United spirit ready to soar

Interview / Louis Saha: A player long the bane of managers for his lack of drive is thriving on the fierce ambition that permeates Old Trafford, as he tells Dominic Fifield.

Louis Saha laid his video mobile phone on the table, yanked his baseball cap down to mask his face, then pinpointed the moment when he became aware of the Manchester United effect. It was at half-time in the Goodison Park dressing-room two weeks ago, with the Premiership champions 3-0 up and dominating Everton to the point of embarrassment.

Saha had scored twice in his second game for the club, swarming all over the home side's defenders and spurning two other clear-cut chances. "We'd played them off the park and I thought I'd done well," recalled the Frenchman.

"At Fulham under Chris Coleman or Jean Tigana we'd have been more than satisfied, but the boss charged in and went mad. He was raging. We'd been complacent, we'd been lazy, we should have been seven up, and I was the worst culprit. That tells you a lot about the man, but also about this club. They're perfectionists. They're winners. That's why I came here."

Such is the reality of life at United. In this company, even the slightest slip in standards can never be tolerated, as Roy Keane's criticisms this week illustrated. If the Everton revival that afternoon proved Alex Ferguson was right to be enraged, Ruud van Nistelrooy's late and decisive fourth merely underlined what Saha, long since substituted, had perceived: "Winners, every one."

Against Leeds this lunchtime, Manchester United must rediscover that unswerving purpose if they are to erode Arsenal's five-point advantage at the top of the Premiership. Saha will be back alongside Van Nistelrooy after sitting out last weekend's FA Cup derby having featured earlier in the competition for Fulham. The 25-year-old striker's life has been such a whirlwind over the last few weeks that he is likely to take the trans-Pennine hatred seething inside Old Trafford today in his stride.

Saha arrived during last month's transfer window after an acrimonious divorce from Fulham. Coleman, threatened by the prospect of a disgruntled player intent on running down his contract, had reluctantly sanctioned the £12.82 million move. While the furore over the £750,000 paid to agents to secure his five-and-a-half-year contract simmered, there were three goals in his first two appearances for his new club and, on Wednesday, another on his debut for France.

His cap owed much to his development at and form for Fulham, but the catalyst for his call-up was undoubtedly his transfer to United. "The dream's become the reality, even if I never thought it would work out quite like this," he said.

"Arriving at Carrington on my first day for training, it dawned on me what was happening. Roy Keane, a player I'd been so wary of when at Fulham, just shook me by the hand and said matter-of-factly: 'Welcome to United.' As an opponent he was daunting. As a team-mate, he's helped me find my feet.

"I take Roy's attitude into games now - his drive, his competitiveness, his desire to succeed," he said. "The strength of Roy's character is extraordinary, but there's quality all around you here and my game should improve by 20 per cent to 30 per cent in this company. I can't fail to improve. Look at the creative players at this club. The chances just flow.

"It's the pace at which they pass and move which hits you from the outset. There's no time to think or the ball's gone, you've given away possession and, whether it's the boss or Roy, whether in training or in a match, no one puts up with that.

"Ruud is easy to read. I can sense his moves and track his runs. It's the same with those behind me. Keane is always there, ticking over in possession, while Paul Scholes has a range of passing I've never seen before. At any one moment when he's got the ball, he knows there are at least three passes on. He's got eyes in the back of his head. Some of the runs Ruud makes help, but Scholes is the new Zinedine Zidane."

It was Zidane who presented Saha with a goal 76 minutes into his international debut in Brussels on Wednesday, securing France's 2-0 win and a 14th consecutive victory. Saha also set up Sidney Govou's opening goal. "Louis proved his quality," said Zidane.

Some might argue it is about time. Upon mention of the expectation long weighing on his shoulders, Saha sighed as if struggling to rouse himself from his siesta. As a junior at Metz, he had been earmarked to thrive at the highest level, only to waver in a manner that would have enraged Keane. "I was immature," he admitted.

"He was infuriating," the France under-21 coach Raymond Domenech insisted last week. He watched the striker breeze through the national junior sides only for his career to meander alarmingly as an apparently lazy senior at the St Symphorien stadium under a frustrated Joel Muller. Ruud Gullit was just as unconvinced during a five-month loan spell at Newcastle in 1999.

The revival began when Tigana offered a return to English football a year later. Saha's impact - 27 goals in 43 league games - propelled Fulham out of the First Division. In the top flight, where he was asked to play alone up front, he managed only 13 league goals in two seasons; this year he had reached that tally by mid-January and, with United persuaded, he duly answered Ferguson's call.

Saha's eligibility for continental competition was a major factor in Ferguson pushing through the transfer last month. "I'm at a club who have the means to win the Champions League," added the striker. "The quality is here, the confidence that we can claim that trophy, and the whole place is completely geared to making that a reality this season. Porto will be difficult opponents, but the objective is to win it.

"It's amazing that I can talk about competing against clubs like that. It was only a few weeks ago that a friend of mine rang me up singing that Champions League song they play when the teams come out, having a laugh because that was as near as I was going to get to the competition. Now, if I'm picked, I'll be playing in it."

Should such progress be maintained then, come June 13th and the group game with England in Lisbon, Saha could yet line up alongside Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet - both absent against the Belgians - aiming to dismantle Sven-Goran Eriksson's Euro 2004 aspirations.

Saha said: "I can't deny Les Bleus were in the back of my mind in moving to United. There was still a chance I'd earn a call-up if I'd stayed at Fulham, but the fact that I'm at United in the Champions League must have worked in my favour. Now I've got a chance of going to Portugal, nothing more."

That may prove overly pessimistic. If his first month at Old Trafford has taught him anything it is that, once a United player, anything appears possible.