‘I slid a letter under Sir Alex’s door to get Man Utd move – it was unreal’

Former Manchester United assistant Rene Meulensteen says he convinced Sir Alex Ferguson to promote him by sliding a letter under his door.

The Dutchman, who spent the best part of 12 years at Old Trafford in various capacities, initially joined United as a youth team coach in 2001 before being promoted to reserve team manager five years later.

Ferguson initially planned to hire externally but decided to hand Meulensteen the reins after a finding a very persuasive letter on the floor of his office one morning.

"I actually wrote a letter and slid it under the door, that was the first time I was earlier at Carrington [United's training ground] than Sir Alex himself," Meulensteen revealed during a recent appearance on talkSPORT, "and I said basically there's this job coming up with the reserves and why would we look outside when the solution is within here?

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"I said I would love to take it because I would love to share with you how all the technical development [of young players] is implemented in a team scenario. Then I was working with the reserves with boys like Gerard Pique, Jonny Evans etc, all those players, and it worked out really really well."

Meulensteen wouldn't stay long though. A year later he was approached by Danish side Brondby, who wanted to hire him as their new first team manager. Believing the opportunity was too good to turn down, he accepted their offer, but lasted just six months in the job before resigning after a poor start to the season.

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A few months later he returned to United, only this time as part of Ferguson's first team staff after several players went out of their way to sing his praises in front of the legendary Scot.

"[Ferguson] had spoken to a lot of senior players who had all said listen if you've got a chance bring him back, bring him back to the first team setup because we could all benefit from it," Meulensteen added.

In 2008, after spending a year-and-a-half as the team's technical skills development coach, Meulensteen was promoted to assistant manager following the departure of Carlos Queiroz. He ended up staying in the job until 2013 when he was snapped up by Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala, initially as their assistant manager before taking over as interim head coach when Guus Hiddink left.

His short stint in Dagestan prompted Fulham to take a punt on him, though he was sacked just three months later with the Cottagers in the Premier League relegation zone. He later had spells in charge of Israeli side Maccabi Haifa as well as in India with Kerala Blasters before bringing the curtain down on his coaching career with a short stint as Australia assistant manager in 2018.

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