Liverpool FC Forum

[dawson99]

fergies sticking up for the managers, hes been there long enough to know how managers should be treated., fair play to him for saying it, altho it is only because we are gash in the league

[crazyhorse]

Fergie is well known as a man who will speak up for and defend other managers, its the one thing I really respect about him. He is however on the other hand a c    u        n    t !

[Toffeehater]

Fergies being patronising and trying to talk down to us.  If we were six points ahead of United in the league he wouldn't be as sympathetic.

exactly read it carefully , he says that players want to join top clubs like he mentioned but in times like this NO PLAYER WOULD WANT TO JOIN!!

He's using reverse psychology , and laying mind games in a way

[kazza]

Fergies being patronising and trying to talk down to us.  If we were six points ahead of United in the league he wouldn't be as sympathetic.

exactly read it carefully , he says that players want to join top clubs like he mentioned but in times like this NO PLAYER WOULD WANT TO JOIN!!

He's using reverse psychology , and laying mind games in a way

Jedi mind trick.

[KennyisGod....still]

One thing Fergie is the VERY BEST at is mind games..... I'd like to think this aint one of his games, bearin in mind he was apparently jus one game from the tin tack a long time ago, but I aint too sure. He's a slippery connivin get, and after all, he's jus bein smug I reckon bout the relative positions

[Anfield rapper]

Don't be fooled by Fergie. He just see's the chance to divide this club and he's sticking his oar in. He couldn't give a flying one who's in charge here. He's just seen that the manager and the owners don't get on and he wants us to hate them even more. Don't take any notice of his comments. Its just his mind games.

[murphy0151]

Sir Alex Ferguson: ‘Liverpool guilty of bad piece of business over Jurgen Klinsmann’
The Manchester United manager’s sympathy for his opposite number at Anfield does not extend to those in charge of BenÍtez’s clubJames Ducker in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
When Alex Ferguson took over at Old Trafford in November 1986, Liverpool were the class act on and off the pitch. The best-run club playing the best brand of football. They were something to aspire to

Even with the advent of the 1990s, when the success for Liverpool dried up, precipitating a period of sustained United dominance, the Merseyside club retained a way of doing things that singled them out as special. Professional, dignified and modest to the last. Ferguson prefers to call it “classy”.

Fast-forward two decades and the picture is different. After 12 months of turmoil, Liverpool have become a byword for infighting, back-stabbing, financial miscalculation and failed promises, the principles on which the club were founded in danger of becoming relics from a bygone age.

Ferguson shakes his head. The Al Faisaliah Hotel in Saudi Arabia’s affluent capital of Riyadh, where his team have been enjoying a short winter break, may not seem the ideal place for the United manager to deliver a damning indictment of Liverpool’s American regime, but even from 3,000 miles away the chaos that has engulfed Anfield is all too apparent to him.

Those thinking that Ferguson is taking perverse delight out of the mess Liverpool are in would be wrong. He is unlikely to shed a tear for his sworn rivals, but as he talked at length yesterday about the treatment of Rafael Benítez at the hands of Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, the Liverpool co-owners, and the catastrophic effect that he believes the Spaniard’s seemingly inevitable departure as manager would have on the Merseyside club, he almost appeared sickened by the events.

Perhaps the apparent incompetence of the American invasion at Anfield is too close to home for his own comfort. It was, after all, United who were widely expected to suffer at the hands of American ownership, not Liverpool.

The Glazer family’s takeover at Old Trafford in 2005 has not been without its share of controversy, but while Benítez has been continually undermined by his bosses — not least when Hicks admitted this month that Jürgen Klinsmann, the former Germany coach, had been offered the chance to succeed the Spaniard as manager before Klinsmann agreed to take charge at Bayern Munich — Ferguson has been left alone, free to do his job with the minimum of interference. It is the way it should be at all the leading clubs, he believes.

“At big clubs, it’s absolutely paramount that the board show their class,” Ferguson said. “Obviously results do matter — they matter to myself and Arsène Wenger at Arsenal just as they do everyone else — but Arsène has always had great support from David Dein [the former Arsenal vice-chairman]. That club was probably run by two people.

