EXCLUSIVE: Jaap Stam on Carrick's Man Utd struggles, Xavi & why the Dutch hate boring wins

Stam sat down with Flashscore to discuss United’s difficult start to the season under Michael Carrick, Xavi’s first matches in charge of the Netherlands, and whether the dominant defender ever actually feared an opponent.

Manchester United dropped two points against Spurs this past weekend, and it’s their worst start to a Premier League season in 40 years. How would you rate their performance in that game and since the start of the season? What do you think is going wrong?

"Everybody is disappointed in how they started the season. I think themselves as well. If you listen to Michael Carrick, the manager, he’s very disappointed, of course, because they all wanted to have a better start. 

"The season before, when he stepped in, they did very good. They played very well when he went back to the system of 4-3-3 after Amorim, and they were successful and got into the Champions League, which was the aim.

"At the start of this season, you expect them to hopefully make that next step. They’ve added a couple of good players in the middle of the park. So it’s disappointing when you don’t get the results. But we also need to take into consideration that for a club like United, there’s huge pressure and everybody’s expecting a lot from them.

"And we also know that things will not go over one night. Sometimes with new players coming in, it takes a little bit of time before everybody gets used to each other. But still, you want to see them having more success and at times playing better football."

What went wrong in the Spurs game specifically?

"Especially the first half wasn’t good. They found it very difficult to get pressure on Spurs, and on the ball, in playing out from the back or having a little bit more possession. They were not confident enough and didn’t find the right people to get on the ball to be creative or to make a difference. If you look at that first half, you can say, “Okay, that looks worrying.

"But then in the second half, after a couple of subs, Baleba came in, I think Zirkzee came in; they brought fresh elements into that game. And you can see that they can score out of nothing as well, without being very, very effective. They have the players to make a difference. Mbeumo scored the 1-0, and then if they score the second one, the game’s done. But they didn’t.

"You can see the promise of Baleba, the quality that he has. He made a difference straight away, which is very promising of course. Hopefully he can start and keep that up for a long time during a game, for 95 minutes.

"I think that’s very important, because Carrick is still looking for the ideal partnership of midfield players in the middle of the field, who can work together, who can bring that fresh spark together with Bruno and be dominant against the opposition, but also defensively not give away too much. It’s a combination of both that he’s looking for, and with Baleba in there, I think that makes a big difference.

"The other thing is that when you play against 10 men, you need to win that game. You need to keep it up, you need to consolidate that, you need to put the opposition under pressure. But I think they got worried at times. Sometimes they lose the ball even against 10. Too often they drop in too deep.

"Maybe it’s because they want to keep the lead and do everything to keep it. But if you give the opposition too much time, even 10 men, and we’ve seen that against City as well, there’s always eventually a moment where they’re going to be dangerous.

"That happened towards the end of the game; they equalised, and you’re losing two points. I’m not saying three points would have been deserved. But if you lead by one, you need to take three points from that game, and they couldn’t do that, which is unfortunate.

"In general, we thought they could make that next step, but they find it very difficult to be dominant against the opposition and to create enough goals, and they also give away easy goals. That’s a thing they definitely need to work on.

"If the opposition has the ball, you need to get into a defensive block as quickly as you can. You need to sprint into that block. Sometimes now it looks like players are looking at the ball: what’s going to happen? The opposition takes over the ball, they’re going to attack, and then they react.

"They need to respond much quicker to get into that block, so they don’t give away spaces for the opposition to score, or at least get the opportunity. In the Premier League, we all know you don’t want to give the opposition any time to be dangerous. If you give them that little bit, every team has got quality players who make a difference, and that’s what you’re seeing in these games."

While we're at Spurs, what do you think of Mickey van de Ven and Jan Paul van Hecke in their backline?

"Tottenham is a good fit for them for now. They, along with the whole Spurs squad has started catching up with De Zerbi's ideas. They played a decent game against United, had the chance to score early, which would've made it a whole different game for both teams.

"I prefer how Van de Ven is used at Spurs rather than the national team. Spurs use him as a centre back and I would definitely play him there because of his pace. I would never play him at left back; I think he's limited there. And we all know about Van Hecke's qualities; he's great with the ball at his feet."

Getting back to United, they got much better under Carrick at the end of last season, but they haven’t quite found the spark this year. What do you think is the main difference?

"Last season, when he came in, he was the interim manager at that time. Amorim had a totally different system. He came in, and he knew what United’s culture is, how they wanted to play.

"He changed the system back to a 4-3-3. All the players were much more comfortable in that system and how to play. You could see that straight away in the first game they played. It was easy for them to play, and then they grew into it. 

"They got a couple of results in the beginning; especially, confidence was growing, they could keep it going, other teams were struggling as well. And eventually the final ranking on the table was a Champions League position.

"Now he got the job, which he fully deserved, but now you need to work from that. You need to have your ideas to build a unit that can perform in any situation, in every game. And you can see that’s not there yet.

"You can see that they’re sometimes struggling in possession, if the opposition is pressing in the right way, to find the free player. How can we get these players on the ball so they can make a difference? It was very obvious to see that in the last game. But also defensively, I think they need to do a little bit more in intensity so they don’t give away opportunities.

"And I know that because I’ve been there as well: everything can change within a split second if you win a game and if you have a good game. It’s not a thing that’s going to happen over a long period of time. For instance, this weekend they play Leeds, and it’s a very difficult and hard game to play over there at Elland Road.

