Ferguson, Alex - Alex Ferguson My Autobiography

‘What about?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know, but we’ve been tipped off,’ they said.

So, on television, Benítez puts his glasses on and produces this sheet of paper.

Facts.

The facts were all wrong.

First, he said I intimidate referees. The FA were scared of me, according to Rafa, even though I had just been fined £10,000 by the FA two weeks previously, and I was failing to support the Respect campaign. The Respect initiative had started that season, yet Rafa was going on about my criticism of Martin Atkinson in a Cup tie the previous year, before the new guidelines had come into place. So he was wrong in the first two things he said. The media loved it, even though the facts were inaccurate. They were hoping it would start a war, that I would launch a rocket back.

In fact, all I said in reply was that Rafa was obviously ‘bitter’ about something and that I was at a loss to explain what that might be. That was me saying to him: look, you’re a silly man. You should never make it personal. That was the first time he tried those tactics, and each subsequent attack bore the same personal edge.

My inquiries told me that he had been irritated by me questioning whether Liverpool would be able to handle the title run in, whether they would buckle under the pressure. Had I been the Liverpool manager, I would have taken that as a compliment. Instead Benítez interpreted it as an insult. If I, as Manchester United manager, was talking about Liverpool and dropping in remarks to make them wobble, my Anfield counterpart ought to know they’d got me worried.

When Kenny was in charge at Blackburn, and they were out in front in the title race, I piped up: ‘Well, we’re hoping for a Devon Loch now.’ That stuck. Devon Loch popped up in every newspaper article. And Blackburn started to drop points. We ought to have won the League that year but Rovers held on. There is no doubt we made it harder for them by raising the spectre of the Queen Mother’s horse performing the splits on the Aintree run-in.

The advance publicity had been that Benítez was a control freak, which turned out to be correct, to a point that made no sense. He displayed no interest in forming friendships with other managers: a dangerous policy, because there would have been plenty from lesser clubs who would have loved to share a drink and learn from him.

In the 2009–10 season he did come in for a glass at Anfield, but looked uncomfortable, and, after a short while, said he needed to go, and that was that. To Sammy Lee, his assistant, I said: ‘At least that’s a start.’

On the day Roberto Martínez, manager of Wigan Athletic, was quoted as saying I had ‘friends’ who did my bidding in relation to Benítez (big Sam Allardyce was one he was referring to), Roberto phoned me and put a call into the LMA to ask whether he should make a statement correcting the story. Roberto told me he had no connection with Benítez, who had not helped him in any way. I think Martínez had spoken to a Spanish paper about the way Benítez saw us, his rivals in England, but was not endorsing that view himself. He was merely the messenger. You would think Benítez and Martínez would have struck up an affinity, being the only Spanish managers in England.

Benítez would complain about having no money to spend, but from the day he landed, he doled out more than me. Far more. It amazed me that he used to walk into press conferences and say he had no money to spend. He was given plenty. It was the quality of his buys that let him down. If you set aside Torres and Reina, few of his acquisitions were of true Liverpool standard. There were serviceable players – Mascherano and Kuyt, hard-working players – but not real Liverpool quality. There was no Souness or Dalglish or Ronnie Whelan or Jimmy Case.

Benítez did score two great successes in the transfer market: Pepe Reina, the goalkeeper, and Fernando Torres, their striker. Torres was a very, very talented individual. We watched him many times and tried to sign him when he was 16. We expressed our interest two years before he joined Liverpool, but we always felt that our contact with him would end only in him receiving an improved contract at Atlético Madrid. We watched him in many youth tournaments and always fancied him. He was ingrained in the fabric at Atlético, so I was surprised Liverpool were able to prise him away. Benítez’s Spanish connections must have helped.

Torres was blessed with great cunning: a shrewdness that was borderline Machiavellian. He had a touch of evil, though not in a physical sense, and he had that total change of pace. In a 45-yard sprint he was no faster than several Liverpool players, but he had that change of pace, which can be lethal. His stride was deceptively long. Without warning he would accelerate and slice across you. Conversely, I’m not sure he was at his best when things were going against him because his reactions could become petty. Perhaps he was spoilt at Atlético Madrid, where he was the golden boy for so long. He was captain there at 21.

He had a fine physique: a striker’s height and frame. And he was Liverpool’s best centre-forward since Owen or Fowler. Another star, of course, was Steven Gerrard, who didn’t always play well against Man United, but was capable of winning matches by himself. We made a show for him in the transfer market, as did Chelsea, because the vibe was that he wanted to move from Anfield, but there seemed to be some restraining influence from people outside the club and it reached a dead end.

His move to Chelsea seemed all set up. A question kept nagging at me: why did Benítez not trust Gerrard as a central midfield player? The one thing we could be sure of in my later years against Liverpool was that if their two central midfielders won it off you they would not do much with it. If Gerrard was in there and he won it against you, you knew he had the legs and the ambition to go right forward and hurt you. I could never understand why Liverpool so often neglected to play him centre-mid. In 2008–09, when they finished second with 86 points, they had Alonso to make the passes and Gerrard further up the pitch behind Torres.

Another of our advantages was that they stopped producing homegrown talents. Michael Owen was probably the last. If Michael had joined us at 12 years old, he would have been one of the great strikers. In the year he played in the Malaysian youth finals we had Ronnie Wallwork and John Curtis there on England duty. When they returned I gave them a month off – sent them on holiday. Michael Owen was straight into the Liverpool first team, with no rest and no technical development. Michael improved as a footballer in the two years he had with us. He was terrific in the dressing room and was a nice boy.

I think that lack of rest and technical development in his early years counted against him. By the time Houllier inherited him, he was already formed and was the icon of the team. There was no opportunity by then to take him aside and work on him from a technical point of view. I made a mistake with Michael in the sense that I should have signed him earlier. There would have been no chance of him coming straight to Man United from Liverpool, but we should have stepped in when he left Real Madrid for Newcastle. He’s a fine young man.

Of the other Liverpool players who gave us trouble, Dirk Kuyt was as honest a player as you could meet. I’m sure he was 6 feet 2 inches when he arrived and ended up 5 feet 8 inches because he ran his legs into stumps. I’ve never known a forward player work so hard at defending. Benítez picked him every game. But then, if something happens in the opposition penalty box, will he be sharp enough or is he exhausted from all the scuffling?

Despite my reservations about him as a person and a manager, Benítez persuaded his players to work their socks off for him, so there must be some inspirational quality there: fear, or respect, or skill on his part. You never saw his teams throw in the towel, and he deserves credit for that.