Dark Savante
24 Oct 2005, 12:39 PM
Replacing SAF. Does it scare you?
Amongst top clubs in world football we are in the most unique of situations with regard to our manager. Scour every single top club out there and you will not find a manager who has been at the helm for a decade and a half. You will also struggle to find a manager who has left such a legacy and turned a club around as absolutely as Alex Ferguson has done in his time here. Indeed, without him I’m sure that most of you who fell in love with this club in the 90’s may have never been exposed to our firebrand football and teams of the time. I’m not even sure it can really be comprehended how much he did to change the fate of this club and bring it out from the shadows of Merseyside who between them, effectively dominated English football for a decade and a half.
He came in and destroyed the drinking culture. Out with the gamblers and dossers and in with his strict disciplinarian code of conduct. From grass roots right to the top Alex fixed everything about the club. No stone was left unturned and it is to such a point that it can be said the man is an institution matched only by Busby at this club. Along with Shankley, Paisley, Busby, Clough and Chapman Fergie can be considered the greatest manager ever seen in English football… so much so that he was knighted for his achievements whilst still in the hot seat!!
If you supported this club when people like Atkinson, Sexton or Doherty were in charge you must truly have a deep understanding of what he has done for us, where he has taken us and where we are today because of him and probably like me you fear the day he retires or heaven forbid is sacked. I hear names like O’Neil, Le Guen and other small timers being mentioned as candidates people would like to see take over from the great man and I shudder. You need a very special character to take this job after such a great has vacated. You need to believe in yourself and your view of the game. Be prepared to be slaughtered if you do not play attacking football AND be successful and you will forever be compared to Ferguson until you are successful in your own right. I see maybe 3 or 4 managers in world football with the credentials to take this job..namely: Mourinho, Scolari, Capello and Hiddink. Like them or loathe them these men have proven to be steadfast in their beliefs, have a fire and energy coarsing through them and are able to get the very best out of those who play for them.
Fact would still remain that in new hands I would still be nervous about this club. Where will we find a manager who respects what Manchester United is? Encourages youth development to the extent Fergie has done, will keep faith with youngsters until they find their feet and keeps the ideologies of the club alive with attacking and exhilarating football? The task is not big… it is mammoth. I bet there wont be many managers who throw their hand into the ring when the seat becomes vacant… not those with a standing in the game that they are not prepared to put on the line anyway. Without a doubt if Fergie is sacked there will be riots and an active anti Glazer sentiment to the point of physical violence. People love to hate our manager, but in the end ,amy feel he is theirs to slate – not many none idiots mean what they say when slating Fergie in the latest tirade for a bad set of results – like a family member even if on the surface you’re angry with him at no point in time do you really want him out (do you?)
I’m sure the bond for our manager could and probably should be less if you’ve started supporting the club in say, the last 6yrs. After all, we are a club who expect to be challenging for the league every year (because of Ferguson) and because of the bar set by SAF himself this is the standard to which he can be scrutinised, I suppose, I do think that for the first time in years that Fergie’s job could be on the line if we fall below our new ‘owners’ expectations/needs and I think it would be an absolute tragedy if Fergie is sacked instead of retiring in his own time on his own terms, but this romanticism may have no place in reality if things don’t go well, lest we forget, but for a billionaires toy we are doing as well as could be expected with our current woes and to compete with that kind of.. wealth.. can only be done via a strong youth system and turn out of talent mixed with a few strong buys from the transfer market.
For any normal club with a budget and a financial structure to compete directly with a club that doesn’t generate it’s funds via on the field success and gate receipts you would need an inexorbitantly rich owner of your own to play with the transfer market without a care in the world or any restrictions whatsoever… certainly not something that has ever happened before in England… and I think it’s unfair of certain fans to blame Fergie for that. Make no bones about it – for us to win the league anytime in the near future we will need a full compliment of players firing on all cylinders. Right now we are on course for a 76pt season, that isn’t good enough to win the league, but with the squad recovering from injuries as the months go on I would expect us to turn more draws into wins and then we’d probably be on course for a 86-90pt season! For a real team that is enough to win the league. Simple as that, and surely it would suggest Fergie has not slipped? He can’t be held responsible for players who ******** up on the pitch. He doesn’t tell O’Shea to go out there and have a ‘mare before the game kicks off… he doesn’t tell Rio to look like a shadow of himself either…but for now it is the best we have got and all things considered, we are really not doing too badly at all… in fact isn’t this our best start to a season in something like a decade??
