Page 92 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

already obvious that Arsène’s team were going to win the League. There was a sense of destiny.
In those moments of defeat and acceptance, there would be a dawning, for me, of where we needed
to go. My feeling was always: ‘I don’t like this, but we’ll have to meet the challenge. We’ll have to
step up a mark.’ It wouldn’t have been me, or the club, to submit to apocalyptic thoughts about that

being the end, the finish of all our work. We could never allow that.
Every time those moments poked us in the eye, we accepted the invitation to regroup and advance
again. Those were motivating passages. They forced me on. I’ll go further: I can’t be sure that without
those provocations I would have enjoyed the job so much.
In later years we learned more about Arsenal’s thinking. Arsène had a template of how he sees his
players and the way they play. We didn’t need to win the ball against Arsenal, we needed to intercept
it. You need good players who can intercept. We worked out that when the ball was played into

Fàbregas with his back to goal, he would turn it round the corner and meet the return pass. He would
twist the pass round the corner then run to get it back on the other side of the defender. So we would
say to our players: ‘Stay with the runner, then intercept the pass.’ Then we counter-attacked quickly.
They were more dangerous at Old Trafford than their own ground. Away from home, they didn’t
feel obliged to throw everything at us. They were more conservative.
Barcelona were far more organised than Arsenal. When they lost the ball they would hound it.

Every one of their players would be after it to win it back. Arsenal didn’t have quite that dedication
to the task of regaining possession. Then again, sometimes Barcelona would imitate Arsenal in over-
elaborating, because they enjoyed it so much. Against Real Madrid at the Bernabéu in 2009, Messi
was playing one-twos in the Real Madrid penalty box: not just one but two or three, while the Madrid
defenders were all over the place. They won 6–2, but for a time I thought they would throw the game
away.
We all have to put our hands up to having players who were over-physical at times, but Arsène

could never do that, which was a weakness. It’s not a crime to admit guilt when a player is sent off.
You should feel bad, because he’s let his team down. I had some issues with Paul Scholes. I even
fined him for the silly things. I don’t get upset when a player is booked when he was on for the tackle,
but if he is sent off for a stupid challenge – and Scholesy was guilty of that – he would be fined. But if
you expect a player to go through a season without infringing the laws of the game, you’re asking for
miracles.

Arsène’s softer centre in my later years reflected the players he brought to the club. Samir Nasri
becomes available, so Arsène takes him. Rosický becomes available, so he takes him, because he’s
his type of player. Arshavin becomes available, so in he comes. When you acquire a lot of those
players, they are almost clones. The team Arsène inherited gave him a start in English football.
We stayed on these parallel tracks right to the end. And of course we were united by a desire to
find and develop young players in our own image.
Then again, Aaron Ramsey said before we played Arsenal one time that he had chosen Arsène’s

team over mine because Arsenal produce more players than Man Utd.
I thought: ‘What world is he in?’ I think a young boy can get manipulated into saying things. It was
his own decision to reject United, and I have no problem with that. I thought he made the wrong
choice, I must say, though he would have faced more competition at our place to make the first team.
Arsenal had not produced many of their own players. They had developed players, which is not the
same thing. They bought them from clubs in France and all over the place. The only truly homegrown

player I could think of was Jack Wilshere.
Giggs, Neville, Scholes, Fletcher, O’Shea, Brown, Welbeck: all produced at Man Utd.