot of rumours that he went to your house

and asked you to become the manager of Manchester United. No, he took me to his house. Oh, he took you to his house? Yeah. And actually, I'll tell you a story, Steve. It wasn't long after I'd turned 50 and my wife had bought me a watch and actually we had gone through to Manchester

to the jewellers. I needed to get a link taken out and it was actually in Altrincham. By all places, I was in Altrincham. And the phone rang and it was Sir Alex. And I saw the way I said, oh, bloody hell, it's Alex on the phone. way I says, oh, bloody hell. It's Alex on the phone.

And I thought, oh, he's going to want one of my players or he's going to want me to take one of his players. He's coming on to say something. And he said, where are you? I says, I'm in Manchester. He says, well, right, come out to the house when you're ready, will you? I said, and that's a poor Sir Alex accent

probably so don't don't don't and I says I says to the wife I can't do it

I'm in my jeans I couldn't go to Sir Alex with a pair of jeans on there's no way so I'm saying oh what am I going to do do I go down to

Marks and Spencer's and buy a pair of trousers mi fynd i Sir Alex. Felly mae hi'n dweud, ach, mae'n rhaid i chi fynd i mewn a gwneud hynny. Felly, mae'n unig, fe wnes i fy mab yn y canolbwyntio ac rwy'n mynd i ffwrdd i ffwrdd Sir Alex. Ac fe wnes i mewn. Ac mae'n dweud, mae'n rhaid i chi ddod. A...

Ffwrdd da iawn. Mae ganddi ffrwd hyfryd, ffrwd gwyddon, And he says, in you come. And a very nice house, and he's got a lovely sort of room, sports room up the stairs. And he says, want a cup of tea? He says, aye, I took up a cup of tea. And he said, I'm retiring, and you're the next manager of Manchester United. No interview.

No telling me. Not saying saying would you like to be no I'm retiring and I nearly slipped down it was a letter so I nearly slipped down because obviously nobody knew that Sir Alex was retiring nobody knew, no nobody even suggested or thought about it

and I nearly slipped down when I heard him say that and then he says you're when I heard him say that. And then he says, and you're the next manager of Manchester United. And I just sort of went, yeah, well, no, okay. I wasn't going to turn around. I didn't think I would ever say no, or I don't even know I was in a position to say no. And that was as simple as that.

We got underway, he said. And there was only maybe, and to be fair, there was only maybe and to be fair there was only four weeks to go to the end of the season maybe five weeks to go to the end of the season I was coming out of contract to Everton

and I was really wanting to be respectful to them and actually my next game was against Liverpool on the Sunday I think I met Sir Alex

in the midweek on the Wednesday or something on the Sunday and I knew that if we had got a draw with Liverpool we would probably finish on the Sunday, I think I met Sir Alex in the midweek on the Wednesday or something, on the Sunday. And I knew that if we had got a draw with Liverpool, we would probably finish above them in the league. And it was at Anfield and we did, we got a draw and we did finish above them.

So it didn't have any effect on what I was doing at Everton. But the big thing was to say, and then the next day he said, I want you to come back to my house tomorrow. Ed Woodward's going to come and see you. He's going to be the new chief he said, I want you to come back to my house tomorrow. Ed Woodward's going to come and see you. He's going to be the new chief executive who, he says, David Gill's leaving as well. That was it. And I met Ed Woodward the next day.

And then the next day, back to his house again, and we met the Glazers. And so it was three days, three days where I dropped back to his house. The biggest problem I had was, he said, and you can't tell anybody about me retiring. He says, nobody knows. I said, no problem. He says, tell your wife, but nobody.

So I couldn't tell my kids. I couldn't tell my dad. I couldn't tell my dad that I was going to get the job. I was getting the job. So that for me was how it happened and when i look back now to get that offer from probably arguably uh the greatest the greatest manager maybe there ever was was a great compliment uh but maybe if i'd really looked into in more more detail and more depth, I was desperate to be successful as a manager, and I had 11 years at Everton where we said we'd,

I wouldn't say we'd hit the glass ceiling, but we were finding it really difficult to break into the top four, the competition and the money that was required. But my biggest regret was I was so close to Bill Kenwright, the owner at Everton, and I couldn't tell him, and it was really bad that I couldn't tell him because I was so close to Bill,

but I couldn't break my word with Sir Alex, he said he didn't want me to tell it, so I couldn't tell him about my wife. So, jumped back in the car, drove back to the shopping mall, shopping centre, got the wife, put her in the car. And I says, I'm the new manager of Man United.

