Cox: Don't judge Ole on Fergie's 'attacking philosophy' - It didn't exist. | The Athletic

The arrival of Carlos Queiroz and 4-2-3-1 most certainly marked the beginning of pragmatism in our style of play, where, for example, we would be set up defensively and be happy with a draw in our away European games. The thing is, we were still mostly an attractive side to watch outside of those games. I distinctly recall 05-06 being one of my favourite non-title winning seasons. We played sensationally with Rooney, Ronaldo and Saha tearing it upfront and you could sense that we were on the cusp of greatness.

Zombie football slowly crept to the forefront after Phelan became Fergie’s assistant (2008), and became increasingly obvious as the likes of Pep, Klopp and Bielsa showed us the future of modern football.

It’s been 13 years and it feels like we’re stuck in a time capsule.
 
True. Hughes was half decent the rest have been quite poor in management.
 
Tyrion said:
He can be pretentious but he's right about this. SAF was more pragmatic than his ex-players are willing to admit. We played counter-attacking football plenty of times against the likes of Arsenal or Barcelona but some fans act like he managed the Globetrotters.
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That was only during the last few years of his career, SAF career didn't span just 5-6 years.

As usual Michael Cox comes up with lot of shit.
 
roonster09 said:
That was only during the last few years of his career, SAF career didn't span just 5-6 years.

As usual Michael Cox comes up with lot of shit.
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If anything, the zombie football complaints during the last few years of his reign contradicts this notion that we were for the majority of his time a counterattacking team with no dominant style.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
If anything, the zombie football complaints during the last few years of his reign contradicts this notion that we were for the majority of his time a counterattacking team with no dominant style.
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Exactly. We played good football even in latter years but it was poor compared to how it was before.
 
We were never a counter attacking team per se. Just because we can whiz past teams at ease having bloody kanchelski, giggs, becks and ronaldo on the wings people just assume that. Which counter attacking team plays on oppo half most of the time? IT WON'T EVEN WORK!
 
Ferguson's players had a hard work rate

They hated losing

They hated conceding goals

They hated mistakes

They got yelled at if they dropped concentration

They were dropped if they deserved it

They hated being dropped

Ferguson installed that
 
It’s an excellent article when it discusses Fergie’s disciples and I agree that after 2007/08 - the quality of United football took a nose dive in terms of attacking excellence and relied heavily on their pre existing defensive structure which still seemed to keep going.

One of the biggest factors was loss of Ronaldo and building the side around a fatter Wayne Rooney and the decline in decision making quality of the players coming into the side. Declining Scholes and no replacement, wingers were sub par. But we were also on the cusp of a football revolution - one in which Fergie was quite lucky he retired before it fully took hold - only Barcelona exposed his tactical limitations.

What I disagree with is that Fergie didn’t play aggressive attacking football in his prime. Yes there was an element of no control at times and United needed to battle their way out of it but generally speaking they were always the most exciting team in the EPL and would sustain attacks and put teams under siege hence the Attack Attack Attack chant becoming synonymous with United. Fergie was no tactical imbecile which is what seems to be the journalistic trend at the moment.

Said it before but the reason why Fergies players struggle as managers is that he babied them, didn’t really discuss tactical things with them and they just followed orders without question and that does not facilitate intellectual stimulation. Furthermore he was mostly in charge of British footballers and they’re not the sharpest tools in the box when it comes to being students of the game. They all assumed that Fergie management style was easily imitated but had no idea how much work he had put in behind the scenes to get there or how smart he was in selecting the right people to work with him etc.

Just because he might be tactically lesser than a Pep - does not mean he was tactically less than majority of EPL or European managers. That is where Ole is going wrong as he is arguably the weakest tactical minded manager in the league.

Fergie also was 10/10 in all other aspects of management which meant even if he was a 8/10 tactically - his team selections were so good or his reading of players and match scenario, that he could easily compensate for that most of the time. Ole doesn’t have any of that excellence or aura in his locker.
 
Raees said:
It’s an excellent article when it discusses Fergie’s disciples and I agree that after 2007/08 - the quality of United football took a nose dive in terms of attacking excellence and relied heavily on their pre existing defensive structure which still seemed to keep going.

One of the biggest factors was loss of Ronaldo and building the side around a fatter Wayne Rooney and the decline in decision making quality of the players coming into the side. Declining Scholes and no replacement, wingers were sub par. But we were also on the cusp of a football revolution - one in which Fergie was quite lucky he retired before it fully took hold - only Barcelona exposed his tactical limitations.

