Fergie’s role in our current plight

[soaphroniscuss]

More than half of our team the other night were players Ferguson left at the club, and have survived through 4 managers seemingly for a reason, while hundreds of millions of pounds worth of signings have been moved on already.

Ferguson left this club at the highest level in the world, with endless financial capacity and potential to grow. He left a title winning squad in need of improvement with freshening up of about three good signings that summer and a further transition the year after. The catastrophe that followed him is not his fault at all.

To say Ferguson is some way responsible for our descent makes almost no sense and a well considered, credible argument is almost impossible and certainly hasn’t been made here. It’s just nonsense.

You say "argument" but you are referring to two different (but connected) arguments.

1. The poor state of the team when SAF left.

2. Who is responsible for the current state of the club.

There are plenty of credible arguments about "1. The state of the team". See this post from a scant few posts ago for example: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/fergie’s-role-in-our-current-plight.446619/page-4#post-23991169 .

 

[Pogue Mahone]

More than half of our team the other night were players Ferguson left at the club, and have survived through 4 managers seemingly for a reason, while hundreds of millions of pounds worth of signings have been moved on already.

Ferguson left this club at the highest level in the world, with endless financial capacity and potential to grow. He left a title winning squad in need of improvement with freshening up of about three good signings that summer and a further transition the year after. The catastrophe that followed him is not his fault at all.

To say Ferguson is some way responsible for our descent makes almost no sense and a well considered, credible argument is almost impossible and certainly hasn’t been made here. It’s just nonsense.

You’re conflating two different arguments.

a) Has the squad building job since Fergie left been badly handled?
b) Did Fergie leave one hell of a difficult squad building job for his successor?

The answer to a) is obviously yes. I think it’s fairly obvious (see squad analysis above) that the answer to b) is also yes.

The one mitigating factor is the possibility that Fergie deliberately cut corners in the transfer market in his last few years, so he could save the club enough money to give Moyes a shit-load of money to spend. That’s definite possible but I don’t think we’ll ever know for certain. He’s certainly not made the claim in any of his books or interviews.

 

[Ramshock]

Probably not gonna be a popular topic on here, but I’m wondering how to assess Fergie’s role in our predicament? I don’t want to shit on his legacy, which is obviously ultimately defined by the bulging trophy cabinet and our re-emergence as a major domestic and European power, but I’d be interested to hear honest takes on how some of his decisions might have contributed to our decline. I always remember his assurances that the club wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the post-Busby years once he’d gone and that a smooth transition was the number one priority. Yet here we are.

Fergie's recruitment post CR7 leaving was poor and narrow minded.

 

[adexkola]

He doesnt get more stick he gets a tiny amount of stick compared to the rest.

People are just saying a portion of the blame has to go to Fergie, does that diminish everything Fergie achieved in his years as manager of course not. But in an honest discussion you don't just blank it out.

Enough to warrant a thread?

Meh

 

[berbatrick]

Probably not gonna be a popular topic on here, but I’m wondering how to assess Fergie’s role in our predicament? I don’t want to shit on his legacy, which is obviously ultimately defined by the bulging trophy cabinet and our re-emergence as a major domestic and European power, but I’d be interested to hear honest takes on how some of his decisions might have contributed to our decline. I always remember his assurances that the club wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the post-Busby years once he’d gone and that a smooth transition was the number one priority. Yet here we are.

Some of the footballing issues we've been having have been problems since about 2011. In particular the 1-6 to City is for me, a major turning point. For me, before that (from 2006, when I started watching), we tended to dominate routine games and usually had an attacking focus. After that was the first time I saw United focus on defending against lesser opponents - the 1-0 win just after that was one of the least inspiring passing/attacking performances. With these changes came a decrease in unpredictable attacking play (Nani being first displaced, then benched), an increasing inability to play out from the back, and very basic football (pass it wide, cross it in). It meant any team that pressed well could really damage us (3-2 loss to Spurs in 2012/13).
2012/13 seemed like a return to form, but in hindsight it seems to have been Carrick having his best season, single-handedly holding the midfield together, and being cpable of quick vertical passes, and RvP doing the same upfront, converting at an awesome rate and also holding the ball up.