And she was like, you go piss off, you talk rubbish, you know. So that was it. And that was how it went. You were coming to the end of your contract with Everton at the time. What was your plan? You hadn't signed a contract. so you must have been thinking... I have to say is, I had been, I think my plan was probably to stay at Everton,

we just hadn't got it done, and for different reasons, I was wanting to see how it was going, but I have to say, I'd met a couple of other clubs, I'd met a couple of really big clubs, who'd approached me, and phoned me,

and spoke to me, you know, what was I doing, would I be interested? The truth is, I don't think I'd have left for any of them because Everton had been so good to me. But I was also wary about overstaying your welcome at Everton. You know, sometimes just in management,

supporters want change, they want to try something different. And I get it. I'm a huge football supporter. You know, if I wasn't managing, I'd be watching football and I'd be, you know different and I get it. I'm a huge football supporter. You know, if I wasn't managing, I'd be watching football and I'd be, you know, probably talking about it like everybody else does.

But I, you know, it came up. I've got a chance to manage probably the biggest club in the world. I'm following a club who always give their managers time.

They gave Sir Alex time. And also that their values were, no, they played young players, Man United. I always thought Man United never went out and tried to buy the best on the market. They never went to the sort of designer shop to buy the best thing in the designer shop. They bought correctly.

They bought young players. They bought, you you know you look at the players they had which they come through from becks and the nevels and all the other ones who came through they always did something a bit a bit of style about them they never went out to get the best overseas manager in the world they picked which fitted their model so i actually felt when sir alex offered me the job and manchester united were giving me the job i felt they thought i must have been the Alex offered me the job and Manchester United were giving me the job I felt they thought I must have been the best choice for the job at that time and they saw that and also maybe not similar but similar in a way that maybe there was a similar background a similar upbringing a similar route maybe to to get to the point so I trusted Manchester

United I really did I trusted them because of what they stood for as a football club. You know, many times when you're successful as you were at Everton, you're given big opportunities. It's the same in business. People come to me and give me these huge opportunities and sometimes like the bright lights of the opportunity

have often caused me to make a wrong decision or not to take, you know know take the right amount of due diligence as you described they're like not really looking into the details because it's such a big thing that you almost can't say no to it you said there that you wish you'd looked a little bit closer at the details what do you mean by that well tell you who told me was uh Howard Wilkinson said to me down the line I wish you'd told told me before, he says, all the managers who have had a dynasty, so when you look at it, I think it was Brian Clough was one of them, I think the other one was Sir Bobby Robson,

all the managers who had the real dynasty, I'm trying to think, Leeds United manager as well, Don Ravey maybe as well, I think it was, anybody who followed them never worked. Now, I never even thought for a minute because I thought to myself, no, I'll come in and I actually was thinking, I'm not changing.

I'm going to try not to change much with Sir Alex. And of course I have to change it. It's not Sir Alex, it's me and I have to do it my way and I have to try and do it a little bit. But ultimately, I was going to keep it going. But then when I look back at the things that I heard, I thought, my goodness, if I'd looked a bit closer. And maybe even now, I'm a bit older now

than I was when I got the job. Maybe, maybe, maybe even I needed even more experience than maybe even I had at that point. Maybe we'd be more ready at this period in my career than I was even say no, don't know what it was, 8 or 9 years ago whenever it was So if they called you now

Well, no they've got a really good manager I think and I think the thing about Manchester United, Manchester United have chosen incredibly good managers probably some of the best managers, some of the best managers. Yeah. Some of the best managers you could ever imagine

have been at Manchester United. So, you know, sometimes you've got to say, you know, if you're quite bright, and I'm sure you are with the business you work in, it's not always the boss's fault

that this doesn't go right. So, like, I took over at a difficult time. You know, it was quite a few senior players probably coming to near the end of their time but I also have to say I was really proud that I took over the Champions England when when that was the time and that was I'm saying what a chance I've got you know maybe the opportunity to win trophies the opportunity to be successful and it was the thing I was

probably missing from my time at Everton that I wasn't quite getting close enough to winning trophies. Would you, would you, Eric Ten Hag aside, I think he's great. I think we both agree there. But would you ever be open to coming back to Manchester United in the future if they'd asked? Well, I don't think it would ever be, it would ever be in a role as a manager. That's for sure. So that, my time's gone. But, you know, if ever, I always love to be involved in football.

