This is a fantastic interview with Morgan from The Athletic, where he talks a lot about his time at Southampton, how Poch is the best manager he ever worked with and what went wrong afterwards... please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Schneiderlin: You should do everything to succeed at United but I was impatient please log in to view this image By Andy Mitten Oct 17, 2020 please log in to view this image 55 please log in to view this image Morgan Schneiderlin was one of Southampton’s best players and had risen with the Saints from League 1 to the Premier League a decade ago, but something was missing during their first season back in the top flight after a seven-year absence. “We’d been playing good football but we lacked something to stay in the league,” he explains to The Athletic when we meet in Nice during the international break. Popular boss Nigel Adkins was sacked midway through 2012-13 despite achieving two promotions, a decision that upset fans and players so much that protests followed at their next home match. Then Mauricio Pochettino arrived. “We didn’t really know Pochettino,” recalls Schneiderlin, “but I swear the first day he walked into the room, the charisma he had was incredible. He couldn’t speak English but made us feel inspired, even speaking Spanish. We played Everton at home a few days later. Even now when I speak with Seamus Coleman and Kevin Mirallas, they remind me of this day. We drew 0-0 and it was one of the hardest games they’ve ever had. In just three days, Pochettino turned us into a team that ran harder than we had ever run. He had us pressing like crazy. We don’t know where we found the energy.” How did the new manager bring about this transformation? “Before that Everton game, Pochettino made his speech in Spanish. The only thing we could understand was ‘Press like lion, press like lion’. We had goosebumps, all of us. We played amazing. Mauricio made every single one of us better and the whole team too. Nigel Adkins had done a great job. But the appointment they made after was probably the greatest thing Southampton ever did.” Schneiderlin is sitting in a room at OCG Nice’s smart training ground between the Mediterranean Sea, the airport and the Allianz Riviera Stadium. It’s the calm after the storm and trees have been swept down the adjacent Var river from the Alps in heavy flooding the previous week. Calm for the midfielder, 30, too. He’s been there since June following spells at Strasbourg, Southampton, Manchester United and Everton. He’s been training, wears a sleeveless top and speaks animatedly and openly. He’s seen a lot in this game, not all of it positive, but he rose to be a player good enough to play 15 times for France, one United paid £25 million for, one Everton paid £24 million for. That was largely because of how impressive he was at Southampton. So good that at the start of 2013-14, Pochettino’s first full season, he went to Old Trafford and played very well in a 1-1 draw against the champions. United were in decline but taking serious notice “We had total confidence that we could win,” he said. “Some United fans clapped us off the pitch, but before that game we also played United when Sir Alex Ferguson was still in charge. We’d lost but he said that Southampton was one of the best teams his side played against. “We felt strong against everyone and that was such a good feeling. We felt that every contact we made with another player would see them struggle, that the manager was really with us on the field. Pochettino lifts you psychologically and physically. His philosophy is ‘Cry in the week to enjoy the weekend.’ Sometimes we would work so hard in the gym that we’d go on the pitch and our legs were shaking.” please log in to view this image Schneiderlin spent seven seasons with Southampton, helping them rise from League One to the Premier League (Photo: Ian Kington/AFP via Getty Images) After a week at the club, the Argentine asked his midfielder how he was feeling. Schneiderlin told him he was tired. “Good to know,” he replied. “Next week we work even harder.” “I’d arrive at games with sore quads and calves and was worried about how we would play, yet when the game started I felt I could run for fun. He was the best manager that I’ve worked with — and I’ve worked with some good ones.” Schneiderlin’s journey was by no means conventional, as he explains. “I’m from a small village of 800 in Alsace. My father was a roof tiler, my mum a carer. I come from a modest family — typical working class in Alsace. If the people tell you they will meet you at 2pm they will be there at 2pm. It’s not like the Mediterranean. I had good friends and played football on the street all the time. When I was four, I told my parents that I wanted a team. All the village teams said I was too young, but dad had a friend who said there was a trial at Strasbourg. I went there and the coach came to see my parents at the end and said: ‘When can he start?’ My parents were a bit in shock — and it would be difficult for them to take me.” Help was needed from elsewhere. “Dad was working hard and mum couldn’t take me every day – it was 40 minutes away. My granddad and the dad of a friend would take me to Strasbourg. I was a fan of the club, my father too. My cousin and uncle would take me to games and we stood behind the goal. By the age of 10 I was a ball boy. Strasbourg were relegated because of money problems right down to the 5th division, but still 15,000-20,000 people came to games. They love football there, it’s where Arsene Wenger is from.” By 13, the midfielder moved to live in Strasbourg’s academy. At 16, he was the youngest player to get a professional contract. “I was in the first team at 17 in the second division but I only played a few games. I was a good player on the ball but maybe I wasn’t aggressive enough for my position and didn’t tackle enough. I was also impatient. I didn’t want to be on the bench, I felt ready because the team was not doing very well. I decided to leave because I wanted to play first-team football.” His choice to move to Southampton in 2008 was, on the surface, a curious one. “I was not keen when I heard about Southampton, but then I looked on the internet and saw that they had a very good academy, that Theo Walcott and Gareth Bale had gone through their ranks. “I was part of the France national side set-up so I had teams like Chelsea and Arsenal interested in me,” he explains. “I was not going to get in their first team when I was so young, even though it would have been nice to say to my friends that I played for Chelsea or Arsenal. I wanted to play football every week. “I visited Southampton and fell in love with what the club said. They told me that they wanted to play me every week, even if I made mistakes and found it hard. They said they would push me and make me better. They didn’t have much money but they paid a lot for me (£1.2 million). Southampton were true to their word, but it wasn’t easy at first. I was alone in England and didn’t speak English when I arrived, but I received a lot of help from people at the club. “I had to learn English because nobody spoke French. I had the offer of the installation of French TV but said no. I bought films and music in English to immerse myself into the language. “My team-mates were helping — and also telling me to say the wrong thing, like advising me to say ‘**** off’ in answer to questions. The players like Adam Lallana, Lloyd James and Jake Thomson took me to town to buy a phone, they offered me lifts because I didn’t drive and there was no player liaison either. I really appreciated their help.” Southampton were relegated to the third tier in his first season. “We had very talented young players like Lallana and David McGoldrick and we played nice football, but there were financial problems and I questioned whether I had made the right choice. I thought not at the time, but in hindsight I did the right thing.” But he wasn’t happy being a third-division player. “I’m not going to deny that I went to see the board and said: ‘I came here to play Premier League, not League 1’. I said I didn’t want to play in League 1, that it was dangerous for my career. “Southampton wouldn’t listen to me. They said that I was staying, that they believed in me, that the club were going to buy new players. The club bought Rickie Lambert and Jose Fonte. Suddenly we started to have a very good team.” Southampton were promoted twice in two seasons. “It’s the best team spirit that I’ve ever played in, mix of young and experience. The players were friends who socialised. The manager was Alan Pardew until he was sacked and replaced by Nigel Adkins, the most positive man on the planet. It could be raining and he would describe it as a beautiful day. He said he could hear the birds singing when nobody else could. Nigel just wanted you to be happy every day, happy to play football.” A couple of seasons later, it was Schneiderlin’s turn to leave Southampton for a bigger club. “I had interest from Tottenham because Pochettino had gone there,” he says of the events of the summer of 2015. “A couple of other teams called my agent, but when Man United were interested there was no other choice. Man United and Real Madrid are the two biggest clubs in the world. You can’t refuse Man United but if I was to listen to my heart, I would have signed for Spurs. I knew the manager and how he would be with me, his training style. He called me to ask me to go to Spurs. He wanted me 100 per cent.” He also spoke with Louis van Gaal. “He wanted me too but we had less connection on the phone. So I signed more for the football club, Manchester United, than the manager.” Schneiderlin joined the same day as Bastian Schweinsteiger, the two new midfield Schs. “Massive, massive club,” he says of his first impressions. “On the tour, you’d train in the morning and then do two to three hours of commercial work in the afternoon. You became as tired doing the commercial work as the training, but it was amazing. “Football-wise, the club was rebuilding. Van Gaal had an amazing career and he tried to impose his training style on us, but you could see a lot of negativity around. The club had been so successful, it was built to win every game, to play good football, but as players we didn’t have the confidence to play very good football and we didn’t.” So why didn’t things work out for him at Old Trafford? “In pre-season I felt good and played well,” he says. “Maybe I didn’t accept the training style that was imposed on me, even if I respect him very much and appreciated him buying me. But I wasn’t ready for this style.” What style? “A style which was too strict. We were told: ‘When you have the ball you have to do this’ instead of playing with my gut like I had done with Pochettino and