Page 90 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

that’s all right,’ I thought. And the way he started at Arsenal was with five at the back. But when you
see his teams now, you can’t argue for a second that his teams are defensive. Eric’s critique still
makes me smile.
At the end of the 1990s, and for the first part of the new millennium, Arsenal were our challengers.

There was no one else on the horizon. Liverpool and Newcastle had brief spells of prominence.
Blackburn had their title-winning year. But if you look at our history prior to José Mourinho’s arrival
at Chelsea, there was no consistent threat to our dominance outside of Arsenal. Chelsea were a good
Cup team, but they could never quite scale the peak of the Premier League.
When Blackburn came with an assault we knew it was unlikely to last because there was no history
to sustain an achievement of that magnitude. Their League title win was great for football and for Jack
Walker, the benefactor who brought such fine players to the club, Alan Shearer especially. That was a

tremendous time for Blackburn. Experience tells you, though, only to worry about the challengers who
have a tradition of bidding for the big prizes. When Arsenal and United were locked together for so
long, you knew the Gunners were sustained by history and a strong identity.
At their ground, in my penultimate year as United manager, I had lunch in the boardroom and said to
myself: ‘This is class. Real class.’ At Highbury I would study the bust of Herbert Chapman and feel
that any suspicion of nostalgia was outweighed by the sense of solidity and purpose those marble

halls conveyed. Achievement was always there, from Herbert Chapman and the 1930s, all the way
through.
Their dressing rooms are marvellous. The advantages of building a new stadium from scratch are
enormous. You have a blank sheet. Every detail you see in the Arsenal home dressing room reflects
Arsène’s specifications. He has covered every requirement for a football team. In the centre of the
room is a marble-topped table where they put all the food. After a game, everyone tucks in. Another
expression of class. The staff have their own quarters.

So I never ceased to be concerned at the high quality Arsenal could bring to our tussles. History
helped us, but it helped them too, and they had the right manager. Arsène was the right one because
you always felt that, having been given the chance to manage in England, he put his tent down and was
never going to move it. All the while, there was speculation that he might leave one day to join Real
Madrid. I never thought Arsène would leave Arsenal. Ever. I’d say to myself: ‘We’re going to have to
put up with it. He’s going to be here forever. I’d better get used to it.’

At times it was very edgy. Although Arsène would never come in for a drink after games, Pat Rice,
his assistant, would always cross the threshold for a glass, until the pizza fight at Old Trafford.
My recollection of that fabled incident is that when Ruud van Nistelrooy came into the dressing
room, he complained that Wenger had been giving him stick as he left the pitch. Right away I rushed
out to say to Arsène: ‘You leave my players alone.’ He was incensed at losing the game. That was the
reason for his combative behaviour.
‘You should attend to your own players,’ I told him. He was livid. His fists were clenched. I was

in control, I knew it. Arsène had a thing about Van Nistelrooy. I remember him saying he’d had a
chance to sign Ruud but had decided he was not good enough to play for Arsenal. I agreed with him in
the sense that Van Nistelrooy may not have been a great footballer. But he was a great goal-scorer.
Anyway, the next thing I knew I had pizza all over me.
We put food into the away dressing room after every game. Pizza, chicken. Most clubs do it.
Arsenal’s food was the best.

They say it was Cesc Fàbregas who threw the pizza at me but, to this day, I have no idea who the
culprit was.