We complain about formations especially, but people must surely see why we have to use the systems we do at times? Our 4-4-2 is most definitely not a universal system with the personnel we have implementing it (you really shouldn’t put any of Smith, Scholes or Fletcher in a 4-4-2 nor even Keane for that matter) but it’s still our best system and it is still the system the players feel the most comfortable in. Again is Fergie to blame for this? I hate our ‘4-3-3’ but it is simple common sense to use it sometimes. If you’re going to play the topmost teams with a 4-4-2 you need two superb and spritely CM’s either both being neutral (willing to go back and forth alternately) or one defensive maestro and one attacking one. If I can figure that out then I’m sure one of the greatest managers the English division has ever seen knows it as well. The machinations of the fans and the reality the manager has to deal with because of his compliment of players is something we should live with don’t you think? I have a feeling that Fergie’s last gift to this club will be one more great, great team he is the process of putting the pieces in place for.. I think it will take 2-3yrs to get this new team off the ground and until then I don’t really think we can take the league, but in the meantime I hope he does not get sacked and that fans can get behind him during the biggest rebuild we have seen since his first major one at the start of the 90’s. I would not be comfortable with a new manager here until at least the new Fergie super team is off the ground and running (less for the new guy to ******** up that way) and I’m sure I wont be the only one to admit that in terms of us losing our manager, it is a day I dread.
What do you think to do mutterings and Fergie bashing? Would you want to see a new manager here? Do you think some fans need to accept Fergie may have lost a little of his magic and that it is time to find a new spark? Who the hell can you realistically put forward as a name to take over after him?
Thoughts people.
Amongst top clubs in world football we are in the most unique of situations with regard to our manager. Scour every single top club out there and you will not find a manager who has been at the helm for a decade and a half. You will also struggle to find a manager who has left such a legacy and turned a club around as absolutely as Alex Ferguson has done in his time here. Indeed, without him I’m sure that most of you who fell in love with this club in the 90’s may have never been exposed to our firebrand football and teams of the time. I’m not even sure it can really be comprehended how much he did to change the fate of this club and bring it out from the shadows of Merseyside who between them, effectively dominated English football for a decade and a half.
He came in and destroyed the drinking culture. Out with the gamblers and dossers and in with his strict disciplinarian code of conduct. From grass roots right to the top Alex fixed everything about the club. No stone was left unturned and it is to such a point that it can be said the man is an institution matched only by Busby at this club. Along with Shankley, Paisley, Busby, Clough and Chapman Fergie can be considered the greatest manager ever seen in English football… so much so that he was knighted for his achievements whilst still in the hot seat!!
If you supported this club when people like Atkinson, Sexton or Doherty were in charge you must truly have a deep understanding of what he has done for us, where he has taken us and where we are today because of him and probably like me you fear the day he retires or heaven forbid is sacked. I hear names like O’Neil, Le Guen and other small timers being mentioned as candidates people would like to see take over from the great man and I shudder. You need a very special character to take this job after such a great has vacated. You need to believe in yourself and your view of the game. Be prepared to be slaughtered if you do not play attacking football AND be successful and you will forever be compared to Ferguson until you are successful in your own right. I see maybe 3 or 4 managers in world football with the credentials to take this job..namely: Mourinho, Scolari, Capello and Hiddink. Like them or loathe them these men have proven to be steadfast in their beliefs, have a fire and energy coarsing through them and are able to get the very best out of those who play for them.