The thing is, we've had 12 tranfer windows under 4 managers since then. They've had ample chances and money to fix these issues. The closest we came to it was the window where we got Herrera, AdM, and Blind. We probably had a midfield that could compete, different types of creativity, and a passer at the back. But then LvG had the same fear afer losing to Leicester and we retreated - again.


I wouldn't blame Fergie for our technical issues since his successors have had a lot of opportunities to address them, I think his blame should be limited to Moyes whose effects shuld have been long purged by now.

 

[Moriarty]

Fergie's recruitment post CR7 leaving was poor and narrow minded.

And probably governed by financial constraints, though this has never been admitted.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Some of the footballing issues we've been having have been problems since about 2011. In particular the 1-6 to City is for me, a major turning point. For me, before that (from 2006, when I started watching), we tended to dominate routine games and usually had an attacking focus. After that was the first time I saw United focus on defending against lesser opponents - the 1-0 win just after that was one of the least inspiring passing/attacking performances. With these changes came a decrease in unpredictable attacking play (Nani being first displaced, then benched), an increasing inability to play out from the back, and very basic football (pass it wide, cross it in). It meant any team that pressed well could really damage us (3-2 loss to Spurs in 2012/13).
2012/13 seemed like a return to form, but in hindsight it seems to have been Carrick having his best season, single-handedly holding the midfield together, and being cpable of quick vertical passes, and RvP doing the same upfront, converting at an awesome rate and also holding the ball up.

The thing is, we've had 12 tranfer windows under 4 managers since then. They've had ample chances and money to fix these issues. The closest we came to it was the window where we got Herrera, AdM, and Blind. We probably had a midfield that could compete, different types of creativity, and a passer at the back. But then LvG had the same fear afer losing to Leicester and we retreated - again.


I wouldn't blame Fergie for our technical issues since his successors have had a lot of opportunities to address them, I think his blame should be limited to Moyes whose effects shuld have been long purged by now.

Agree with everything you’ve said but the 2012/13 season (and your analysis is spot on) also proves that it just takes two really really good players on top of their game to win the league. Almost irrespective of tactics/quality of the rest of the squad. The lack of really really good players on top of their game in our squad has been stark ever since (other than peak De Gea anyway).

 

[Fluctuation0161]

Probably not gonna be a popular topic on here, but I’m wondering how to assess Fergie’s role in our predicament? I don’t want to shit on his legacy, which is obviously ultimately defined by the bulging trophy cabinet and our re-emergence as a major domestic and European power, but I’d be interested to hear honest takes on how some of his decisions might have contributed to our decline. I always remember his assurances that the club wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the post-Busby years once he’d gone and that a smooth transition was the number one priority. Yet here we are.

Look at net spend from. 2005 - 2013 in comparison with other clubs. There lies the problem.

Fergie didn't spent much during those years. helped us to clear a bulk of the Glazer debt while still winning. That reduced future interest payments and reduced the risk of the club going under financially!

 

[Johan07]