“I’ve had great support, too, ever since I came here. So there’s a certain type of unity there. What happened with him [Klinsmann] was a badpiece of business on Liverpool’s part, there’s no doubt about that. That sort of thing can be very upsetting for a manager.

“As a manager, there are quite a few moments in every week when you are very much on your own. People don’t want to knock on your door because they think you’re busy all the time, but you can be sitting there twiddling your thumbs.

“You can fill your time by phoning other managers and things, but there is a lot of time spent on your own and in moments like that, Rafa must feel very alone.

“How you react depends on what kind of person you are and Rafa seems quite a stubborn character who can put aside emotion, whereas Martin Jol, for example, seemed to be more affected by it when a similar thing happened to him at Tottenham.

“I’ve been very fortunate at United because I have had good directors, people like [Sir] Bobby Charlton and Martin Edwards, who always supported me very well. Without question I was allowed to get on with my job. In the main, when I have wanted a player I’ve really always got them. There has never been a time I have been refused money.

“There are obviously times down the years when you sat down and talked about your financial position, but I have always been able to find a way around that. You should allow a manager to get on with his job.”

Ferguson is intrigued to discover what will become of Liverpool. Even if Gillett and Hicks secure the £350 million refinancing package that would allow them to repay money borrowed for their takeover and commence work on a 70,000-capacity stadium in Stanley Park, adjacent to Anfield, their long-term relationship appears untenable after a series of rifts and with Dubai International Capital, the private-equity arm of the Arab state, waiting in the wings, uncertainty continues to surround Liverpool’s future.

Protests from supporters campaigning against Hicks and Gillett’s involvement have also done little to quell this image of Liverpool as a club in crisis and Ferguson believes that, as long as it remains that way, players may be unwilling to move to Anfield.

“Twenty years ago Liverpool were a closely knit and well-run club,” he said. “The important thing is that big clubs should be seen to be big clubs. Most players want to play for Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool, but when they see a club that they think is topsy-turvy, with a divide between the directors and the manager, then they might think twice \. When the choice comes, they want to join a stable club.”

If there was a hint of mischievousness about those comments, few Liverpool supporters would challenge his belief that their team, 14 points adrift of United and Arsenal and ten behind Chelsea in the Barclays Premier League, are out of the title race. Nor that there could be a mass exodus of players were Benítez to leave, as appears increasingly likely the longer Gillett and Hicks remain in charge.

With Liverpool’s academy packed full of young foreign players handpicked by Benítez and a first team brimming with world-class Spaniards such as Fernando Torres, Xabi Alonso and José Manuel Reina, none of whom could resist the lure of working under the former Valencia manager, are any of them likely to hang around in the event that Benítez goes? Ferguson doubts it.

“One thing for sure is that Rafa has brought in a lot of his players because of Spanish connections,” Ferguson said. “Now if an English manager was to come into Liverpool, that connection is gone. What happens then? That’s definitely an issue.”

And the title race? It barely seems worth mentioning, given the more pressing problems facing Liverpool, but Ferguson is predicting another year of frustration on that front.

“I think Liverpool will be concentrating on trying to win the European Cup rather than the league,” he said. “I say that because there are three clubs ahead of them, rather than just one. It’s a long way to Arsenal, Chelsea and ourselves.

“If it was just one, you still couldn’t write off Liverpool, but it is very difficult to think that three teams could ever drop that number of points and be caught...


a good read i thought,  even whisky nose cant believe whats going on at liverpool...

if we lose rafa in the summer god help us,  we will be in a right state...   

