Alex Ferguson My Autobiography (16 page)

Jock Stein would stare at his telephone every Friday night and his wife Jean would say, ‘What are you looking at the telephone for?’

‘It’s going to ring,’ Jock would say. ‘The phone’s going to ring.’

A typical call would start: ‘Lanarkshire police here, Mr Stein. We’ve got young Jimmy here.’

George Best, of course, was one of United’s great European Cup winners. But we were a long way off that pinnacle in this campaign. Wayne Rooney was sent off in a 0–0 draw at Villarreal in September 2005 for sarcastically clapping Kim Milton Nielsen, who had also dismissed David Beckham in the 1998 World Cup. Not my favourite referee. Nielsen was one of the most infuriating match officials. You were petrified when you saw his name on the list. On another occasion, Rooney swore at Graham Poll ten times. Poll, who could have sent him off, probably enjoyed having the TV cameras on him. But at least he had the common sense to handle Wayne as a human being and not be bothered by his effing and jeffing. In that respect, Rooney would have more respect for Poll than he would for Nielsen. That was the game in which Heinze ruptured his knee ligament after his agent had asked us for a transfer.

Meanwhile, after we had been knocked out of the Champions League with a 2–1 defeat at Benfica in December, the press were rolling out the sell-by-date theory. To be criticised for continual negligence in the job would have made sense to me, but the suggestion was that I had lost it because of my age, which was disgusting. As people grow older, they gain experience. There was a phase in football when top players were being hired as Premier League managers straight away with no apprenticeship. Managers with experience were tossed aside. Look at Bobby Robson, who was pushed out by Newcastle. Sam Allardyce, a proven manager, was given six months at the same club. Ridiculous. Having to face the press on a Friday was galling. None would ask me to my face: ‘Aren’t you past your sell-by date?’ But they would write it. They would use the power of the pen to destroy a manager.

Momentum had its own logic. Supporters would say: ‘What they’re reporting is right, you know, I’ve been saying that for years.’ I knew where we were going. I knew we needed a bit of time. Not too much, because at that time in my career I wouldn’t have been granted unlimited leeway. Had I not felt I was on the verge of building another good team, I would have walked of my own volition. I was confident in Rooney and Ronaldo. I was sure the scouting structure was strong. Players would be found to take us back to our natural level. Though we only won the League Cup, there were some good performances in 2006.

Our form recovered after the Benfica defeat, with wins against Wigan, Aston Villa, West Brom and Bolton, which left us nine points behind Chelsea in the League. Then Evra and Vidi
ć
joined. At the back, we practised defensive drills almost every week, especially with crosses: position, attacking the ball, movement of strikers against them, with the full-backs coming into it. We would start off at the centre circle, with two strikers and two sets of wide players, right and left. We’d start off by knocking the ball up to one of the strikers, who would have a shot. As soon as that happened, a second ball would be played out to the side position, from where they would cross, and then a third ball would come from the edge of the box back in again; so they had to react to the shot, the first cross and the ball coming into the box. Three tests in one.

The culture of our game has changed. How many centre-
halves can you name who actually like defending? Vidi
ć
liked it. He loved the challenge of sticking his head in there. You could tell that the thrill of contesting those 50–50 balls animated him. Smalling is a bit like that: he enjoys defending.
Vidi
ć
was a dour, uncompromising sod. He was a proud Ser
b. In 2009 he came to see me to say he might be getting called up.

‘What do you mean, called up?’ I said, alarmed.

‘Kosovo. I am going,’ he said. ‘It’s my duty.’

He had the eyes for it.

The search for new talent crossed continents and frontiers. Gérard Piqué was one we picked out at a youth tournament. The door to good young Barcelona players had been opened by Arsenal’s acquisition of Cesc Fàbregas, so we were sure of our ground in dealing with the Piqué family. Our problem was that the player’s grandfather had been a member of the Nou Camp ruling hierarchy. Gérard’s family were embedded in Barcelona’s history.