Ferguson cant be blamed for anything during his years as manager, he operated the club exactly as he should, but it worked because he was one a kind.
I do kind of blame him and the advisory board - who are supposed to be the people ITK about the football side of things - for not realising that this manager-decides everything does not work in the modern game. To give a manager like dithering Dave the deciding responsibilities about the football side of things was a giant mistake. Giving Mourinho the same power was even worse. And I dont believe for one second that appointing Mourinho for example was done without Fergusons approval.
There are plenty of reasons why his last couple of years at the club has hampered its progress, many which has not been touched upon in this thread. Two in particular:
i) the scouting system was woefully outdated, that is the one thing that you can credit Moyes for recognising it.
ii) the youth setup was also not up to par anymore and teams like City and the London-clubs had surpassed us by far by the time the great man retired.
I give credit to the club and - yes - Woodward for recognising this and those two issues has actually been and is still being addressed now.
To appoint Mourinho was of course the absolute opposite what the club should had done at that time when the club actually was progressing forward.
He wanted United just because of that he thought he would and could had the exact same power as Ferguson and clashed directly with the clubs new setup with a new scouting system and youth setup, where you actually had to work with other people at the club instead of using your own scouting network and phoning up Mendes as soon we lost a game. Its a myth IMO that this was with Woodward, he could not work with other people at the club like Jim Lawlor and Matt Judge.
It was a terrible, terrible appointment and how much of this is on Woodward/the Board/the Advisory Board we will probably never now.
I was actually afraid that OGS - being a SAF disciple and everything - was going to adopt the same attitude. He has been saying the right things so far about the manager´s position in modern football and hopefully we will be moving to a more modern club now.
Traditions are a great part of this magnificent club, but they can also hinder progress and Ferguson has to shoulder some blame for that as well.

 

[FerociousCorgis]

Some of the footballing issues we've been having have been problems since about 2011. In particular the 1-6 to City is for me, a major turning point. For me, before that (from 2006, when I started watching), we tended to dominate routine games and usually had an attacking focus. After that was the first time I saw United focus on defending against lesser opponents - the 1-0 win just after that was one of the least inspiring passing/attacking performances. With these changes came a decrease in unpredictable attacking play (Nani being first displaced, then benched), an increasing inability to play out from the back, and very basic football (pass it wide, cross it in). It meant any team that pressed well could really damage us (3-2 loss to Spurs in 2012/13).
2012/13 seemed like a return to form, but in hindsight it seems to have been Carrick having his best season, single-handedly holding the midfield together, and being cpable of quick vertical passes, and RvP doing the same upfront, converting at an awesome rate and also holding the ball up.

The thing is, we've had 12 tranfer windows under 4 managers since then. They've had ample chances and money to fix these issues. The closest we came to it was the window where we got Herrera, AdM, and Blind. We probably had a midfield that could compete, different types of creativity, and a passer at the back. But then LvG had the same fear afer losing to Leicester and we retreated - again.


I wouldn't blame Fergie for our technical issues since his successors have had a lot of opportunities to address them, I think his blame should be limited to Moyes whose effects shuld have been long purged by now.

I really feel that leicester game ruined LVG. Some poor ref decisions but he seemed to completely over-react to that result and went completely negative afterwards it seemed from what i remember. The ultimate what if moment for LVG if there arent the poor calls (think the penalty decision or something was ridiculous and came after a blatant vardy foul).

 

[Moriarty]

Look at net spend from. 2005 - 2013 in comparison with other clubs. There lies the problem.

Fergie didn't spent much during those years. helped us to clear a bulk of the Glazer debt while still winning. That reduced future interest payments and reduced the risk of the club going under financially!

In many respects, that was Fergie taking care of the club and the fans. Winning titles kept the fans happy and at the same time, paying down the debt to help out whoever took over from him. Maybe that's the charitable view because Fergie was never shy about spending when he had to. Moreover, when Edwards was in charge, he had, arguably, an even tighter grip on the purse strings.

 

[Klopper76]

Isn't the answer that your recruitment's been poor since Ferguson retired?

The manager's have under-performed but the transfer policy hasn't helped. It seems like there's been a focus on commercial signings like Falcao & Di Maria by Woodward with the priority being to sell shirts. There hasn't been enough thought put into the football side of your transfer strategy imo.

