Man Utd Thread:

[ross4life]

haha fergie & neville will be like that if united score the winner in the 97 minute on sunday & i for one would settle for that 

[blewuporstuffed]

Lets hope there is plenty of this on Sunday

two horrible cnuts if every there was

[EC Unique]

Great to see a man close to 70 years of age having such passion for the game.A pure genius who nobody even gets close to in terms of management.

[muppet]

Great to see a man close to 70 years of age having such passion for the game.A pure genius who nobody even gets close to in terms of management.

Herb Kelleher?

[EC Unique]

16 year old Joe Coll from Donegal has signed for Utd as a goal keeper.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/joe-16-signs-for-man-united-2104303.html

Good luck to the lad.

[J70]

Great to see a man close to 70 years of age having such passion for the game.A pure genius who nobody even gets close to in terms of management.

Not even close? Not even Sir Matt himself?

[EC Unique]

In terms of consistant success and being able to adapt to the massive changes in the game over 30 years.... Not even close. Lets hope he is about for another few seasons as manager.

[longrunsthefox]

Great to see a man close to 70 years of age having such passion for the game.A pure genius who nobody even gets close to in terms of management.

Not even close? Not even Sir Matt himself?

Mickey Harte EC? 

[EC Unique]

Fair enough Fox. I'll give you that

[J70]

In terms of consistant success and being able to adapt to the massive changes in the game over 30 years.... Not even close. Lets hope he is about for another few seasons as manager.

Well how about someone like Capello then, who has consistently won top leagues in different countries with several clubs?

And while Ferguson is undisputably one of the best of all time and certainly the best in England over the past couple of decades, you're not really comparing like with like when dismissing the likes of Busby or Shankly and others, men who built clubs up from the ground (struggling 2nd division for Shankly, post-war ruins/Munich for Busby) into major European forces and did it at a time when the huge disparity in revenues that now separate a few elite clubs from everyone else did not exist. Ferguson doesn't have to operate on the level playing field those men did and has been breaking transfer records for twenty years. You cannot know if Shankly/Busby would have achieved what Ferguson has done in the modern era, but equally you cannot say that Ferguson would have so over-achieved back in the era of Shankly/Busby/Revie/Clough/Paisley. So yes, he will certainly go down as one of the greatest ever and the most successful, bar none, but the greatest is not quite that simple.

[longrunsthefox]

Clough for me was the man... took Derby from divison 2 to European Cup semi and what he did with those players at Nottingham Forest was phenomenal. Gary Birtles ffs! Archie Gemmill... John Robinson etc... 2 European cups... purely speculation but in a big club with all the dosh today I think he'd clean up.

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

In terms of consistant success and being able to adapt to the massive changes in the game over 30 years.... Not even close. Lets hope he is about for another few seasons as manager.

Well how about someone like Capello then, who has consistently won top leagues in different countries with several clubs?

And while Ferguson is undisputably one of the best of all time and certainly the best in England over the past couple of decades, you're not really comparing like with like when dismissing the likes of Busby or Shankly and others, men who built clubs up from the ground (struggling 2nd division for Shankly, post-war ruins/Munich for Busby) into major European forces and did it at a time when the huge disparity in revenues that now separate a few elite clubs from everyone else did not exist. Ferguson doesn't have to operate on the level playing field those men did and has been breaking transfer records for twenty years. You cannot know if Shankly/Busby would have achieved what Ferguson has done in the modern era, but equally you cannot say that Ferguson would have so over-achieved back in the era of Shankly/Busby/Revie/Clough/Paisley. So yes, he will certainly go down as one of the greatest ever and the most successful, bar none, but the greatest is not quite that simple.

When Ferguson took over at United they were in the relegation zone having been beaten 4-1 by Oxford United and hadn't won a title for nearly 20 years. United became part of the modern elite because of Ferguson.

[longrunsthefox]

It helps when you see top player, just buy him... Rooney, Ronaldo etc... Most managers don't have that luxury.

[new devil]

  Yea because both were top players when they came to united!! Fergie made them into top players my freind 

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

It helps when you see top player, just buy him... Rooney, Ronaldo etc... Most managers don't have that luxury.

Before either of those players arrived Ferguson had won 8 league titles, a Champions League, a Cup Winners Cup and 4 FA Cups. He built up his first great United team with decent investment but not substantially more than other teams were shelling out. His second great team was built on home grown stars.

Obviously as the money in English football rocketed, United were a major beneficiary of this and spent accordingly but Ferguson would have been a great manager regardless of transfer budgets. Any suggestion to the contary is nothing but bitterness and jealousy.