Is this the start of the decline and the fall of the Ferguson empire?

Sir Alex Ferguson is a keen student of history. In his interview with the gut-wrenchingly sycophantic Alastair ‘I support Burnley and Manchester United’ Campbell for New Statesman magazine last week, he banged on about how much he loves reading about, and picking up tips from, such great leaders as Abraham Lincoln.

So I’m sure Sir Alex won’t mind me also turning to past events to try to glean some insight into what is going on with Manchester United.
Until two weeks ago, Sir Alex’s empire looked unbeatable in any competition.

Their squad appeared to be the biggest, most powerful army of men ever assembled on a field of combat.

I, like many, was convinced they had a real chance of winning the first-ever quintuple.

But history tells us that when any empire reaches that point of virtual global supremacy, equally total ignominious collapse usually lies never far away. So it seems with United.

Thrashed 4-1 by Liverpool, then stuffed 2-0 by Fulham, they now find themselves engulfed in self-doubt, bitter recrimination, civil unrest and that decaying stench that follows the gloriously intoxicating aura of invincibility.

We Arsenal fans know all about that. After going through the 2003-04 season unbeaten, our own Invincibles disintegrated faster than former RBS boss Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin’s smirk after the vandals struck.

For United, though, the parallels with the Fall of Rome are a more obvious analogy.

One of the best history books ever written is Edward Gibbon’s The History of The Decline And Fall of The Roman Empire, an enormous series of tomes that charts in vivid detail how and why the seemingly unstoppable Romans went belly-up.

In a nutshell, the demise began with too much money and arrogance, leading to a breakdown in the phenomenal discipline that had made the Romans omnipotent.

Overpaid, and overfed, the star soldiers grew lazy and took their eyes off the ball.

This led to stupid mistakes, a loss of their all-important fear factor and, as a consequence, increased levels of confidence in their enemies. Sound familiar, Fergie?

I watched the United games against Liverpool and Fulham and could scarcely believe what I was seeing.

Cristiano Ronaldo is a limp shadow of the goalscoring machine of last season.

Wayne Rooney showed once again the petulance that has blighted his career.

And as for Dimitar Berbatov, he is displaying all the commitment and fighting spirit of a diseased aardvark.

But for me, the defining moment that signified the possible beginning of the end of the Ferguson empire came when Fernando Torres made such a muppet out of Nemanja Vidic.

For the country’s best defender to be humiliated on the biggest stage in such a way was a hammer blow that seemed to suck every vestige of imperialistic life out of the hapless Serb and his colleagues.

I wrote a few months ago that if Steven Gerrard and Torres stayed fit, then Liverpool could win the league.

And, as virtually every other football pundit still maintains that United will recover and prevail, I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I believe Liverpool will win – IF, and it’s a crucial ‘if’, those two phenomenal players remain injury-free for the rest of the season.

On a more positive note, I suspect that the decline and fall of the Ferguson empire would not have quite as catastrophic an effect on civilisation as the decline of the Romans had.

That sounded the death knell – for centuries – for literacy and education, sophisticated architecture and the rule of written law.

I can’t quite see the departure of Mr Rooney, the Theatre of Dreams or United’s shocking disciplinary record leaving quite the same vacuum.

And to all those United fans who will mock me when they read this, let me remind you that on their shirts, your players still have the letters of their sponsors, AIG.

Which is ironic really, because at the time that deal was struck, AIG were the Roman Empire of global insurance – a supremely successful, seemingly unbeatable entity at the top of their game.

Today, within just a few months, they have become a disastrous laughing stock, brought to their knees by greed and laziness.

They were a bunch of Berbatovs – very expensive but averse to due diligence.

Blips in football are nothing new but to blip at this particular time of the season, in this alarming way, just when your most ferocious rivals hit the form of their lives, may not just be ’squeaky-bum’ time for United and Sir Alex.

