Twenty five years in charge of one of the biggest clubs in the world has taught Sir Alex Ferguson many things. When to sell your best players. When to buy that big name. When to gamble on that youngster.
These are just some of the key lessons he has taken from an unprecedented amount of experience earned from winning 37 trophies during his reign. His record is staggering; his knowledge and understanding of the game sets him apart from his peers.
Ferguson is always looking for a new challenge to test him, and he has one in Barcelona.
The Catalans have swept all before them under Pep Guardiola, utilising a unique brand of football with a Dutch influence thanks to Johann Cruyff. United have failed to beat them twice now in the Champions League final; this is the toughest test of Ferguson’s career: to take United back to the summit of European football, in essence, become the best team in the world again.
But this is where the problem starts: United might not even be the best team in England any more. The noisy neighbours have come knocking on their front porch; they want a piece of the view from being champions in England. And they are laying down a very convincing case in the process: an unbeaten start to the season with a +29 goal difference boosted by that infamous 6-1 win at Old Trafford.
That 6-1 win was what took City to the top, where they currently reside five points ahead of their local rivals. While Ferguson would clearly rather be closer, he’d be happy to keep doing what United have done since that derby debacle – two grinding 1-0 wins.
This season has seen so many crazy score-lines brought to fruition by hapless defending, and as Michael Cox of Zonal Marking pointed out, they were due for a smashing too. Their defence looked porous, and the midfield looked flimsy on occasions. Sparkling wing play and clinical finishing was the difference between them being shown up earlier, and dominating the headlines as they were.
Being in the headlines has done no club any favours this year. Arsenal were the centre of attention after selling Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri to Barcelona and Manchester City respectively, and their poor form at the start of the season reflected this constant attention. They eventually were hit with their worst result since 1896. But now, as the media turned their attention to United after this, Arsenal slipped away from focus and now are unbeaten in nine games.
The media fawned over United for an extended period, hailing the summer signings of Young, De Gea (to an extent) and Phil Jones. What people weren’t noticing was the naivety of the full backs and central defenders within the defensive structure with their foraging forward runs that would be punished by better opposition. This is a precisely what happened – everyone ignored the shaky defence, until losing 6-1 to Manchester City soon highlighted those flaws and cast Chelsea and City into the headlines.
Chelsea would be the next big team to fall to an embarrassing result after coming prominently into the headlines. When they were seemingly out of sight and out of mind, they were playing beautiful football and coming up with results too. Under Andre Villas-Boas, they emerged as the closest title contenders in the wake of United’s fall from grace, only to suffer a similar ignominy – a 5-3 defeat to Arsenal on their home turf.
Now Manchester City are firmly in the headlights of the press. Feeding off this are the players and the manager, with claims they can go unbeaten like the 2004 Invincibles and topple all before them in their Champions League assault. With their squad, it’s very possible.
With their squad, it’s also possible it could all collapse. So many superstars in the one dressing room, as it is well documented, could spoil the soup cooking at Eastlands this season. Roberto Mancini is a world class manager, but it will be a stern test keeping the stars in line and happy during their various match ups this year. With the Carlos Tevez affair he has shown his skills in this department, much to the acclaim of Alex Ferguson – however with rumours of multiple player unrest already from Adam Johnson and Edin Dzeko, can Mancini keep his Galaticos together? As we all know, the
first Real Madrid experiment failed and the second is a work in progress.
That challenge will only be made harder the longer City stay in the limelight and top of the table. That’s exactly what Ferguson wants – to keep them there to drive them apart.
Industrious, hard working and efficient – characteristics of many of the successful Ferguson teams and players – and that’s what he would want to happen again. In winning 1-0 and doing the nitty gritty in the middle of the marathon, he shows how he wants United to slip back under the radar, like all the successful teams so far this season.
Switching to a conservative 4-3-3 has secured the middle of the park, and a holding midfielder has now helped in protecting the porous defence. By shutting up shop after scoring a goal, they are securing wins, and as Ferguson pointed out, getting clean sheets at last. After all, he knows, and so does Gary Neville, men and titles are made in May, when the marathon enters the final sprint.
Pushing City even further into the front line will help United’s cause. With the media distracted by the spectacle at the Etihad Stadium, United can focus on defending better as a unit. It’s not the way he would have wanted to conquer City – but given the circumstances it’s the best possible way.
City aren’t going anywhere – they are definitely pushing to reach the cliff top of England’s elite – but Ferguson can push them over the edge.
He failed to do it early on with Chelsea, but eventually conquered them for three seasons in a row using the same principles of making them hog the attention. His tactics in this open warfare with Manchester City is the mark of a master and all of his twenty five years of incredible experience.
Photo courtesy of Jennifer M. Rukyo.