"But if you have a good result over there, if you win that game, maybe everything can change after that. That’s the beauty of football. So let’s hope he can achieve that with the team."

For over a decade, United haven’t been able to find the right manager after Sir Alex Ferguson. Why do you think it has been so difficult for United, and for other clubs with such long-tenured managers, to find the heir to the throne after someone so successful?

"Back in the day, when Sir Alex was leading the troops, I think they still had a little bit more time to work with a team, to build a team, to eventually have success. Nowadays, it’s very difficult for a manager to get that time to be successful over the long term.

"Like you mentioned, they’ve had previous managers with a lot of experience, like Mourinho, Moyes, Van Gaal, Ten Hag. They all had experience at a high level, and they weren’t successful. So it’s not a given that when you bring in a manager with a lot of experience, he’s going to have the ideas or the answer to be successful.

"I think Michael is still the right guy to do so. You need to have a guy who is close to the players. He knows the players, he knows the culture of the club, he’s in a good understanding with the people upstairs on the board, and they give him confidence and time so he can work it out.

"Of course, he needs to have a plan for how to do that, but they probably discussed that, and how to approach the transfer periods as well, when to bring certain players in, and then building from that. Then a manager needs to show that. It’s always a guess if you bring in a certain manager whether he’s going to do the job for you. But Michael proved last season that he can do it, and I’m sure within this season he’s going to grow and have better results.

The Dutch national team brought in a high-profile head coach in Xavi. Great offensive output in the first four games, but no clean sheets...

"That’s typical for the Dutch. You know the Dutch saying? As long as we score one goal more than the other ones, we’ve got three points; we won. In England we talk a lot about clean sheets. We play from there: we need to have a clean sheet, and then we go and we need to win.

"In Holland we always say we need to score a lot of goals, and if we score more than the opposition, then it’s three points. Of course, not all the managers in Holland think like that.

"Xavi stands for attacking football, possession-based football, and we all know that. I think we have a team that can do so, and in certain games they’ve proven that as well, which is very important. If a manager in Holland is not doing that, the criticism would only grow.

"In Holland we don’t always look only at the results. Let’s say he plays very defensively and we win all the games. Normally everybody would be happy, but in Holland nobody is really happy, because the game is very boring, so nobody would watch it. That’s why the Dutch are sometimes a bit strange in their views on football.

"So we expect him to go forward, and that’s what he’s doing. The most important thing, and we all know that, is that you don’t want to concede, especially when you play against very good countries. If you concede goals then it’s very difficult to outplay them. So we also need to be honest and true to ourselves and say, okay, we are not the best team in the world, so we need to have a mixture of when we attack, when we defend, and who we are going to defend.

"That’s the discussion over here in Holland: which players do we need to use, which players is Xavi going to include in his team? I think he’s definitely going to work on that, because that’s what he said in the papers and in the press conferences.

"But we like that he’s going forward. There are people who are happy with him. There are people who are saying, “Okay, we’re not too happy with him, because a different Dutch manager could also play that style of football,” which is of course true, to be honest. But it’s a thing for the people from the Dutch FA: who do you pick, who’s available, the feeling that you have with a manager. Up till now he’s doing a very good job."

So you like the direction he’s taking tactically and technically from the first four matches?

"Yeah, I like that. I always like that as a manager myself. You want to go forward, you want to attack, you want to play possession-based football, dominant in the opposition half when the possibility is there. Like I said, we have the players to do so in the middle of the park.

"We’ve got quality players up front. We have very good young players that come from the ranks as well, which is very important. Players like Van Bommel from PSV. Meerdink, who played up top as a striker, did very, very well in these games, I think.

"It was very impressive what he showed. In the back four, we’re sometimes still doubting who’s the ideal back four. There’s a discussion about age, there’s a discussion about young players. That’s the thing that he needs to sort out. But the approach that he has is looking promising."

Eidur Gudjohnsen recently said that he was, and still is, afraid of you, because you were such an imposing force in defence. On the pitch or off it, was there a player, manager or football personality you were ever scared of?

"No, to be honest, not. Sometimes we could be scared of a manager like Ferguson, when he was very angry. Everybody knew about his hairdryer treatment. When you came into the dressing room you could already see his face and you knew where it was going, because we all felt that in the game it wasn’t going the right way. So we knew what was going to happen, and everybody was looking at each other: who is he going to pick today to give a bollocking? So that made it sometimes interesting.

"But when I was a player and when I went out there, I didn’t have the feeling that I was scared of a player. Of course, I knew that with certain opponents I needed to be more focused, more concentrated. If you play against players like Ronaldo Nazario, or Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen, you know that with certain strikers you need to be more focused than others.

"Jan Koller from the Czech Republic was difficult to play against, because he was big but also quite quick. He’s got his long legs, big feet, and his touches were good as well. A lot of people think when it’s a big player that maybe his technical ability is not that good, but Jan was a very good player on the ball as well. Sometimes as a defender you want to anticipate, you want to get in front of him to win the ball, but because of his size and how he used his body, it was very difficult to do so.

"So he was a tough player to play against. And in those days, when we played with the national team against the Czech Republic, the Czech Republic had a very good team, so every game was difficult. There was always a battle between us and the Czechs. They were nice games."