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WE CAN DO IT AGAIN !
m4m - Wed, 14 Dec 05 :
Our fall from the top is nothing to do with Arseholes tho some Utd fans may say it's down to one or two from within.
You are crap away and you don't get slated to death. When you lose nooone make a big fuss yet when we do not win then ;)
Henry hasn't renewed his contract which is running out so it's natural for the hacks to speculate; that's not criticism.
It's not looking good for Fergie after yesterday's walkout coz he's played right into the hands of the gutterpress
Oliver Holt in the Daily Mirror
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
'IN THE match-day programme for Manchester United's game against Everton on Sunday, Sir Alex Ferguson wrote about the reaction to the club's current troubles and accused the media of making it personal.
In the Old Trafford press room, a couple of dozen reporters fell down on the floor and died laughing.
Because the truth is that when it comes to making things personal, Ferguson wrote the book on it.
The United manager has been making it personal for 19 years with the English media. So let's have a little less of the whining now he thinks he's getting some back.
Nasty put-downs, singling out individuals for vicious criticism, sneering, treating people with contempt and lack of respect - Fergie turned it into an art form.
That's why no-one was surprised when he did his lip-curling Sid Vicious impersonation yesterday and stormed snarling and cursing out of a press conference after 74 seconds.
Ferguson didn't seem to care that his histrionics would inevitably pile more pressure on his reeling side before tonight's crucial home showdown with Wigan.
Paul Jewell, the Wigan manager, had spoken generously and warmly about how Ferguson was the best boss this country has had for 20 years.
No-one would disagree with that, but Ferguson's puerile petulance ensured that Jewell's words would be utterly overshadowed.
His obnoxiousness is tolerated and indulged by everybody at United, of course, because the alternative is to point out to him that his behaviour is boorish, rude and ignorant.
Even the press have always treated him with the kind of respect and decency that he rarely returned.
The examples of his efforts to humiliate reporters are far, far too numerous to be listed here, but a few old favourites are worth trotting out.
A couple of years ago, for instance, a friend of mine asked Fergie a reasonable question. Even Sir Alex thought it was reasonable.
"That's a good question," he said. "But it would take a whole interview to answer it and that's an interview you're never going to f***ing get."
More recently, a reporter from The Times was escorted to the side of the Old Trafford pitch by the Arsenal press officer after a game.
The idea was for him to speak to a couple of the Arsenal players when they emerged from their dressing room.
The routine is deemed to be common practice at most clubs who do not have a raging Mr Angry for a boss but, when Ferguson spotted the reporter, he came charging towards him.
"Get that c*** out of my tunnel," he screamed, veins popping and eyes bulging. The woman from Arsenal and the reporter stared at him in startled dismay.
And when the sports editor of the Daily Mirror asked him, on the occasion of his 1,000th game as a manager, if there was anything he could do to improve the relationship between the paper and the club, Ferguson fixed him with a glare.
"Yes," the manager of the self-styled greatest club in the world said. "You can f*** off and die."
I've even got my own anecdote to add to the comic troupe now. It happened at a press conference in Lisbon last week when I had the temerity to ask Fergie whether he would be under pressure if United lost to Benfica the following night.
He refused to answer but he did look as if his head was going to explode. Then he turned to Cristiano Ronaldo, who was sitting next to him on the dais.
"We've got some right f**king pr**ks in here today," he muttered.
We'll excuse him that last one. As several people have pointed out, Fergie could plead fair comment.
But the wider issue here is that the legacy of a brilliant manager and a fiercely intelligent, fascinating man is slowly being poisoned by the bitterness and hostility that seems to consume him.
He appears to hold grudges against most people under 60, the entire BBC, every national newspaper, multi-millionaires who give him a free horse, every referee who ever lived, Roy Keane, and everyone who ever crossed him.
His outburst yesterday about how the press harbour a hatred for United was typical of the paranoia that has started to grip him in his decline.
The press don't hate United. Most of us veer in the other direction. And spend our time defending ourselves against accusations of bias from Arsenal supporters.
But when the club is knocked out of the Champions League before Christmas for the first time in 10 years, some criticism of the manager - however venerable and august he is - is bound to be forthcoming.
Some of my colleagues have already observed that it wasn't the press booing the team at the final whistle on Sunday. It was the fans, many of whom also feel he has no right to appeal to their better natures any more after he so meekly accepted the Glazer takeover.
Ferguson's descent into a caricature of a man with a persecution complex, a man raging against the world, is desperately sad.
He could be charming and amiable and funny, too, once.
I still think of an interview I did with him in his office at The Cliff 10 years or so ago as a privilege.
But the point was reached long ago when his vitriol and his taste for the role of playground bully began to tarnish the image of the club and damn its attempts to improve its public relations.
His achievements at Old Trafford and, before that, with Aberdeen, demand that he should be remembered as one of the greatest managers Britain has ever known.