 

[2cents]

Some of the footballing issues we've been having have been problems since about 2011. In particular the 1-6 to City is for me, a major turning point

Yeah, I’ve mentioned this before on here. We actually started that season completely gung-ho, we were blitzing teams and playing great stuff (i.e. that Nani goal in the Community Shield). You could see though during the Chelsea home game some of the problems we had which City exploited. I think that period counts as our last run of really expansive, attacking play under Fergie, we were never the same after the 6-1, albeit we were functional enough to take the title from a poor City side the following season.

 

[Kag]

we signed : RVP, Kagawa, Zaha, Smalling, Jones , Young, Valencia, Rafael , Fabio , Berbatov, Nani , Anderson, Carrick, Chicharito, De Gea....

Did we complain back then who we didn't sign when we were winning stuff hmmm?

Were you living under a rock? Of course there were complaints.

 

[Sir Scott McToMinay]

Isn't the answer that your recruitment's been poor since Ferguson retired?

The manager's have under-performed but the transfer policy hasn't helped. It seems like there's been a focus on commercial signings like Falcao & Di Maria by Woodward with the priority being to sell shirts. There hasn't been enough thought put into the football side of your transfer strategy imo.

I was personally yearning for big name signings under SAF and that almost never happened, our big-name signings post SAF made me yearn for SAF style smart value signings, like Vidic, Johnsen, Evra and Sheringham for example.

I don’t know whether that’s just the transfers though, as poor as they were.
What seperates Liverpool and us at the moment is in my opinion mostly time, forward vision and coaching.
Klopp is over achieving with Liverpool, the squad isn’t bad or anything, but it isn’t as good as going toe to toe with Pep’s City.
To me Liverpool’s squad is currently on par with Man United’s 2009-2011 or thereabouts.
A very good squad of players, but with issues in some areas, orchestrated by a world class manager.

 

[J D P]

Yes they were some errors in Fergie decisions after 2008.For example selling Pique for 5m instead of playing him in place of Vidic or Rio(he was better than each one of them). Also not rejuvenating the team, depending on Giggs Scholes, Neville who were 35 or 36. Berbatov was also a mistake( for the first time in Man utd history we bought a player that thought that it was OK to be lazy and let others do his job, he wasn't technically that good neither) Sold Tevez. Having said that it is incorrect also to put any blame on Fergie now 6 years after. The blame is all at our directives who were incapable of rebuilding the team.

 

[Nytram Shakes]

Enough to warrant a thread?

Meh

well yes, as you look what happened to that squad after fergie left, and you think well maybe we should have not let it get to that stage where that many players in or around retirment, or close to been done at the top level.

 

[Nytram Shakes]

He made a few mistakes in his final years - missing out on Hazard, not spending the Ronaldo bounty wisely, and, of course, hand-picking David Moyes. That being said, it's now firmly on Woodward and co. to get this mess sorted.

agreed, but its always worth noting how we got to this point and learning from it.

 

[Sandikan]

I really feel that leicester game ruined LVG. Some poor ref decisions but he seemed to completely over-react to that result and went completely negative afterwards it seemed from what i remember. The ultimate what if moment for LVG if there arent the poor calls (think the penalty decision or something was ridiculous and came after a blatant vardy foul).

It definitely changed him.
It was such a shame, as 3-1 up, with Di Maria scoring a magical goal, we were cruising.

Then the ref allowed Vardy to smash Rafael off the ball, and presume that he'd fouled him, when in reality it was a shocking dive.

The young defender whose name I can't even remember now, got sent off, and a real ridiculous game.

 

[Moriarty]

It definitely changed him.
It was such a shame, as 3-1 up, with Di Maria scoring a magical goal, we were cruising.

Then the ref allowed Vardy to smash Rafael off the ball, and presume that he'd fouled him, when in reality it was a shocking dive.

The young defender whose name I can't even remember now, got sent off, and a real ridiculous game.

The MK Dons game did his head in. He'd probably never heard of them before that night.

 

[AaronRedDevil]

Fergie may have a small hand in it. But he left with a PL winning squad. It's been 5-6 years now and there's barely an improvement. It's the incompetent managers after him and Woodward that failed.

