Manchester United cannot afford to underestimate a Valencia side transformed under Marcelino

Exclusive interview: Ahead of their Champions League meeting, the much-admired Valencia manager explains why Rafa Benitez is his inspiration and how he is reconnecting with the club's traditions

If the situation at Manchester United now all feels so attritional, and that at Valencia a little behind where it should be, none of it is anything compared to what the Spanish club had to endure for most of the past few years. This is why their much-admired manager Marcelino remains calm. He’s brought this club from worse, been through worse, and the suggestions from a first win of the season on Saturday – away to Real Sociedad – are also that it’s getting better.

It feels like it would just take a few tactical tweaks – and taking a few more chances – to get on track, something that is very different from where he was in the summer of 2017.

Whatever about failing to transform draws into wins, this was a great club that looked lost, having gone through two 12th-place finishes and five managers in just two seasons. They were in need of greater transformation, as nothing seemed to be working.

That was what Marcelino offered, as well as focus and energy, both on the pitch and off it. That they are back attempting to adjust to the extra demands of the Champions League is at least a modern problem, for a club that seemed set to have got left behind.

United should not be too reassured by Valencia’s deceptively poor points return so far, because Marcelino has shown how quickly things can change. He changed so much from that summer in 2017.

The way he did so was striking and can serve as something of a lesson to ailing big clubs, even if the start of this season shows the learning process is ongoing.

Marcelino has turned Valencia's fortunes around ahead of their tie with United (Getty ) (Getty)

“First of all, I met the directors and they told me, as a manager, they want to try refresh and reorganise, to analyse the causes and attempt to put in solutions,” the 53-year-old explains. “I think, for the most part, we’ve done that. We identified the causes why Valencia didn’t function, and we’ve put in solutions with this squad, without totally changing it… I knew to take important decisions, and we did that.”

Those important decisions ultimately involved changing the atmosphere in the dressing room – jettisoning a host of players including Enzo Perez, Alvaro Negredo and Diego Alves. Marcelino was a little poignant about it at the time, but deemed it “necessary”. He doesn’t quite say it now, but the club had to be ruthless, to strip away anything weighing them down, holding them back. They needed to be focused, and that was something Marcelino felt should also apply to their football.

He above anything else favours lightning attacks and very quick moves up the pitch, and might find some common ground with Mourinho in seeing long passing passages as relatively futile. Marcelino also feels this best fits with Valencia as a club, as he cites Rafa Benitez’s 2002 and 2004 title-winners as influences – “without any doubt”.

Marcelino is gradually transforming Valencia (EPA)

One of that team’s best performances came against English opposition, when they – and especially Pablo Aimar – eviscerated Liverpool 2-0 with these intense and swift moves. This is what Marcelino has started to bring back. This is what United could face on Tuesday.

“I think the best stages of Valencia have always coincided with a determined football style. And, well, the people accept very well this style of play, they identify with it, and above all, it has produced good results. For us, it’s important there isn’t any doubt that the people are with us, and if we are capable of playing a style of football that the people identify with, that will be beneficial for all of us as it shows our support. In the Mestalla, with that support, it can be very difficult for opposition.

“The first thing is to have good footballers and a collective idea of the play, and so everyone understands the player beside them. After that, you work. It’s ability, and then a series of values, that I think are very important. To think as a group, as a collective, to have to help your teammate. So, in all, we have to be capable of uniting these individual talents. Or a similar idea, then we’re on the right track.”

That doesn’t mean things won’t occasionally go wrong, as has been the case this season. Valencia have missed Manchester United’s Andreas Pereira, who was on loan at the Mestalla last season, and there is a sense Marcelino is figuring out his best XI again, removing some of that focus; that lack of hesitation. It’s still hard to say whether Michy Batshuayi or Kevin Gameiro – who got his first goal for the club on Saturday – is best partnering Rodrigo in attack, and there is the challenge of fitting a few technically similar players into a 4-4-2.

Marcelino however also believes these are natural problems a club of Valencia’s size right now will face, in a competition like the Champions League.

Marcelino's Valencia face Manchester United on Tuesday evening (EPA)

“It’s very difficult, it’s very difficult, the fourth place. Football has now changed a lot. There are clubs who economically are very, very powerful, they have seven times the economic power of Valencia, so you need a long view. I think we go in a league where we have two teams who are the most important in the world, then another who have grown a lot in the last few years, Atletico Madrid. For the rest of the Spanish league, it’s very difficult to reach their level. Us, we have to work with a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of energy to get close to last year. To be in the Champions, as well, it will put on a expenditure of energy very large. And let’s see where we can go.”

They go to Old Trafford on Tuesday, not as fearsomely focused as they were last season… but really not to be underestimated either.