Man Utd and Leeds United legend backed for return to management five years after leaving last job

Manchester United legend Gordon Strachan is being linked with a return to management after around five years out of the game.

Strachan, who made more than 200 appearances for United between 1984 and 1989, has been out of work since leaving the Scotland post in 2017 following a four-year stint. Before that, he managed Middlesbrough, Celtic, Southampton and Coventry City.

He is now being linked with a return to his home country to take over Aberdeen, who sacked Jim Goodwin in late January following a disappointing run of results. Aberdeen are currently seventh in the Scottish Premiership and five points behind Hibernian in fourth place.

Strachan is now the favourite for the job despite being out of management since resigning as Scotland boss five years ago. Since then he has remained in the game by serving as Technical Director at Scottish Championship side Dundee. The former United and Leeds star is now 66 years of age, and he could return to the club where he first made his name as a player as part of the European Cup Winners Cup winning side under Alex Ferguson.

Speaking about his managerial style and early years in management in an interview with Pundit Arena earlier this year, Strachan said: “I tried to be Alex Ferguson in my first team-talk at Coventry. Halfway through it, I thought to myself ‘I’m trying to be Alex Ferguson here’. I stopped and I went outside the door, I just shut the door.

“I thought to myself ‘I can never do this. There’s only one of him. And maybe I don’t even want to be him. I have to be myself’. There’s only one, I think people have tried, but he was a one-off. Also remember, it’s a different world now, of discipline.”

Speaking about his last job, he added: “I miss the Scotland gig. It was perfect for me at that time of my career. I could go and watch football during the week. It was always on my mind, whether I was in a tracksuit or not. I only had to deal with the media maybe three times or twice – wonderful. I could go and coach and watch football and enjoy the game itself, the love of the game and do very little media work. Not that that put me off or anything, I did enjoy a lot of it, but dealing with that is probably the hardest part of my job.

“The only time I was really happy was coaching and working with players. Then I could go away and do other things that I was involved with, family, so many things I could do. There were other things I had in my mind, working with youth football, how can we make youth football better. I worked with a great bunch of people who I speak to quite regularly now.”