Equally they had changed the first-team coach several times, so there was flux. Piqué was a terrific player and I was deeply disappointed when he told us he wanted to move back to Spain. He was an exceptional passer of the ball and a great personality with a winning mentality. His family are all winners: they are successful people. That shone from his mother and father. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to wait for Ferdinand and Vidi
ć
to fall apart. That was my problem. Piqué and Evans would have made a fine partnership for the next ten years.

When we played Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final and drew 0–0, Gérard’s father came to see me in the team hotel – they were really lovely people – and explained that Barcelona would like to take his son back. His parents were also keen to see him come home. They missed him. And Gérard was missing first-team football and believed he could earn a starting place at Barcelona. It was all straightforward. The eventual fee was 8 million euros. He had cost us £180,000 on account of the FIFA regulations in place at the time.

The big clubs in Europe subsequently raised their barriers to stop English raids. They were never likely to allow the likes of Piqué and Fàbregas to leave the country year after year. At our end, spotting young talent in England, we would have paid £5 million for a first-team player. But why were we asked to pay £500,000 for one who subsequently failed to make the grade? Richard Eckersley was an interesting case: Burnley offered us £500,000 for him. We wanted £1 million. We’d spent 12 years developing the boy. The compensation should really kick in when the player makes the first team. I don’t think the selling club would complain, especially wi
th a sell-on clause.

We are all subject to errors of judgment, and I made a few in those years, with Kléberson, Djemba-Djemba, and so on. I was castigated right to the end over Ralph Milne – and he cost me £170,000. I get pelters for that. The coaching staff would tease me: ‘We need another Ralphy Milne, boss.’ All my staff had been with me for 20 years plus. They don’t forget. William Prunier was another one I was mocked for. Even Patrice Evra, in that high-pitched way, said to me one day: ‘Boss, did you have William Prunier?’

Ryan Giggs’ face dropped as he waited for the response.

‘Aye, we had him on trial once,’ I snapped.

‘On trial?’ Evra squeaked back. He was not going to let it drop. ‘How long?’

‘Two games.’

‘A two-game trial?’

‘Yes, and it was a disaster!’

Patrice had found the target.

The first thing you do with a new player is help him settle: banking, housing, language, transport, and so on. There is a process. Language is always the biggest barrier. Valencia’s grasp of English, for example, was a problem. With Antonio it was purely a confidence issue. I can write and read in French, but I lack confidence speaking it. Antonio knew this. ‘How’s your French?’ he said one day. Point taken. But I did point out to him that had I been working in France, I would have made an effort to speak the language. Valencia was working in England, so the same applied to him.

As a player, though, he was as brave as hell. You couldn’t intimidate Valencia. He’s a boy from the favela. He’s obvi
ously scrapped in his life. Tough as anything. In a 50–50,
he would be right in there, arms across the opponent.

Another marquee signing in the summer of 2006 was Michael Carrick. We had admired Carrick for a while and David Gill was receiving feedback from Spurs that they might be willing to sell. ‘What value would you put on him?’ asked David.

‘If you got him for eight million you would be doing well,’ I said.

I’ll always remember the words David came back with: ‘Daniel Levy says you’ll have to go a bit north before they can accept it.’

We haggled for weeks. We had watched Michael playing against Arsenal at the end of the season and Martin told me, ‘He’s definitely a Manchester United player.’ He was the star man. I think the initial fee was £14 million, with clauses running to £18 million.

Michael was a natural passer of the ball at a time when Scholes was inching towards his mid-thirties. What impressed me about Carrick was that he was always looking to play that forward pass. His range was expansive and he could switch the play. The long passes were the ones I felt we could utilise with the players we had. After a couple of months we told him we couldn’t understand why he had not yet scored for us. In training he struck the ball well, but in games he was not a threat from shooting positions. We improved him in that department. We offered him more freedom and tried to release strengths he was perhaps unaware he had. Maybe he had been in a routine at Spurs, where he was the deeper midfield player and seldom found his way into the box. With us, he found new qualities in his game.

