Page 79 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

later, but was a slender young man without the physique, in his early days, to clear a path.
In games, sitting on the bench, and in training sessions, he would make notes, always. So by the
time he came on he had analysed who the opponents were, what positions they were assuming. He had
those images all worked out. The game was laid out for him like a diagram and he knew where to go

and when.
Ole was a sweet-natured boy who was never looking to be confrontational with me. There was no
risk to my office door from Ole wanting to smash it down to demand a place in the first XI. We knew
he was content with his role, and that helped us, because if we had a difficult decision to make about
the other three strikers, which one to leave out, the fourth was content to play a supporting part. So we
just had the three grumpy forwards to deal with. Yorke, Cole and Sheringham.
At first I believed Ruud’s range of attributes was wider than it turned out to be. I expected to see

from him more of the donkey-work that Manchester United players have to do. There were times
when he did his share, and would apply himself to it, but he was not inclined to be that kind of
industrious player. He wasn’t endowed with great stamina. His test results were never startling. Yet
you knew he could always put the ball in the net if you fed it into his path.
In the preceding years we had lost Cantona, Teddy Sheringham had gone, Ole was having his knee
problems, Yorkie had lost a bit of focus and Andy was still fit, fresh. You could always rely on Andy,

but I knew when I took Van Nistelrooy on, I was bound to have problems with Cole, because he
thought he was the best centre-forward in the world. I say this affectionately, because it was a useful
self-image to have, but he was miffed when I started pairing him with Ruud.
Displeasure had been apparent too in Andy’s relationship with Cantona. The only colleague he
really related to was Yorkie. Their season in 1998–99 was made in heaven. Their partnership, their
friendship, was phenomenal. They hadn’t known one another when Yorkie came to the club, but they
just gelled. In training they would work on runs together, little dummies, one-twos. They synchronised

beautifully. I think they scored 53 goals between them.
Pairing up with Van Nistelrooy wasn’t going to work for Andy, so I sold him to Blackburn Rovers.
He was in his early thirties by that point and we felt we’d had some fine years out of him. We signed
him in 1995, got seven years out of him and received £6.5 million from Blackburn. His cost from
Newcastle had been £7 million, plus Keith Gillespie, who was worth no more than £1 million. So we
almost recovered our money after seven years of productivity. Not bad.

Another striker who ran up against the problem of Ruud’s singularity was Forlán, a grand player.
Ruud wanted to be the No. 1 finisher. That was his nature. Diego Forlán didn’t register on his radar at
all, so when you put the two of them out there together there was zero chemistry. Diego was better
with a partner. But he scored some priceless goals. Two at Anfield, a goal with the last kick of the
game against Chelsea. He was a good player and a terrific pro.
The other complication I had with him was that his sister was an invalid, in Majorca, and it fell to
him to look after her. But he was great about the place, always smiling. Spoke five languages. A

breath of fresh air, as a person. We let him go for £2 million, which I thought was too cheap. With his
wages, no club was willing to bid any higher. The next thing we knew he was moving on for £15
million. He floated over the ground. He was small but had a good upper body. Tough. He was such a
good tennis player that he might have become a pro and had to choose between that and football. I
knew that, when he joined. During our pre-season tennis tournament, I tried to get a bet on him. I said
to Gary Neville, who ran the book: ‘What price is Diego?’

‘Why? Why?’ said Gary, alarmed. ‘Does he play?’
‘How would I know?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’