 

[berbatrick]

Agree with everything you’ve said but the 2012/13 season (and your analysis is spot on) also proves that it just takes two really really good players on top of their game to win the league. Almost irrespective of tactics/quality of the rest of the squad. The lack of really really good players on top of their game in our squad has been stark ever since (other than peak De Gea anyway).

I wonder if that will still work. I think the league is stronger now, especially at the top, and even some mid-table teams (the 3 W teams, basically).

 

[Sandikan]

Fergie may have a small hand in it. But he left with a PL winning squad. It's been 5-6 years now and there's barely an improvement. It's the incompetent managers after him and Woodward that failed.

Because we've been fairly poor since, there's more and more revisionist posts about how supposedly poor the squad left was.
While we knew we'd had stronger title winning teams, I don't remember anyone saying we were really going to drop off like we did.

Even those Jose showed himself to explode by the 3rd year as usual, I still think if he'd taken over that team, we'd have maintained success for a couple of years.

 

[Snuffkin]

Fergie's recruitment post CR7 leaving was poor and narrow minded.

He had no money.
Valencia was a good buy.
Fergie will advise ole to sell pogba. And I think he will heed the advice.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

Ferguson left a number of players that are playing for Man United seven years later, it's not his fault they haven't been adequately replaced. People say it was a weak team, but it had just won the Premier League. Again, he wouldn't have known that Moyes was going to get rid of all the backroom staff and rip up the structures he had in place over 20 years.

Van Persie and Scholes out of retirement were arguably self-indulgent moves but can't argue with the results. He set up for Rooney to be sold, the correct decision, but it was Moyes who reversed it. Nani was still at the club and had something to offer, again gotten rid of too easily. United spent big money on Mata and then Mkhitaryan, yet never really gave Kagawa a consistent run as a number 10 and sold him for nothing.

The biggest mistake was probably David Gill and Ferguson leaving at the same time and leaving two novices at that level at the helm in Moyes and Woodward.

 

[Tom Van Persie]

The squad Sir Alex left behind had obvious flaws but not as bad as some make it out to be. Our recruitment, player development and squad management has been poor since the great man retired. A good example is Sir Alex bought Wilfried Zaha in January 2013 knowing he was retiring in a few months and would never manage Zaha himself. He bought Zaha for the next manager and beyond but of course Moyes and then LvG never gave the lad a chance. Zaha should've been a player we nurtured and had waiting in the wings to replace the likes of Nani, Valencia and Young. Instead we just neglected him and ended up loaning him out until finally deciding to flog him back to Palace for like £3 million.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I mean the only thing you can blame him for is choosing Moyes as his successor.

What else did he do?

 

[SER19]

You’re conflating two different arguments.

a) Has the squad building job since Fergie left been badly handled?
b) Did Fergie leave one hell of a difficult squad building job for his successor?

The answer to a) is obviously yes. I think it’s fairly obvious (see squad analysis above) that the answer to b) is also yes.

The one mitigating factor is the possibility that Fergie deliberately cut corners in the transfer market in his last few years, so he could save the club enough money to give Moyes a shit-load of money to spend. That’s definite possible but I don’t think we’ll ever know for certain. He’s certainly not made the claim in any of his books or interviews.

I disagree that I am. If he left the barca 2010 squad it would still need rebuilding withing 2-3 years its the nature of football. How long must he be accountable? He left a strong squad that had just won the title but like even our best title winning squads it should have been improved to increase competition, freshen it up and avoid complacency.

 

[SER19]

You say "argument" but you are referring to two different (but connected) arguments.

1. The poor state of the team when SAF left.

2. Who is responsible for the current state of the club.

There are plenty of credible arguments about "1. The state of the team". See this post from a scant few posts ago for example: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/fergie’s-role-in-our-current-plight.446619/page-4#post-23991169 .

