IS FERGIE PAST HIS BEST?

A couple of days ago on a MUTV show, a viewer phoned in to demand that Sir Alex Ferguson be sacked. Ex-United player Lou Macari’s response to this suggestion was: “I don’t know where he was coming from or how long he had been waiting to make the call but if he truly believes getting rid of the best manager Manchester United have had would help improve the situation, he is living in a different world to me.”

Sacking managers after a string of poor results achieves very little. Mark Hughes being shown the door by Man City was poor on their part. However there are situations where managers perhaps can’t take the side further and therefore need to be replaced. I’m sure that over the years United fans have questioned Fergie and whether he should still be at the helm of one of the most successful clubs in the world. If I can just say from the outset, sacking Fegie is a dumb idea. But the thinking behind it may not be so dumb…

Macari made a good point when he said: “The problem, and this is football’s problem, not just Manchester United, is that the players are just not there anymore. In the past, United had guys like Steve Bruce, Roy Keane, Bryan Robson and Mark Hughes, who would literally go to war in order to win a football match. I don’t see many of those characters around now. People talk about Wayne Rooney, and quite rightly so, but he sticks out like a sore thumb. The other guys did not stick out like a sore thumb. They regarded it as part of their job.”

Many people questioned the buying (or lack there of) that happened at United at the start of the season. The fact is that United lack quality at the moment. Giggs can still play but he isn’t who he used to be. Scholes is having less and less impact on the pitch with each passing game and Neville looked like a 2^nd division defender when Leeds knocked United out of the FA Cup. (Why Sir Alex sticks with him, we are not sure.) The point is that Fergie, despite all his brilliance and pomp, may just be losing the plot.

South Africa won the Rugby World Cup in 2007. That was thanks to one man really; Jake White. He picked an excellent leader in Captain John Smit and built around him a formidable squad. There was no better rugby team at the time. Since then White has been replaced by the very capable Peter de Villiers. The Springboks (as they are called) have however been a shadow of their former selves since then. The question that is raised is whether or not de Villiers is just keeping afloat on the momentum built by White and the squad he developed leading up to 2007. De Villiers is no chump let it be said, but there is the feeling that the squad is getting older, the style of play has been worked out and although the squad remains pretty much unchanged, the players aren’t good enough anymore. Well, it’s not that they are suddenly bad. Rather they haven’t moved. They were the future, now they are heading towards being the past. And that doesn’t have all that much to do with age.

Back to football… United are champions – three times in a row. Rooney, Berbatov, Vidic, Ferdinad, Evra, Carrick… they aren’t suddenly bad. United’s squad aren’t weak on paper. They are weak on the pitch.

Is Fergie surviving on flashes of brilliance, past heroics and previously instilled fear in oppositions? United have lost momentum. That can be regained. The question that pretty much any other club would be asking is: “Is this man the right guy for the job of restoring momentum and confidence?”

Dare I say it… I’m not 100% sure Sir Alex is.

He is the most successful manager United have ever seen. He has built the club up to be one of the most feared and decorated clubs ever. Maybe however it is time for him to hand it over to someone with as much ‘ballsiness’ as he had when he took over.

I’m not calling for his head. I am however curious to see what ‘the future’ could do as some head towards ‘the past’.

Could it be one of these men? Laurent Blanc (Fergies always liked him), Steve Bruce (unjustly fired from across the city) , Roy Keane (the original United tough-talker) , Jose Mourinho (The Special One, with the attitude to cope).