Legend

[Toffeehater]

One thing Fergie is the VERY BEST at is mind games..... I'd like to think this aint one of his games, bearin in mind he was apparently jus one game from the tin tack a long time ago, but I aint too sure. He's a slippery connivin get, and after all, he's jus bein smug I reckon bout the relative positions

Yes , read between the lines

[Owzat]

Don't be fooled by Fergie. He just see's the chance to divide this club and he's sticking his oar in. He couldn't give a flying one who's in charge here. He's just seen that the manager and the owners don't get on and he wants us to hate them even more. Don't take any notice of his comments. Its just his mind games.

fergie may well like Rafa being at Anfield, us finishing fourth and him with only Arsenal and Chelski to worry about. I take little notice of WORDS that come out of manager's mouths, it's not any of fergie's business anyway.

[Reg]

I believe its a genuine statement of concern from Fergie. ManUre and the PL need a strong LFC to maintain interest and income levels. What he states is also painfully true - 20 years ago we were a tight run club with full support for the manager whereas today we are running around like a headless chicken. Lastly, he's not just making a sly comment within a general interview, he's made a thoughtful and long assessment of the situation and its meant to be read and digested. No doubt aimed specifically at G&H as a public show of disapproval and to Moores and Parry as a kick up the harris. Thats how I read it and I hope it has its desired effect.   

PS: Dont forget that Martin Edwards came in for the same sh!t when the club was sold to the Glazers (he used to do Crackerjack didnt he?) which Fergie conveniently forgets.

[Reg]

God help Rafa now, Moyes supports Fergie!

From The Times January 29, 2008

David Moyes salutes Sir Alex Ferguson for taking tough stand on feud.

David Moyes praised Sir Alex Ferguson yesterday for speaking out in support of Rafael BenÍtez as the Spaniard fights to retain the reins at Liverpool. Talking to TheGame Podcast, the Everton manager said that his Manchester United counterpart was right to criticise the “ridiculous” pressure that BenÍtez has faced during his dispute with Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, the Liverpool co-owners.

“I thought it was tremendous that Sir Alex Ferguson came out and said the things supporting Rafa and in a way had a go at the board, because it’s the board who make the decisions,” Moyes said. “It [the Liverpool situation] is ridiculous. Sir Alex has stood up because he is very much part of the LMA [League Managers Association].”

Moyes, who has spent ten years as a manager at Preston North End and Everton without being sacked, said that clubs have become too impatient for immediate results. “It might need to be the managers who need to interview the board and the chairmen, rather than the other way round,” he said. “The secret as a young manager is to have a chairman who will help you and not get too high when you win or get too low when you lose.

“I feel that nowadays, with so many billionaires coming into the game, they may be thinking, ‘We’ve been successful in our life so we should have instant success.’ There can only be one or two winners of competitions every year, which means the majority aren’t winning.”

Everton, who are fourth in the Barclays Premier League, have thrived under Moyes with a midfield and attack containing many relatively short players, such as Mikel Arteta, Tim Cahill, Leon Osman and Andrew Johnson, and the manager said he would like to add some height to the team.

“It’s very important to have big players, [but] we’re tending to find that the best players are the smaller ones at the moment,” he said. “A lot of the smaller players are maybe better on the ball. Maybe at the moment we’re slightly towards the small side. A big part of English football is still set-pieces and we have to try and add a bit of stature to our side.”


Its the only time he gets publicity - when he talks about Liverpool.   

[The Manhattan Project]

ALEX FERGUSON SPEAKS OUT.......but few can understand what he's saying.

All his interviews sound the same.

SKY: Sir Alex, could you tell us about this new player you've signed?

FERGIE: Wul, hez eh gud playh....hez gut paathh un spid.....huh guuuvz uzzz ohpshunzzzz duuun buuuthhh saaahhhdzzz uffff duuuhhh pishhhh.

TRANSLATOR: Sir Alex said "Well he's a good player, he's got pace and speed. He gives us options down both sides of the pitch"

[zarababe]

How ironic the mancs boss speaks up for the boss and some on here .. well !

[Ciggy]

Of course he wants Rafa to stay he hasnt beat him in the league, and we havent scored one goal past them in the league under rafa.

This fella is as sly as G & H.

[Owzat]

I hear Moyes, SGE and O'Neill are speaking out in support of Raffle, well pleased with the current situation