Ferguson, Alex - Alex Ferguson My Autobiography

He would receive no leniency from me. I would hammer him for any drop in condition. It was quite simple – he wouldn’t play. That’s the way I always dealt with fitness issues, regardless of the player involved, and I saw no reason to change in the final years of my career.

Wayne had a gift for producing great moments in games. In my final year, when he was left out a few times, and replaced in games, I felt he was struggling to get by people and had lost some of his old thrust. But he was capable of making extraordinary contributions. That pass to Van Persie in the win over Aston Villa that secured the title for us was marvellous, as was his overhead kick against Man City. Those flashes guaranteed his profile. But as time wore on, I felt he struggled more and more to do it for 90 minutes, and he seemed to tire in games.

I took him off in that Aston Villa game because Villa were a very fast young side, full of running, and their substitute was running past Wayne. He came into my office the day after we won the League and asked away. He wasn’t happy with being left out for some games and subbed in others. His agent Paul Stretford phoned David Gill with the same message.

All players are different. Some are happy to stay at the same club their whole careers; others need fresh challenges, as Van Persie felt when he joined us from Arsenal. The urge to fight and flourish would not be extinguished in Wayne. I left him to discuss his future with David Moyes, hoping to see many more great performances from him at Old Trafford.

twenty-five

WE were hardly strangers to majestic individual talent, but it took us a while to understand just how good Robin van Persie is. The quality of his runs was not immediately apparent to even our cleverest players. Even Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick, two of the best passers I ever had, had trouble at first picking up the speed of his movements.

Robin was the leading light of my final season as Manchester United manager, in which we were the first team to win 25 of their first 30 top-flight fixtures. The prize at the end of it was the club’s 20th League title. We regained the Premier League trophy from Manchester City with four matches still to play. Van Persie was my final major transfer buy and his goals, some of them spectacular, brought an extra Cantona-esque quality to an already very good side.

If we had a bad habit going into the 2012–13 season, it was overpassing in the middle of the pitch: players circulating the ball to acquire a feel of it. With Van Persie, we learned in time, you needed to look for that early pass to split the opposition defence. Until we grasped those possibilities, we could not make the most of Robin’s marvellous mobility and killer instinct.

But we learned the lesson in time to make it pay. If Wayne Rooney received possession in an attacking midfield position, he could be sure Van Persie would be on the move, hunting, spearing into gaps. Robin was exactly what I wanted him to be. His pre-season with Arsenal had consisted of 21 minutes’ playing time against Cologne, in Germany, so his match fitness was slightly lacking. The right type of conditioning was already there but we needed to get him into a match-fit state. I was deeply impressed with him from the start.

I said to Robin quite early: ‘Don’t be afraid to instruct the other players. You were the leader at Arsenal and if you don’t get fed, get into them.’ He was quieter than I expected, but with a vicious left foot that would freeze goalkeepers with its force. People asked why I allowed him to take corners as a centre-forward. He would take them from the right-hand side, not the left, when he would be in the penalty box. The answer is that his corner-taking from the right was terrific. Howard Wilkinson remarked to me that season that a study he had overseen had showed a decrease in the number of goals from set pieces. Yet we had scored ten from corners in the first half of 2011–12.

The existing squad didn’t see Robin as any kind of outsider: an Arsenal player creeping onto their territory. Mine were a very welcoming bunch who asked only that the new arrival commit himself to the cause and respect the traditions of our dressing room. I always remember Verón arriving at the club and all the players leaving the training session to shake his hand. They were always good like that. Perhaps the greeting is always warmest for the player who might win you a tight game, an indispensable asset at the very highest level.

Like everyone in the business, I had been reading that Van Persie’s contract was about to expire, but I felt sure Arsenal would reach a deal to stop him leaving. Towards the end of the 2011–12 season, however, I sensed increasingly that he would not be staying in north London.

His agent contacted us. By then he had already been talking to Man City, but the message was that Robin would be very, very interested in having a discussion with us. Eventually City were advised that he would not be joining them, so it appeared to be between us and Juventus; the club had, I gathered, offered him an immense salary to move to Turin.

My thinking was: there are two reasons why a player wants to move. 1. For the glory, and 2. For the money. I could see why he might have wanted to join Juventus – a fine team – for an astronomical reward. The package we could offer was good enough to show him how much we respected him. Our invitation was backed up with great enthusiasm.

Next, we began talking to Arsenal about a possible transfer fee. David Gill phoned Ivan Gazidis, the Arsenal chief executive, a number of times, starting in April, but was told that Arsenal believed they could persuade him to sign a new deal. This carried on for a while until David suggested I should call Arsène directly as he would clearly have the final say on any transfer. By then it had become apparent the boy was leaving.

Arsène’s attitude, understandably, was: why should we sell to Manchester United when we could get £30 million off Man City or Juventus? My response was to point out that the player had no desire to go to our Manchester rivals. Arsène’s counter-argument was that Robin’s view of it might change if City made him a further offer he could not refuse.

It was certainly possible.

These discussions, I should say, were amicable. There was no hint of hostility. We were two experienced managers confronting reality. The sticking point was that Arsène hoped to receive £30 million or more for his best player. It continued to drag on for several weeks, during which time I phoned Arsène two or three more times.

In time we all arrived at the point where Arsenal knew Robin was not going to re-sign and accepted that. Their options were Juventus or United. Arsenal were trying to sell him abroad, but the player only wanted to join us. My understanding is that Van Persie sat down with Arsène and told him United was his preferred destination. Our offer, from David Gill to Gazidis, was £20 million. I warned Arsène that we would never get to £25 million.

Arsène was incredulous. He could not believe that Manchester United would refuse to stretch to £25 million for such a player.

I told him again: I wouldn’t go to £25 million. Arsène asked what my best offer would be. Answer: £22 million. The reply was that Arsenal would take £22.5 million and a further £1.5 million if we won the Champions League or Premier League during the period of his contract.

Deal done.

My intuition was that Arsène was relieved not to be selling Van Persie to Man City, who had already taken Kolo Touré, Gaël Clichy, Emmanuel Adebayor and Samir Nasri from his team. Perhaps he is not a fan of City’s ownership model. And although we had many battles over the years, I think he respected the way Manchester United was run. He said that to me on occasions. I always remember Arsène saying to me about Van Persie: ‘You don’t realise what a good player you’re getting.’