John Collins on why his former Fulham team-mate is now thriving at Old Trafford

Watching Louis Saha's excellent performance against Celtic on Wednesday reminded me of the player I knew from our three years together at Fulham. The first time I saw Louis on the training pitch it was obvious he had all the attributes to go to the very top and I'm delighted he is getting a real chance to show it this season at Manchester United.

When United were considering signing Louis I got regular calls from Martin Ferguson, Alex's brother and United's chief scout, to ask me about him and I said he was made for a big club. Martin wanted information about Louis's personality and character. I found Louis a very good professional, very polite and a joy to be around. He was well liked in the dressingroom at Fulham and basically a manager's dream.

Louis looked supremely confident in midweek against Celtic. You could sense he felt part of the United team, not just a bit-part player but the main striker. He has not had an easy time at Old Trafford with injuries and probably feeling in the shadow of Ruud van Nistelrooy, and I think it's the best thing for him that Van Nistelrooy has been sold.

If Louis lacks anything it's great self-belief, and being classed as the main striker there for the first time will give him the extra confidence he needs. Sometimes he can doubt himself a little bit . . . he is not the outgoing character people might expect and he gets on with his business in a quiet fashion.

Louis is not one whose biggest asset is coming on and changing games. He needs a run of matches to have self-belief, and he is a full part of the starting XI at United now. There is pressure on him to score the goals Van Nistelrooy did, but there's pressure on a striker at any big club and Louis can live with that.

He scored two against Celtic and could have had five. Sometimes he doesn't take the percentage of chances you might expect, but there's room for improvement in everybody. I think he might agree he should score more, but he gets in so many goalscoring positions, particularly with his pace. With the quality around him he is going to get a lot of chances and it will be disappointing if he doesn't score more than 20 goals this season. He has all the tools required to be a star over the next five or six years for Manchester United.

Louis signed for Fulham in the same week as me in 2000 when Jean Tigana was manager and you could see he was an exceptional talent. I think he scored on his league debut for Fulham and, if I remember right, I put him through for that goal. He is a striker that midfielders love because he can take the ball to feet or run on to passes over the top with his pace.

With two good feet he is also a centre-half's nightmare because he can go both ways. If a player has a weaker side, defenders will try to force them that way, but you can't do that with Louis. He also has a terrific leap and probably should score more with his head. If I was coaching him I would work on getting him into the box and getting headers. He is happy to work hard on his game because at Fulham he was always staying behind and practising his shooting and finishing.

Because I speak French I tried to help Louis and all the French players at Fulham, maybe by passing on a message to a team-mate or with the banter. But Louis worked hard at learning English. It always seemed to me a matter of time before a really big Premiership club came in for him. Now he has to be consistent at United. He can't have one fantastic game and then two quiet ones. He needs to follow up his performance against Celtic with a similar one tomorrow against Arsenal in the Premiership.

Guardian Service