{"id":364191,"date":"2026-01-11T09:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T09:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/364191\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T09:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T09:34:08","slug":"man-utd-darren-fletcher-emerges-as-winner-from-week-of-turmoil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/364191\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Utd: Darren Fletcher emerges as winner from week of turmoil"},"content":{"rendered":"

One story told about Fletcher from that time relates to a game at Liverpool, two weeks after joining Solskjaer’s team.<\/p>\n

Fletcher went into the directors’ area before the game for the first time and “everyone just thronged around him”.<\/p>\n

“He kept the room listening to his stories for 15 minutes,” said a source who was there.<\/p>\n

“Humble” is a word used to describe Fletcher at the time.<\/p>\n

Fittingly, it was a trait Fletcher mentioned when talking about the youngsters in United’s academy on Friday.<\/p>\n

Following Jason Wilcox’s arrival at the club in the spring of 2024, Fletcher reverted to a role as first-team coach under Erik ten Hag but Amorim decided he did not need the Scot, which many believe was a mistake.<\/p>\n

Fletcher then assumed the under-18s role, waiting until twin sons Jack and Tyler<\/a> had moved beyond that age group before taking over in the summer.<\/p>\n

Though not one of the standout stars of Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign, the legendary Scottish boss loved his fellow countryman for the understated way he went about his job.<\/p>\n

Some feel the absence of Fletcher through suspension after he was sent off in the semi-final against Arsenal was a significant factor in United being beaten by Barcelona in the 2009 Champions League final, when they had no answer to the metronomic passing game of Pep Guardiola’s side.<\/p>\n

Fletcher, father of younger twin girls, in addition to Jack and Tyler who were both brought into the first-team squad by Amorim in recent weeks, is privately relaxed about what comes next.<\/p>\n

Publicly, the 41-year-old says he is happy to revert to his role with the under-18s, where he has been helping to develop promising youngsters, including England youth international JJ Gabriel and Jim Thwaites, who has earned rave reviews in a variety of midfield positions.<\/p>\n

“I’ve tried to prepare myself to be a manager,” said Fletcher.<\/p>\n

“It is something I always thought I might be quite good at or that I’d enjoy doing and enjoy the challenge of.<\/p>\n

“But at the same time I wanted to be really careful and make sure I was ready for when that moment came.<\/p>\n

“It’s not something I’m desperate to do – circumstances in life dictate that, and I’ve experienced how intense it has been as a manager for less than a week. There’s not much time for much outside football.<\/p>\n

“But if I prepare myself and the opportunity comes for me one day, I know I’ll be ready. If it doesn’t and it means staying as the under-18s coach, I’ll be more than comfortable with that as I’m going to help develop players for Manchester United.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One story told about Fletcher from that time relates to a game at Liverpool, two weeks after joining…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-364191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}