Alex Ferguson is fit to be mentioned in the same sentence as Jock Stein. That is most of what needs to be said on his retirement.
Except to remind that fool Abramovic that Ferguson won nothing for his first four seasons at Old Trafford. I recall in 1990, at the end of Ferguson’s third season in charge, Manchester United just escaped relegation and there were Manchester United fans clamouring for Ferguson to be sacked. The reconstruction of the squad and the installation of his system took time and care. It took a full four years for Ferguson to lay the foundations for the following twenty years of great achievement.
Nowadays managers are not given four months, let alone four years, to mature their designs. There can be no doubt the short-termism of glamour hungry individual foreign owners accounts in part for the relative decline of the quality of Premier League clubs compared to their continental rivals.
SAF represents the head of a very influential power structure within the game – he was a great manager but in recent times it’s been more about influence than ability.
No penalty or sending off against Manchester United since October 23rd 2011 – the longest run in the history of English football.
That’s why they’re champions.
A Casual Observer: that’s a bit unfair I think. Man U haven’t conceded a penalty for so long because they rarely commit fouls in the penalty area. They don’t get many red cards because they rarely commit red card offences. No blatant exceptions come to mind. I’m not a fan but credit where credit’s due in this case.
I’d say he’s certainly a decent enough manager, but I’d also say that his performance has been just about par for a manager who has consistently been able to outspend almost every other team in the league – if not the world. He’s also very often been happy to poach the best players from serious opponents at vital times (Keane, Cantona, Andy Cole, Ferdinand, Veron, Berbatov, Van Persie just off the top of my head – I’m sure there are more).
Whoever Grand Caiman Entity Utd employ to replace him won’t have it so easy. ~
MJ – If you want to do a little research then there is some great data to be found here:
http://www.refereedecisions.co.uk/
Or you could just listen to the apologists and pundits puff smoke up his backside – your choice… it’s only football.
Craig, this is off topic, and relates to democracy in general.
I have a young nephew who is demoralised by the political situation, not in the UK, but in Canada, though it hardly seems to matter any more, all countries are being screwed by the same perverse policies.
His very simple question is, “How do we get our democracies back?”. You know, of the people for the people, representative government rather than government by the rich for the rich.
I suggested he read HD Thoreau’s, “On Civil Disobedience” and in particular think about HD Thoreaus’s statement that, “I meet this American government, or its representative the State government, directly, and face to face, once a year, no more, in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly, Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the present posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of treating with it on this head, of expressing your little satisfaction with and love for it, is to deny it then.”
So, I ask, on the basis that this is really the only mechanism we have to resist Government, how can it be made less damaging to the individual, as refusing to contribute to the State collections is the one thing that will both have an impact on Government, and ensure one is jailed.
Please, can you suggest a political mechanism, maybe a new party for example, that might deliver this blunt rebuke to unresponsive Governments without landng citizens in jail.
It is time we started looking to leaders that can describe solutions, not based on the gun and violent rebellion, that might ensure democracy can be achieved.
What might a political party based on with-holding taxes or citizen directed expediture look like? How could it be achieved?
“No penalty or sending off against Manchester United since October 23rd 2011”
Funny I thought I saw a Manchester United player being sent off on Sunday!
I think the role of the manager as an influencing figure in terms of a top teams’ success in the modern game is overstated. I see such figures as being more akin to chief executives of multinational corporations.
I accept that somebody like Ferguson is an exception having laid the foundations for long-term success. But generally, a manager is as only as good as the players he has working under him.
The quality of the players he has at his disposal is largely determined by money. This explains, why, irrespective of the manager, it’s invariably – with the odd exception – the same four or five teams that compete for the top honours season after season. Statistics show that in the medium to long term, the ability of the manager to improve the results of teams is limited.
From a young age, professional players have been conditioned into playing within the structure of certain systems of play, having honed tactical awareness and individual technique long before they play professionally at the highest level.
I don’t see the managers’ role as extending beyond team selection, half time advice by way of team talks, the nurturing of younger inexperienced players and making substitutions during the game.