But the danger is that the sourness, the hostility, the anger and the bitterness that are accompanying him into old age will cloud his reputation.
If you treat people like dirt, if you abandon the normal parameters of common courtesy, eventually it will catch up with you.
Will Ferguson, for instance, be remembered with the same affection as Busby, Shankly, Stein or Paisley?
I'm not sure. Too many years of making it personal might have put paid to that.'
Rick Broadbent in Times on Fergie's best rants
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
'WALK into Sir Alex Ferguson’s snooker room and you will find a tartan carpet leading past busts of John Wayne, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. This might be considered the abridged version of his career — Scottish pride, true grit, another fine mess.
Of course, no sports journalist is likely to be invited into his Fairfields war bunker. Even the mere presence of a room full of hacks is liable to induce a facial expression more readily associated with haemorrhoids. The Ferguson press conference is a study in necessary evil as inquisitors tiptoe on egg shells for fear of provoking a ban or a blast, while the Manchester United patriarch exudes the natural warmth of hypothermia and calls them “f***ing idiots”. Proud, gritty, messy.
His temper is legend. Bobby McCulley, a striker when Ferguson was manager of East Stirlingshire, said: “I’d never been afraid of anyone before, but he was such a frightening b*stard from the start.” Young journalists witnessing “the hairdryer” for the first time would no doubt concur. Ferguson is as blunt as they come. He will call a spade a spade and then willingly dig you a shallow grave.
Over the years, the respect he has garnered from peers and players has been tempered by his, er, temper. He may refuse to respect the word of anyone who has not played professional football, let alone worked in a Clyde shipyard, but this means that he can come across as a flat-track bully. Nobody who needs information from Old Trafford can fall out with Ferguson for too long. He has the power and knows it.
And so the person who dared to question the abilities of Juan Sebastián Verón sparked the tirade: “He’s a f***ing great player. Youse are all f***ing idiots.” This was nothing new.In 1995, John Motson, hardly the most aggressive of questioners, asked if Ferguson was going to punish Roy Keane after he had been sent off for the third time in 14 matches. “You’ve no right to ask that question, John — you’re out of order,” he said. “You know my ruling on that. Right, that’s the interview finished. I’m going to cancel that interview, the whole f***ing lot of it. Cancel it, right? F***ing make sure that does not go out, John. You’re not getting in again, right — you know the f***ing rules here.”
He stopped speaking to the BBC after a documentary that claimed he had facilitated his son’s career as an agent and his relationship with Alan Green, the outspoken BBC Radio commentator, is non-existent. Green has called Ferguson a “control freak”, while Ferguson told him: “You don’t pick my f***ing teams.” However, some suggest talk of a feud between the two is a product of Green ’s imagination and there is no doubt a hairdryer blast can be taken as a badge of honour.
It is not hard to court the wrath of Ferguson. Arsčne Wenger, Sepp Blatter, assorted referees, J. P. McManus, John Magnier, David and Victoria Beckham, the Patents Office and bumpy pitches have received the treatment. Do you spot a thread?
“What does he know about English football, coming from Japan?” Ferguson said of Wenger. “That’s absolute bollocks,” he sighed live on Sky last month in answer to a question about pressure. Geoff Shreeves should have known better than to venture beyond the anodyne and the platitude. After all, he knew that Ferguson had stopped his post-match press conferences in 2001, when the flak was flying, his retirement was impending and United were losing 3-0 at home to Chelsea. When the going gets tough, the tough go home early.
No other Premiership manager treats the media, and hence their audiences, with such contempt. It is said that he is charming company, yet he appears to think that good grace is a pre-meal prayer. But maybe he was right to call it a day after 72 seconds. Proud man, gritted teeth, messy end. What else is there left to say?'
Max Clifford believes Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has finally burned his bridges with the national press - and only has himself to blame.
The public relations guru says that walking out of Tuesday's press conference ahead of the Premiership game against Wigan was the final straw.
"He is not one for diplomacy and he always goes on the attack," Clifford told BBC Sport.
"But it doesn't make things better, it makes them a lot worse." Ferguson accused the papers of having a "hatred of United" in radio and agency interviews after refusing to take any questions from the written press.
Clifford believes there is no turning back and said the adoption of a siege mentality was a typical tactic of the United manager.
He said: "It is far too late to go out and try to win friends and influence people.
"The die has been cast and you cannot start now trying to get friends when it is all falling apart.
"He has had plenty of praise in the past, so it is not just a case that he has had nothing but criticism."
Clifford said Ferguson had fallen into the same trap as Tony Blair's Labour government.
He said: "Ferguson should have sorted this out a long time ago when he was at the top.
"I said the same thing to Alistair Campbell when Tony Blair was going through his honeymoon period.
"That's the time to do it. Look after the press when they need you a whole lot more than you need them.
"My advice to him would be to resign and I have said before he should have done it a long time ago.
"He should get out as soon as he can and organise it himself. Don't wait to be sacked."
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