He’s a fine player, Michael. He was a shy boy who needed to be shaken at times. He doesn’t start seasons particularly well, for reasons we struggled to understand and which we talked to him about, but generally came right about the end of October. There is a casualness about him that causes people to misunderstand his value and his constitution.

As I left, Mourinho returned to Chelsea, who, in an earlier phase, were home to my favourite foreign player in the Premier League – outside United, of course. Gianfranco Zola was a marvel. I will always remember a goal he scored against us at Stamford Bridge when he drew his foot back to shoot and then paused before the execution. While Zola was devising his artistic finish, Big Pally came sliding in and carried on going while Zola dragged it back. Oh, the stick Pally got that day. Bryan Robson said: ‘Any chance of you staying on your feet?’ But I loved Zola, because he played with a smile.

Y
OU’RE
not the same on the battlefield as you are in church. Away from the game, Arsène Wenger is a cool customer. He’s good company and has a broad spread of conversational topics. We can talk about wine and other things in life. In UEFA gatherings he made it his business to help other managers. He is a conscientious member of our trade. But when it comes to his team – to match-day – he is a completely different animal.

I’ve always felt I could understand Arsène. I could identify with the sharp change in him when that whistle blew. There was a bit of that in me too. If we shared one characteristic it was an absolute hatred of losing. When I lost to Raith Rovers early in my career at St Mirren (they were booting lumps out of us), I refused to shake hands with Bertie Paton, the Raith Rovers manager, who was my great mate and accomplice on the pitch at Dunfermline. Well, Bertie ran after me to remonstrate. Oh, aye. Sometimes you need a wee lesson that you’re wrong, and I was wrong that day. It was a small reminder that life is bigger than the game. When you behave that way, it’s petty and lacks dignity.

By the end, Arsène and I were on very friendly terms. We had survived together and respected each other’s efforts to play good football. But we had conflicts down the years. The opening shot was him complaining about me complaining about the fixture list. A complaint about a complaint. So I fired back with a crafted put-down: ‘He’s just arrived from Japan, what does he know about it?’ Which was true.

For the next two years, it was Arsène complaining about congestion in our fixture list. A foreign coach who comes in and thinks he can play 55 games a season in our League without adjusting is kidding himself. It’s a gruelling, energy-sapping League. That’s why, in the modern game, you have to change the team to spread the load. Arsène learned to adapt to that culture. He overcame the early shock of playing Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday.

The first time his Arsenal side played us at Old Trafford, he came into my office. Our relationship was fine at first. The problems started when he lost a game with one of his good Arsenal sides. He found it hard to accept fault in his team and looked to blame the opponent. He would often do it by concentrating on physical challenges. It was hard for him to accept that opponents might adopt a robust approach against his men. His interpretation of physical challenges extended sometimes to the very act of tackling. He would fix in his mind the idea that no one should actually be tackling his boys.

I watched his best Arsenal teams, though, and was thrilled. I always liked watching Arsène’s sides. Playing against them presented special challenges that I burned many hours thinking about. I always felt I had to examine everything Arsenal did because they presented so many threats across the park. Chelsea presented a different set of problems. There we would be facing experienced players, who knew every trick in the book. Arsenal, on the other hand, played the right way.

They had one of the worst disciplinary records in football in Arsène’s early years, but you could never say they were dirty players or a dirty team. Steve Bould and Tony Adams would kick the life out of you – everyone knew that. They would come through the back of you all the time. But in essence, his teams were never filthy. Volatile and macho would be a more accurate term. They were a combative bunch. Bould and Adams, I’ve mentioned. Then they bought Patrick Vieira, a big competitor who could mix it, get about people. And Nigel Winterburn was a bit of a nark; always chipping away. Ian Wright, their leading striker in those early days, also had a nasty streak.