What I disagree with is that Fergie didn’t play aggressive attacking football in his prime. Yes there was an element of no control at times and United needed to battle their way out of it but generally speaking they were always the most exciting team in the EPL and would sustain attacks and put teams under siege hence the Attack Attack Attack chant becoming synonymous with United. Fergie was no tactical imbecile which is what seems to be the journalistic trend at the moment.

Said it before but the reason why Fergies players struggle as managers is that he babied them, didn’t really discuss tactical things with them and they just followed orders without question and that does not facilitate intellectual stimulation. Furthermore he was mostly in charge of British footballers and they’re not the sharpest tools in the box when it comes to being students of the game. They all assumed that Fergie management style was easily imitated but had no idea how much work he had put in behind the scenes to get there or how smart he was in selecting the right people to work with him etc.

Just because he might be tactically lesser than a Pep - does not mean he was tactically less than majority of EPL or European managers. That is where Ole is going wrong as he is arguably the weakest tactical minded manager in the league.

Fergie also was 10/10 in all other aspects of management which meant even if he was a 8/10 tactically - his team selections were so good or his reading of players and match scenario, that he could easily compensate for that most of the time. Ole doesn’t have any of that excellence or aura in his locker.
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Well said and agreed.
 
sullydnl said:
There's a hell of a lot more to management than just tactics. You can be a superb tactician and still be a bad manager.

That doesn't change the enormous influence someone like Queiroz had though. There's no real question that he was the driving force behind our tactical ideas at that point given (as per the players) he was the one devising them, presenting them and training them.

What's weird to me is people seem to view SAF's ability indentify talent and delegate like that (a quality that was directly responsible for the tactical shift that brought our era of success in the 00's and, in turn, helped cement SAF's place as arguably the greatest manager of all time) as somehow being a lesser talent than having strong tactical ideas himself. Or at least that's how people's overly defensive reaction to the idea that he himself wasn't some master tactician comes across. When in reality what SAF had was probably a rarer skill than that.
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What's also incredible is that someone as experienced as Queiroz (especially after having managed Real Madrid for a season) was happy enough to take an assistant job at the club. I can only seeing that happening under a manager as revered/respected as SAF was
 
Raees said:
It’s an excellent article when it discusses Fergie’s disciples and I agree that after 2007/08 - the quality of United football took a nose dive in terms of attacking excellence and relied heavily on their pre existing defensive structure which still seemed to keep going.

One of the biggest factors was loss of Ronaldo and building the side around a fatter Wayne Rooney and the decline in decision making quality of the players coming into the side. Declining Scholes and no replacement, wingers were sub par. But we were also on the cusp of a football revolution - one in which Fergie was quite lucky he retired before it fully took hold - only Barcelona exposed his tactical limitations.

What I disagree with is that Fergie didn’t play aggressive attacking football in his prime. Yes there was an element of no control at times and United needed to battle their way out of it but generally speaking they were always the most exciting team in the EPL and would sustain attacks and put teams under siege hence the Attack Attack Attack chant becoming synonymous with United. Fergie was no tactical imbecile which is what seems to be the journalistic trend at the moment.

Said it before but the reason why Fergies players struggle as managers is that he babied them, didn’t really discuss tactical things with them and they just followed orders without question and that does not facilitate intellectual stimulation. Furthermore he was mostly in charge of British footballers and they’re not the sharpest tools in the box when it comes to being students of the game. They all assumed that Fergie management style was easily imitated but had no idea how much work he had put in behind the scenes to get there or how smart he was in selecting the right people to work with him etc.

Just because he might be tactically lesser than a Pep - does not mean he was tactically less than majority of EPL or European managers. That is where Ole is going wrong as he is arguably the weakest tactical minded manager in the league.

Fergie also was 10/10 in all other aspects of management which meant even if he was a 8/10 tactically - his team selections were so good or his reading of players and match scenario, that he could easily compensate for that most of the time. Ole doesn’t have any of that excellence or aura in his locker.
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Wholeheartedly disagree with the bolded part. History shows us that Fergie always rose to the challenge, I actually think we would probably have seen the best united side yet with the incoming managers into the premier league like klopp, pep, etc. In my opinion part of the reason our standards slipped a little at the end of Fergie's tenure was that we could steamroll the league even with a midfield of Cleverley and Carrick so we didn't need to open the purse strings at the time. Have to remember, City weren't the force they are today, Liverpool had gone from Hodgson to Dalglish, Chelsea were getting old, Arsenal were Arsenal, there wasn't really a good rival at the time. The only two times we lost the league between 2007-2013 was because we let it slip through our fingers, especially 2012 where we were 8 points up with ~8ish games to go.
 
