Page 88 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

thirteen

YOU’RE not the same on the battlefield as you are in church. Away from the game, Arsène Wenger is a
cool customer. He’s good company and has a broad spread of conversational topics. We can talk
about wine and other things in life. In UEFA gatherings he made it his business to help other
managers. He is a conscientious member of our trade. But when it comes to his team – to match-day –
he is a completely different animal.

I’ve always felt I could understand Arsène. I could identify with the sharp change in him when that
whistle blew. There was a bit of that in me too. If we shared one characteristic it was an absolute
hatred of losing. When I lost to Raith Rovers early in my career at St Mirren (they were booting
lumps out of us), I refused to shake hands with Bertie Paton, the Raith Rovers manager, who was my
great mate and accomplice on the pitch at Dunfermline. Well, Bertie ran after me to remonstrate. Oh,
aye. Sometimes you need a wee lesson that you’re wrong, and I was wrong that day. It was a small
reminder that life is bigger than the game. When you behave that way, it’s petty and lacks dignity.

By the end, Arsène and I were on very friendly terms. We had survived together and respected each
other’s efforts to play good football. But we had conflicts down the years. The opening shot was him
complaining about me complaining about the fixture list. A complaint about a complaint. So I fired
back with a crafted put-down: ‘He’s just arrived from Japan, what does he know about it?’ Which
was true.

For the next two years, it was Arsène complaining about congestion in our fixture list. A foreign
coach who comes in and thinks he can play 55 games a season in our League without adjusting is
kidding himself. It’s a gruelling, energy-sapping League. That’s why, in the modern game, you have to
change the team to spread the load. Arsène learned to adapt to that culture. He overcame the early
shock of playing Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday.
The first time his Arsenal side played us at Old Trafford, he came into my office. Our relationship
was fine at first. The problems started when he lost a game with one of his good Arsenal sides. He
found it hard to accept fault in his team and looked to blame the opponent. He would often do it by

concentrating on physical challenges. It was hard for him to accept that opponents might adopt a
robust approach against his men. His interpretation of physical challenges extended sometimes to the
very act of tackling. He would fix in his mind the idea that no one should actually be tackling his boys.
I watched his best Arsenal teams, though, and was thrilled. I always liked watching Arsène’s sides.
Playing against them presented special challenges that I burned many hours thinking about. I always

felt I had to examine everything Arsenal did because they presented so many threats across the park.
Chelsea presented a different set of problems. There we would be facing experienced players, who