Many managers have little or no say as far as transfers are concerned. The current Southampton manager doesn’t even speak English which puts a lie to the myth that their touchline role as communicating information to the players during matchplay is a significant factor in shaping the outcome of matches.
Experienced professional players’ themselves are able to adapt to specific tactical demands of particular games as they unfold in real time without the input of a manager. Day-to-day training is often supervised and overseen by team coaches.
Sometimes teams play matches without a manager having sacked the previous one. Regardless, their form and results remain unaffected or even improve in the interim prior to a new manager being appointed. In this circumstance it’s the assistant manager who takes over.
This begs the question as to why Chairmen insist on appointing a new manager (who more often than not has just been sacked by another Chairman of another team), rather than stick with the current assistant and make the role of an assistant manager redundant. What does an assistant manager do anyway?
Blimey it must be a slow news day.
I gather this is the day the government throws the right some red meat on immigration and benefits. That’s so depressing I thought I might talk about something else! It’s a bit like sticking my fingers in my ears and going la la la
Indeed. Sky News has been virtually wall-to-wall with the Ferguson story. The great British public vent so much passion on stations like Talk Sport. I’m thinking to myself, this is only a sports story, for christ sake.
Resident Dissident – I stand corrected!
🙂
A new bar has now been set – 560 days in the league without a sending off or penalty. It’s a shame we had to wait until the title was in the bag before it happened.
Those are some big shoes to fill.
When Scotland gains independence and Osborne turns even nastier, it should name its new currency the ‘ferguson.’ It’s strong, has consistently held or increased its value over decades, a great export success story, and a winner in both GB and Europe. I don’t think the ‘stein’ would have quite the same associations, Craig 🙂
Casual Observer, I think you grossly overestimate the size of the shoes. It must be really difficult to maintain the success of one of the wealthiest football clubs on the planet.
Don’t forget that he was successful before he came to the Premier League especialy at Aberdeen.
Rob, Indeed. His record at Aberdeen was commendable and we have to remember that he achieved success in Europe on a relatively limited budget. I do actually think that figures like Ferguson do have a positive role to play as managers.
Almost certainly, he has laid the foundations at Manchester United for his successor. But one can hardly argue that his job was made difficult given that Manchester United are financially one of the richest clubs in the world.
Ferguson was in the privileged position – as another poster pointed out – of being able to effectively ‘cherry-pick’ the top players.
In general, within the modern game, I think the role of the top-flight manager is largely an exaggerated one for the reasons I described above.
After having been sacked, it is not uncommon for managers to go from one top job to another – often frequently. This, I think, reinforces my point.
Being a top manager is effectively to be part of a closed shop – a revolving door merry-go-round.
This begs the question of how good these managers really are. If I was to get the sack from my job, I wouldn’t expect to be employed in the same role again, never mind frequently.
Daniel’s comment above on the money, so to speak.
As a soccer-mad friend of mine explained, he said his life-long ambition is to be an soccer manager – bullet-proof profession, huge and regular golden hand-shakes, global travel……..
The salaries being paid to the top players in England are just total madness, especially compared to the salaries paid in Germany, for example.
Daniel’s comment above on the money, so to speak.
As a soccer-mad friend of mine explained, he said his life-long ambition is to be an UNSUCCESSFUL soccer manager – bullet-proof profession, huge and regular golden hand-shakes, global travel……..
The salaries being paid to the top players in England are just total madness, especially compared to the salaries paid in Germany, for example.
Even in the timing of his retirement, Ferguson is a master of tactics. He has been holding back the tide by sheer strength of personality but the time has come to step aside and let the water find its true level.
Manchester United have been punching above their weight for several years now, prospering with far less talent than Man City or Chelsea. Team spirit, tactics, and the terror of having to face Fergie if they lost have filled the gap – a state of affairs that can’t last. The tectonic plates of the Premier League have
shifted some time ago – only friction and inertia have stalled the earthquake to come. Ferguson knows it and has chosen to leave before the tsunami beaches.