I would have loved to see Fergie take on Heynkes, Klopp or Guardiola on level a playing field with equal sides in two leg tie.

We probably wouldn’t compete with Bayern and Barcelona in the early 10’s but it would have been fun to see how he would do with an equal quality squad.

Mourinho tended to out fox him a bit but maybe that was just the strength of Chelsea at the time or Real Madrid.
 
LawCharltonBest said:
Agree. Tried claiming that Keanes performance in Turin wasn’t good either based on his bollocks stats
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I watched that match during lockdown for the first time in 20-odd years. Keane has a good game, but he wasn’t spectacular. United had a couple of clearly more influential players on the day. I think the reason why people remember Keane’s performance in that match is because of the narrative around it – and that colours what people remember of it.
 
Its the Athletic...its rich from them saying how pundits deal in soundbites and not meaningful discussion, especially with their recent hack stories in United.

Athletic should be banned from being quoted on this forum.
 
dal said:
United have always been a largely counter attacking team and it’s not that which is the problem, it’s the fact Ole hasn’t won anything yet and that’s what’s building the pressure.

Regardless, what every United fan has wanted for the past 15 years is a swashbuckling all out attacking game like Liverpool and city with a high technical capability, yes Solskjaer is baring the brunt of this, he probably wouldn’t if his results were better but unfortunately they are not.

Its easier for players to concentrate and stick to a philosophy If they can have the ball for the large majority of the game and win it back quickly, something is unravelling, Ferdinand is close pals with Ronaldo, his voice probably reverberates the dressing room, Ronaldo will probably become the player manager.
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United under fergie were not a counter attacking team. We were just really good at it. The problem teams had is no matter what they did they knew we could and probably would beat them. Under ole they know if they sit deep we will look clueless. It is no coincidence that our best result of the season came against Leeds, a team who seem hell bent on playing right into our hands.
 
I wish we wouldn’t link to pseudo-intellectual rubbish like this. Click-bait dressed up as tactical acumen.
 
Son said:
I would have loved to see Fergie take on Heynkes, Klopp or Guardiola on level a playing field with equal sides in two leg tie.

We probably wouldn’t compete with Bayern and Barcelona in the early 10’s but it would have been fun to see how he would do with an equal quality squad.

Mourinho tended to out fox him a bit but maybe that was just the strength of Chelsea at the time or Real Madrid.
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The defeat to Madrid in 2013 still wrankles because we were in complete and utter control until Nani was sent off. Still remember the furore over dropping Rooney for Welbeck too, but it worked a treat.
 
King Azaz the Unabridged said:
Literally nothing in the guy's article is actually saying anything negative about Fergie's tactical ability, though.

Michael Cox can be insufferable at times but this is not a stick to beat him with. I remember reading the guy's work back in the Zonal Marking days when Fergie was our manager and one of his constant refrains was the exact opposite of what you're saying here - that Ferguson was often a much better tactician than he was given credit for.
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There’s a certain strain of United fan for whom it is blasphemy to suggest that Ferguson was not a manager defined by and wedded to attacking football.

When you contrast him to other managers known for, but held back, by their strict adherence to certain principles of attacking football, it is apparent that he was a pragmatist. Ferguson was far more interested in playing successful and winning football, making decisions in both the medium-term and game by game to deliver results, than he was in upholding certain aesthetics or scoring the most goals.

The biggest difference in this regard between Ferguson and Mourinho (who is probably still the ultimate arch-pragmatist) is that one pays lip service to the supposed values and ethos of the club, acting as a politician spinning what he does to appeal to the fans and thereby bringing them on side, whilst the other has no concern for it.
 
Jeppers7 said:
Maybe for you...maybe you preferred pretty ultimately mostly pointless football. But not for me. Exciting attacking winning football everyday.
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In fairness Arsenals football was widely accepted as the best around for about a decade. That takes nothing away from Fergie
 
esmufc07 said:
The defeat to Madrid in 2013 still wrankles because we were in complete and utter control until Nani was sent off. Still remember the furore over dropping Rooney for Welbeck too, but it worked a treat.
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Agreed that was one of our best performances in Europe home and away and still couldn’t get one over on Madrid. Really frustrating.