And hopefully somewhere along the line someone will want to use my experience when my time's up with being a football manager but Manchester United is a great experience and I found it difficult to sort of have something which could sort of, I don't know,

how I would sort of put over what it meant and the only way I could put it out is I think when you manage Man United it's like living in the penthouse and looking out you know and until you've had the penthouse and you're looking out and you're above everybody and you're looking over you see the view much better and for me they were the penthouse. One of the big things that did change at Manchester United and I only know this because I had a season ticket the ladies and the men that serve you the food in like the hospitality suite or whatever,

they always have a great relationship with them and they would tell me things about how the club was, maybe before I had enough money to buy a season ticket. One of the things they always said was the role that David Gill had on the club as well. People don't understand that enough, but David Gill was the CEO of the club. And I mean, I've seen in my own businesses when the CEO, me, was removed,

it was a completely different place. And people don't understand that because as fans we look at the manager and think ah but if the managers in my business are very very very important but the person above them that has the most power and the most control and the most sway is the ceo now that changed and the the wonderful people at manchester united would tell me that well when David Gill was here he knew all of our names and that really struck me that he knew all of our names he knew all of our birthdays we used to see him now we don't see yeah Edward Wood anymore we don't see the chief executives anymore they don't know our names that's a real sign of a cultural change definitely just think of the values what that is yeah the values of the ceo sending you a birthday

card or doing that and i mean like if we i would be incredibly complimentary about sir alex sir alex would phone up managers who'd lost their job or managers who'd been successful he phoned me up when we were doing very well at west ham six months ago whenever it was they were always correcting and when you think of values of what it means to be at the top and what the small things which matter, those things really matter. But for me, I was taken over the club. I'd lost David Gill, who I knew very well from different things and working with him at UEFA and different things as well.

And he was a huge, huge miss. But that wasn't to say that the new CEO wasn't, he was to be given every chance and I wanted to help him and he wanted to help me. Ultimately, it didn't work that way. You said you trusted the club to give you long enough. Do you feel like that trust was let down? How do you feel about that?

Yeah, I do a bit because I feel that, you know, I think that if you're putting in a new manager you're hoping that you're going to give them and look I left a very stable job in a very good environment to come and do it and obviously no I think when you when we look back you would say hey there was a huge change going to have to take place at Manchester United after Sir Alex and maybe ideally I think it was we were going to try and make it seamless where there wasn't going to be too big a change but there was a lot of players changing

getting to an age where they were having to move on there was actually a big squad of players who had been incredibly loyal to Sir Alex and suddenly they've got

new managers coming in the door maybe not playing them as much so they don't have quite the same sort of closeness to them and still building up relationship so I think there was a lot of that as much so they don't have quite the same sort of closeness to him

and still building up relationship. So I think there was a lot of that and it made it difficult. But, you know, the thing I look back at business and you're a very successful businessman, I always think you have to give bad news well because you're the boss and you run a really big business like manchester united did and i think if you've got any class or any style it's good when you get offered the job and you give them when you give them all the and you talk about all this but i think when you're having

to give bad news out i think giving bad news has to be done in a good way as well and I felt the way that I was told at the time at Manchester United wasn't done as well as it should have been done but

the way that you were told you weren't going to be manager yes you know there was ways it could have been done better and it could be made a lot easier than what it was

now I've heard this from former players I've heard former players tell me that they were really disappointed by how the club, specifically Edward Wood, gave them their send-off.

I think it was, I think it was Rio that said to me that like, just came into the dressing room, tapped me on the shoulder and told me that this was my last game or that they were selling me or something.

