Ferguson, Alex - Alex Ferguson My Autobiography

Hampden Park was packed with 128,000 souls. To beat the huge exodus from big games, we would run miles away from the ground: sprint away from Hampden towards the terminus, and take a bus from there. It was a three- or four-mile run to the station, but at least we were on the bus. The queues at the ground would be miles long. Miles long. Dads would pull up in lorries and you would give them sixpence each and pile onto the wagon. That was another route in and out. But it would have been unforgettable to get to Hampden for that 2002 final, which Real Madrid won 2–1, to send a Manchester United side out onto that sacred turf.

Carlos Queiroz joining as my assistant was another major initiative that year. Arsenal had won the Double the previous season and Roy Keane had been sent home from the 2002 World Cup, so there was plenty to occupy my mind as we set off on another journey. When Roy was sent off after tangling with Jason McAteer at Sunderland, I dispatched him for a hip operation, which removed him from the picture for four months. Soon after we struck a bad run of form, losing at home to Bolton and away at Leeds. We managed only two wins from our first six games and were ninth in the table when I took a minor gamble and sent a number of players away for surgery in the hope that they would return to energise us in the second half of our campaign.

In September 2002, though, the knives were out for me. The nature of the job is that the public will attack you when things seem to be going wrong. Plus, I’ve never been beholden to the press and couldn’t count on them for support. I never socialised much with them, didn’t give them stories or mark their cards, with the exception – occasionally – of Bob Cass, of the Mail on Sunday . So they had no reason to love me or support me through hard times. Other managers were more skilled at cultivating relationships with the press. It maybe bought them a bit more time, but not indefinitely. Results determine whether the guillotine stays up or falls.

Media pressure is usually where it starts. Whenever there was a bad spell I would see the line: ‘Your time’s up, Fergie; it’s time to go.’ The old line about shelf-life. You can laugh at it, but you mustn’t get yourself in a tizzy, because hysteria is the nature of the beast. There have been so many favourable headlines about me over the years, because the press could hardly avoid writing them, given the success we had, but to be called a genius you also need to accept that you are probably also going to be called a fool.

Matt Busby used to say: ‘Why read them when you have a bad result? I never did.’ And he lived in an era when the press wasn’t as pervasive as it is today. Matt would always ride the waves of praise and condemnation without bothering too much about either.

What we did at all times, in success and adversity, was make sure the training ground was sacrosanct. The work there, the concentration, and the standards we maintained never dropped. Eventually that consistency of effort will show itself on a Saturday. That way, when a United player has a couple of bad results, he will hate it. It becomes intolerable to him. Even the best players sometimes lose confidence. Even Cantona had bouts of self-doubt. But if the culture around the training ground was right, the players knew they could fall back on the group and the expertise of our staff.

The only player I ever coached who was totally unaffected by his mistakes was David Beckham. He could have the worst game possible and still not believe that he had under-performed in any way. He would dismiss you, tell you you were wrong. He was incredibly protective of himself. Whether that was developed by the people around him, I don’t know. But he would never concede he’d had a bad game, and never accept he’d made a mistake.

You had to admire that. In a way it was a great quality. No matter how many mistakes he would make (in my eyes, not his), he would always want the ball. His confidence never suffered. Otherwise, dips of that kind are innate to all footballers, and plenty of managers. Public scrutiny penetrates the body armour, whether from the public, press or fans.

The nadir was reached in November, with the last derby game at Maine Road: a 3–1 victory for City, memorable for a mistake by Gary Neville, who dawdled with the ball and was dispossessed by Shaun Goater for City’s second goal. Afterwards I questioned the spirit of my players, a nuclear option I seldom employed. The dressing room is a horrible place to be when you lose a derby. Before the game, Keith Pinner, my old friend and a diehard City fan, had said: ‘As it’s the last derby game at Maine Road, will you come up for a drink afterwards?’

Amused by the audacity of this request, I said: ‘If we win, aye.’

So after we’d lost 3–1, I was getting on the bus when my phone went. Pinner on the line.

‘Where are you?’ he said. ‘Are you not coming up?’

‘Go away,’ I replied, or words to that effect. ‘I never want to see you in my life.’

‘Bad loser, are you?’ laughed Pinner. Up I went for a drink.

At the end of that season Gary Neville observed: ‘That was a big crossroads for us. I thought the fans would turn on us that day.’

Sometimes a manager has to be honest with the supporters, over and beyond the players. They are not stupid. As long as you don’t criticise individual players in public, admonishing the team is fine, not a problem. We can all share in the blame: the manager, his staff, the players. Expressed properly, criticism can be an acceptance of collective responsibility.

Under the pressure of bad results, we changed the way we played. We moved the ball forward more and quicker rather than concentrating on possession ratios. With Roy Keane present, keeping the ball was never a problem. I said so from the minute he came to the club: ‘He never gives the ball away, this guy,’ I told the staff and players. Ball retention is a religion at Man United. But possession without penetration is a waste of time. We were starting to lack that real penetration. With a player like Van Nistelrooy in our forward line we needed to supply him quickly. Early passes, in from wide, or between defenders. That’s where the change had to come.

We tried Diego Forlán off the front, but we had been playing a lot with Verón, Scholes and Keane in midfield. Verón was free and Scholesy could go into the box. Beckham wide right, Giggs wide left. We had fantastic talents there. Our goal-scoring weapons were the right ones. Van Nistelrooy was relentless in his goal-scoring. Beckham would always get you around ten; Scholes, above that.

Phil Neville was excelling in central midfield as well. Phil was a dream. He and Nicky Butt were perfect allies for me. All they wanted was to play for Man United. They never wanted to leave. The time to let that type of player go is when you see that you’re hurting them more than helping them by using them as substitutes or understudies.

Those players end up trapped between extreme loyalty and a kind of sadness at not being involved more in first-team games. That’s hard for any man. Phil played a great role where we needed stabilisation. He had great discipline. He was one of those players to whom you could say: ‘Phil, I want you to run up that hill, then come back and cut down that tree.’

And he would say, ‘Right, boss, where’s the chainsaw?’

I had a few like that. Phil would do anything for the team. He would only think of the team. For the most part, if he were to play a limited part in the successful functioning of the side, he would find a way to be happy with that. In the end, though, Gary came to talk to me, to see how I felt about Phil’s diminishing role.

‘I don’t know what to do, he’s such a great lad,’ I told Gary.