Up there with Leverkusen and Porto for me as been Sir Alex’s most unlucky moments. The Leverkusen one tops it though. The semi final loss was so hard to take.
 
Son said:
Agreed that was one of our best performances in Europe home and away and still couldn’t get one over on Madrid. Really frustrating.

Up there with Leverkusen and Porto for me as been Sir Alex’s most unlucky moments. The Leverkusen one tops it though. The semi final loss was so hard to take.
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I was only ten at the time of the Leverkusen game but Oliver Neuville’s smug face is etched into my memory.
 
TMDaines said:
There’s a certain strain of United fan for whom it is blasphemy to suggest that Ferguson was not a manager defined by and wedded to attacking football.

When you contrast him to other managers known for, but held back, by their strict adherence to certain principles of attacking football, it is apparent that he was a pragmatist. Ferguson was far more interested in playing successful and winning football, making decisions in both the medium-term and game by game to deliver results, than he was in upholding certain aesthetics or scoring the most goals.

The biggest difference in this regard between Ferguson and Mourinho (who is probably still the ultimate arch-pragmatist) is that one pays lip service to the supposed values and ethos of the club, acting as a politician spinning what he does to appeal to the fans and thereby bringing them on side, whilst the other has no concern for it.
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I think that's going a bit far in the other direction to be honest. Ferguson wasn't wedded to attacking football but generally speaking his teams were pretty much always good to watch and did play excellent football in an attacking sense. He was certainly pragmatic and was capable of flexing his tactics very well but overall I would say him and Mourinho were very different managers in terms of style of football.
 
Ferguson’s Hairdryer said:
Not in the low block, less than 40% possession type of way. We were more of a hit teams on the break with our fast/tricky wingers when the moment came but we wouldn’t just sit back hoping for the moment to come.

The only low block, defensive, less than 40% possession match I remember under SAF was at OT Vs Barca in the SF and we won 1nil. Other than that SAF usual tactic was to simply set one player to ruin the oppositions playmaker, while our other players just played normally or close to normality.
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And we haven't really played that way under OGS either, especially not after Bruno arrived. With the exception of some games against top opponents, but we haven't done it against them for a good while either. And I am really, really getting fed up with this "..but often struggles against lesser opponents" bullshit, because that has not been true for a long time. We haven't been a team that does disproportionately badly against weak opponents for a year and half, and it is a matter of fact that we've beaten lower-half teams more consistently than either Liverpool or Chelsea (not to mention anyone else not called Man City), in the period between Brunos arrival and the end of last season. Whatever our problem is, it's not that. It's just a lazy narrative contradicted by the facts.
 
As a wider point to this article and topic though.

Were united the de facto best team to watch in the legaue under fergie? Sometimes but not always. Did we win a lot of trophies? Yeah.

Under ole are we the best team to watch in the league? Rarely if ever. Do we win any trophies? No.
 
Howl said:
Wholeheartedly disagree with the bolded part. History shows us that Fergie always rose to the challenge, I actually think we would probably have seen the best united side yet with the incoming managers into the premier league like klopp, pep, etc. In my opinion part of the reason our standards slipped a little at the end of Fergie's tenure was that we could steamroll the league even with a midfield of Cleverley and Carrick so we didn't need to open the purse strings at the time. Have to remember, City weren't the force they are today, Liverpool had gone from Hodgson to Dalglish, Chelsea were getting old, Arsenal were Arsenal, there wasn't really a good rival at the time. The only two times we lost the league between 2007-2013 was because we let it slip through our fingers, especially 2012 where we were 8 points up with ~8ish games to go.
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Agreed. Few managers could build more than one or two great teams as their approach had a shelf-life, whereas Ferguson's forever reinvented his teams to adapt to new opposition or new tactical trends. That's what gave him his unparalleled longevity at the top of the game, while others were swept aside by the winds of progress.

How Ferguson left the side in 2013 is only a snapshot in time that owed much to the circumstances around the squad and the opposition rather than any fixed tactical view. And based on every challenge prior, no doubt he would have reshaped and rebuilt that team again. After all, what happened next is that Real won four Champions Leagues with a tactical model based on many of the same principles as United's late 2000s team.
 
I made almost exactly the same points (not behind a paywall :p) on the thread about why Ferguson's 'disciples' don't make top managers.

