Giving this thread a little bump since the other one with the stupid name referencing Sneijder has been bumped too. Best to keep all the Cleverley discussion in an appropriately titled thread I think.
Nice piece from the Telegraph:
England v Holland: Manchester United's Tom Cleverley driven by burning desire to reach the top - Telegraph
England v Holland: Manchester United's Tom Cleverley driven by burning desire to reach the top
Yaya Toure is not the first to discover that Tom Cleverley does not give up easily.
On the up: Tom Cleverley considered the natural heir to Paul Scholes Photo: PA By Rory Smith
7:00AM BST 09 Aug 2011
As the good-natured Manchester City midfielder endured the frustration of another lost ball, another tackle, another missed opportunity to staunch the flow of Manchester United attacks during Sunday’s painful Community Shield defeat, all he could do was turn to his 21-year-old tormentor and plead with him, half-jokingly: “Please, just leave me alone.”
Cleverley would not be where he is today, though, if he was not possessed of a ferocious appetite for success, a remarkable desire to succeed at any cost.
Today, he is the heir to Paul Scholes at Old Trafford, likely to be rewarded for a fine pre-season with a new, five-year, £40,000-a-week contract in the coming weeks, the boy anointed as the player to save Sir Alex Ferguson the £35 million needed to sign Wesley Sneijder.
He has emerged as England’s next next big thing, called in to Fabio Capello’s squad, expected to make his debut against Holland on Wednesday, most likely as a substitute.
But Cleverley, by his own admission, has “never really had things easy” in his career. His has been a long road. He has reached this far only because of a stubborn refusal to countenance failure.
Unlike Jack Wilshere or Danny Welbeck, Cleverley has already played for four clubs. He has featured in three divisions. He might not even have managed that, had the assessments of his abilities as a 16-year-old been heeded.
Then, he was an industrious but unremarkable left-back. When his scholarship at United’s Academy expired, he was handed a one-year contract but advised to continue attending school as he trained. The message was clear: the jury was still out.
That was, if anything, down to his size. At 5’ 9”, Cleverley does not fit the modern prototype of footballer as super-athlete.
He has the speed of a sprinter, but perhaps not the strength of a wrestler. He did not fit the mould. He was not disheartened. “I was never knocked back,” he later admitted, “but I was doubted.”
Not for long. A switch to midfield under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer helped him to blossom, and a loan to Leicester City in January 2009 helped him to mature. It was at Watford, the following year, though, that Cleverley began to shine.
“We had done our homework, so we knew what type of boy we were getting,” says his manager at Vicarage Road, Malky Mackay, now at Cardiff.
“Determined, single-minded, and focused on being as good as he could be. We sent United a dossier every month detailing his progress. I always got the impression there was a plan for Tom.”
It worked to perfection: better, even, than may have been hoped. “I set him a few targets,” reveals Mackay. “I wanted him to score 10 goals, be one of our better players, stand out in the league.
By the end, he had 11, had won our Player of the Year award and was in the under-21 squad and then, after a couple of training sessions, the team.”
Cleverley returned to Manchester, but still the doubts lingered. A new, long-term contract only surfaced after an impressive pre-season tour of the USA.
Then Wigan – where Roberto Martinez, the club’s manager, tipped him, presciently, as an England star in the making – and cutting his teeth in the Premier League.
Again, he returned. Again, he attempted to make himself indispensable to Ferguson. He is nothing if not persistent.
“It is determination that marks out the sportsmen who succeed,” says Cleverley’s agent, Simon Kennedy, who has carefully moulded his career thus far.
“You need incredible mental toughness. Tom has that. In a way, he is Sir Alex’s perfect player: he loves playing, which is not always the case, he believes in his own ability but he is a little introverted, so he is not arrogant. Just self-confident.”
True, there are the trappings of fame – the city centre flat, the 60in plasma screen, the red-and-black pool table – but though Cleverley cites David Beckham as an idol, he is cut from another mould; given the timing of his emergence, a more relevant one.
“He is a quiet lad, a bit like Scholes in that way,” says Patrice Evra. “He never talks much, just does his job on the pitch. He is a very private guy.
“Players like him are the future for Manchester United. In order to win the league, the manager is not afraid to give young players a chance. I hope this season Tom gets a lot of opportunities.”
His display on Sunday, the one that so troubled Toure and the rest of Manchester City’s exalted talents, will have done nothing to harm that.
Cleverley touched the ball 23 times at Wembley. 17 of those he released the ball first-time, most notably for Nani’s first goal.
“We don’t aim to play like Barcelona all the time,” says Evra. “We just want to be Manchester United.”
Cleverley, it seems, at last, will fit right in.
