Page 44 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

and was annihilated. Watching that match I felt a surge of relief, which I laugh about now. Thank God
we didn’t buy him. He was all over the place. But, needless to say, he developed exceptionally well.
Centre-backs were the foundation of my Manchester United sides. Always centre-backs. I looked
for stability and consistency. Take Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister: until I found those two we were

without a prayer. Paul McGrath was constantly injured; Kevin Moran always had split heads. He was
like a punch-drunk boxer by the time I became his manager. I went to a game in Norway, where Ron
Yeats was present in his capacity as chief scout for Liverpool.
‘I saw your old player at Blackburn last week. Kevin Moran,’ said Ron over a drink. I asked:
‘How did he do?’
Answer: ‘He lasted about 15 minutes. Got taken off with a split head.’
‘Not unusual, that,’ I said.

Graeme Hogg, meanwhile, had not reached the standard we required. So I always told my
chairmen, ‘We need centre-backs who will play every week. They give you the steadiness and
consistency and continuity.’ That led us to Bruce and Pallister, who played forever and never seemed
to be injured. I remember one Friday before we played Liverpool, Bruce hobbling around The Cliff
rubbing his hamstring and saying, ‘Don’t pick your team yet.’ He had injured it the previous weekend.
I liked to set out my team on the Friday so we could practise set pieces and so on. ‘What are you on

about?’ I said.
‘I’ll be all right,’ says Steve.
‘Don’t be so stupid,’ I say.
So he starts running around The Cliff. He jogs round the pitch twice. ‘I’m all right,’ he says. He’s
only facing Ian Rush and John Aldridge for Liverpool. Meanwhile he can’t stop rubbing his
hamstring. Bruce played right through that game. He and Pally were marvellous. Stam brought us the
same toughness and reliability. Look, too, at the partnership between Ferdinand and Vidić. Brilliant,

solid, nothing given away. Consider Manchester United teams from that whole era and the centre-
backs were always a feature.
So buying Ferdinand in July 2002 conformed to my sacred team-building policy of strength in the
middle. We paid a lot, but when you spread that kind of transfer fee for a centre-half over 10 or 12
years, it starts to look like a bargain. You can fritter away plenty of money on contenders who simply
aren’t good enough. Better to spend more on a single player of unquestionable class.

We paid £3.75 million for Roy Keane, which was a transfer record at the time, but we had 11 years
out of Roy. In my time at United I sold a lot of players people might not be familiar with: young
reserve players and so on. On a cruise round the west of Scotland at the end of my last season, I
worked out that I had spent an average of less than £5 million a season over my time at Man United.
I told Rio straight away when he joined, ‘You’re a big, casual sod.’
He said: ‘I can’t help it.’
‘You’ll need to help it. Because it’ll cost you goals, and I’ll be on your back,’ I said.

And he was casual. Sometimes he would glide along in second or third gear, then take off like a
sports car. I had never seen a big lad of 6 feet 2 inches possess such an impressive change of pace.
With time his concentration improved, and the expectations he placed on himself rose, along with the
degree of responsibility he was willing to take on in the team and around the club. He became the
complete footballer.
When you acquire a young player, you don’t get the complete package on purchase day. There’s

work to be done. If Rio was going to switch off in a game it would be against one of the lesser teams
that he didn’t regard as a major threat. The bigger the game, the more he liked it.