As I said, it's not a criticism of SAF, it's purely a reflection on the fact that football is barely the same game now as it was in the 90s and early Noughties.

Jose Mourinho was able to come over to England and dominate for a period of time simply by sticking an extra man in midfield and forming that double-pivot/#10 triangle with the two hard-working wingers and the target-man CF. SAF (or Quieroz) countered this by regularly setting United up in a 4-5-1 with Rooney wide-left and Ronaldo wide-right, especially against top opposition.

Pep obviously took this idea of midfield domination further with his idea this his teams should ALWAYS have one more man in the centre of the field (remember that ridiculous Bayern vs Barcelona game when he played 7 in CM?). As we know, Pep took a great deal from the likes of LvG on possession-based, highly-structured football.

Then we had the German 'Gegenpressers', with their ridiculously high-lines and intense pressing, designed to stop the tika-taka sides with their slow, possession-based football before they could get out of their own halves. In doing so, winning the ball high-up the pitch in dangerous attacking areas.

I get, before anybody says it, that this is a massive over-simplification, and there was far more to the development of modern football tactics than these managers and these styles, however, I am meant to be at work, not posting on RedCafe and haven't the time nor the inclination for more detail...I'm talking broad trends and styles here.

Point is, some of the best managers in the world existed at a time when football was a much simpler game and football was more about man-management and getting your recruitment right. Sure, I am not saying hero's of mine like Brian Clough and SAF were completely oblivious to tactics and coaching, however, I highly, highly doubt that they sat watching hundreds of hours of handball footage to work out how to help their sides retain possession, or instructed their players to occupy specific positions on the field at specific times...down to feet and inches. Clough famously preached simplicity, saying it was only pundits who insisted on complicating the game. SAF is widely acknowledged anecdotely by the vast majority of former players and coaches to spend most of the morning in his office, whilst Kidd/McLaren/Quieroz took training.

Truth is, I don't think SAF or Clough really cared to much for excruciating detail, and in any case, it just wasn't necessary. Their biggest strengths were keeping it simple enough that all of their players knew exactly what was expected of them and getting them all pulling together in exactly the same direction, fighting tooth and nail for the cause. Of course, again, I am not claiming they had no tactical insights or ideas whatsoever, that would be stupid. Remember, this is in comparison with modern day football coaches, who treat their teams like chess pieces and drill them like Roman units
 
TMDaines said:
There’s a certain strain of United fan for whom it is blasphemy to suggest that Ferguson was not a manager defined by and wedded to attacking football.

When you contrast him to other managers known for, but held back, by their strict adherence to certain principles of attacking football, it is apparent that he was a pragmatist. Ferguson was far more interested in playing successful and winning football, making decisions in both the medium-term and game by game to deliver results, than he was in upholding certain aesthetics or scoring the most goals.

The biggest difference in this regard between Ferguson and Mourinho (who is probably still the ultimate arch-pragmatist) is that one pays lip service to the supposed values and ethos of the club, acting as a politician spinning what he does to appeal to the fans and thereby bringing them on side, whilst the other has no concern for it.
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I'm not sure that Mourinho is pragmatic so much as dogmatic. Part of being genuinely pragmatic is knowing when you have to shift approach, even sometimes away from defensive football if that's what suits the squad, circumstances or tactical era you're operating within. Whereas (particularly in recent years) Mourinho has seemed wedded to his own brand of reactive football and even the same man management techniques that have seen similar negative patterns emerge at multiple clubs.

If he was genuinely only interested in playing "winning football" then he would have been more willing to modernise his approach as it became increasingly clear that Mourinhoball was less effective and out of touch with the meta of the elite teams. Yet at this point he operates like a predictable and clichéd version of himself.
 
Brophs said:
Michael Cox can - and I can’t stress this enough - get to feck with his pseudo-intellectual autofellatio he passes off as tactical insight.
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He's also wrong. Maybe the players as pundits cannot elaborate on Alex Fergusons mentality, but there's plenty of evidence from the man himself. Usually he was simple with his instructions: "I wanted our players to raise the tempo". "If you're losing, there's no point being cautious, you might as well throw the kitchen sink at it". That sort of thing.

It's weird to me that none of the players/pundits mention this, as tempo basically = do everything quicker = attack more and the only other manager I've heard mention this was Klopp and his "heavy metal football".

TLdr; Alex Ferguson absolutely had a philosophy, and our games against Barcelona in the late 90's were an example of exactly that - fast, heavy metal football against the concerto of Barcelona and their methodical approach. It still holds today.
 
I agree with the overall theme of the article, Fergie was tactically pragmatic. He wanted his sides to show character traits of hard work, grit, fight and to entertain whenever possible.

But he was not a manager that approached every game with the Pep Barca attitude of “this is what we do regardless of the opposition because our plan A is so damn good, you need to counter it”.

I’ve been to several games at Old Trafford under various Fergie teams being quite bored by the football because it wasn’t attacking enough. There’s definitely a sense of rewriting history when people look back on Fergie’s play.

This is realism too and in no way a criticism of the great man, I love him to bits. It’s simply acknowledging that not every game or even every season was full of thrillers and devastating one touch moves. Crazy to expect that.

Rio did a great interview with Graham Hunter (last year I think) touching on some of this saying how the best teams he played in under Fergie were defence first and being tight, compact before looking to set traps. Told a great story of how he fell out with Fergie and some players openly disagreed with his approach in the 09 and 11 finals. Rooney has said the same too. Appreciate these are extreme examples against the best team in the era but I mention because it shows the players knew full well what our strengths were and it wasn’t “attack attack attack”.

As a wider point, I remember a great write up that Jonathan Wilson did when super Fergie retired, praising his genius for always being flexible and on-trend enough to adapt to current tactical vogues.

Yes, Fergie wasn’t the tactical genius of Klopp or Pep but he wasn’t as far off as is sometimes made out and was always self aware enough to bring in the right people to help bridge those gaps. He could see tactical themes and realised where we needed to go to compete.

In short, Fergie was incredibly self aware and analytical but to remember his teams as always attacking is wrong. He was more varied than that.
 
Where has this sudden narrative that SAF was just a supreme man manager and an above average tactictian come from? We are talking about SAF the GOAT here.
 
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AndySmith1990 said:
I wish everyone would leave Ferguson out of it. It's over. Finished. His era is long gone. The football he played, how he managed, whatever he did during his time here is irrelevant to the here and now.

Solskjaer is being judged on his own achievements and failings. Unfortunately it's almost entirely failings at this point and he's shown he hasn't got a clue what he's doing. That's all on him, no other managers come into it.
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Well it's relevant because the manager, the PR department of the club (i.e. the Club), and these fans, who go on endlessly about United DNA, are melded to Fergusonism. I agree that's it's totally irrelevant to present day success. But it's an emotional attachment that is taking an already off-course club out into the proverbial Bermuda Triangle.

Still, I don't have a problem saying that Ferguson's style/tactics don't stack up against the godfathers of footballing philosophy. He's not Sacchi or Cruyff who are cornerstones of Klopp and Guardiola's philosophies. He achieved great things but his coaching tree shows the one-off nature of his man management style.
 
In general, you should not comment on an article you haven't read. However, going off the extracts I think Cox has put 2 and 2 together and got 5.

Is it true that Ole's coaching ability shines through most when he sets up to be compact and counter? Yes.
Is it true that a lot of Fergie's old players have not proven to be attacking coaches? Yes.
Is it true that Fergie never had an attacking style of play and got all his ideas from outside? No.

The quoted bits of the article make it seem like Cox is basically saying: Cos none of Fergie's players could do what Fergie did then the idea of Fergie's style is a myth. This seems a strange bar to set. That's like saying that Ronald Koeman's boring football is evidence that Cruyff's style never existed.

Fergie was very much a great coach with a pleasing style of football to watch. He introduced several tactical innovations and plans to the English game e.g. playing with no target man at Carrow Road in 1993. Developing specialised marking plans for Steve McManaman. Where he brought in coaches from outside it was to help him execute his own ideas e.g. Fergie had tried moving away from 442 in Europe before Quieroz was appointed, with Veron. Quieroz didn't give Fergie the idea. Fergie saw in Quieroz a partner that would help him realise his own vision for how to modernise his team.

Its like people listen to the likes of Van Persie and Rio talk about how Fergie directed the midfielders to look for Robin's runs and ignore it, because the media says Fergie didn't do any coaching in his later years. :rolleyes: The man had clear ideas about the game, he worked on what he wanted to see when his team had the ball and he was able to execute that vision over decades to win trophy after trophy. I dunno why its become fashionable to treat Fergie like he a Scottish Kevin Keegan, pumping up his teams on emotion. Very strange.
 
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