Page 145 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

claim it was a sign of weakness for us to bring Scholes back from retirement in January 2012. In that
campaign we had great momentum until we were beaten at Wigan, where we really didn’t play well.
The one that killed us was the home fixture against Everton on 22 April. With seven minutes to go,
we’re winning 4–2, Patrice Evra hits the post and Everton go and score. Instead of 5–2, it becomes

4–3. When we drew that game 4–4, I felt we had lost the League. City won comfortably at Wolves to
reduce our lead to three points, with the Manchester derby at City’s ground to come. It was self-
destruction. I knew the City game away was bound to be tough and I thought they would play to kill
the game, slow the pace down, give fouls away in our half and move the ball to Nasri and Silva to
dribble with. By then, City were versed in such clever tactics.
At the Etihad Stadium we wanted the two wide players to come in all the time to support Rooney,
on his own, and play Ji-Sung Park in Yaya Touré’s area to work him all the time. There was nobody

better at that than Park. Physically he was not in the same league as Touré, who was in outstanding
form, but I needed to try and negate the threat he posed on those marauding runs of his. But I made a
mistake. Nani was terrible that night. We brought Valencia on, who did a lot better, but City went 1–0
up and killed the game. Smalling was caught out by a David Silva corner for the Vincent Kompany
header just before half-time. It was hard to take.
For the first 20 minutes we were fine. Our possession of the ball was good and we had a couple of

half-chances. What we decided to do was keep the channels tight. Zabaleta kept getting to the by-line
and winning corner kicks. Nothing came from Clichy’s side. It was all Zabaleta. And it was a corner
kick that did for us.
If we had made it to half-time at 0–0 we would have won the game. We had a plan for the second
half, a way to play, that involved Welbeck coming on for Park. But Nigel de Jong did him straight
away through the back, and that was Danny out for the rest of the season until he played for England.
De Jong was only booked for the tackle down Welbeck’s ankle.

Roberto Mancini was badgering the fourth official through the whole game: it was Mike Jones,
who I feel is not one of the stronger officials. When De Jong landed that tackle on Welbeck, Mancini
came rushing out to protect his player. I told Mancini where to go. That’s what our little clash was
about. Roberto tried to dominate the fourth official and I had seen enough. He wanted the referee to
come over to him and speak to him so he could get the home crowd going. Andre Marriner left it to
Mike Jones to sort out. Yaya Touré was the one who made the difference, no doubt about that. He was

the best player against us in the 1–0 game. He was brilliant.
There was no animosity later. Roberto and I had a drink. With the exception of Frank Sinatra, just
about everyone was in the office where we tried to talk. The place was mobbed. I said to Mancini,
‘This is ridiculous, how can we have a chat with all these people in the room?’
The one surprise about Mancini in his time as City manager was his stance over Carlos Tévez. He
had a chance to make a stand over player power and I felt he should have thrown him out. Instead,
after their clash at a Champions League game in Germany, Tévez went to Argentina for three months,

playing golf, and then came back saying he wanted to fight to win the League for them.
Taking him back showed desperation. Or perhaps Sheikh Mansour intervened to end the standoff. I
do remember Mancini saying, ‘He’ll never play for me again.’ Say Edin Džeko or Balotelli were not
happy and had disappeared for three months: would they have been treated differently from Tévez?
Mancini made a rod for his own back. In terms of his prestige as a manager, he let himself down.
I was told that some of the players and staff didn’t like him, but he was not there to be liked.

Results backed up his methods. He chose his players well, with a good balance and age range. I
believe he wanted to avoid players over 30 and those under 24. His players were mostly in that band