Ryan Giggs has confessed he often didn’t see eye-to-eye with Louis van Gaal in the two years he worked under the Dutchman at Manchester United.
Van Gaal appointed Giggs as a first-team coach in 2014 but Giggs left the club in 2016 when the Dutchman was sacked and replaced by Jose Mourinho.
The 66-year-old spent £250m in just two years at the club and, though few of his signings worked out, United fans were as aggrieved with the players he let go as the ones he brought in.
United let the likes of Robin van Persie, Javier Hernandez, Angel Di Maria, Shinji Kagawa and Wilfried Zaha leave during Van Gaal’s tenure but Giggs says he told the Dutchman not to sell three specific players.
‘There have been a lot who have come through that haven’t been United players and also players who were United players and shouldn’t have left,” said Giggs, speaking to The Times.
‘I’m talking about Rafael, Welbeck, Jonny Evans — players who are United through and through.
‘It was hard because Louis had his own ideas and you had to respect that, but, yes, we had a few arguments about a couple of them. He understood [my position] because I had played with those lads, but they just weren’t for him
‘Some of them, like Welbeck, wanted to play more regularly, and Jonny had a few injuries at the time, so you could understand it, but — and it’s not saying it in hindsight — recruitment hasn’t been great either.’
Upon taking charge at Old Trafford, Mourinho admitted he would have kept a number of players that had been sold by the club had he arrived earlier.
‘I found a sad club,’ said Mourinho in 2016.
‘United sold players that I would never sell, bought players that I would never buy. I would never sell Angel Di Maria, Javier Hernandez, Danny Welbeck. Never. No chance’
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