See my post above. Short of doing the transfer business in the week before he left there's nothing more he could have done. All the failings occurred from the day he left. That squad wasn't remotely as bad as it was made to look. It had just won a title in very impressive fashion.

 

[Devils11]

We signed Carrick in 2006. And of that list of players, only De Gea can be judged to have successfully replaced one of the pre-2007 group. And I’d argue only RVP was absolutely crucial to any of our post-2006 titles, although Nani and Berbatov both played important roles in the 10/11 title (but had been dropped from the first XI by the end of it).

And yes, there were plenty of complaints.

We laughed when Liverpool "overpaid" for Salah and van Dijk (We didn't ask why we are not buying them at that time did we?). Same goes to KDB and B,Silva. And now they are 100m World Class Footballers and we wonder why we didn't sign them in the first place , amazing right with hindsight?

Yes they were some errors in Fergie decisions after 2008.For example selling Pique for 5m instead of playing him in place of Vidic or Rio(he was better than each one of them). Also not rejuvenating the team, depending on Giggs Scholes, Neville who were 35 or 36. Berbatov was also a mistake( for the first time in Man utd history we bought a player that thought that it was OK to be lazy and let others do his job, he wasn't technically that good neither) Sold Tevez. Having said that it is incorrect also to put any blame on Fergie now 6 years after. The blame is all at our directives who were incapable of rebuilding the team.

Selling Kanchelski, Ince , Hughes ,Stam and Becks. Those decisions were not popular back then but he vindicated himself with titles and wins.

Ferguson left a number of players that are playing for Man United seven years later, it's not his fault they haven't been adequately replaced. People say it was a weak team, but it had just won the Premier League. Again, he wouldn't have known that Moyes was going to get rid of all the backroom staff and rip up the structures he had in place over 20 years.

Van Persie and Scholes out of retirement were arguably self-indulgent moves but can't argue with the results. He set up for Rooney to be sold, the correct decision, but it was Moyes who reversed it. Nani was still at the club and had something to offer, again gotten rid of too easily. United spent big money on Mata and then Mkhitaryan, yet never really gave Kagawa a consistent run as a number 10 and sold him for nothing.

The biggest mistake was probably David Gill and Ferguson leaving at the same time and leaving two novices at that level at the helm in Moyes and Woodward.

Spot on.

 

[soaphroniscuss]

See my post above. Short of doing the transfer business in the week before he left there's nothing more he could have done. All the failings occurred from the day he left. That squad wasn't remotely as bad as it was made to look. It had just won a title in very impressive fashion.

I meant this part "The poor state of the team when SAF left.".

 

[J D P]

Selling Kanchelski, Ince , Hughes ,Stam and Becks. Those decisions were not popular back then but he vindicated himself with titles and wins.

Yes, but those players were replaced with better ones. Stam - Rio, Becks-Ronaldo, Hughes-Cole are just examples. Who did we replace Pique with? Jones? It's laughable. Tevez? We boght Berbatov which is Fulham level at most(no big club wanted that guy except us, and soon we understood why). I think the biggest mistakes were not selling, but buying. We lost very good players at the market in the period 2009-2013, that were not that expensive. (Silva in 2010 why we didn't go after him?)

 

[SER19]

I meant this part "The poor state of the team when SAF left.".

That's where we disagree then. I don't think it was in a poor state. Just a natural one after winning a title that needed some freshening up and had every resource available to do the necessary business.

 

[soaphroniscuss]

That's where we disagree then. I don't think it was in a poor state. Just a natural one after winning a title that needed some freshening up and had every resource available to do the necessary business.

I refer you to this post here: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/fergie’s-role-in-our-current-plight.446619/page-4#post-23991169 .

The stars keeping the team ticking along are in Orange. The rest were mostly not good enough.

Scholes had to come out of retirement to offset the fact that we hadn't signed a (good) midfielder IIRC for about 6 years.

