Sir Alex’s biggest mistakes

Hammondo said:
How does it not? I don't see how it's a mistake he didn't win more at that point. It's not like we were like city are now and failing to win.
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I assume didn’t witness the treble season?

You’re making zero sense suggesting we fluked the CL and couldn’t have won another.
 
Siorac said:
Tevez played more minutes than Berbatov in 08/09. I'll keep pointing this out until my dying day.
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Interesting thing with minutes in isolation, they lack context.
Who started more in the important games?
 
Tactically: Not strengthening midfield for a long time.

Morally: he should have dealt with Giggs.
 
TheReligion said:
I assume didn’t witness the treble season?

You’re making zero sense suggesting we fluked the CL and couldn’t have won another.
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I did watch it, I didn't say we fluked the CL and it would be nice you actually argue with what people said. We didn't dominate that CL, we won but it could have easily gone very differently as there were teams as good or better at the time.
 
Hammondo said:
I did watch it, I didn't say we fluked the CL and it would be nice you actually argue with what people said. We didn't dominate that CL, we won but it could have easily gone very differently as there were teams as good or better at the time.
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I’ve laid a big post out and plenty of people have added some interesting thoughts and opinions yet you post utter shite with no context.

How about you at least try to engage in the discussion instead of tipping up and posting;

“We barely won one and you think we should have at least won another?”

THEN complaining when people don’t argue with what you say.

Talk about lack of self awareness :lol:
 
Glorio said:
Interesting thing with minutes in isolation, they lack context.
Who started more in the important games?
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Hard to say which games should be considered important but Tevez started both league games against Liverpool, the CL semi first leg against Arsenal, league games against Arsenal and City, he was subbed on before Berbatov in the Champions League final.

Berbatov started both Inter games and Porto away, as well as the league games against Chelsea. They were both on the bench for the Arsenal second leg; Berbatov was injured for the home game against Porto but Tevez was on the bench anyway.

The point is that there's no way anyone can claim that Berbatov was consistently picked ahead of Tevez. He sometimes was and sometimes wasn't.
 
Without doubt, Fergie falling out with Utd share holder John Magnier over the racehorse ‘Rock of Gibraltar’ ….the rest is history.
 
Lynty said:
Tactically: Not strengthening midfield for a long time.

Morally: he should have dealt with Giggs.
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If a player was good enough, he tended to let them be in their private lives. Rooney was busted for seeing hookers I don’t know how many times, dating right back to the year we signed him. Giggs was as clean as a whistle until 2011 - he even won sports personality of the year in 2009!
 
From having an amazing midfield to one which although brilliantly functional was no where near capable against the worlds best teams. Thinking fletcher would be give us parity with Barcelona… choosing to not buy the great players which might bridge their gap but instead have the likes of a 38 year old Giggs and Cleverley in there in later years.. very odd for one of the worlds biggest clubs. On paper we were absolute average but in reality the team still won games.
 
There's a few minor ones like signing Berbatov and losing Tevez but not lining up Pep or Klopp as his successor has been catastrophic.
 
AgentP said:
Not investing in the squad after Ronaldo left has to be high up the list. We went on to win two more league titles after that but our squad was definitely way worse than the previous decade. Maybe Fergie was not provided with the funds when Ronaldo left but not too sure that was the case.
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Has to be this. First thing that came to mind when I saw the title.

If we’d properly reinvested in the squad after Ronaldo left, I’ve no doubt that we would’ve had another CL.
 
selling Stam cost us defensively that 2001/02 season..
simonhch said:
It’s so easy in hindsight, and so much more behind the scenes that we don’t know. There wasn’t the media saturation in those days, and social media to know every little goings on.

The things you could say in hindsight that weren’t great decisions:

- Selling Stam
- Announcing retirement, only to change his mind
- Replacing Ronaldo with Valencia and Owen. Valencia was a great signing, but that 80m should’ve brought in 2 world class players.
- Disrupting the best midfield in the world for Veron. Trying to fix what wasn’t broken.

But you can really forgive and forget all of that because he won trophies anywsy. No one was a harsher critic of him than himself.

The biggie is really his retirement. To leave at the same time Gill was leaving, and to pick his own successor, who was essentially a mate, who then gutted the back room team…..it essentially burned everything to the ground. It was the worst succession plan of any top club I’ve ever seen. And it set us back a decade. At that time there was only Guardiola and Mourinho who were big and bold enough to take that job, for us to get neither, to see one of them go to our rivals, and to end up with Moyes…..is just tragic. And piss poor.

I am not laying the blame of all of that on Fergie. Not at all. But he played his part. After all he had given the club over the decades, he earned nothing but our endless gratitude and admiration, but he knew his retirement was coming. The club knew, and everything, EVERYTHING, should’ve been done to get us the best possible manager for the new era. The first new manager in nearly 30 years. And we got fecking Moyes and an inexperienced CEO in the same summer. I remember when I heard the news, and I thought Moyes? From SAF to David fecking Moyes??? And yes, we all tried to “get behind the manager”, but there was no one listening to that speech that didn’t think we had just been royally fecked.
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At the time I was gutted we sold Stam.

He was our only world class defender
 
Azhar88 said:
It is obviously very difficult to criticise Sir Alex Ferguson, but the Beckham thing was, with hindsight, a mistake and it points to a general and bigger issue: SAF didn't like the way David Beckham (and his wife too) were becoming so BIG, bigger than the club and bigger than himself. Sir Alex always wanted to be the top dog so to speak. Sir Alex's influence went way beyond that of a normal club manager, he combined the roles of Chief executive/Coach/Director of Football and probably even chose which pies to sell at half-time too!

This was OK whilst Sir Alex was in post, but it has had repercussions following his retirement. In the Moyes and Van Gaal period both were having to work in the vacuum his retirement created and furthermore because the club technically kept him on the staff (in an ambassador role) he felt he had a right to still get involved in key decisions which were not always for the best e.g. the return of Christiano Ronaldo.

So to summerise, I would say two big mistakes: i) not stepping away fully once he decided to retire and ii) becoming so influential in the successful period that he in effect became bigger than the club, which ironically is something he never let any player become, as was beginning to happen with brand Beckham in the early noughties.
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Some good observations here! I’m not sure about the bolded bit though; I haven’t seen any evidence at all that he’s “felt he had a right to still get involved” in key decisions since his retirement. It looks far more likely that the club have asked for his help and advice on a couple of occasions; advice on what to do post-Jose (bring in Ole as interim, which was great in the short term); help in bringing back Ronnie. I very much doubt the latter was his idea, but if he was asked to help then naturally he would have done. Trying to stop the move would certainly have been interference.

The very fact that the board or whoever have found it necessarily to rope him in at all to help with decisions is a major indictment of the shambolic lack of footballing expertise that the club has suffered from since his retirement. That ain’t his fault.
 
mu4c_20le said:
Not replacing Yorke after the treble year. He'd peaked, should have brought in Batistuta.
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Yorke still did well in his second season.

But yeah still didnt stop Fergie from looking to bolster the attack...

He was interested in bringing Henrik Larsson in 1999 but his approach was quickly rebuffed by the player himself..Larsson confirmed this recently in a podcast.

Also we were linked (as were Real Madrid and Arsenal) to Ruud Van Nistelrooy all season eventually argreeing a deal with PSV and the player in the spring to buy him at the end of the season...we had to wait a further year for that move to come to fruition..
 
replacing Veron and Beckham with Kleberson and Djemba-Djemba set us back a bit
 
When opponents were strengthening, our team was getting weaker each year after Ronaldo left. When Fergie retired, the midfield was a mess.
 
TheReligion said:
I’ve laid a big post out and plenty of people have added some interesting thoughts and opinions yet you post utter shite with no context.

How about you at least try to engage in the discussion instead of tipping up and posting;

“We barely won one and you think we should have at least won another?”

THEN complaining when people don’t argue with what you say.

Talk about lack of self awareness :lol:
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The conversion is about Alex Ferguson biggest mistakes, then it was said winning more CL's with the 99 lineup was one of his biggest mistakes. It's nonsense, we were not the best team in Europe and even if we were then there were plenty of teams close, so the idea that its one of his biggest mistakes is just stupid to me.
 
His biggest mistake in his later years was not pressurising the Glazers more, instead, allowing them to coast off his success.
This definitely cost him another CL title.

Pay the money for Tevez and replace Ronaldo and Scholes with Robben and Sneijder, Fergie wins another CL easy.

The thing that still bothers me to this day is that Robben and Sneijder went on the cheap.
 
Hammondo said:
The conversion is about Alex Ferguson biggest mistakes, then it was said winning more CL's with the 99 lineup was one of his biggest mistakes. It's nonsense, we were not the best team in Europe and even if we were then there were plenty of teams close, so the idea that its one of his biggest mistakes is just stupid to me.
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You didn’t read the OP really that well did you
 
9 Stone Elvis said:
I think people are demonstrating a complete lack of understanding in some of their suggestions here. Fergie built his teams largely on the collective working together and when people stepped out of line in his eyes they were gone. If they put themselves ahead of the team they were gone and if they were perceived to be getting bigger than the manager they were gone. If you look back on the last decade since he left we have seen how signing individuals rather than building a team doesnt work for us. He was right about Pogba that why he got rid. £90m and 6 years later we know it now too. Berbatov didn't have the work ethic, listen to Rio talking about him, thats why he faded out of the picture. People talking about not signing Hazard need only look at the character traits Hazard has shown since to see why perhaps he wasn't a Fergie player.

We had teams with players many of us didn't think were "good enough" on the pitch but its become clear they were the hardest workers and had the right character and that takes you further sometimes.

I agree that Fergie suggesting Moyes was a mistake but I would argue its not up to him to plan his own succession and the real mistake was having a situation where he was given that level of control in the first place. I think he picked Moyes in the hope that he would still be consulted whereas the likes of Mourinho was secure enough in his own status to go his own way.

The one I disagree most with here is the sale of Jaap Stam, I remember him coming back from his injury and looking like an absolute shadow of the player he was, his sale at that point looked great business to me because I thought he was finished. I dont think anyone watching him at that point could have foreseen the comeback he made in Italy to the level he got to.

I think his biggest fault is also his biggest strength. We did need bigger players at various times to kick on in Europe and I think after being burned with Veron (and to an extent Stam and Van Nistelrooy) he wasn't willing to go back for these types of big names from abroad. The other side of that coin however is that he continued to build teams that worked together with little friction and still won titles so its hard to be too critical.
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Well put. I do recall Fergie mentioning that selling Stam was one of his biggest mistake. Stam's autobiography obviously came into that decision and I think it's hard calling it a mistake given the level of control Fergie demanded over the squad. And imo fans have been calling for a manager with similar traits in that regard, i.e. with full player control.
 
I would say not sorting out a long term deal for Tevez and allowing both him and Ronaldo to leave in the same summer was a huge problem, we've never really came close to being at the same level since.

The sale of Stam might have been necessary given he slated his team mates, plus let's not forget Stam was banned not long after for using PEDs, could you imagine the heat we would have got if he had been on our books and that happened?
 
Rock of Gibraltar.

Moyes.

I've played out so many scenarios in my head over the last decade over what lead him to recommend Moyes. I know he backtracked slightly on that decision in his autobiography stating he'd approached Pep, Jose and Ancelotti and they all declined or had agreed to join other clubs; but I do believe he thought Moyes was going to be a direct continuation of him.

Whether it was hubris, modesty or a hope he would still be consulted and be involved somewhat in decisions it set us back years.

On the back of that his farewell speech has had huge impacts on the fanbase. I'd say each manager post Fergie was given too long but their departures may have been expedited had the fans shown discontent earlier. As a club and fanbase we have been far too emotional and romantic and have struggled to modernise.
 
There are 4 periods in his United career (in my 30 year old memory) where you just wonder, could he have thought a bit differently and absolutely dominated in a way you can't even imagine?

1999 - So replacing Schmeichel was a challenge you wouldn't wish upon no one. It didn't go particularly well despite the PL being retained. It's telling that no one felt as though he had been even close to adequately replaced until 2005!

2001 - Stam. It took a long time getting the defence back in order after Stam left. Losing the presence of Schmeichel and Stam in such a short time set us back more than the likes of Arsenal getting better imo.

2003 - The 02/03 year was one of my all time favourites. Good football, a fun CL run halted by the Galacticos, plenty of great individual seasons.

The window that followed...yes we got Ronaldo and he paid dividends eventually, but the first team felt badly compromised and tired. Chelsea smelt blood and pounced in the market (Crespo, Cole, Duff, Makelele, Parker, Geremi) to build the foundations of what would end up being one of the PL best ever once Mourinho took over. The invincibles are a myth. A very good team, but the state of us allowed that to happen - evidenced by the fact we completely humbled them the following season once Rooney was around. He was everything we lacked in 03/04: presence and confidence.

2009 - Losing Ronaldo and Tevez was painful. Irrespective of what happened with Tevez, he was a high quality player and even if we had managed to keep him around with Ronaldo going I'm confident that United's drop off wouldn't have felt half as bad at the time. The team needed a refresh, and it wasn't really until 2011 that it felt like we were getting anywhere.

Then he retired :(

Whether his hands were tied, or it was the Glazers, or if he just didn't see what we now all see in hindsight....you can't help but wonder how stupidly dominant could United really have been without one or two of these pinchpoints?

I'm not juvenile enough to think that it's a disgrace or anything, football is cyclical and it would be ridiculous to expect United to have been more dominant than they were.
 
Dedicating his life to and bringing unprecedented success to this whinging fan base.

The man was a freaking genius who is unmatched in the game, we got nearly 30 years of that genius and some of you still have the audacity to critique and complain.

Just appreciate what he did for us without these hindsight mental acrobatics.
 
Hammondo said:
We barely won one and you think we should have at least won another?
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Why not? In the period referenced of 99-04 I don't see why it's outrageous to suggest had we properly replaced Schmeichel, kept Stam and strengthened as you'd expect from the European Cup winners, that we could have won the title again in the following five years.

In 99/00 and 00/01, fair cop, we were beaten by the better sides at the time in Real & Bayern - both went on to win the competition as well.

But in the following years - baring in mind we sold Stam in 2001, we should have been good enough with him; we lost out on goal difference to Leverkusen in the semi finals in 01/02 after missing chance after chance to bury them, would we have conceded three times in the tie with Stam in defence and a goalkeeper like VDS behind them? 02/03, we were comfortably better than Juventus who made the final, but we froze at the Bernabeu & came up against an outstanding Ronaldo at OT, again you wonder if things could have been different with Stam in defence instead of Wes Brown and a VDS type in goal. 03/04 again, Porto, we were the better team but really poor goalkeeping from Howard cost us at the death - a top goalkeeper is never pushing that free kick out for a tap in, you then look at Lyon, Deportivo, Monaco which was their run to winning the competition and there is no reason to think we wouldn't have beaten those sides.

So I don't see any reason to suggest we couldn't have won it in any of those three years. We were considerably stronger in 01/02 and 02/03 than we were in 03/04, but 03/04 but the tournament overall was weaker that year. No reason whatsoever had we properly replaced Schmeichel and retained Stam that we couldn't have gone all the way in any of those seasons.
 
The Rock of Gibraltar is obviously the one thing that cost us the most in the long run.
Tevez was a mistake to but obviously not even in the same stratosphere of magnitude compared to the first one.
 
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