Koeman. The worse thing for a football player is when you think too much. I started to think: ‘Ah, the manager wants me to do this’. You lose your instinct, your start to force things, you miss passes, you arrive too late for a challenge. Your confidence goes down. please log in to view this image Schneiderlin (left) arrived at Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United for £25m in the summer of 2015 (Photo: John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images) “I would play a very good game and then a very bad game. I wasn’t confident enough. I started to complain to my wife. It hurts me even now that I couldn’t play freely at United. The pressure of the club was no problem to me. I like pressure, I need pressure and adrenaline. The fans were good to me in the street. The problem was me because I knew I had so much to give but I couldn’t give it because I felt restricted. “Looking back, I shouldn’t have been so upset, but at the time that’s how it was. You had to wait until the manager told you that you could eat. These things work when the players are 19 and 20, but not when you have older players. Van Gaal had proved that he was a top manager, but I don’t think we needed those ideas at the time.” Could he feel the tension in the stadium from fans? “Yes, it would start after five or ten minutes if you made a bad pass. The team would lose confidence. The most successful players were the young ones who were not bothered by that — Rashford, Martial. They played with freedom and because Martial couldn’t understand what the manager was telling him, he just played with freedom anyway. I wish that was me; just agreeing with everything the manager said.” Still, Schneiderlin played 39 times and won the FA Cup in his first year, 2016. But time was running out for Van Gaal. Did he know he was going to be sacked? “You could sense that people around the club were not happy, but we won the FA Cup. I didn’t think he would be sacked straight after winning the FA Cup. We had a party and at breakfast the next day, the manager stood up and wished us a nice holiday. He then said: ‘I’ve just had a call and I think it is finished for me.’ “I felt sorry for him as a human being, but this is football and it can be brutal. I hoped that I could play better for Jose Mourinho. He was one of the best managers in the world and I wanted to see how he worked. I knew he would bring some top players in and was looking forward to it.” Schneiderlin was playing for France at Euro 2016 by this time his new boss got in touch. “Jose texted me to say that he was looking forward to working with me. I had eight days of holiday after the tournament and we started pre-season. I only took three days’ holiday before I started training by myself because I wanted to be right for the season and I felt sharp. “When the season started, I wasn’t playing much. I knocked on the manager’s door after a month and asked him why. He told me that he was happy with how I was training and I would have a chance in the Europa League. I played against Feyenoord and we lost 1-0. The manager said that I was the only player who played well, but then I didn’t play in the next game. By this time, I was thinking that maybe it was the moment to leave. I wanted to play football. Maybe it was a mistake to think like this. You should do everything to succeed at United, but I was impatient. I also had Ronald Koeman calling me asking me to join him at Everton. Mourinho didn’t want him to go. “He said that I would have my chance, but it didn’t happen. He told me that I would get my chance against Liverpool away because I had trained so well, but I got a big dead leg on my quads during the week and couldn’t play. I went to see him again and told him I wanted to leave and join Everton. “This time, he replied: ‘What can I say? I don’t want a player who doesn’t want to be here.’” Schneiderlin joined Everton for £24 million in January 2017. The first six months surpassed his expectations. “We had Lukaku, Barkley, I was doing well, playing every week and the fans were loving me. We finished seventh and made the Europa League. I was so happy.” Then came that difficult second season. “We had a difficult start. The fans found a scapegoat in Koeman, who got sacked. And then there was a story involving me which changed my life at Everton. “In October 2017, I was sent off against Lyon. Koeman had been sacked a few weeks before. I was sad at this because if you are going to sack a manager who has done well in the previous season, you must have someone ready to take over who is better than him. I had also signed for Koeman and believed in his project. please log in to view this image Schneiderlin failed to establish himself at Everton after a £24m move (Photo: Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA via Getty Images) “Everton brought in David Unsworth, he’d managed the under 23s. He had a different style with more long balls. It’s true that I didn’t have my best games. “We played Watford. We had a Friday recovery session and then Unsworth said ‘These are the 18 players who will be in the squad this weekend’. The others will train on the opposite pitch — a pitch far away. Unsworth didn’t say my name. I was a bit shocked not to be in the squad but I went to the far pitch and trained. Duncan Ferguson was the assistant manager. He looked at three of us: myself, Kevin Mirallas and Davy Klaassen. He said: “Morgan, I know you are sad not to be in the squad. I know you played two days ago. They want you to do runs and one-v-ones but if you don’t feel good about doing this, you can go inside and we’ll train tomorrow.” I replied: “I’m not going to lie to you. I’m a bit tired physically and mentally so I’ll go inside.” He said that anyone else who felt the same could go inside. Kevin also came in. Afterwards, I thanked Duncan in the changing room. There was no issue at all. “The team beat Watford. After the game, the headline in the Liverpool Echowas that me and Kevin had been sent out of training because of a bad attitude. It was not true. Duncan came to see me and said: ‘Look at me, I swear I don’t know who said this, it’s not me.’ I thought it was him, but he insisted it was not. “When Marco Silva was sacked, Duncan was manager for a few games. He played me. We beat Chelsea 3-1 (in December 2019). He insisted for years that he had said nothing and I had a good relationship with him, but the damage was done. Even when I played well, the fans would say I’d been average.” How does a player experience that fan discontent? “In the stadium,” he says. “There was nothing for me even when I played well. The love had gone from the fans and also from the media. If I played badly, they would go for me. If I played well, nothing. I felt that whatever I did at Everton, it would never be enough.” This season he has gone back to France, signing for OCG Nice. What took him there? “The project. The owners (Ineos) are English and it’s a club with a big ambition and a beautiful stadium and training ground. They spend wisely on young players, but I was impressed with my talk with the manager Patrick Vieira and the sporting director Julian Fournier. “I was not sure about going to Ligue 1 and considered Spain or Germany, but they told me everything that I needed to hear. They have been true to their word. There is pressure on me to bring my quality as a football player, but I need that at this stage of my career. I like the responsibility of being a senior player. “Patrick played in my position and gives me advice, but he gives freedom to his players. He’s a very good manager who works hard. He comes early and goes home late. There’s a lot of ambition here.” As the senior pro at Nice he’s one of the main faces in the club’s souvenir shops around the city of 340,000. Well, he has played 15 times for France… “I’d played for France in the World Cup in 2014 and started in a game in the Maracana in front of my parents. That was my highlight for my country, a dream come true.” He hopes his international career is not over. “The manager knows me and if results go well here and I play well, who knows. There’s a lot of competition for France, but that’s a good thing. I had ups and downs at United and Everton, but I’m confident again now and I still have my love for football that I had when I was four years old.”
Good read that, cheers for posting. Interesting to hear about his time at Everton, and to hear him confirm that Van Gaal was the wrong manager for him, which I think we all knew. Love that he says the two promotion teams was the best team spirit he's ever known. Think we all knew how big a factor that was in our success and, what we lost for a few years pre Ralph.
I know I’ve done it once or twice before, but if we want to keep having all this good stuff from The Athletic, we shouldn’t really be posting all their paywalled stuff in full. I’d be fairly confident that their writers get bonuses or part of their salary based on clicks and reads, so let’s remind folks that they should sign up (it’s really cheap now, I just renewed at £36 for the year) and get Dan and Carl a bit of extra cash. I think they’ve earned it. But **** Ben Fowlkes, he can’t have any of it. Bring back Francesca for the UFC previews.
I know. I do feel a bit guilty (particularly when married to a journalist), but this was too good a one to pass up.
I'll sort out my own moral wrangle. I wasn't aware of The Athletic, but will now subscribe as everything I've read has been worth reading. Thanks for heads up SaintinKuwait. I think people should get paid for their hard work. Old fashioned concept, I know. However, thanks for posting this. Really great player for us. TV highlights were few and far between, but the contribution he made to those magical promotion seasons was second to none.
You raise a really good point here. Who was the best player we had from L1 to the EPL? Have we ever had a thread about that, polls etc?
Dunno about best player but I did a series of threads to put together a favourite team a couple of summers back. Best player is hard anyway taking into account different positions. For me it's all about the spine of SKD, Fonte, Morgan, Rickie. I'd have to go Rickie if I had to pick one though. What a talisman.
Yeah, i was being mean thinking if it was one player and no other. In that case, I’m with you - Rickie
I’m lucky enough to remember both. I remember when i was pretty young, maybe 18. I just started seeing a nice girl, and she woke me up with a proper wake up call When she had finished, the first thing i said was “I just cant believe how much I love Le Tissier” I always wondered why that was the last blowie she gave me...
See, that wasn’t hard at all was it? Who else wore the shirt of Matt LeTiss, got the ball and took the piss...? Course it’s Rickie ffs.