And that doesn't pay respect to... No, it doesn't. And I actually think that looking back now, hey, you think to yourself, hey, it's life, get on with it. You know, that's the way it is when you're in an industry

or you do that. But I still think that, I think if you're one of the biggest sport businesses in the world, if not the biggest, you would hope that you would do things correctly, like David Gill would speak and say hello to them, or like they would send a birthday card. So the same should happen if you were telling somebody

that you were stopping them or you were sacking them or you were getting rid of them. You would hope that they would do it the best way they could. How did you find out? Media. Oh, really? Media phoning me, yeah. Lost a game at Everton, actually,

and the media were saying, oh, no, you're losing your job. And, you know, I tried to make contact and say, look, why don't we meet up? I think you're going to be... It didn't suit. And before I knew it, they called me the day after. And by this time, the whole world had known about it

before I'd sort of got to know it. So sometimes I think people want to get it done right and I just didn't feel it was right. But anyway, from my point of view, I generally don't have any real, I don't have a gripe about it because the industry I'm in means that this can happen quite often

and you don't get things done the way you want it and you have to live with it and that's the way it is. In the wake of that, what does it look like at home? This is probably one of the most interesting things that I personally pondered throughout that period as a Manchester United fan,

which is when you go from the penthouse and then the landlord evicts you from the penthouse after, I don't know, know 10 11 months at the club the what the weight of Manchester United you know it's the most talked about club it's the club that sells the headlines it gets all the clicks so every it must feel like everything is about you in the world of football and it's like a very public apparent failure at home you've got wonderful wife Pamela you've got two kids what's it like at home I think I think personally you're a little bit ashamed because you've not done done well you

know you're not done well for your family so I think personally I felt I'd let them all down because you know I'd really worked Like I said, you know, probably the hours and the work I'd put in as a young, I didn't believe I was ever going to be a coach, never mind the coach of Manchester United, but the hours of work I'd put in, it got me to a level where I'd worked and I'd done an awful lot of hard work behind the scenes over the years

and then to lose it so quickly. So you get a job. And I said at that time, I had two or three really really big clubs who were talking about me and speaking to me but when Sir Alex came and made me the offer it was very hard to say no and then for that to go very quickly

so it was a bit like getting to the top of Everest and then actually starting to decline very quickly so from my point of view it was hard going home you know it was difficult but I've got to say it's a bit like my mum used to just say

hey whatever happens you just have to get up and get on with it you know you get on with it you take it in the chin and you get away

and you know sort of sticks and stones don't worry too much about it but you're right when you're manager of Manchester United you're talked about in every continent

every country you'll either be in the front of the back page it's one of the papers so but that's also the privilege of being a manager of Manchester United as well what's the what's the toll of that if you were to warn me about the toll I think the toll for someone who cares deeply about their profession and wants to be successful and wants to do well, the toll for me personally at the time felt big. It really did. And it probably took me a wee bit

to get back on the road a little bit without thinking about it. I worked really, after I lost the job, I said, well, I'm going to have to go and try and reinvent, find out more new things, keep current, where can I go to find out what's going on, you know, and I obviously couldn't go back to Old Trafford to watch a game, or I couldn't really go back to Goodison and watch a game, so it made it quite difficult,

but I found myself doing quite a bit of work for UEFA, I'd done all the Champions League games, which was a really good day, and I spoke in all the pro-license courses for the coaches, which kept me current and having to keep up to date with things. So those type of things kept me, kept my education and kept my knowledge and kept me going a bit. But I still think that when you've been at one of the big clubs, it's always a miss because you realise the level they're at.

You said the toll is big. In a very practical, real sense, what does that mean? Is it sleepless nights? Is it anxiety? Yeah, I'm someone who sleeps really well, to be honest. But I do think that it's very difficult when you lose your job. In our business, you're talked about a lot, so you have to accept it. And I'm part of it.

You will be as well. Or if things go wrong or any of your businesses fail, you'll be current. No, people will have criticism. But I think if you're going to go into football management, then you have to find a way of saying, how do I deal with it? How am I coping with it?

What's my mechanism? I remember thinking when things weren't going so well at Manchester United, you know, I'd be driving into training so I couldn't put on Talk Sport.

