Page 96 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

of at the time, and it is hard to correct until you are confronted by the effect on the victim. My attitude
was that in times of need I could always go back to Scholesy. He was a loyal servant, always ready
and willing to step in. Carrick and Fletcher would be my new first-choice pairing and Scholes would
be the ageing support. It was in my mind for too long that Paul was coming to the end of his career.

In the 2009 Champions League final in Rome, which we lost to Barcelona, I sent Paul on in the
second half. Anderson had made only three passes in the first half. Scholes made 25 in the last 20
minutes of the game. You think you know everything in this game. You don’t. Taking people for
granted and thinking you can always go back to them as they approach the end is wrong. You forget
how good they are.
At the end, consequently, I used him a lot more and rested him at the right times. People would ask
me to pick my best Man United team. I would find it incredibly difficult. You couldn’t leave out

Scholes and you couldn’t leave out Bryan Robson. They would both give you at least ten goals a
season. But then that raises the question: how can you leave out Keane? You would have to play the
three of them. But if you do that, who do you play with Cantona, who was always better playing with
another forward? Try picking one striker from McClair, Hughes, Solskjaer, Van Nistelrooy,
Sheringham, Yorke, Cole, Rooney and Van Persie. You couldn’t disregard Giggs. So it always felt
like an impossible task to select a best XI, yet you would have to say Cantona, Giggs, Scholes,

Robson and Cristiano Ronaldo could never be left out of a Man United side.
Scholes was probably the best English midfielder since Bobby Charlton. Since I have been in
England, Paul Gascoigne was the best of those who could lift you from your seat. In his last few
years, Paul Scholes elevated himself above Gascoigne. One, for longevity, and two, for improving
himself in his thirties.
He was such a brilliant long passer that he could choose a hair on the head of any team-mate
answering the call of nature at our training ground. Gary Neville once thought he had found refuge in a

bush, but Scholesy found him from 40 yards. He inflicted a similar long-range missile strike, once, on
Peter Schmeichel, and was chased round the training ground for his impertinence. Scholesy would
have made a first-class sniper.
As a player myself, I never possessed the innate ability of a Cantona or a Paul Scholes: eyes in the
back of the head. But I could see it in others because I watched so many games. I knew how important
those players were to a team.

Scholes, Cantona, Verón. Beckham had good vision too. He was not the sort who could thread
great passes through, but he could see the other side of the pitch all right. Laurent Blanc had good
vision. Teddy Sheringham and Dwight Yorke could see what was happening all around them. But of
the players in the top echelon, Scholes was the best of that type. When we were winning easily,
Scholes would sometimes try something daft, and I would say, ‘Look, he’s getting bored now.’
Ryan Giggs was the biggest noise from that generation. He was the one most likely to be identified
as a wonder boy. Awarding him a first-team debut at 16 landed us with a problem we had not

expected: the Giggs phenomenon.
An Italian agent phoned me when Ryan was a kid and asked, ‘What do your sons do?’ I said:
‘Mark’s doing a degree, Jason’s going into television, Darren is an apprentice here.’ He said: ‘Sell
me Giggs and I can make them rich.’ Naturally I declined the offer.
The George Best comparison stuck to him immediately and was impossible to dislodge. Everyone
wanted a piece of him. But Giggs was smart. ‘See the manager,’ he would say to anyone seeking an

interview or a tie-up. He didn’t want to grant interviews and found a way to transfer the blame for the
refusal on to me. He was clever.