Page 52 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

whole picture changes. Do they fancy you? Do they want a new manager, a new chief executive? The
Glazer buy-up was the toughest period for David. The media focus was intense. The debt issue was
never out of the news. But David’s accountancy qualifications gave him an advantage in that respect.
My vision of the club was as a place where young talent could develop. To sustain that aim we

needed to preserve the foundation of Giggs, Scholes and Neville. And Roy Keane. We had enough
backbone to enable us to shop around for potential. Van der Sar was another foundation player. He
was one of my best-ever signings.
The search for the new Bryan Robson had led us to Keane. Eric Djemba-Djemba struck us as
potentially another top central midfielder. I went to see him playing in France and he did really well.
He understood the game, nipped attacks in the bud very well and was available for 4 million euros. I
was at that game to see the Rennes goalkeeper too: Petr Ĉech, who was 18 or 19. I told myself he was

too young for us.
Sometimes you lost one player but gained another of similar merit. We missed out on Paul
Gascoigne, for example, but landed Paul Ince. We didn’t persuade Alan Shearer to join us but we did
sign Eric Cantona.
The balls are always in the air. You have a range of targets and compensate from the list when one
gets away. The unifying aim was to develop whichever player we ended up with. Cantona was in his

mid-twenties, but our normal target area would be younger than that. Rooney and Ronaldo came as
teenagers. After 2006 or so, we redoubled our efforts to avoid falling into the old trap of seeing a
team grow old together. We refocused on that. With Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke and Teddy
Sheringham, there was either a falling off in performance levels or an advance in years. In those
circumstances, the demands on the scouting network intensify. The heat is on the talent-spotters. You
are saying to them all the time, ‘Come on, what have you seen out there?’
The Kléberson signing came after he had excelled for Brazil at the 2002 World Cup. He was still

playing in his homeland when we signed him. But he was an example of the risks associated with
making a purchase in a hurry. What we were looking for was someone to take over eventually from
Keane, which is how Vieira had entered the picture. He would have been ideal. He was used to the
English game, an imposing figure; a leader. One sign of a great player is that the opposing fans sing
songs against him. Opposing fans always sang songs against Patrick Vieira. That tells you they feared
him. Alan Shearer was another. Always on the wrong end of chants from the opposition.

Kléberson was a talented player. But he exemplifies my point about careful examination of
background and character. We acquired him too easily. It made me uncomfortable. When the boy
arrived, we discovered he had married a 16-year-old girl. He was 23. She brought all her family
over. In pre-season training in Portugal at Vale do Lobo, only the players were meant to come to
breakfast before training. Kléberson brought his father-in-law. He seemed to have no authority in that
area. Lovely lad, but he lacked the confidence to learn English.
In games he displayed terrific stamina and a high degree of skill but was unable to impose his

personality. Perhaps the way Brazil had used him was not the way we wanted to employ him. With
his country he sat in front of the back four to help Roberto Carlos and Cafú bomb on from full-back.
When there is a sudden rush to solve problems, mistakes are made. We were at our best when we
worked from a plan, over years, and studied players, compiled detailed information. We knew all
about Cristiano Ronaldo before we signed him. We tried to get Rooney at 14, and tried again at 16.
Finally we cracked it when he was 17. You could plan for Rooney. He was an obvious target for us.

That was Manchester United’s scouting at its very best. The Veróns and the Klébersons were
improvised. Not panic buys, but rushed.