In 2010, Arsène delivered a surprising criticism of Paul Scholes, telling reporters he had a ‘dark side’. There was no reason for him to pronounce on one of my players. We were not due to play Arsenal that week, and there had been no friction between us. At that time Paul Scholes had won ten Premier League titles and a European Cup, and there was Arsène discussing his ‘dark side’. Baffling.

Players surprise you. They can surprise you in the level of performance they rise to and the levels to which they sink. Arsène struggled to accept that as a contributing factor in a defeat. Football brings out the best and the worst in people because the emotional stakes are so high. In a high-stakes game, a player can lose his nerve for a minute and he can lose his temper too. And you’re left regretting it. Arsenal had a lot of those moments, but Arsène struggled to believe that internal failings and weaknesses can sometimes cause you to lose. The explanation is sometimes within.

I’m not saying managers see everything, but we see most things, so Arsène’s stock defence after a game of, ‘I didn’t see it’ was not one I used. My preferred line was: ‘I’ll need to look at it again.’ It was the same basic message, but this one bought you time. By the next day, or soon after, it’s likely to be old news. Something else will have happened in the great churn of events to move the attention away from you.

I was sent off eight times in my career – and the last one was the most stupid, because I was the manager. An opponent had been kicking lumps out of one of our players and I said to my right-hand man Davie Provan, ‘I’m going to go on and do that guy.’ Davie said, ‘Don’t be so stupid, sit still.’

‘If he takes our boy Torrance on again, I’m on.’ And, of course, he did. ‘That’s it,’ I said, ‘I’m on.’

Two minutes later I was back off again.

In the dressing room I said: ‘If. I. Ever. Hear. A. Word. Of this getting out, you’re all dead.’ I thought the referee’s back was turned when I whacked him. He was 6 feet 3 inches, an army player.

My first clash with an Arsenal manager was with George Graham. I watched the denouement to the 1989 title race upstairs in my bedroom and told Cathy, ‘No calls, don’t put anyone through.’ When Michael Thomas scored the goal against Liverpool that won Arsenal the title, I went berserk. Two years later, Arsenal won it again, beating us 3–1 in the year we won the European Cup Winners’ Cup. I stayed with George after our Highbury game one year. He has this fantastic collection of malt whiskies. ‘Do you want one? he asked. ‘I don’t drink whisky,’ I said. So George opened a bottle of wine.

‘Which of those malts do you open for guests?’ I wondered.

‘None of them. Nobody gets a malt,’ he said. ‘I’ve got blended Bell’s here.’

‘Typical Scot,’ I said.

George laughed. ‘This is my pension.’

Our first meeting at Old Trafford was a war. Afterwards, George was persuaded by a mutual friend to come up to my office. My word, it was hard playing against his Arsenal teams at that time. When Arsène took over after Bruce Rioch’s brief spell, I didn’t know much about him.

One day I asked Eric Cantona: ‘What is Wenger like?’ Eric said: ‘I think he’s overdefensive.’ ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ I thought. And the way he started at Arsenal was with five at the back. But when you see his teams now, you can’t argue for a second that his teams are defensive. Eric’s critique still makes me smile.

At the end of the 1990s, and for the first part of the new millennium, Arsenal were our challengers. There was no one else on the horizon. Liverpool and Newcastle had brief spells of prominence. Blackburn had their title-winning year. But if you look at our history prior to José Mourinho’s arrival at Chelsea, there was no consistent threat to our dominance outside of Arsenal. Chelsea were a good Cup team, but they could never quite scale the peak of the Premier League.

When Blackburn came with an assault we knew it was unlikely to last because there was no history to sustain an achievement of that magnitude. Their League title win was great for football and for Jack Walker, the benefactor who brought such fine players to the club, Alan Shearer especially. That was a tremendous time for Blackburn. Experience tells you, though, only to worry about the challengers who have a tradition of bidding for the big prizes. When Arsenal and United were locked together for so long, you knew the Gunners were sustained by history and a strong identity.

