The 37-year-old defender could face United in Sunday’s FA Cup tie at Ewood Park, though he expects to start on the Blackburn Rovers bench. Of United, he said: “Any team they put out will be a strong one and if they make changes all the players out there will be wanting to show what they can do. I don’t think they will take their foot off the gas but that means there is less pressure on us. We can go out and enjoy it.”
Brown secured two FA Cup winners’ medals with United, though he did not take part in the final in 1999, the year of the treble. “That was my first full season,” he said. “It was a good starting point but looking back I suppose I was able to take the club’s high standards for granted. Winning is everything when you are at a club like that, and most seasons we were coming first or second. That was what the gaffer [Sir Alex Ferguson] set up – he gave us mental strength and a winning mentality. If you keep winning and everyone’s playing well and there’s a good team spirit it just carries on and on.
“I always thought it would be difficult when Sir Alex left, because he’d been there so long and you couldn’t imagine the place without him. It was always going to be hard for people to come in and change stuff.”
David Moyes and Louis van Gaal found that to be true, even though they may have started with the intention of changing as little as possible, but Brown believes Mourinho was right to make a fresh start.
“His big signings have been brilliant and I am sure he would like to bring in a few more but what they set out for at the start of the season was to make the Champions League and they have a great chance of finishing in the top four now,” he said. “You can see everyone is starting to fit in, to feel what everybody else is doing. It has taken a while but now they are on a good run opponents are starting to fear them again. They are not an easy team to beat whereas before they were getting pushed over a little bit.”
Despite United going 16 matches unbeaten in the Premier League they remain stuck in sixth place, albeit only two points behind Arsenal in fourth, which indicates the strength of the top six this season.
“It’s going to be tight,” Brown said. “At this stage it’s about who has the bottle. United have shown they are willing to fight because after the points they dropped at the start of the season I didn’t think they could get to where they are now. It’s hard for anyone when you keep changing managers – I know that from Sunderland – but the foundations are still there at United and I think Mourinho knows what the club is all about. I definitely think they can go higher.”
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