I couldn't put on Radio 2. I couldn't put, they were talking, so I thought, I'll put on whatever music it was and they come on the news

and they were talking about me on that news as well. I thought, oh my goodness, is this ever going to end? Is there a channel that isn't talking about Manchester United in some way? But that was because it was getting closer to probably when I wasn't doing so well and there was a lot of talk about it. But I think you just have to find a way

of shutting yourself off from it the best you can. But the world we're in now for young coaches of social media if you if that's what your your world is or how you present yourself it's much different now and uh in days gone by in the early days at Preston I'd look at the I'd look at the newspaper and there'd be a letter page and there'd be four or five supporters saying, why is Moyes not playing him? You know, and what's he doing? And that used to be where the criticism was mainly coming from. As you well know now,

now there's a world of it outside. I got to play at the London Stadium, Succarade. It's called London Stadium, isn't it? Yeah, it's called London Stadium. I had a chat to Karen Brady once in a while. I'm seeing her soon. And I met someone while I was at the Soccer Aid experience who happens to be a family member of a player, a big Premier League player who has taken more abuse than any other player, maybe over the last year. And I met a family member and I got a chat to them.

And they told me about the toll it's taken on the whole family. And you never think about that. But that was actually one of the most important things I think I experienced was hearing from someone's younger sister that watching their older brother be abused, how horrific it is. She was almost in tears because you know if you were my dad and i watched that happen to you yeah well i have to say you know and it's

i don't think it was i had only a week after i lost the man united job my dad had a heart attack yeah and it was but it was a triple bypass so i'm not saying it was because of when I left Manchester United but that was the case and hey, who knows? Who knows? If it would end, we don't really think that was the reason behind it. We think it was just coming on

but so there is tolls we get taken in families. Of course there is but thankfully my dad's doing well and still going well just now. Something we don't think about. You know, people will say to you and people people like you and players they'll say well you pay loads of money so behave yourself yeah just deal with it yeah yeah yeah but that's but then the

kids aren't it is part of it and actually i i do think many many times i think myself is you know do people run understand that we've got a family you know i i made this the other day as i was saying to a friend, I was saying this, as a manager, I think as you get older, you, no,

in business, you get older, you think you get more experienced and you're, you know, it doesn't make it any better. When I was a young manager, if I lost the game,

I would come home, go straight to my bed, pull the curtains and not wake up to Sunday morning. No, try and I might not sleep. I just didn't really want any, Fe ddodais i'r tŷ, i fyny i fy ysgol, i dynnu'r cwrtynau a ddim yn gofio ddychmygu i ddychmygu. Ac efallai nad ydw i'n slymu. Nid oeddwn i'n hoffi unrhyw beth. Nid oeddwn i wedi siarad gyda fy mab mor ddifrif. Nid oeddwn i wedi siarad â fy mab.

Nid oeddwn i'n ddifrif. Roeddwn i am fod ar fy hun. Y peth gwahanol oedd os oeddech chi'n cael un o'r ddiwrnod. Fe ddodais i'r tŷ a dweud, C'mon, gadewch i ni ready, let's nip up to the restaurant and we'll get a bit of dinner and a couple of glasses of wine. And I used to always call it the Saturday night feeling. I'm desperate to get that Saturday night feeling. I'm desperate to have that feeling when you've won on a Saturday, knowing that mainly on the Sunday

you're picking up the newspapers and the newspapers are saying you've won and you're going well. But, and I thought maybe by the time I get to the age in over a thousand games now, I'll be saying to myself, this is going to be much, much, feel much easier. Not at all. Just as bad. I'm not saying I'm going home every night I lose now

and pulling the curtains and going straight to bed, but it's to just sort of tell you how the game is. The game is actually nearly completely how important the winning and going back to, I said, what the upbringing was where

find a way of winning when it means that I have more good Saturday night feelings than I do going home and pulling the curtains and going straight to bed.

Yeah, I don't think about that. You know, you know when you said something a second ago which was, you know, you'd reached

what I consider to be the very top of the game managing Everton, because I think about how many tens of thousands of managers there are coaches out there that are, you know, on the Sunday, the Sunday league pitches and all around the country that are aspiring to manage in the premier league. It's insane. It's an insane, insane achievement. Um, you managed to Everton, you went to Manchester United, it didn't go well in that period after even though you're at the very top of the game did you doubt yourself in a post manchester united uh by my pause might make you think yes but i didn't doubt that i was actually i felt that i

could do do the job i could be good at it i felt as if I could, my work on the grass was good enough for where I had been. I had success the years before. So I was always trying to say, it didn't go quite well this 10 months. Why did it not go well? Was it how I managed? Was it how I coached?

