Is Fergie all that?

Is Alex Ferguson as good a manager as he has been built up to be, the facts may suggest otherwise. The success of the 90's was built upon alot of players that came through the youth team, Beckham, the Neville's, Butt, Giggs, Scholes etc. Such a youth team will probably never be seen again, so Fergie was extremely lucky in that respect.

During the 90's, there was not really any teams in the Premier League that had the players to compete with us,in the late 90's Arsenal gave us competition but apart from them who was there. Lets be honest, in 99 we had an outrageous amount of luck. If Bergkamp had scored that penalty in the FA Cup semi final we would have been knocked out, in the same game if Viera had not played a terrible pass to Giggs, he would not have scored that wonder goal. We were totally outplayed in the Champions League final, Bayern should of scored three of four goals.

I have to call into question our consistent failure in europe, with the teams that Fergie has had to work with one trophie has to go down as a major failure. In the match against Porto, Man Utd had better players than Porto but Fergie was tactically outcoached by Mourinho. Our humiliation in the San Siro against an ageing Milan happened simply because our squad was nowhere near strong enough.

I also have to call into question Fergies transfer dealings, he has consistently fallen out with key players and sold them to the detriment of the team, Beckham, Stam, Van Nistelrooy, Keane, etc. He has made some truly terrible signings, 36 year old Blanc, Veron for £30m, djemba, liam miller, forlan, kleberson, Saha, Taibi, Van Der Gouw, Fortune, Smith and many others.

The significant improvement in the quality of the players we have signed recently has been almost exclusively down to the influence of Carlos Quieroz, who's portugese links have enabled us to sign players like Ronaldo, Nani, Anderson and the soon to arrive Manucho. Arsene Wenger recently stated in an interview that Ronaldo was at Arsenal being shown around, but it was Utd's ties to Sporting which Quieroz was responsible for that enabled us to sign him ahead of Arsenal.

I am not saying that Fergie does not deserve any credit, of course he does. But lets not go over the top by saying he is the best manager in history. Fabio Capello has achieved much more in Europe than Fergie.