It might be Time, period.

by Piers Morgan on www.dailymail.co.uk/ 30th march 2009

Cracks Beginning to Show?

For a man who’s supposedly cracking up, the only thing Rafa Benitez has been cracking this week is a smile as he donated a minibus to Rowen Park School in Litherland. The minibus is courtesy of an out of court settlement with News of the World after misinterpreting a Spanish interview by the Reds boss. However, me. Well I am truly cracking up. An hour doesn’t pass without the thought running through my head.

Tottenham Hotspur, 24 May 2009, Anfield.

Sky Sports have the Premiership trophy on Standby in a helicopter around Huddersfield, Shankly’s old stomping ground, half way between Anfield and Hull where Untied didn’t expect the title to still be on tenterhooks. But it is.

The thought of getting into the ground and it all coming down to this. 19 years of waiting. A lifetime of waiting, and it’s here. In touching distance.

The thought of it happening. Phil Brown’s Hull nicking the point they need for safety, and Liverpool romping past Spurs emulating the title winners of 1982 with Robbie Keane watching on with a hint of regret as we are crowned Champions .

The thought of Steven Gerrard lifting that wonderful trophy, in front of the Kop. His Kop. Its what he’s dreamt of.

It’s what I’ve dreamt of. Everyday. For over a decade.

During the day, I’m supposed to be concentrating on my job, but I’m not I’m thinking “If we beat Fulham on Saturday we’re top in April. TOP!”

During the evenings I’m supposed to be listening to my family or my girlfriend, but I’m not, I’m thinking “If we beat Fulham on Saturday we’re top in April. TOP!”

Then I see my friends. They have a look which is familiar. It’s in their eyes. They are going through the same thing. And their feelings are screaming at me “Beat Fulham on Saturday we’re top in April. TOP!”

I’m a nervous wreck. I find myself staring at fixture lists. To some it’s nothing more than a piece of paper with teams and dates, but those teams and those dates mean everything. Everything.

“We should beat Arsenal. And Tottenham. And Hull. United could slip up against Arsenal. Or Tottenham. Or Hull!”

Then in the modern era of technology and news at your request there is the added tonic of Internet sites and Sky Sports News. Everyone can have their say on forums which only makes my anxiety worse. Everyone has their soap box to shout their opinions. No longer is it solely the Evening copy of the Echo to rely on.

People think I’m dazed. But I’m not. My eyes are fixed on the right hand side of the television. Sky Sports News. The Premiership Table. And their it is. Manchester United followed by Liverpool. And just one point separates them. One point. One single point.

The international break has allowed United time to regroup and interrupted our rich vein of form, but even whilst watching different countries the same thought is stalking my mind. I want our lads to be wrapped in cotton wool and arrive at Melwood safe, and in the same thought I’m hoping the Manchester United players arrive at Alex Fergusons next training session in plaster casts and on crutches.

People may frown at the above sentence, but those who are stalked by the chance to be English Champions will know exactly what’s going on inside my head.

And now we have a chance, we are relying on more slip ups from the side we’re chasing. But we have a chance.

Beat. Fulham. On. Saturday. And. We. Are. Top. In. April. Top!

So Rafa, I can see by the smile on you’re face, you’re not cracking up, but catching up.

And me? Well regardless of the outcome, I’ll be going through it all again in August.

By Paul Anderson on Mar 30, 09 (liverpoolbanter.co.uk)

TOMKINS: FERGUSON IS WRONG

Thankfully, most media outlets seem to have seen the massive inaccuracy in Alex Ferguson’s figures relating to Liverpool’s spending.

That he should even choose to come out with such figures in the first place is interesting, given his rather undignified reaction to Rafa’s ‘fact’ press conference a couple of months back.

I’m also still smiling over his ‘we were the better side’ comments following their total humiliation last week, which every neutral I’ve spoken to found hilarious. That United played so well was obviously the reason Old Trafford was so empty in the last 10 minutes. He’s also had a pop by excluding Rafa’s name from the best managers in the league, which seems a bit childish for a pensioner.

