Jaap Stam's legacy at Manchester United is a strange one. During his time at Old Trafford he was one of the top centre backs in the world, forming the spine of a United team that would win a Champions League and three Premier League titles on the spin.
Early the following season, just when it seemed he was at the peak of his powers, all of a sudden he was gone from the club. The decision to sell Stam was believed to have been related to an autobiography that had just been released by the player. In the book, it was heavily implied that Alex Ferguson had tapped up Stam before he was signed from PSV, something the Scottish manager was furious about.
Speaking on Sky Sports News' Transfer Talk podcast, Stam said that at the time he was surprised about the reaction to the book:
(The book) was giving an insight of how we work at United, the atmosphere in the dressing room, nothing about criticism towards other players or managers.
I was completely shocked as to how it was put in the papers, because it was not how it was in the book.
It had not been well received by his manager either. Ferguson made his feelings on the matter clear to Stam in a meeting, but the Dutchman said there was no indication that he was about to leave the club. Only a few minutes later, he would be informed that he had been sold to Lazio for £15million.
Fergie was very open, we just had a conversation and he expressed his feelings about me as a player basically.
He told me to think about it, if I didn’t want to go that’s fine and they would look for someone else. He didn’t say things like you need to go, not at all. He told me not to worry about it, that he’d had the same with his own book...
I got back in my car to go home. I phoned my wife, then straight away my agent called me. He told me United were going to call me back because they’d sold me.
Despite the book being the catalyst for his exit, Stam is still of the opinion that United used it as an excuse to get him out the door. That summer was one of big spending at the club, with Juan Sebastian Veron and Ruud van Nistelrooy arriving for a total cost of over £60million.
He feels that United needed to sell him in order to balance the books, and his autobiography provided the perfect excuse.
At the time they [United] used it. It was hard from out of the blue to say ‘okay we’re going to sell Jaap’ without any reason.
It was quite convenient maybe that the book was there at that time. I think it is better to just be straightforward in how it is.
It is stories like this that reminds us of the ruthlessness of Alex Ferguson. It was one of the things that made him such a success, having the strength and willingness to change things at a time when other would have simply maintained the status quo.
It is something that Manchester United are lacking at the minute, with a number of players remaining at the club despite continually underperforming on the pitch. If Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is given the job on a permanent basis, perhaps he will reintroduce this aspect of the Fergie era.
