Page 143 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

he and the company who did the work were aware of what was going on. It was all carried out under
a cloak of absolute secrecy.
David made a speech and then turned me round to see the lettering. You get some churning moments
in your life when you feel, ‘I don’t deserve this.’ This was one. David had worked hard to think of an

appropriate acknowledgement of the 25 years. That’s what it was about. David threw me off by
saying, ‘We want to build a statue of you, but do you think we should wait until you’ve finished the
job?’ His last words during that conversation were, ‘We must do something, but we’re not sure what
it should be.’ The answer he came up with was humbling. I had been United manager for 1,410 games.
The moment didn’t cause me to think any more deeply about retirement. But after the last game of the
season in 2011–12, I said to my boys, ‘That may be it. One more season and then that’s me,’ because
it did take a lot out of me. That last minute took it all out of me.

Going out of the Champions League in the group stage was my fault. I took the competition for
granted. We had come through previous group stages comfortably and looking at this one I felt it
would be straightforward, though of course I never said that publicly.
I rested players: two or three when we played Benfica away. We came away with a draw and
played quite well. Then, against Basel, we were 2–0 up and cruising, but ended up drawing 3–3.
They had won their first game so it put them two points in front of us already. We won our next two

games against Cluj, but Benfica and Basel were still in the chase.
We played well but only drew at home with Benfica, which meant that if we lost in Basel we
would be out. The pitch was very soft in Switzerland and we lost Vidić in the first half to a serious
injury. They had a couple of good forwards in Frei and Streller and won the game 2–1. Against Basel
at home, the players had been complacent defensively, not getting back to the ball.
In the Carling Cup we were eliminated by Crystal Palace, who prepared well against our young
players. The League Cup is always regarded now as a bonus tournament. We were also knocked out

of the FA Cup in the fourth round after beating Man City earlier in the competition. Because the focus
was now on the Premier League, we didn’t make much headway in the Europa League, going out to
Athletic Bilbao in early March with a 3–2 defeat at home. I wanted to win the Europa League and
represent us in the right way. But our home record in Europe was poor: one win from five games.
At that point the malaise hits you. You’ve been knocked out of the Champions League group stage,
you’ve had a 6–1 defeat to Man City and you’re out of the Carling Cup, at home to Crystal Palace.

You have a challenge ahead. But we were good at those. We had the energy and wherewithal to
concentrate fully on the League. Our form after that, apart from the Blackburn Rovers result, was
terrific. Between January and early March, we beat Arsenal and Tottenham away, defeated Liverpool
and drew with Chelsea.
In February the Suárez–Evra affair blew up again when Suárez refused to shake Patrice’s hand in a
game at Old Trafford. I brought the players together on the Tuesday of the game and told them, ‘I think
you need to be big.’ They were not inclined to be nice about it. I stuck to my theme: you need to be

bigger than them. Gradually they changed their minds and came round to the idea of a handshake.
Ferdinand, the most experienced player, also had the incident with John Terry and Anton Ferdinand in
his thoughts. By the Friday they were fine with it. There would be a handshake from Evra’s side.
I’ve watched the footage several times. Suárez seemed to quicken as he passed Patrice. Perhaps he
thought no one would notice that. As Suárez passed him, Evra was annoyed and said something to
him. It was all over very quickly, but the repercussions lingered.

When Kenny Dalglish gave his initial pre-match TV interview, he gave the impression that Suárez
had agreed to shake Evra’s hand. A club of Liverpool’s stature should have done something about