There is a story in Sir Alex Ferguson's new book which is a tantalising hint at what went on at Manchester United.
|||London - There is a story in Sir Alex Ferguson's new book Leading which, even now, more than two years on from his retirement, is a tantalising hint at what went on at Manchester United in those days when their Scottish manager's contentment with life at Old Trafford was perhaps not all it was supposed to be.
In a chapter that deals with Ferguson's career history he reflects on the fact that he has rarely had a job interview, listing only those at Queen's Park in Scotland in 1974, Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1982 and Barcelona in 1983. There is a nod to his well-documented rejection of Tottenham in the early 1980s while the United job in 1986, he points out, was offered to him without the convention of a formal interview. Then, finally, Ferguson throws in a detail that has you double-taking.
At an unspecified time, “later in my career” he says that he met with a representative of Massimo Moratti, the Internazionale owner. Discussions went as far as Ferguson being given a list of players leaving the club, and those whom they planned to sell and then all mention of this episode ends with a joke that his wife, Cathy, would never have been persuaded of a move to Italy.
Rather more pertinent was why her husband might have been, or even why he felt compelled to meet with an associate of Moratti. Perhaps it was after the treble of 1999, the year in which Ferguson's United beat Inter on the way to the first of his two Champions League triumphs when his stock in Europe was high. Or it could have been around the midpoint of the last decade, when Inter embarked on a period of domination in Italy at the same time Arsenal and then Chelsea were eating away at Ferguson's control of English football.
Either way, he lavishes just a paragraph on a meeting recalled as sufficiently serious to constitute a job interview of sorts - and one that could have changed the history of United. The Inter interview went unmentioned in both his 1999 and 2013 autobiographies and, frustratingly, in Leading, which is published today, it is dealt with in the space of 56 words.
The book itself is, as with everything that Ferguson has committed to paper over his career, a compulsory read for those who take the modern history of English football seriously. It is not supposed to be the orthodox football book, instead billing itself variously as “an inspirational guide to great leadership” and, perhaps most surprising, for those of us who saw Ferguson at his least magnanimous, promises methods for “dealing with failure”.
It is natural that successful people, given the time to look back on their lives, try to make sense of what came instinctively to them and understand how and why they came to accomplish so much. The book is co-written with the chairman of a private investment firm specialising in Silicon Valley start-ups and you are left wondering whether it might just be a step too far to try to force Ferguson's blend of ruthlessness and paternalism into the oft-bloodless theories on modern corporate success.
In Leading, he confidently drops in mentions of Snapchat and Instagram when talking about his grandchildren and it would be fair to say he has changed his position on Twitter. When Ferguson suggests that young managers could bypass newspapers and communicate with supporters directly through Twitter it is worth pointing out that Manchester United only launched their own club account seriously on the day he retired, so vehemently was he once opposed to it.
With Ferguson it is not the theorising about success but the details and observations of his life that are most arresting. The recollection of the tension in David Moyes when he came for an interview to be Ferguson's assistant in 2001; the day Ferguson told the Glazers it was unfair that Wayne Rooney was earning double his own salary; Gary Neville's “Arthur Scargill” nickname.
Yet, there is no meaningful discussion of the effect of the Glazers' ownership on a significant number of the club's supporters. Ferguson rehearses some of the core arguments against the American owners, that they have paid out vast sums in interest, that they will eventually cash in, but then the issue is dismissed in little more than three paragraphs, less of an examination than it merited in his 2013 autobiography.
The Glazer ownership may feel to Ferguson like a tiresome issue that pales in comparison with the scope and breadth of his remarkable career, yet it remains central to the life of United today. In a book aimed at the crowded market of management it seems more than a little strange that this particular challenge, among the greatest he faced, with complex factors on both sides, is not afforded more attention.
The intractable issue at the heart of the Glazer takeover was that Ferguson was not responsible for it, and nor could he change it. He was placed in an impossible position and an examination of those factors - with supporters' groups on one side and his loyalty to the continued success of United on the other - would be worthy of a book on its own. His tendency is always towards a robust defence of the Glazers, with no real examination of their opposition among United's support.
That said, if history is to be written by the victors, then this a man who has chalked up more victories than anyone else in his field and is telling the story his way, and his way only. He jokes at one point that in North Korea or Cuba it might be possible to control the press but “it is sheer fantasy to think that anyone in England is going to be able to do the same”. At least, I think he is joking.
Costa entitled to ask if the same rules apply to all
Diego Costa overstepped the mark with that slap/gouge on Laurent Koscielny, and the subsequent appealing and card-waving to get Gabriel and later Francis Coquelin in trouble do him no favours either. Goodness knows, he will pay a high price when the Football Association rules on that violent conduct charge.
Costa would be entitled to ask, however, if his transgressions were worthy of a charge, then why not Fernandinho's elbow on him in August in Chelsea's defeat to Manchester City? Just as last season Costa took an elbow from Martin Skrtel in the league game against Liverpool at Anfield in November that went unpunished. It does not excuse his behaviour on Saturday, but it might go some way to explaining the burning sense of injustice he nurtures.
Why would anyone want to walk in Advocaat's shoes?
There will always be someone prepared to step into the place of a departing Premier League manager, even if that place happens to be as manager of Sunderland. But you do wonder, when the time comes for Dick Advocaat to decide he has had enough of the club, just how the next incumbent will go about convincing himself it's a good idea to step in.
The Independent
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