You can’t argue with Ferguson’s success as a manager, but you can with some of the things he says.

This season may be a learning curve for Liverpool, with the league United’s to lose even before their two main rivals were drawn against each other in the Champions League (which yet means the teams aspiring to catch United play each other in titanic, exhausting battles, as seen with Chelsea and Arsenal facing Liverpool last season while United get the easy draw.)

But the United manager is clearly worried, particularly as stability has been put in place at Anfield regarding the manager’s future.

That the United manager should already be talking about Liverpool’s future spending is fascinating. Why do so, unless he’s worried?

Ferguson talks about the young players United have signed, and bizarrely says that Rafa, a man who started out in youth development, does things differently.

Perhaps Torres, Reina, Alonso, Mascherano, Agger, Lucas, Babel and Skrtel weren’t all young players – aged 20-23 – when Rafa signed them after all, and all the teenage talent brought to the club, including Insua, Nemeth, Pacheco, Plessis and Ngog, is just a mirage?

How many players in their 30s has Rafa brought to the club? I can’t think of one before or after Pellegrino, at 33, in 2005. Nor one as old as Henrik Larsson or Edwin van der Sar.

Robbie Keane was the oldest major signing Benítez has made, and perhaps the fact that he turns 29 this summer was why he was shipped out so quickly; at that age, if it doesn’t look like it’s working, you can’t bide your time, particularly if a good offer comes in before the age-related depreciation takes place.

But the major flaw in Ferguson’s argument is the fact that he already had half of his squad in place in 2004 when Rafa arrived.

He hasn’t needed to rebuild an entire squad from scratch, merely add the £15m-£30m adornments. Rafa has clearly had to deal in quantity to cover all positions, but Ferguson has had the luxury of looking solely at quality.

So the two situations are poles apart. Ferguson had already spent big on players like Rio Ferdinand before Rafa pitched up.

He already had the players who emerged because of his youth system, which took almost seven years to bear fruit beyond one player (Giggs emerged in year five). Benítez would only be at that stage in 2011.

Indeed, if you add together every single player Rafa has bought (and there have been around 60, many of whom were mere kids), it still does not reach the total cost of United’s current squad.

Even if you also add the cost of those players Rafa inherited who are still at the club (and there are just three), it still does not reach the total cost of United’s current squad.

Including players out on loan (but not the full Tevez fee due this summer), United’s squad costs over £215m, compared with Liverpool’s £134m.

Let me remind you of what I said a few weeks back:

“Unless Ferguson is banned from fielding players like Ferdinand and Ronaldo (which would be illogical), or forced to start from scratch in 2004 (again illogical), it is not a fair comparison, is it? – I mean, come on, use your brain for a second here.”

Benítez is trying to overturn an established superpower, one that still has a dozen-or-so players who predate his arrival in England. Rafa has just three who were good enough and young enough to endure (not that Hyypia was young, but like Giggs he is evergreen).

As well as buy players, Rafa has had to change the culture of the club to fit in with his ideas, as all managers do; Ferguson did that 20 years ago. It’s why it took him so long to win the title, as you cannot change things overnight.

Unless Benítez was going to try and compete for honours with the likes of Diao, Cheyrou, and Diouf, or players like Smicer, Dudek, Hamann and Henchoz, who are now all in their mid-30s (and therefore had a very short shelf-life), or injury-prone stars like Harry Kewell, Liverpool needed a fairly complete overhaul.

Particularly as Owen and Heskey had left, and Djibril Cissé was about to arrive, all of which had been pretty much decided before Rafa took the job. (Also, including Cissé as a Benítez signing only further skews the figures.)

So the inaccuracies are clear for all to see. But let’s switch things a little.

How did Ferguson overtake Liverpool? The situation was very similar to that now, even if it was a long time ago now.