Was it maybe I didn't have the right players? I had to try and look to see why there is. But the other part of the 10 or 11 years, I'd seen some great players I'd been in FA Cup finals I'd I'd got to quarterfinals of European competition wherever and we'd we'd qualify for the Champions League one year so I was thinking as well was I going to make say that was all no good then the years we'd done it so I think once I put it in perspective then I says no I'm not I'm not doubting it but what I do think is I think I think most days you have to get up and be ready to sort of challenge yourself every day I don't I don't think you can get out of bed every morning and think hey this is fine you know I'm I'm doing okay here I think every day you're sort of getting up and saying is you know how am I going to try and be better? How can I make people better?

How can I make a difference today with what I've got? Paranoid almost. Yeah, near enough to an extent where you're saying is, no, I can't. No, you folks say, do you bring your work home? I really think if you're in the boss, if you're the boss, you're always bringing your work home because you're not just putting your head off and saying I'm leaving that in the office they'll pick it up in the morning

I think very rarely are you doing that I think that's just life if you're if you're a CEO or a boss I very much agree I very much agree with that idea of taking the work and also when things don't go wrong in hindsight everybody's quick to diagnose why it didn't go wrong. Has the subsequent 10 years where everyone has failed at Manchester United felt good? Because everyone has failed. Jose's failed. Van Gaal went there. You went there. I'm missing someone.

I think I'm missing someone. I mean, Karat Kadist didn't. Oli was in it. Oli, yeah. Oli was in it. He failed as well. So that's, you know, five or six great, great managers who couldn't make it work at

Manchester United for whatever reason so I think time has almost been good to you in terms of your yeah the story of look I'm I I get huge respect for uh Jose Mourinho huge respect for Louis Van Gaal you know all he was new and new and is one of Manchester United's own, so was always going to be given every opportunity to try and make it work as well. So I think there's been some great managers

going into Manchester United. I think the biggest problem for Manchester United is Manchester City. How do we, I'm a Manchester United fan, season ticket holder. How, from your experience,

do we get things back to how they were I think you'll need to probably get rid of Pep somehow from my city I think that's my that's my way I think I think Pep is I think there is some managers I think but you must have an unbelievable perspective better than me at like what you knew Fergie, you knew the club, everything, you've been inside it. What do we need to do to get back to... I think Manchester United had different principles than most of the other clubs. Looked at their youth a lot. Didn't always sign, as I said before, maybe the top diamond.

They always sort of picked and picked out good players who improved. And now and again, went and bought a Cantona every so often or Van Nistelrooy or Van Persie at different times. So at different times, they bought really good players at good times.

This is actually a really good point because we've also bought some world-class players and they've all failed. Yeah. So there is something about Manchester United, they had their own way, but because of the competition

which came in from Manchester City, Chelsea probably more in the earlier years, I think those two clubs, I think Liverpool have had an incredible peer and got a really good manager as well and top players.

I think over the year man united and liverpool have always had a level of competition against each other people say we've not spent money in terms of players we've spent shit loads of money we spent almost a billion huge or whatever huge and all these players i remember the foul cows the dmer because i get excited every time when i celebrate and i start you know blowing up my friends whatsapp chats and saying you're screwed we're going to win the league yeah and then every year the player fails and then the manager's sacked yeah so it feels like a bit of a it's the expectation uh or the excitement on the new players coming in i get this all the time and i say this quite a lot to people i hear in media you know they're talking about oh you need to buy

new players no we buy new players and i actually, I would really like football to be where money was not always going to be the key to it. You know, we think the more players you set up, the more money you spend means that you win the league or you're successful. And look, I think it probably will prove that it is. But I'd rather see that, you know, sometimes that it's not that way.

And I just do think that quite often, you know, not buying all the top players, it doesn't mean that you have to buy the top I think it's buying good players and people who've got good characters and people who are going to going to work hard for the team and then they come into that culture

which makes one which makes which makes the difference one plus one equals three like Leicester that year yeah Leicester and the year they had was probably what we're all hoping for whether it be us

you've seen other clubs I mean actually Newcastle United for example Newcastle United bought a couple of with respect

three or four English players last January British players probably not necessarily on the radar of the biggest clubs

in the country and they've turned round and they've had an incredible momentum from probably January last year, maybe just before January, and are keeping that momentum going.

