Page 147 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

him: ‘Mick, the only way City will beat us tomorrow is if they score late on. They’ll have a hard
game against Queens Park Rangers. I wouldn’t be surprised if QPR get a result, but if City score late
on, we’ll lose the League.’
We finished with 89 points: the highest total ever for a runner-up. The general feeling was that we

lacked a bit of stability in the defensive positions, particularly with the injury to Vidić, but once
Evans and Ferdinand formed a partnership, we shot up the table. Our goal difference was good and
89 points was a healthy return. But those early departures from League Cup, FA Cup and Champions
League obliged us to mark it down as a bad season.
I was sad but not demoralised. I felt I had a core of players who were sure to improve. Rafael,
Jones, Smalling, De Gea, Cleverley, Welbeck, Hernández. I had a nucleus who would be good for the
long haul. The challenge was replacing Scholes. I don’t know where you find those players. A fit

Anderson would make up part of the gap. We were planning to sign Kagawa and the young boy, Nick
Powell, from Crewe. We had five natural centre-backs. Plus Valencia and Nani. Young would give us
plenty of options wide. We knew where the challenge was: the noisy neighbours. It would suit us, I
decided, if they fared better in Europe and grew distracted.
On the Tuesday we were down to go to Belfast to play in Harry Gregg’s testimonial. It was hard to
lift the players, but it turned out to be quite inspiring, because Harry Gregg has been a great servant

and the support was wonderful. It helped us push the disappointment through the system.
A postscript to that painful denouement was a medical scare. I travelled to Berlin to see the
Dortmund–Bayern German Cup final, then to Sunderland, then back to Manchester, then to Belfast for
Harry Gregg’s testimonial and then back home, and on to Glasgow, where I was supposed to speak at
a Rangers function, with a flight booked to New York on the Saturday.
Shaving in Glasgow, I noticed a drip of blood. Then another and another. I just couldn’t stop the
flow and ended up in hospital, where they cauterised it. The doctor thought I would be all right to fly,

but it didn’t stop bleeding for two days, so we cancelled the New York trip. The doctor came round
on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was painful but eventually settled down.
I used to get nosebleeds as a player, mainly from knocks. But this was an especially bad one. The
cause was diagnosed as too many flights, too much cabin pressure.
It was a wee warning. If you do too much, you’re inviting trouble.