[funkdoctorspock]

Very good interview w/Giggsy. Enjoy...

Enduring excellence

Unfazed by the latest influx of young, attacking talent, United’s nine-time title winner is relishing another season at the very top…

Firstly, did Phil Neal or Alan Hansen been in touch to congratulate you on your ninth league winner’s medal?
[Laughs] It would be nice! It’s obviously great [to set the record]; the Liverpool team of that era was such a great team. It’s not something I think about too much because I want to win more, but it’s something that I’ll be immensely proud of when I finish. It was nice to overtake players from a team who are our rivals, and who I watched winning everything while I was growing up.

And even if though you’re not one for looking at records, it would be a good feeling to get a 10th title this season...
It would be nice to get to 10 – but it would be nicer to get to 11! [Laughs] I don’t want to be greedy but that’s my shirt number, so that’s what I’m aiming for…

Many people were surprised United won the title last season. With that surprise element gone, will things be tougher?
Last year, at the start of the season, a lot of people thought we were still going through a period of transition. They didn’t think we were capable of putting together a decent challenge, especially with Chelsea being so strong. But we got a good start and we were quite lucky injury-wise up until Christmas, so we were able to sustain it. Obviously in the run-in we got a few injuries, but the momentum was already with us, really. The players who came in did brilliantly for us and everybody contributed to the success.

From your experience, is there much difference between defending a title and trying to win it back? Which of the two is the harder?
[Puffs out his cheeks] Yeah, it is probably a little bit harder to defend it because everybody wants to beat the champions. There is that extra pressure, and there’s also extra hunger from the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal because they haven’t won it the season before. So it is probably a little bit harder to defend it. But if you have won it, then the players have that hunger to do it again. And if the players who won it last year have got that same hunger again, then we’ve got a great chance.

Where do you see the main challenges coming from?
Just the usual suspects really. The quality is Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea. Everyone, including ourselves, has all added [players]. Tottenham have added a lot of players as well, so you’re looking at those sorts of teams. Liverpool have brought a lot of players in. Arsenal have obviously lost Thierry Henry but have added quality too – Eduardo da Silva, from what I’ve seen of him, looks decent. You never know, it might give the chance to players like Robin van Persie and Emmanuel Adebayor to step up for them. They’ve still got quality. Arsenal obviously relied on Henry to score a lot of goals for them, but they’ve still got top-quality players. We got a close look at Chelsea in the Community Shield and Florent Malouda looks a good player. Everybody’s strengthened where they felt they needed to, but we’re happy with the way we’ve bought.

Sir Alex Ferguson has strengthened the squad substantially in pre-season; what have you made of the new boys?
They’ve all done well and overall we’re looking good. With all the loan players who have come back and the lads that we’ve signed, it’s an exciting time. The players we’ve signed are talented. I’ve said before, though, that our main focus is defending as a team and not giving away too many goals. Because of the attacking options we’ve got we’ll always create chances. If we can keep clean sheets, we’ve always got a chance – that showed last year.

Both Nani and Anderson have been touted as potential replacements for you. Do you feel any pressure from that?
No, I don’t think so. Over the last two or three years the manager has bought young players as he looks to the future, which is something you’ve got to do at this club. You can’t stand still. Myself, Scholesy, Nev… we’ll not play forever. We needed to bring the age of the team down and we’ve done that, but at the moment we’ve got a good mixture of experience and young players. Eventually these young players will be the future of United. The club never stands still and never will.

Has the manager spoken to you about how he's going to use you this season?
Not really, no. Over the last couple of years I’ve played on the left, I’ve played in midfield and off the front. I’ve got the experience to play all the positions, so it doesn’t really bother me where I play. We’ve got that strength in depth now and plenty of options up front, so I’m sure the manager will be freshening things up. He’ll probably try to keep the back four and midfield as solid as possible really, not changing too much. But he’s got the luxury now of being able to change the front players around, which is obviously important because they need to stay sharp.

Your playing role has evolved over the years…
It’s had to! I’ve had to change my game because I’m not as quick as I used to be. That means, as a winger, you can’t rely on your pace as much. You have to use your head a bit more. The yards that I’ve lost in pace, hopefully I’ve gained in experience and intelligence of reading the game.

There’s a real unpredictability about your role, and United’s attack as a whole…
Yeah, we have got the sort of players who can change roles. Wayne Rooney sometimes plays on the left, Ronaldo on the right, Louis Saha up front, myself just off the front. But it doesn’t always stay like that. Wayne can come in, I can go out wide, Ronaldo is capable of swapping. So we’ve got that fluidity really, and we’ve got personnel who can interchange. Often last year that really worked for us.

How much of that interchanging is pre-meditated?
We’re talking about class players here with real imagination, so the creativity that the players have got, they use it. But we also work at it on the training pitch. Sometimes you have to hold your position, others you have to be more structured, but sometimes you’ve got the licence to go wherever.

You’ve said previously that you tend to remember the disappointments. Where does last May’s defeat against Milan in the San Siro rank?
It was disappointing, but not as disappointing as games in the past that we should have won. Leverkusen, Dortmund, Porto… games like that were really disappointing. Milan was different because we had game after game after game, and you could see the lads were getting tired. The back four had a few players coming back and weren’t fully fit. We just weren’t prepared, whereas Milan weren’t going for the league, they were just totally prepared for the Champions League. If we’d had no injuries we’d have had a much better chance, but that’s just the way it goes. They deserved to win on the night, but it would’ve been a different story if they hadn’t been able to rest players in the run-up to the game.

And you showed you could beat them at Old Trafford…
That was a great game. It was a good Champions League campaign overall, it was just disappointing to go out at the semi-final stage.

With the experience of last season’s campaign, how well-armed are United for European success this season?
You always try to learn from your mistakes. It’s about weighing it up really, learning from them but also learning from winning the league. We hope that we’re better equipped in Europe – that’s what the manager has brought these players in for, so that we’re better prepared if we do get injuries.

Sir Alex says Europe is the priority this season. Is that how you and the rest of the players feel too?
Personally, I don’t look at one specific trophy, I just look at each individual game as it comes and I want to win it. I don’t prioritise trophies. You can single out each trophy: the Premier League is difficult to win; the Champions League is getting harder each year… and it’s the one we haven’t won again

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