Page 77 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

position was strong because Real Madrid were not going to pay £35 million for him. That was
obvious. And it was the reason, I believe, why Ruud was asking to leave. Had Real Madrid been
willing to come up with £35 million, there would have been no need for him to push for a move. He
was hoping to bargain with the club to find a fee United would find acceptable. Silly idea.

So we had our meeting. His stance was that he wasn’t prepared to wait for Ronaldo and Rooney to
mature. ‘But they’re great players,’ I told him. ‘You should be leading these young players. Helping
them.’ Ruud still said he didn’t want to wait.
‘Look, we’re going to sign players in the summer to bring us back to our usual level,’ I said. ‘We
don’t like losing finals, we don’t like losing the League. When you build teams you have to be patient.
Not just me, but the players, too. This is going to be a good team.’ He accepted my argument and we
shook hands.

In that season we had signed Vidić and Evra in the January transfer window. Indirectly, those two
acquisitions were to ignite the biggest flashpoint in all the time Ruud was with us. In the Carling Cup I
had been playing Louis Saha all the way through. When we reached the final I said to Ruud, ‘Look,
it’s not fair if I don’t play Saha. I know you like to play in finals. Hopefully I can get you a bit of the
game.’ I did say that, no doubt about it.
We were on cruise control against Wigan and I saw an ideal opportunity to give Evra and Vidić a

taste of the game. They were my final substitutions. I turned to Ruud and said: ‘I’m going to give these
two lads a part of the game.’ They were going to get a touch, a smell of winning something with
Manchester United. ‘You —,’ said Van Nistelrooy. I’ll always remember that. Could not believe it.
Carlos Queiroz turned on him. It became fractious in the dug-out. The other players were telling him:
‘Behave yourself.’
But that was the end of him. I knew we would never get him back. He’d burned his boats. After that
incident, his behaviour became worse and worse.

In the final week of that campaign we needed to win the last game of the season, against Charlton.
With Saha’s injuries we were walking on eggshells with him. However, I didn’t feel I could select
Ruud.
Carlos went to Ruud’s room and said, ‘We’re not taking you, go home. The way you’ve behaved
all week – we’re not having it.’
Ronaldo had recently lost his father. During that week, Ruud had taken a kick at Ronaldo on the

training ground and said: ‘What are you going to do? Complain to your daddy?’ He meant Carlos, not
Cristiano’s dad. He probably wasn’t thinking. So then Ronaldo was upset, and wanting to have a go at
Van Nistelrooy, and Carlos was upset by the insult. Carlos had looked after Ronaldo, as you would
expect. He’s a coach with Portuguese origins, from the same country. Here was a young man with a
dying father. If he couldn’t ask for help from Carlos, who could he seek it from?
The whole episode was very sad. Why Ruud changed, I don’t know. I can’t say for sure whether it
was his way of getting himself out of Old Trafford. It didn’t do him any favours or bring him any

credit in the sense of respect from the other players.
It was a pity because his numbers were sensational. He was one of our club’s greatest goal-
scorers. Problems first surfaced after his second season, when he was up for a new contract, in
accordance with his original deal. He asked for a clause that would allow him to leave for Real
Madrid, specifically, in the event of Real offering a specified sum. A buy-out clause. I pondered this
one for a long time. My feeling was that, without that concession, Van Nistelrooy would not have

signed his name. Conversely, to concede that ground would give him a controlling hand. We ran the
risk of losing him the following season.