Remember, both Ferguson and Benítez arrived aged 44, and inherited squads that had averaged 4th over the previous four seasons, and finished 4th the season before they arrived. All the fours, then!

Each had a massive burden of expectation, brought about by a desperately long wait for the title. Alex Ferguson’s average league position in his first five seasons at United was 8.6 (11th, 2nd, 11th, 13th, and 6th). Benítez’s, if Liverpool finish only 3rd this season, will be 3.6.

But Ferguson faced in Liverpool in the ’80s an established team with a top-class manager. He couldn’t get close to Dalglish during their time in the respective dugouts.

Ferguson spent more money between 1986 and February 1991 (£12.8m gross, £9.87m net) than Dalglish managed in his six seasons (£12.5m gross, but only £5.77m net), but got nowhere near to toppling the Reds in that time.

So United’s net spend was virtually twice that of Liverpool, and yet Ferguson still didn’t trouble Dalglish. The money Ferguson spent wisely in the late ’80s on players like Ince, Pallister, Hughes and Bruce took four years to have any effect on the league title. This is only Torres and Mascherano’s second season.

So why did Ferguson spend so much more than Dalglish?

Well, Dalglish (like Ferguson in 2004) had a lot of his squad already in place.

Grobbelaar, Hansen, McMahon, Whelan and Nicol all spanned the entire period when Dalglish and Ferguson managed the two English superpowers.

(Liverpool raised £3.2m from selling Ian Rush in 1987, but the Reds also spend almost as much to bring him back a year later.)

Those men formed the heart of Dalglish’s Liverpool.

They were five players who didn’t need to be signed between 1986 and 1991; the kind of quality that could cost a king’s ransom if they hadn’t already been snapped up before at the top of their powers.

Ian Rush, the sixth name, also had a Liverpool connection which meant that although he needed to be re-signed, it was a relatively easy deal because of his time at Anfield.

Of course, Rush’s initial departure led to the greatest influx of talent seen under Dalglish: the wonderful quartet of Aldridge, Beardsley, Barnes and Houghton. So Dalglish was partly ‘blessed’ in that Rush, whom he inherited, at least raised enough money to rebuild the attack upon his transfer.

Ferguson has enjoyed similar bonuses more recently: selling his best players for big fees as they approached their 30s (such as Stam, Beckham and Van Nistelrooy). Such sales now help keep Ferguson’s net spend down, but in his first five years he couldn’t get such impressive sums for Ron Atkinson’s flops. So his net spend was very high for the times.

Again, make the comparison with Benítez and the likes of Diao and Cheyrou, who raised nothing.

Benítez never had such a luxury. Owen’s value wasn’t great due to his contract situation, leaving £10m less coming in. The only seriously saleable asset was Steven Gerrard.

The biggest profits Rafa has made have been on players he himself bought: Crouch, Bellamy, Sissoko. Of course, he hasn’t been in the job long enough to sell his real gems, in the way Ferguson and Wenger (with Henry and Vieira) have picked the perfect time to cash in on world-class players aged 29/30/31.

If Rafa wanted to sell Torres he could make a massive profit, but thankfully the striker still has five years before he even reaches 30. So it’s not relevant. Ideally, Torres would score loads of goals, win Liverpool titles, and return to his beloved Atletico no earlier than 2014 for a big fee.

Therefore you cannot ignore the way Ferguson overcame Liverpool – not by spending more, but by spending twice the amount.

So there you have it. It took the resignation of Dalglish to open the way for Ferguson, who had spent twice as much money but only averaged 9th place between 1986 and 1991. No wonder United fans wanted him out in 1990. But it just goes to show how difficult it is to overtake a side that already has the momentum, but that the best managers get there in the end.

If Ferguson is thinking back to how he did so, then no wonder he’s feeling worried.

by Paul Tomkins on liverpoolfc.tv 23rd march 2009