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This whole forum is built on guessing....not all of it is smart either...Exactly! We're guessing.
Almost! He wanted the United job. But Fergie changed his mind and decided he wanted another season.
Got to love that Fergie's enduring legacy as the greatest manager ever is now being overshadowed by the guy who was going to replace him and now works for their 'noisy neighbours'.
I just found this out recently, so apologies if this is a) bullshit or b) old news.
Not really.... I have way way more respect for what Fergie did at United than I do a cheating petro-murder-ball club and Pep the appologist.
Or that, as the post you replied to stated, he wasn't really interested in the position to begin with and merely responded to an initial inquiry in order to gauge the possible terms on offer and, having evaluated the reply he received determined be didn't want to waste his/their time.
Again, I talk to recruiters often with no real interest in the position they're offering (as I'm sure loads of others do) merely to do due diligence on what opportunities are available. At no point am I going to waste hours of my time interviewing for a position I'm only tenuously interested in to begin with.
The problem here is that football is an industry with dozens of parasitical journos attached to it that have to have at least 6 new tweets a day to stay relevant, and so every grain of sand they come across must be blown out of proportion so that it is something worth of reporting on. So, as an out of work manager, answering the phone becomes "entering negotiations" and saying you have no interest in interviewing for the position is "refusing to engage in the hiring process".
Football is our passion, but it's their job. Why people consistently fail to view footballers'/managers' actions through that lens baffles me.
Huge respect for what Fergie did at the dawn of the PL. His latter success was riding on the financial coat tails of the marketing giant that was built based on his early success. Not to take the credit from him, but it's easy to believe that United would have been about as successful in the 00s with another competent manager.
His most successful act was getting out at precisely the right time, and hand picking Moyes to fuck it all up so people didn't start questioning Ferguson's success and how much was due to the money and not him.
There's also this:
So anything less than a €8M/yr offer, and he's working at the next club for free (or worse, paying for the privilege of working for the club). So it's also reasonable to think he inquired early about the salary on offer at Chelsea/PSG and wasn't much tempted at taking those positions for whatever terms they were prepared to offer.
So anything less than a €8M/yr offer, and he's working at the next club for free (or worse, paying for the privilege of working for the club). So it's also reasonable to think he inquired early about the salary on offer at Chelsea/PSG and wasn't much tempted at taking those positions for whatever terms they were prepared to offer.
Obviously true.
He wrung an unbelievable amount out of pretty ordinary and/or old players in the latter years of his tenure.
He won the title and made the CL final with a team whose leading scorers were Berbatov and Chicharito.
41 year old in goal, only 4 players made 30+ league starts, one of whom was Nani.
His last team was probably even weaker, albeit with that supernova of a season from van Persie (lol)
Because I can't help myself
Honest to god, this is the United side that beat West Ham on 28 November 2012, along their way to the title
Lindegaard
Rafael Smalling Evans Evra
Cleverley Carrick Rooney Anderson
Chicharito van Persie
Of course they won. It was Fergie. The United aura is hard to explain now, but my god it was real.
That's an incredibly weird and random match to pull out. I don't know why you get off on these little episodes sometimes.
David de Gea played the vast majority of matches for them that season, was regarded as one of the premier keepers in the world, and was included in the PL team of the season along with Rio, Carrick, and van Persie. Rooney finished joint 3rd in assists (11) and scored 12 goals. Pretending as if a club with a spine like that was some sort of underdog is a bit crazy. At that time United hadn't finished lower than 2nd in 8 seasons.
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An underdog would be overstating it. But City and Chelsea definitely had stronger squads top to bottom and United cantered to the title by 11 points anyway.
Ferdinand was 34, Scholes was 38 and in his final season and Giggs was 39. And tons of Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Shinji Kagawa, Tom Cleverley, Jonny Evans, etc mixed in.
I don't even remember who Anders Lindegaard is to be honest, but he started 10 games in goal, de Gea must have gotten hurt.
Anyway, moral of the story, I think Fergie's record is just astonishing in every period of his career. He's the top coach in the game's history and I don't think it's a terribly close call. Which is not to say his record isn't padded by financial advantages, but unlike the Pep's of the world he showed his quality without 11 world class players in the team every week too.
The same guy who did that in 2012-13 also ended 15 years of Old Firm dominance with Aberdeen in 1979-80. The breadth is unfathomable, nobody else is even close.
Said wealth was also to a significant degree thanks to the success on the pitch that he cultivated too.
Whereas Pep's playing with all the cheat-codes.
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Without a doubt one of the tip top if not the best. And I'm certainly not putting Pep in his class - pretty sure me and you, among others, have gone a round or two before regarding my extreme skepticism of Pep.
Continuity is a very, very underrated asset these days. But its a big driver of success in sports. While, yes, players like Scholes and Carrick were on their last legs, Rooney was past his best, and the squad was full of some others that would prove to have short peaks in their career - the continuity of success has a way of raising everyone's level. The more continuity there is in a system, the more comfortable players are in their roles and responsibilities, the easier it is for players to perform.
Yeah, you've got to give it to Fergie, he knew how to build belief. Their rep had a lot of weight, too. Both in terms of ref influence and psyching-out the opposition.
I don't think it's that close between him and pepe, either, but in 20 years, it won't matter. Numbers are the only thing most people will care about.
Digging this one up, as apparently he's on the list for the Germany job.
And apparently Bayern are, and I quote "open to him becoming Germany manager"
Which means they are still fully employing him and dictate where he goes next.
Which makes me wonder, did we make contact, and Bayern start talking about Kane so we hung up real quick. And that's why this one went dead when it looked a possibility.
**this is nothing to do with whether I wanted him (I did) we have someone else and I fully expect us to go back for Nagelsmann another time**
And apparently Bayern are, and I quote "open to him becoming Germany manager"
Which means they are still fully employing him and dictate where he goes next.
Which makes me wonder, did we make contact, and Bayern start talking about Kane so we hung up real quick. And that's why this one went dead when it looked a possibility.
**this is nothing to do with whether I wanted him (I did) we have someone else and I fully expect us to go back for Nagelsmann another time**
Don't think Nagelsmann was ever interested. He was another one who thought we were beneath him.
I still don't think we were ever interested in Naglesmann. The club said as much and we were all tamping.
He will never manage Spurs. I'd put money on it.