How important is it to have a nucleus of English or British players?
Really important. You need players who have been brought up with the club, who know the club and can relate to the fans. And I think you need English players to help the foreign players settle in. I don’t think it’s good to have too many different languages flying around the dressing room. Last season, United won the league title having only signed Michael Carrick. This season, Nani, Anderson, Hargreaves and Tevez all arrived. Has it taken longer to gel? With four new players you have to learn how to play together so I think it’s fair to say it took a bit of time to gel. But Tevez and Anderson had only just got back from the Copa America so they hadn’t had a rest. We had a few injuries so Tevez came back earlier than maybe he was expecting and Anderson trained really hard to get himself fit again and it’s paid off because he’s playing really well now. When you see so many top class signings do you think ‘Great, we’ve got an even stronger squad’ or ‘Blimey, I better be on my game if I w