At their ground, in my penultimate year as United manager, I had lunch in the boardroom and said to myself: ‘This is class. Real class.’ At Highbury I would study the bust of Herbert Chapman and feel that any suspicion of nostalgia was outweighed by the sense of solidity and purpose those marble halls conveyed. Achievement was always there, from Herbert Chapman and the 1930s, all the way through.

Their dressing rooms are marvellous. The advantages of building a new stadium from scratch are enormous. You have a blank sheet. Every detail you see in the Arsenal home dressing room reflects Arsène’s specifications. He has covered every requirement for a football team. In the centre of the room is a marble-topped table where they put all the food. After a game, everyone tucks in. Another expression of class. The staff have their own quarters.

So I never ceased to be concerned at the high quality Arsenal could bring to our tussles. History helped us, but it helped them too, and they had the right manager. Arsène was the right one because you always felt that, having been given the chance to manage in England, he put his tent down and was never going to move it. All the while, there was speculation that he might leave one day to join Real Madrid. I never thought Arsène would leave Arsenal. Ever. I’d say to myself: ‘We’re going to have to put up with it. He’s going to be here forever. I’d better get used to it.’

At times it was very edgy. Although Arsène would never come in for a drink after games, Pat Rice, his assistant, would always cross the threshold for a glass, until the pizza fight at Old Trafford.

My recollection of that fabled incident is that when Ruud van Nistelrooy came into the dressing room, he complained that Wenger had been giving him stick as he left the pitch. Right away I rushed out to say to Arsène: ‘You leave my players alone.’ He was incensed at losing the game. That was the reason for his combative behaviour.

‘You should attend to your own players,’ I told him. He was livid. His fists were clenched. I was in control, I knew it. Arsène had a thing about Van Nistelrooy. I remember him saying he’d had a chance to sign Ruud but had decided he was not good enough to play for Arsenal. I agreed with him in the sense that Van Nistelrooy may not have been a great footballer. But he was a great goal-scorer.

Anyway, the next thing I knew I had pizza all over me.

We put food into the away dressing room after every game. Pizza, chicken. Most clubs do it. Arsenal’s food was the best.

They say it was Cesc Fàbregas who threw the pizza at me but, to this day, I have no idea who the culprit was.

The corridor outside the dressing room turned into a rabble. Arsenal had been defending a 49-game unbeaten record and had been hoping to make it 50 on our turf. It
seemed to me that losing the game scrambled Arsène’s brain.

That day created a division between us, without doubt, and that rift extended to Pat Rice, who stopped coming in for a drink after games. The wound was not fully healed until the Champions League semi-final in 2009, when Arsène invited us into his room after the game and congratulated us. When we played them at Old Trafford a few weeks later, Arsène came in with Pat, just for a few minutes.

In football you do see incidents that reflect normal conflicts in life. In our home lives, sometimes. You know when your wife turns that machine off and won’t talk to you. ‘Christ, what have I done?’ you think.

‘Have you had a good day?’ you ask. ‘Yeah,’ she mumbles. Then the anger passes and normality returns. Football is like that. I would have hated the silence between Arsène and me to go on so long that it became poisonous.

At my end of it, I had a formula for defeat. After saying my bit in the dressing room, always, before going through that door to face the press, to face the television, to speak to the other manager, I said to myself, ‘Forget it. The game’s gone.’ I always did that.

Whenever people came to my room at the ground after a game, I always made sure there was a good atmosphere. There was no gloom, no frostiness. No blaming the referee.

When Aston Villa beat us at Old Trafford in the 2009–10 season, it was the first time they had beaten us on our turf in decades. Martin O’Neill, whose conversation I always enjoy, practically moved into my office with his wife and daughter. It felt like an hour and a half. It was a really good night. John Robertson, Martin’s assistant, and a few of my friends joined us and it turned into a real get-together. I ended up needing a driver to take me home.

When we lost in the FA Cup third round to Leeds United, the Leeds physio, Alan Sutton, couldn’t stop laughing and smiling in my office. As he left I said, ‘You’re still bloody laughing!’