Fact would still remain that in new hands I would still be nervous about this club. Where will we find a manager who respects what Manchester United is? Encourages youth development to the extent Fergie has done, will keep faith with youngsters until they find their feet and keeps the ideologies of the club alive with attacking and exhilarating football? The task is not big… it is mammoth. I bet there wont be many managers who throw their hand into the ring when the seat becomes vacant… not those with a standing in the game that they are not prepared to put on the line anyway. Without a doubt if Fergie is sacked there will be riots and an active anti Glazer sentiment to the point of physical violence. People love to hate our manager, but in the end ,amy feel he is theirs to slate – not many none idiots mean what they say when slating Fergie in the latest tirade for a bad set of results – like a family member even if on the surface you’re angry with him at no point in time do you really want him out (do you?)
I’m sure the bond for our manager could and probably should be less if you’ve started supporting the club in say, the last 6yrs. After all, we are a club who expect to be challenging for the league every year (because of Ferguson) and because of the bar set by SAF himself this is the standard to which he can be scrutinised, I suppose, I do think that for the first time in years that Fergie’s job could be on the line if we fall below our new ‘owners’ expectations/needs and I think it would be an absolute tragedy if Fergie is sacked instead of retiring in his own time on his own terms, but this romanticism may have no place in reality if things don’t go well, lest we forget, but for a billionaires toy we are doing as well as could be expected with our current woes and to compete with that kind of.. wealth.. can only be done via a strong youth system and turn out of talent mixed with a few strong buys from the transfer market.
For any normal club with a budget and a financial structure to compete directly with a club that doesn’t generate it’s funds via on the field success and gate receipts you would need an inexorbitantly rich owner of your own to play with the transfer market without a care in the world or any restrictions whatsoever… certainly not something that has ever happened before in England… and I think it’s unfair of certain fans to blame Fergie for that. Make no bones about it – for us to win the league anytime in the near future we will need a full compliment of players firing on all cylinders. Right now we are on course for a 76pt season, that isn’t good enough to win the league, but with the squad recovering from injuries as the months go on I would expect us to turn more draws into wins and then we’d probably be on course for a 86-90pt season! For a real team that is enough to win the league. Simple as that, and surely it would suggest Fergie has not slipped? He can’t be held responsible for players who ******** up on the pitch. He doesn’t tell O’Shea to go out there and have a ‘mare before the game kicks off… he doesn’t tell Rio to look like a shadow of himself either…but for now it is the best we have got and all things considered, we are really not doing too badly at all… in fact isn’t this our best start to a season in something like a decade??
We complain about formations especially, but people must surely see why we have to use the systems we do at times? Our 4-4-2 is most definitely not a universal system with the personnel we have implementing it (you really shouldn’t put any of Smith, Scholes or Fletcher in a 4-4-2 nor even Keane for that matter) but it’s still our best system and it is still the system the players feel the most comfortable in. Again is Fergie to blame for this? I hate our ‘4-3-3’ but it is simple common sense to use it sometimes. If you’re going to play the topmost teams with a 4-4-2 you need two superb and spritely CM’s either both being neutral (willing to go back and forth alternately) or one defensive maestro and one attacking one. If I can figure that out then I’m sure one of the greatest managers the English division has ever seen knows it as well. The machinations of the fans and the reality the manager has to deal with because of his compliment of players is something we should live with don’t you think? I have a feeling that Fergie’s last gift to this club will be one more great, great team he is the process of putting the pieces in place for.. I think it will take 2-3yrs to get this new team off the ground and until then I don’t really think we can take the league, but in the meantime I hope he does not get sacked and that fans can get behind him during the biggest rebuild we have seen since his first major one at the start of the 90’s. I would not be comfortable with a new manager here until at least the new Fergie super team is off the ground and running (less for the new guy to ******** up that way) and I’m sure I wont be the only one to admit that in terms of us losing our manager, it is a day I dread.
What do you think to do mutterings and Fergie bashing? Would you want to see a new manager here? Do you think some fans need to accept Fergie may have lost a little of his magic and that it is time to find a new spark? Who the hell can you realistically put forward as a name to take over after him?
Thoughts people.