Good luck in the future, Fergie. If you’re not ready for full retirement yet, please consider a job with Ross County.
The tectonic plates of the Premier League have
shifted some time ago – only friction and inertia have stalled the earthquake to come. Ferguson knows it and has chosen to leave before the tsunami beaches.
Cor. Can’t wait for the nuclear reactor of destiny to get flooded by the tsunami of fate and swamp us all in the toxic waste of a desperate sports columnist.
Munsterman, your post also brings into the focus the disincentivising nature of the professional game. If top managers know that they will be bailed out with massive golden handshakes for effectively failing only for them to almost certainly walk into another highly lucrative paid job with all the additional perks you described that come with it, then they are unlikely to give a toss about the Chairman of the club they work for or indeed their fans.
But it seems to be the former that bend over backwards for these managers by putting them on an almost God-like pedestal. It amazes me the extent to which the media and fans over-emphasize the importance placed on the manager given that all the statistics point to the fact that on the whole it’s the financial clout of the owners that determines the extent to which clubs are successful or not.
Avram Grant is the classic example. He was an abject failure at West Ham overseeing their relegation from the Premier League. But at Chelsea, he was miraculously transformed into a genius. More recently, at Spurs, Harry Redknapp was widely regarded as some kind of messiah but failed miserably when he went to QPR.
This tells you long-term stabilization and success is related to the nature of the club and its owners not about one man who happens to be at the helm on the footballing side at any given moment in time.
I honestly believe that all it takes to be a decent football manager is to have a good understanding and life-experience of dealing with people in general perhaps in a managerial role in other professions unrelated to football or even sport altogether. If one professional was brave enough publicly to come out and say as much, I think there would be a sea change in mentality.
I remember a John Robertson interview (then of Nottingham Forest) during the early 1980s in which he touched upon the role of the then manager Brian Clough. He basically said that he only ever saw Clough briefly once a week on the training ground and half an hour before and after games during match days. That opened my eyes a lot.
The tectonic plates of the Premier League have
shifted some time ago – only friction and inertia have stalled the earthquake to come. Ferguson knows it and has chosen to leave before the tsunami beaches.
Yeah, yeah, but what about Ross County? Do you think he’ll go for the idea?
He was also a success at St Mirren (as well as Aberdeen which has already been stated). That’s quite an achievement in itself given their opposition in terms of resources.
There’s no doubting that he has made a huge difference even if he had loads of cash to back him up, and I’m no Man Utd fan. He’s been a continued success throughout his time in football management.
“It’s a bit like sticking my fingers in my ears and going la la la”
Which is what I’m doing here. I think I’ll go back to reading previous threads. 🙂
He’s getting more coverage than Her Maj.
I thought football managers were changed round on a monthly basis!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDRBDX3nt_o 🙂
AdrianD,
You might be able to explain Ferguson’s tenure at Man U with the notion that they outspent every other English club – but his performance in his earlier career at St Mirren, and then Aberdeen doesn’t have that explanation – those teams performed the best they’d ever done under his tenure too, without vast quantities of money being thrown at them. Manchester United no doubt grabbed Ferguson for the same reason they grabbed all those players you mentioned – because they figured he was the best guy around at the time, and they could afford whoever the hell they wanted.
“throw the right some red meat on immigration and benefits”.
Craig, do you think it fair that as I went off to work this morning to my low-paid job, I saw a man from down the road who is on incapacity benefit travel to his allotment on his mobility scooter and proceed to dig a 5 x 20 ft pond, as he has been doing for the last two weeks?
He did kind of instituionalise rape, gang banging, drug taking, blackmail, whoring, bullying and had Carter Ruck on speed dial but err…oops, seem to have lost my thread!
WGAF
Football is bent on a massive scale,i am certain.
But nobody has the guts to tackle the deep rot.
They’d soon be whacked.
Coming up next:
Craig Murray gives his topical take on your all your favourite soaps.
Horoscopes.
Bingo.