And now they're bringing in, they're adding in the odd bigger star or the bigger player as they go along. But I thought their business at the start was very good. If I'm one of your players in your dressing room, to be a David Moyes player at West Ham, and what would, from a character and a personality standpoint your expectation be of me so that i fit into the culture and i'm successful

i'd want you to be i'd like you to be hard working i want you to be honest in your endeavor i know i'd want you to do your jobs whatever you want I want you to be a team player individuals are really important and no more hugely important we've just seen in the World Cup individuals but I do think that I think to have a consistency

about your team is you need to have a team I think if you've got individuals you might get inconsistency but you might get some really good days and we get clubs who can afford to carry one or two individual players who go along. But I think while you're trying to build, I think you have to start with a really solid base,

good foundation. And then from that point, you try and grow. Pamela, you met her at a disco. Yeah. She was lucky yeah so I keep telling her but uh most people disagree she's been through it all with you you know the everything she's followed you around for decades and supported you in many many ways and um I've heard about the sort of dynamic in your relationship where she's been really really supporting you kind of do a lot of it together

you're there for each other tell me in your own words what like uh what she means to you i guess hey well it's the sort of thing you ask that question you'd probably get emotional if you start saying that so i'm going to say that before i start uh look my wife has been unbelievable towards me because I remember when we were young a bit what we said is we didn't earn great money I wasn't

I wasn't a hugely wealthy footballer when I was getting paid but I wanted to play football and would have taken a wage so Pamela worked as well

and we had to work to pay the mortgage when we were together when we were there so we were it was very much together at the start, how we could sort of have a family,

how we could work together. And I remember saying to her, I said, I might need to be a football coach. And I remember when we were coaching, I said, look, I'll need to go to coaching courses. I might not be here. I want to try and go and see how it does. And I remember her saying, no problem.

You go and do what you have to do. And if I wasn't given that freedom in the early years to say I'm going coaching courses I mean

I went out to see Ancelotti at AC Milan I went to the World Cup and I have to say you know I remember

I went to the World Cup and I didn't have lots of money at the time and we weren't skint but we didn't have loads of and the PFA helped fund me lots of money at the time and we weren't skint but we didn't have

loads of and the PFA helped fund me so I think at the time the PFA helped fund me get to the World Cup to go and watch and I remember writing to

I wrote to about five or six countries and said you know could I come and watch your training and none of them replied the only country

that replied was Scotland and Craig Brown was the manager. Now, I was a Scottish coach, and I was still young at the time, and they invited me to come and watch training in Scotland. None of the other teams did.

But my wife let me get away and get on with it, and try and seek and find out what I needed to do, probably in the hope that somewhere after my football career was finished that I might have been able to do something else. But she still has a great inspiration to me. And so are my kids. My kids are good kids and, you know, good family. And it's really important to me.

What role has she played, Pamela, in the harder times in your career? You know, I think when you're a football manager, you're going to have hard times. So undoubtedly. So hard times being a football manager, hey, hard times sometimes mean you get sacked and you get some money for leaving the job. You can look at that and say, hey, he's okay with that. But it's not, you've got pride.

You know, as I said to you, I was probably losing the job. I look at that and say hey he's okay with that but it's not you've got pride you know as I said I was probably losing the job I was more an embarrassment I felt embarrassed from from my family really that you know they were getting talked about they were getting looked at you know people were shouting out your dad's lost his job or whatever it may be at that time so my wife's just always stood by me and really supported me whenever comes to the games uh probably knows when she should speak and when she shouldn't speak when it's going well and when it's going badly and even that's a skill in itself because you know when you're in it when you're the boss there's quite often we respect your partner quite often could say the wrong thing at any minute and you and you go no you might be saying why are you not thinking about

no you're in the wrong case so I think it's really important that your partner understands exactly how you feel where do you think you'd be professionally without her? I couldn't imagine anything, I couldn't imagine my life really without my wife and do you know something,