When you have to beg players to come back to save the season that shows something has gone wrong with recruitment. And in the absence of signing someone to replace Scholes the next season and with no players ready to step up, something wrong would be likely continue to be wrong in following season, and if not rectified seasons, too.

It was not replacing one or two players. The team was on its last legs. Look how many of the Orange players retired or left around 2013.

It's similar to the decline of Liverpool after Dalglish. They won and kept winning up until he left and then the underlying issues started to show through.

And for the record SAF is in no way shape or form culpable in this. His hands were tied. Mark my words it will come out eventually.

All empires fall and the rot tends to set in way before the effects of that rot becomes visible. There are lots of reasons for this but the chief culprits are the owners.

 

[Keefy18]

This weird little narrative that Fergie left an old decrepit squad ready to collapse seems ridiculous looking at those ages and depth. The main priority was to refurbish the midfield and see Ferdinand and Evra replaced over the next couple of years. Unfortunately Moyes didn't do anything and LvG ripped everything up and replaced them with inferior players for significantly more money. We are still paying for those three years of mismanagement rather than anything Fergie did (except give Moyes the go ahead).

The spine of the team was fecked, like utterly fecked!

De Gea - 22
Vidic & Rio - CB 31 & 34 each
Evra - 32

MF
Giggs - 39
Carrick - 31
Fletcher - Had chrons disease and had barely kicked a ball around this time and was 29, creeping towards his senior years

Attack
RVP - 29, managed to get a single injury free season from him and the injuries returned right after Fergie went.
Rooney - 27, young enough but his fitness levels were dreadful and his injuries had him lose a step of pace and also physicality.

Add in a bunch of young players simply not good enough like Welbeck, Cleverly and the next crop of senior players like Young / Valencia not up to par then you've an absolute mess to fix. It was nothing short of a miracle winning the league that season.

The only manager post Ferguson that made an attempt with moving on was LVG and he was crucified by sentimental farts who refused to move on from the Ferguson era.

 

[youmeletsfly]

Let's hope Fergie has no role to play in Ole's setup. He was the greatest, but his times are gone and we, Ole and the club must move on and adapt to the current characteristics of world football.

 

[padzilla]

Going by the rationale that Fergie has to take some of the blame for the condition of the club six years after he left, then Ron Atkinson deserves a fair share of credit for the 92/93 United side that won the Premier League...

 

[Keefy18]

Going by the rationale that Fergie has to take some of the blame for the condition of the club six years after he left, then Ron Atkinson deserves a fair share of credit for the 92/93 United side that won the Premier League...

I don't think anyone is blaming for the mess now, just the mess he left us to fix.

It was on any of the managers hired after him to rebuild and they haven't. Closest any of them came was LVG.

 

[SER19]

I refer you to this post here: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/fergie’s-role-in-our-current-plight.446619/page-4#post-23991169 .

The stars keeping the team ticking along are in Orange. The rest were mostly not good enough.

Scholes had to come out of retirement to offset the fact that we hadn't signed a (good) midfielder IIRC for about 6 years.

When you have to beg players to come back to save the season that shows something has gone wrong with recruitment. And in the absence of signing someone to replace Scholes the next season and with no players ready to step up, something wrong would be likely continue to be wrong in following season, and if not rectified seasons, too.

It was not replacing one or two players. The team was on its last legs. Look how many of the Orange players retired or left around 2013.

It's similar to the decline of Liverpool after Dalglish. They won and kept winning up until he left and then the underlying issues started to show through.

And for the record SAF is in no way shape or form culpable in this. His hands were tied. Mark my words it will come out eventually.

All empires fall and the rot tends to set in way before the effects of that rot becomes visible. There are lots of reasons for this but the chief culprits are the owners.

Its been discussed at such length I guess we won't add much. But my overall point was quite clearly against Ferguson being culpable for where we are now. I disagree completely that he is