After Manchester United defeated Leicester City 3-0 on Sunday in his penultimate game as interim manager, Ruud van Nistelrooy lingered on the Old Trafford field, but the Dutchman stated it was more about celebrating a fantastic moment than a possible farewell.
Since Erik ten Hag was fired and Van Nistelrooy took over temporarily, United has won three games and drawn one in all competitions.
“No (it wasn’t goodbye),” Van Nistelrooy said.
“I felt like closing this period down and basically it was a moment, here and now, and that was the beauty of the moment in my opinion where, yeah, circumstances came together and it was a beautiful moment and it was gratitude from my side to them, and the reception I received was unbelievable.”
In the last moments of the game, the supporters sang his name, and when he approached the Stretford End to thank them for their efforts, they sang “Ruuudddd!” over him.
Van Nistelrooy has not yet been informed if he will be a member of the reorganised staff with the arrival of new head coach Ruben Amorim on Monday.
He anticipated finding out as early as Sunday or Monday.
“I can only describe that moment, how I felt it, and as a closure of this block of four games, it felt like a closure for that period, and the future is open, that’s the way I felt it,” Van Nistelrooy said.
“It was a beautiful moment to share that with the supporters. Yeah, special.”
Bruno Fernandes, the captain of United, scored four goals in four games under Van Nistelrooy’s leadership, including United’s opening goal on Sunday, despite failing to score in his previous 17 appearances under Ten Hag.
After such a difficult start to the season, the manager claimed that a large part of his job was to stabilise the team and give them some confidence in the short time he had left.
“When I started as an interim at the beginning of this four-game period to stabilise and to continue playing what the players are used to, 80-85%, and put in little tweaks or change of positions or resting players or starting players, and that’s where you start to get your own bit in of identity, transfer it to the training pitch, get the confidence back,” said the former United striker.
He will hand them over to Amorim in good shape.
“You can see quality of the players still not in a consistent way, because there’s still a lot to improve, but I think there’s a foundation in the past four games where there was strong unity, good spirit, players who were looking for results,” Van Nistelrooy said. “And we got four and that was for me really important.”
The Dutchman claimed that after being promised he would only be in control for one or two games, the deal was subsequently extended to four games so that Amorim could oversee his last games at Sporting, a Portuguese team, prior to the international break. The club’s transparency was something Van Nistelrooy expressed gratitude for, saying: “It’s important to have that clarity and I appreciated that.”