I'm not, I'm 59 at the moment so I've only got a good bit to go and we've got a good bit to go and I want to look forward to the years,

we're latter years together where we can have more time together because being a football manager means that you're away just about every weekend so you're either away staying in a hotel preparing for a game or you're you know you're with a team

and actually the way football's gone you're in every Sunday now you could be in all the time there's very little family time and it and actually it's one of the things I think what people don't understand hey by the way it's a great job, really well paid game. Everybody wants to be involved in, as you like to say, but it's incredibly time consuming, you know, and it takes up so much of your time. And if you have a family, probably they're the ones who suffer most

because they don't see you as much as what probably other families might do. If you work Monday, sort of nine till five you go home at the weekends at least uh being a football manager the weekends uh you don't and actually i'm trying to get a membership with a golf club at the moment back in my home i can't get in because and they say well no you've got to play with you've got to play with members and you've got to play with friends to get in i'm saying I've got no friends in the business we're in it's really hard to have lots of friends outside of our industry the reason why is because our social time when folk are saying hey we're going out Friday night we're going out Saturday night you coming with us no I'm in the hotel we've got a game tomorrow we

can't do that oh well you go out Saturday night yeah but i lose obviously i'm not going out with them if i'm going to lose saturday night so lots of reasons why uh being a football manager is a great job but it's also got lots of anti-social behavior things because of how the job works earlier you said that you you haven't been historically so good especially when you were younger at um giving praise i can relate one of the things that men are particularly bad at is um letting and i'm speaking about myself here is letting their significant other know how much they appreciate them i think women are usually better at kind of that that affection and saying the kind words and stuff and as men i know this for myself i don't think my partner actually has a clue how much she means to me and how much she's been there for me

in the hardest times and just her presence sometimes when she says nothing in the hard moments, how that changes my state. If Pamela is watching this, what are the words you wish you could tell her that maybe you haven't told her? She would probably know that I love her. Of course she would. I would hope she would.

But more importantly, that I miss her because I'm in London a lot of the time. She's up north. She's caring'm in London a lot of the time she's she's up north she's caring for her mum a lot at the moment I just really

over the time she's been she's been great we've we've had great times together and but I always want to say I think my best times

in football I hope are still to come but hopefully our best times a couple are still to come as well David thank you thank you for lots of inspiration In football, I hope we're still to come, but hopefully our best times as a couple are still to come as well. David, thank you.

Thank you for lots of inspiration over the many, many, many years and lots of good memories in football. You've been an incredible manager, all the clubs you've been at, in my view. And I do wish that Manchester United had given you more of a chance because I just generally believe everything you say about the importance of when you come into a new system or organisation, needing that time to understand and make it your own. even as a Manchester United fan I was always I'm always really annoyed at how quickly we've moved on with our managers before giving them a chance because they're all objectively great managers and you certainly are as well and it's just an honor to

meet you because you know I've watched you on the screens for decades so thank you we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest um and the question left for you is what is the biggest public misconception about something that has happened in your life? After thinking about it, I think that there was, I felt there was a few untruths at the end when I lost my job at Manchester United, actually. And I found it very difficult to correct them. I felt that, you know, they had been written, so it was very difficult to correct them,

you know, which they weren't right. And from that point of view, I couldn't do anything about it. And I found that actually probably one of the biggest difficulties because you try, you want to say, well, here, I'll explain why I made this decision. I'll explain why I chose to do that. But

really, once the headline's there, that's the only thing that matters. you've got to give me one yeah I'm trying to think I wonder that's what I'm trying to think I've got I've got this one

but I don't know I don't want to give the player's name that's fine so I mean it was actually so somewhere

they said that Manchester United have banned chips on a Friday Rio had said in his book that had banned chips. I read that. Yeah, I did. And it was actually something which probably most sports profession,

you wouldn't really have chips, but then in part of it, but understood Manchester United, Sir Alex, done a lot of things maybe slightly different. And I totally respected that. And what happened is I remember it was one of my first games, we were staying in a hotel and there was one player who was overweight, which I won't name. And I remember walking in and I was walking into the dining room

and he had his dinner and next to me they had a side plate of chips. And that was my reason for, after that scene, that one player with the side portion of chips and that was my reason for after that scene that one player with the with the side portion so that was my reason for saying there should be no chips on a Friday night and it was sort of written about that that was one of the the reason but my reason was actually because one of the players who was actually at the time a bit overweight I saw him with a with a side plate of chips and that's when I used it or banned him, if you want to say that. Interesting. Thank you so much, David, for your time.

No problem. Such an honour. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye.