Was selling Jaap Stam Fergie's biggest mistake?

Nah, I think not refreshing the squad more towards the end of his reign was. How many years did we go without signing a midfielder, 7? Meanwhile there was too many players like Cleverley and Buttner getting by because of Sir Alex’s witchcraft.

I don’t think the title winning squad of 2013 was all it’s cracked up to be, and he basically squeezed one last title out of an ageing team running on fumes + RVP. We should have been making signings of Van Persie’s calibre every summer before that, but we basically only went for him because his contract situation allowed him to be picked up on the cheap. We needed to spend more while we were at the top, instead we sold Ronaldo and wouldn’t replace him. For me the rot started in 2009, it just became more apparent when Fergie couldn’t work miracles anymore.
 
choccy77 said:
No,

He spoke to Pep without revealing he was retiring in a year or so & said to Pep, give me a call if you ever want to leave Barca.

Pep never called, had no idea Fergie was going to retire and signed with Munich.
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Yeah sorry he went to Munich first of course. I think Sir Alex right until the end didn't really want to leave, apparently Cathy's sister passing away forced the decision.

Should have really laid the groundwork for Pep more formally in his last couple of seasons before leaving.
 
padzilla said:
Didn't Fergie get wind Tevez was prepared to talk to City, while still playing for us?
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If memory serves Tevez's economic rights were held by a third-party investment company headed by Kia Joorabchian and the deal to sign for City was conducted by the Bitters and them and not United. Although Tevez signed a contract in the summer of 2009, his co-signatory was a company named Harlem Springs Corporate Inc. If Fergie did get wind of the deal, I doubt he would have paid the asking price for Tevez which was in the region of 50 million euros.
 
It was a bad mistake, getting rid of a player for the reasons he did is not ideal. Not sure it was his biggest, there was a few that maybe surpassed that, announcing retirement early, the rock of Gibraltar debacle and Moyes. He fixed the early retirement by agreeing to stay on but by then it was too late, we lost the league, early exits in all domestic cups and one of my most disappointing results ever in the semi final exit to Bayer Leverkusen. Stam at 29 should never have been allowed to leave, and it was sold to Blanc that he was coming to play alongside Stam, so you can tell it wasn't Fergie's intention to sell, but the book caused issues for Fergie it shouldn't have. He has subsequently admitted it was a mistake to sell him.
 
Am I the only one who thinks Fergie selling Stam was a master stroke. We sold Stam in August and in October he was caught for performance enhancing drugs.
Not a lot got by Fergie I reckon he knew and so bit their hand off when the offer was made. I can’t see any other reasons why you’d sell one of the best centre backs in the world. Fergie often said players hit their peak at 28, Stam was only 29 I believe.
 
1. completely ignoring brilliant generations of players from Germany/Spain/Holland fecked us more than most are willing to admit. there was value for every club out there except us.
2. ancient shitty midfield for years.
3. Stam
4. Berbatov
5. never replacing Obertan
 
Steve 007 said:
Am I the only one who thinks Fergie selling Stam was a master stroke. We sold Stam in August and in October he was caught for performance enhancing drugs.
Not a lot got by Fergie I reckon he knew and so bit their hand off when the offer was made. I can’t see any other reasons why you’d sell one of the best centre backs in the world. Fergie often said players hit their peak at 28, Stam was only 29 I believe.
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a year after Stam left we brought in Rio, who himself had a longer drug related ban than Stam.
 
poleglass red said:
a year after Stam left we brought in Rio, who himself had a longer drug related ban than Stam.
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Slight difference is that Stam was 100% guilty, and Rio was punished just for missing the test.
Ridiculously getting a longer ban with nothing proven, than Mutu got for having been found guilty of drugs.
 
Butty19 said:
I’d say falling out with the owners over a racehorse was quite a big mistake.
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This

Massive mistake which supposedly resulted in the Glazer’s taking over ownership of Manchester Utd.
 
elmo said:
Thought it was because of Stam's book?
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That's what I thought too. It's the only thing that sticks in my mind from the whole thing, he pissed Fergie off with stuff he wrote in his book so Fergie fecked him off out the door, as he did with Beckham when he was acting a fool.
Maybe I'm misremembering it but I don't recall it being about a regular transfer. More of a case of anyone who pissed Fergie off was given the boot.
 
Stam was definitely one of the biggest mistakes.
Not signing midfielders to replace perennially injured Hargreaves and Anderson was another.
Not replacing Ronaldo and Tevez was another grave mistake which cost United in the long term.
Not selling Rooney in 2012.
Leaving an aged squad and appointment of Moyes.
 
Butty19 said:
I’d say falling out with the owners over a racehorse was quite a big mistake.
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There is nothing worse SAF did that let the Glazers get a hold of the club.
Its been a slow downward spiral ever since.

feck Woodward.
 
Signing David May. The single most biggest mistake in his career. Not only do we have to see his 99 champions league celebration he’s always on MUTV. He drives me absolutely insane.

Thats a joke btw. Fergies biggest mistake was not drinking the fountain of youth offered to him in 2008. Instead Ronaldo guzzled the lot and now look at where we are!!
 
Sold Stam a year too early for me, a massive downgrade replacing him with Blanc!

Looking back we should have gone for Ferdinand in 2000 whilst Stam was out with an Achilles injury, then had them as a centre back pairing for 2001/02.
 
KingCavani said:
Allowing the Glazers to take a back seat in the transfer market was by far his biggest mistake and we’ve been paying for it for a decade.
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padzilla said:
There's a question if Fergie was complicit with the Glazers destroying the club after accepting their reduction in standards in exchange for him being more or less answerable to nobody in the running of the team.
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Both correct. His fascination with horses he didn’t actually (really) own was also a contributing factor if we’re really honest. A legend nonetheless.

We replaced the best player in the world and Carlos Tevez with Gabriel Obertan and Micheal Owen; a man who had just released a fitness brochure in order to get a move to the first club he could find. Jesus.
 
poleglass red said:
He fixed the early retirement by agreeing to stay on but by then it was too late, we lost the league, early exits in all domestic cups and one of my most disappointing results ever in the semi final exit to Bayer Leverkusen. S
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I always find that to be a myth. The reasons for our early season struggles that year were the weakening of the defence (caused partly by Stam's departure), change of formation, trying to fit in Veron and trying to fit Scholes in a new role.

Our resurgence started a few weeks before Fergie announced his decision to stay in January, and our FA Cup and CL exists came after that anyway. So while his pending retirement might have played some part, I don't think it was anymore more than a minor one.
 
No. Dunno why it was such a big story. We won the league without him.
 
Ali Dia said:
i would say this ties in with “no value in the market” he knew if he sold Rooney we were in big trouble and the owners would need to spend way more than they were probably willing to on fees to replace him. Fergie won despite the glazers. No manager since has been able to.
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Imo it was the first sign of today's problems.
 
padzilla said:
Didn't Fergie get wind Tevez was prepared to talk to City, while still playing for us?
I think this was all Fergie needed to realise he wasn't the type of character he wanted at the club, unfortunately that type of character is the norm in the PL now.
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I can't remember SAF saying anything specific on that front but that's the impression I always got. I mean let's be (and his owner) honest he obviously had their heads turned pretty early in the 08/09 season by City's new found wealth, fee and wages reportedly double what was agreed with United.

When you read about Tevez in various books and in ex player interviews about his time at United. You get the impression he wasn't exactly the most popular character in the squad, multiple accounts that he made zero effort in training, wasn't interested in learning English or integrating himself into the club or area and the likes of Rafael said he was a bit of a Twat who treated young players badly. And given all the unprofessional shit he pulled at City we really did dodge a bullet in hindsight.
 
choccy77 said:
No,

He spoke to Pep without revealing he was retiring in a year or so & said to Pep, give me a call if you ever want to leave Barca.

Pep never called, had no idea Fergie was going to retire and signed with Munich.
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No, not exactly.

From Fergie's book he had lunch with Pep in NY in December 2012. Pep was out of work having left Barca already, SAF at this point didn't have plans to retire as this was before his sister in law had died. Yes he probably wanted Pep to manage United at some point. But by the time of this lunch he'd probably already shook hands on a deal with Bayern. So the timing just never matched up and Pep managing United was probably never a possibility with the way City targeted him, by that stage they'd already hired Txiki etc.
 
stevoc said:
I can't remember SAF saying anything specific on that front but that's the impression I always got. I mean let's be (and his owner) honest he obviously had their heads turned pretty early in the 08/09 season by City's new found wealth, fee and wages reportedly double what was agreed with United.

When you read about Tevez in various books and in ex player interviews about his time at United. You get the impression he wasn't exactly the most popular character in the squad, multiple accounts that he made zero effort in training, wasn't interested in learning English or integrating himself into the club or area and the likes of Rafael said he was a bit of a Twat who treated young players badly. And given all the unprofessional shit he pulled at City we really did dodge a bullet in hindsight.
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Definitely not the impression Rooney gives. Said he was his favourite player to play with and that him leaving for City was a huge red flag to the club’s direction for many in the dressing room, as it was for the fans.

We had to find a way to keep him but the decision was obviously made when we signed Berbatov.
 
He didn't make many mistakes, but as he concedes himself that was a big one. Stam made a full recovery and was dominant for Lazio in Serie A into his early 30s. It undermined the Blanc signing as, even though he was on his last legs, a pacy man-mountain like Stam would have been a perfect and protective partner, in the same way that Desailly and Blanc forged such a compelling partnership for France. The decision was compounded by his struggles to replace Schmeichel which, together, weakened the key CB/GK axis of the team.

I would not blame him for the problems United have faced since his retirement. The club never adapted to replace his unique leadership in a modernising environment and placed football strategy in the hands of bean-counters.
 
Vouching for David Moyes was his worst mistake in my opinion, but even if he'd have vouched for God himself he'd of likely gotten the sack after a few months in.

Not necessarily a mistake but something I've always pondered, why did he play Rooney on the wing & Ronaldo as the striker in the CL final vs Barcelona. Yes Ronaldo became a deadly striker later in his career but back then the decision seemed odd. We lost the game too of course.
If we'd have won I'd probably be waxing lyrical about a genius decision.

That Barca team by the way, wow.
 
KingCavani said:
Definitely not the impression Rooney gives. Said he was his favourite player to play with and that him leaving for City was a huge red flag to the club’s direction for many in the dressing room, as it was for the fans.
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Fair enough but Rooney was only speaking for himself. Other members of the squad and Fergie weren't as enamoured it seems.

KingCavani said:
We had to find a way to keep him but the decision was obviously made when we signed Berbatov.
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We had a way to keep him though, meet the required fee/wages that was agreed at the start of his loan deal. Which the club did but Tevez and his owner wanted the City move (for obvious reasons £$£$£$) despite United holding up their end of the deal.

And let's be honest signing Berbatov had little to do with Tevez leaving we were the best team in Europe at the time and only had two strikers after Saha leaving so it was natural we signed another one, you can't go into a 70+ game season with only two strikers. If Tevez was as good as some think then he should have been able to see Berbatov's arrival as a challenge and prove he was the better player, instead of sulking for a year and getting fat.
 
stevoc said:
Fair enough but Rooney was only speaking for himself. Other members of the squad and Fergie weren't as enamoured it seems.



We had a way to keep him though, meet the required fee/wages that was agreed at the start of his loan deal. Which the club did but Tevez and his owner wanted the City move (for obvious reasons £$£$£$) despite United holding up their end of the deal.

Signing Berbatov had little to do with Tevez leaving we were the best team in Europe at the time and only had two strikers after Saha leaving so it was natural we signed another one, you can't go into a 70+ game season with only two strikers. If Tevez was as good as some think then he should have been able to see Berbatov's arrival as a challenge and prove he was the better player. Instead of sulking for a year and getting fat.
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The players seem to indicate that his shift in attitude came in 2009, so I think the Berbatov signing was definitely a factor. Neville said he was fantastic in 2008 and it was only in his last few months when the shift in attitude came.

There's no way that signing didn't affect the situation. It's not like they brought in a Javier Hernandez or Ole Gunnar Solskjaer -They broke their transfer record and obviously has big plans for Berbatov beyond depth. He instantly was favoured ahead of Tevez in the pecking order, to the point where Tevez was benched in the same week he scored a hat-trick in the league cup. I remember how pissed our fans were about it so you know if affected him.
 
Inevitably there’s a lot of recency bias in people’s answers.

I remember reading years ago (alas I can’t remember where) that he said his first mistake after he took over was selling Peter Davenport on Hughes’s return. Hughes and McClair didn’t work as a pair at all, and it was only after getting rid of him that he realised that Davenport would have been Hughes’ ideal partner.

Not his worst mistake, but part of the reason we plummeted from second in the league in 87-88 to 11th in 88-89.
 
KingCavani said:
The players seem to indicate that his shift in attitude came in 2009, so I think the Berbatov signing was definitely a factor. Neville said he was fantastic in 2008 and it was only in his last few months when the shift in attitude came.

There's no way that signing didn't affect the situation. It's not like they brought in a Javier Hernandez or Ole Gunnar Solskjaer -They broke their transfer record and obviously has big plans for Berbatov beyond depth. He instantly was favoured ahead of Tevez in the pecking order, to the point where Tevez was benched in the same week he scored a hat-trick in the league cup. I remember how pissed our fans were about it so you know if affected him.
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I never said it wasn't a factor at all only that in my opinion it wasn't a major factor. SAF and the club did still want to keep him despite his hissy fits and sulking that season, so Tevez leaving was his decision.

Yeah Berbatov was favoured at first and personally I thought Tevez was the better player and would have displaced him as the preferred choice again soon enough. But he didn't seem up for the challenge and it's not like he didn't have ample opportunities he actually played more games than Berba that year and had only 1-2 less starts.
 
I would say the Rock of Gibraltar affair and the events sanctioning Glazers takeover.

1. Rock of Gibraltar
2. Moyes
3. Promoting the comeback of Ronaldo
4. Stam
 
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Irwin99 said:
Not getting him a proper CB partner and a left back after 99 was one issue that prevented us from winning another European cup. Damn Glazers ;)
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Silvestre was fine as a left back and only performed well in central defense when Rio or Stam were mopping up his deficiencies. The club should have went full on to get that CB you mention by summer 2000 after the obvious cracks that appeared the season following the Treble. Should have went full court press on Ferdinand (who went to Leeds that October), or Nesta, or Thuram, or perhaps moved in on Samuel before Roma got their mitts on him that summer (granted, he may have desired Italy or Spain).

It was obvious following the 99-00 season that defense and keeper were top priorities. That season had seen the likes of Brown, Johnsen, and May all crocked, Berg become shit, and a left back panic signing (Silvestre) chucked into central defense.
 
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