Maurizio Sarri is finding that at Chelsea after questioning his team’s motivation.
While at Manchester United, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has breathed life back into the whole club after the storm clouds had gathered under Jose Mourinho.
Of course, tactics are important, but unless you are a good man-manager they are a waste of time.
Sir Alex Ferguson was the best at it, and Solskjaer’s decision to involve him around the club again can only be a positive.
And I know full well just how big a part Ferguson’s man-management can play in your career.
Back in 1999 I was on loan at Royal Antwerp from Manchester United and we had a play-off game against La Louviere for promotion to Belgium’s First Division.
It was 0-0 with five minutes to go and their player went through one-on-one and scored.
The referee played on even though it was miles offside, we lost 1-0, and it all kicked off after.
It was absolute chaos in the tunnel: there was fighting going on everywhere, with a guy taking photos only of our players.
I told Jamie Wood – also on loan at Antwerp, along with Ronnie Wallwork – to grab the camera as obviously it wouldn’t look good on us.
Jamie threw it to the floor and got rid of the photographer but things only escalated.
The ref was going for our goalkeeping coach, so Ronnie pushed him out of the way and grabbed hold of the official.
That was it, nothing more.
We got back to the hotel and immediately we had a fax sent through from the Belgian FA slapping us with an indefinite ban and ordering us back to England.
It was crazy – nobody had hit anyone and everything calmed down pretty quickly.
Ronnie got a life ban from football while I was given one year.
I was just 20 and my career was hanging in the balance, in danger of being over before it had really begun.
But then Ferguson got involved.
Baring in mind he had just won the treble and was preparing for the next season, he flew out to Belgium with us for our appeal.
The referee said Ronnie had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and that I had head-butted him.
He was a Fifa-listed ref, whose word was trusted, and it was soul destroying.
Ferguson pulled us into his office when we got back, and told us not to worry, that he believed us, and that the club would look after us both.
He offered us both four-year contracts, which we signed immediately.
And within months our bans were lifted after the ref involved was proved to have lied after another bizarre incident in Belgium a few months later.
Ferguson really did not need to do what he did, going out of his way to help us.
I was just a snotty-nosed kid who had made one substitute appearance for the first team.
But for him to take that time out to help is one of the nicest and more sincere things anyone has ever done for me.
I will never forget it and it just shows how unique he was.
He was the best manager at the best club in Europe, and it was his man-management that set him apart. Only last year I bumped into him on a train.
He was talking away to someone so I sat further down the carriage.
But immediately he called me over, asked me all about my family and we spent two great hours talking.
The job of a manger is more difficult than ever these days.
But if they know how to deal with and get the best out of a range of different characters, as Ferguson did year after year, then half the battle is won.
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