Ruud van Nistelrooy has endured a wretched few weeks as Leicester boss and as he aims to mastermind an escape from the relegation zone, he has not been afraid to use some advice from Sir Alex Ferguson
Ruud van Nistelrooy has broken out his own version of the hairdryer treatment as he attempts to end Leicester’s wretched run.
The East-Midlands side are in awful form ahead of this weekend’s clash with Tottenham having lost their last seven games in a row. It leaves them 19th in the Premier League table, two points from safety.
Meanwhile, there have been reports of Van Nistelrooy publicly dressing down some of his stars – Brighton loanee Facundo Buonannote among those to have felt the Dutchman’s wrath. But the Leicester boss has revealed that him losing his temper is not an unfamiliar sight to his squad.
“Every week I’ve been here I’ve raised my voice a couple of times to players,” Van Nistelrooy said in his pre-match press conference. “It’s nothing new. There’s a great respect between person and person, manager to player. We’re people first.
“But it’s my job to hold players accountable. Where are the things that can improve? What are the standards that are needed for a professional football player? It’s not always the kind and calm voice that I’m talking with now. We need to address things.
“When things are good I praise them and then also my voice is up. That’s nothing new. But it’s always with respect for the person.”
Van Nistelrooy is of course no stranger to receiving a dressing down from a manager. The former striker was on the receiving end of a number of furious outbursts from legendary former Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson.
But he insists that he has had to adapt his approach for the demands of the modern game. Asked if he has simply copied Ferguson’s infamous hairdryer treatment, he replied: “We’re in 2025 now, not in 2000. Times have changed, but it doesn’t mean you can’t hold players accountable in a certain way. It’s my job.”
