Ferguson, Alex - Alex Ferguson My Autobiography

Arsenal played a young boy in midfield; I had hardly heard of him – Francis Coquelin – and he barely played again. He was completely out of his depth. The player who really disappointed me that day was Arshavin, who could have been sent off for two terrible tackles, over the top of the ball. There had been a change in Arshavin. You make a mental note when a player who usually gets whacked by everybody else turns it round and starts hunting down opponents. His behaviour shocked me. Arshavin contributed nothing to that game. It’s disappointing, even as an opposing manager, to see this. Eventually Arsène took him off and sent on a younger replacement. They had players missing, obviously, and were not the same without Fàbregas and Nasri.

For that reason I had discounted Arsenal as title challengers. For me, Per Mertesacker, the centre-back, wasn’t a major signing. We’ve seen plenty of that type of player in Germany over the years. I didn’t think he would be a handicap, but nor did I believe he would lift Arsenal to a higher tier. They needed players who could directly influence their performances and results.

I saw this theme developing in Arsenal’s transfer trading. We watched Marouane Chamakh, the Arsenal striker, at Bordeaux. We had good scouts in France but they never rated him. Olivier Giroud was another purchase. Arsène seemed willing to buy French players of that standard and I felt he might be overestimating French football.

After the 8–2 win over Arsenal came the farce of a 6–1 home defeat to City. We battered them for 40 minutes in that game. Absolutely battered them. We should have been three or four up. The referee allowed Micah Richards to boot lumps out of Ashley Young, overlooking five fouls in a row. At half-time we were really controlling the game. Then we had a man sent off just after the break. If you watch it again, Mario Balotelli pulls Jonny Evans first, but our centre-back then brought him down and was dismissed.

So at 2–0 down I made a change and brought on Phil Jones, who kept flying forward. We dragged it back to 3–1 and the crowd went crazy. A famous comeback was on the cards. Fletcher had scored a wonderful goal, so we began attacking, and then conceded three goals in the last seven minutes. Suicide.

It looked humiliating but it was actually self-annihilation. There was never a point in the game when City looked a superior side to us. At 3–0 up they were in a comfort zone, that’s fair to say, but they were not playing a style of football that was tearing us apart.

The last passage of play was a disgrace. It was comedy. And it led me to lean on Rio Ferdinand not to gamble any longer with his pace, which had declined. At his quickest, Rio would show the attacker where to knock the ball and then take it off him. Now he was trying that with David Silva and wasn’t able to beat him in the sprint. That game was a watershed for Rio.

De Gea was shell-shocked. Six goals flew past him and he didn’t have a hand in any of them. We also lost Welbeck, who was becoming a useful asset for us.

After the final whistle, I informed the players they had disgraced themselves. Then we set about fixing our attention on the defensive part of the team. There was a leak in there that we needed to correct. That remedial work led us into a period of stability where we were strong at the back. We worked on players coming back into the right positions, on concentration and on taking the defending more seriously.

We fell nine points behind Man City with that 6–1 defeat, but by New Year’s Day the gap was down to three points. Losing to Blackburn Rovers at home was a real shocker, especially as it coincided with my 70th birthday, though that was nothing new to me. On my 50th we were beaten 4–1 by Queens Park Rangers. I’d suspended Evans, Gibson and Rooney for having a big night out and turning up for training dishevelled. Carrick and Giggs were injured. All of which forced me to play Rafael and Ji-Sung Park in the middle of the pitch. Blackburn played well that day. We pulled it back to 2–2 and they received a corner kick, which De Gea didn’t handle properly, and Grant Hanley grabbed the winner.

In the meantime, United managed to name a stand after me without me knowing anything about it. When I walked onto the pitch, the two teams lined up to mark my 25 years as United manager, which was really nice. The Sunderland players, O’Shea, Brown, Bardsley and Richardson, all former United men, were smiling broadly and very appreciative. I felt proud of that. I was told to walk to the centre circle to meet David Gill, who had an object at his feet. I assumed he was going to make a presentation to me. But as I reached him, David turned me towards the South Stand. Apparently only he and the company who did the work were aware of what was going on. It was all carried out under a cloak of absolute secrecy.

David made a speech and then turned me round to see the lettering. You get some churning moments in your life when you feel, ‘I don’t deserve this.’ This was one. David had worked hard to think of an appropriate acknowledgement of the 25 years. That’s what it was about. David threw me off by saying, ‘We want to build a statue of you, but do you think we should wait until you’ve finished the job?’ His last words during that conversation were, ‘We must do something, but we’re not sure what it should be.’ The answer he came up with was humbling. I had been United manager for 1,410 games. The moment didn’t cause me to think any more deeply about retirement. But after the last game of the season in 2011–12, I said to my boys, ‘That may be it. One more season and then that’s me,’ because it did take a lot out of me. That last minute took it all out of me.

Going out of the Champions League in the group stage was my fault. I took the competition for granted. We had come through previous group stages comfortably and looking at this one I felt it would be straightforward, though of course I never said that publicly.

I rested players: two or three when we played Benfica away. We came away with a draw and played quite well. Then, against Basel, we were 2–0 up and cruising, but ended up drawing 3–3. They had won their first game so it put them two points in front of us already. We won our next two games against Cluj, but Benfica and Basel were still in the chase.

We played well but only drew at home with Benfica, which meant that if we lost in Basel we would be out. The pitch was very soft in Switzerland and we lost Vidić in the first half to a serious injury. They had a couple of good forwards in Frei and Streller and won the game 2–1. Against Basel at home, the players had been complacent defensively, not getting back to the ball.

In the Carling Cup we were eliminated by Crystal Palace, who prepared well against our young players. The League Cup is always regarded now as a bonus tournament. We were also knocked out of the FA Cup in the fourth round after beating Man City earlier in the competition. Because the focus was now on the Premier League, we didn’t make much headway in the Europa League, going out to Athletic Bilbao in early March with a 3–2 defeat at home. I wanted to win the Europa League and represent us in the right way. But our home record in Europe was poor: one win from five games.

At that point the malaise hits you. You’ve been knocked out of the Champions League group stage, you’ve had a 6–1 defeat to Man City and you’re out of the Carling Cup, at home to Crystal Palace. You have a challenge ahead. But we were good at those. We had the energy and wherewithal to concentrate fully on the League. Our form after that, apart from the Blackburn Rovers result, was terrific. Between January and early March, we beat Arsenal and Tottenham away, defeated Liverpool and drew with Chelsea.