Sir Alex Ferguson: Man Utd boss intimidated referees - Redknapp


QPR manager Harry Redknapp believes officials have been "afraid to upset" Sir Alex Ferguson, as he praised the contribution of the retiring Manchester United boss.
Everton boss David Moyes, 50, will take over on 1 July from the Scot, 71, who announced his retirement on Wednesday.
"A lot of officials would be in awe of him and afraid to upset him," Redknapp told Radio 5 live's Sportsweek.
"There was such an aura about him because he is a winner."
Redknapp added: "I never had any doubts about that. If there was a bit of time to be added they would make sure they got it right because they did not want to upset him.
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"When Man Utd were losing, they had an average of four minutes and 37 seconds added time, compared with three minutes and 18 seconds when they were winning"

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"Especially young referees, and even one or two of the older ones, were a little bit afraid to upset him."
In January 2009, then-Liverpool manager, Rafael Benitez, made similar complaints. He said: "We know what happens every time we go to Old Trafford and the United staff.
"They are always going man to man with the referees, especially at half-time when they walk close to the referees and they are talking and talking."

  Yep even Arry boy knew .

They're missing him a little bit.

hard to believe that an away team can get 3 penalties in the same game at OT. In truth they should have had 4, not so long ago there wouldn't be that many given in a decade

Chris Foy would have given all four.

He hates Chelsea.

LaTarp.

So what, Emlyn Hughes was in the freemasons (source wiki) and willing to pay bribes to arsenal players to win the league.

Thats why Liverpool won everything in the 70's

thebetterbettor have a day off

Did Charwell write the opening article or is it taken from somewhere else ?

Fair play O4k
the point i was trying to make, very poorly put I admit, was that at least LFCs dominance came about because they adhered to their principles
Man Utd under ferguson, well its my contention that he was allowed to dominate with the richest club in an era when the game became more about money than anything else

I think I speak for most fans when I say we view the LFC/ManU battle as a tedious provincial rivalry given far too much prominence by the uk media
When they were winning, supporting LFC in europe or Man U became something of a badge of honour for fleet street. As if to say 'well the national teams from the uk are never going to win anything so our best chance of seeing johnny foreigner getting a beating is nailing our colours to their mast'. Particularly with ManU being seen as more British under ferguson than multicultural arsenal or chelsea with their overseas managers

And let us not forget that Fergus got his template for referee intimidation from Liv, a fact he has acknowledged in a roundabout sort of a way. Well before Howard Webb there was a chap called George Courtney who was england's senior ref and referred to by LFC fans as uncle george.

When one team dominates a league as these 2 have been allowed to do in the recent past it is a poor state of affairs. Yes it happens all over europe and thats not ideal either but the last time I checked, the French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch national teams regularly appear at the business end of international tournaments which doesnt happen here.

You can scoff at 66 and while the south americans have legitimate grievances its worth while remembering that england went to mexico in 1970 as the best europe had to offer. The defeat to Germany in the quarters was a freakish result involving as it did an england team playing the germans off the park for the first 70 odd minutes.
Nowadays the best the english can muster is some sort of Park-The-Bus mentality, playing for extra time and penalties which we all know they haven't an earthly of winning. Same sort of tactics Man U and chelsea employed in their much vaunted champs Lg triumphs.

LFC in their day did dominate Europe playing a brand of shall we say continental possession football alien to much of what the football league had to offer. But they had a crucial advantage in that they were able to select Scottish and Irish players, as many as they liked when most of europe were reduced to at most 2 foreign players, none at all in some cases.

Its an odd anomaly that these 2 great empires of english football were unable to affect any sort of improvement in the standards of the national team the way that others like Barca, Bayern, Ajax, Milan and Madrid have done.

Almost as if LFC and ManU have become the de facto national teams themselves. I would argue especially in the case of Fergus that their success harmed the national team.

THe hope is now, that with all the money in the EPL it can lead to a stronger competition as in the late 60s early 70s when the national team was something to behold.
Would it not be great if a team like southampton could hold on to their all star players like Lallana and win a premier league title?
It may take a system of play offs and abandoning the tedious 30 odd game slog that does nothing but assist the rich.
Who knows LFC and Man U supporters may even get to develop a new set of rivalries and forget about the other lot down the road

How did Fergie's success harm the national team? By pulling players from friendlies and getting them to retire from Intl football early? What more can a club do than provide its top talents for the national team? Fergie wasn't the England manager as well.

The reason other Euro countries benefited from their great sides is probably got a little more to do with their international managers, the players themselves and media that are actually on the side of the team and get the whole country behind it. In England you have a gutter press and SKY which overhypes every single player in an England shirt and builds up the national team for a massive fall every time and it loves nothing more than to see the team fail and get stuck into the players and manager afterwards. The same hacks who hype the players slate them afterwards.

Hodgson is talked about as if he's some managerial legend. He's average at best. Even with the players England has now they should be doing a lot better.

It's surely one of the biggest myths surrounding ferguson that he was good for the national team. Wellbeck is about the only player in recent years and he's been farmed out to others who deserve as much credit. Not surprising given the rules demanding epl clubs stick to their local areas for young talent. Then again us spurs fans have long since laughed at the notion of the young beckham relocating oop north because of his love of Bryan capt marvel robson. Fact that father Ted was able to move house from leytonstone to leafy chingford after a certain red faced Caledonian had been spotted in the vicinity was probably nothing to do with it. Ironically enough the value of the house in leytonstone  would surpass that of unfashionable chingford these days but that's enough London house prices.
Anyway let's look at the facts. Scholes retired early, wether that was due to the dislike of the Gerard lampard axis or the fact that his agricultural style of tackling would not be looked upon as kindly by foreign refs as those in the epl, I know not. Wouldn't be the greatest stretch to imagine ferguson talking him into it either. Gigs phoned in more appearances for wales than anyone in the history of intl football. Beckham gave his all for the nat team and that among other reasons was why ferguson was so quick to get rid.
As has become apparent in recent weeks fergusons knowledge of the overseas transfer market was about as impressive as my understanding of the large hadron collider. Fergusons m.o. Was to buy from the epl thus strengthening his hand and weakening his rivals at the same time. Usually to the accompaniment of media sycophants and their sickening refrain 'man utd are the biggest club in the world'. Net result was that young English talent would either be underemployed on the bench or in the case of Rooney ran into the ground over the course of the punishing English season. Imagine had Rooney stood at Everton. He may have won the odd trophy even enjoyed a season or two in the ucl. But he would have understood what it was to play in a team where u have to work for every win. Where his occasional violent tendencies & snarling at refs would harm the team cause by his expulsion.  Quite a bit like playing for England. Anyway come the summer odds are that mr roo will be a whole lot fresher than in recent tourneys. Quite like the idea of him enjoying his best  World Cup whilst sitting on 300 bags/ wk of Man U money.