Ryan Giggs: Louis Van Gaal worked more on tactical aspects

The Wales manager also indicated that his managerial style is not influenced by his former boss Sir Alex Ferguson.

Wales manager Ryan Giggs has opened up on who influenced his managerial style after becoming the boss of his national team, indicating that Louis Van Gaal’s system suited him better than former boss Sir Alex Ferguson’s.

Ryan Giggs helped Wales manage a last-minute qualification for Euro 2020 with a 1-0 win over Slovakia last year, but he has now explained that it was inspired by how Van Gaal approached with pre-match preparation methods - rather than what Ferguson did.

Speaking in an interview with the Athletic, he said, “I was under Sir Alex for 20-odd years and he named the team an hour-and-a-half before kick-off."

“There were certain times, Barcelona in the (2008 Champions League) semi-final perhaps, where he would want to work on something. But more often than not everybody knew their jobs. We would just tweak something every now and again. So I had success doing it that way. If players were surprised, there wasn’t enough time to concentrate on that," he added.

“But then, under Louis, he worked a lot more on tactical aspects, new players, different way of playing, different philosophy, and I felt he came into club football still with that international mentality regarding meetings, regarding preparations."

“So for me, with my first job, that was perfect. For the Slovakia game, the players knew two days before, because that’s when I do my meeting and then go out and do the XI v XI. They’ll know when the team goes up. I don’t want it to be a shock for players who, like Ashley (Williams), have performed for Wales before,” he quipped.

Wales were experiencing some trouble last year, but Ryan Giggs managed to galvanize the squad for a last push and manage automatic qualification for the Euro 2020 alongside Croatia in Group E.

However, the Euro’s has now been postponed to take place in 2021, even though the qualified sides will remain the same. With there being no time-frame on when International games will take place once again, Ryan Giggs remains on the sidelines further honing his management skills and pondering upon ways to improve his national team’s consistency.

That being said, it seems like he’ll follow Van Gaal’s ‘professor-esque’ ways more than he will those followed by Sir Alex, under whom he won more than 10 Premier League titles, two Champions League and a plethora of other trophies in his storied Manchester United career.