How to win or lose mind games against Sir Alex: Part 1 of 3

Posted on 26. Oct, 2009 by GoRealer in Football, Sports

‘Poor Alan Riley… enough is enough’ seemed to be the universal call from all neutrals, after Sir Alex Ferguson’s rant about the referee’s fitness a couple of weeks back. But those of us that have been here before know that it was nothing more than an attempt by the United boss to direct the media attention away from his club’s poor performances of late (Liverpool being the most recent).

Funny that the ref is again being blamed for Utd’s 2-0 defeat yesterday afternoon also.

Here’s a reminder of what the Manchester United manager had to say about the ref after the 2-2 draw wth Sunderland.

Sunderland’s unfortunate draw 2 weeks ago could have been the wake up call to the rest of the premier league needed to see that United are not anywhere near championship winning form. Steve Bruce’s team showed that an ambitious 4-4-2 formation against the red devils is just what the doctor ordered a la Burnley, but once again the media frenzy has overshadowed the performance and I am pretty sure the next mid table club that faces United will resort to a negative 4-5-1 formation, leaving with nothing more than an increased deficit on their goal difference.

At some point over the last decade or so, every football manager to ever manage a premier league team other than United -obviously- has been on the receiving end of the wizardry tongue of Sir Alex Ferguson. But we would all be surprised and happy to know that his success rate isn’t exactly on the 100% mark, and that there has been a few successes in recent past.

In order to pinpoint the few men that stood their ground against the Scotsman, I guess its fitting to first highlight those who fell on the wayside and hopefully we can begin separate the boys from the special ones.

INDIRECT TACTICS

Fergie has a wide range of psychological tactics in his arsenal, but possibly the most lethal of the lot is his ability to indirectly push the opposing manager into a press conference rant about everything under the sun, other than their own football team.

Year:1996
Victim: Kevin Keegan
Background: Alex Ferguson had previously suggested that premiership teams were playing ultra defensive against Man Utd, while taking it easy against Keegan’s Newcastle.

Year: 2009
Victim: Rafa Benitez
Background: Alex Ferguson made suggestions that Liverpool’s lead at the top of the table would not last or as the reporter put it they will ‘choke’.

The infamous ‘I will love it if we beat them’ and Senor Rafa’s ”FACTS” rants are perfect examples of how managers have failed in an attempt to redirect the pressure towards United. Instead they end up putting more pressure on their own players, who -I am sure you have guessed- do not have any prior experience of being in a championship race.

HOW TO NOT FALL IN THE TRAP

Shut Up! Its that simple, unless you have a CV that boasts in and around 20% of what Alex Ferguson has achieved in English football, just zip it. Because this tactic is not entirely targeted at the manager but the inexperienced players in the opposition. The aim is to stimulate doubt in the player minds whether they are indeed good enough to win the title off United. Hence it reads ‘off United’, because even when United are playing badly Ferguson knows how to keep them in everyone’s minds as title favourites, by overlooking performances such as the Sunderland’. Being that post-January happens to be the period where players look to their managers for the vote of confidence, any manager that shows any signs of weakness in the press is likely to be adding more fuel to the fire rather than defusing it.

This is why Sir Alex tends to only serve up this tactic to managers and teams who do not have any experience of winning an English title.

WINNERS

Kenny Daglish (1994-95): The then Blackburn Rovers manager already had two English league titles under his belt as player manager of Liverpool FC. So the Blackburn players knew they could look to King Kenny for the right vote of confidence. Plus Kenny was seen by many to be an honest bloke that never really got into war or words, instead had spokesmen like keeper Tim Flowers to answer Sir Alex’ attempt to question Blackburn’s bottle.

“Don’t talk to me about bottling it, cos that’s bottle out there. That’s quality players out there, giving their all … we’re gonna fight to the death, cos we’ve got bottle … all we can say is we’ll give exactly what we’ve given today, exactly what we’ve given all season, and that’s 100% bottle.” - Tim Flowers after making a string of super saves in a 1-0 win over Newcastle.

Arsene Wenger (1997-1998): Where Monsieur Wenger lacked on the CV, he made up for with a back four that boasted four players with two league titles under their belt. The likes of Steve Bould, Tony Adams, Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn were instrumental in the first title winning side of 1998. This later gave Wenger the platform along with players like Vieira and Ray Parlour the experience required to overcome Fergies tactics. This could begin to explain why Arsenal have struggled to win the title since the exit of these experienced leaders.

Mourinho (2004-2005): Jose Mourinho came in with a CV that if compared to Ferguson’s -based on age- was far superior. At the age of 41, he had already beaten Sir Alex on the way to Champions league title. Morinho understood that the advantage Sir Alex Ferguson had over the other managers was his ability to control media through his mastering of press conferences. Therefore Jose was able to shut off Ferguson’s mind games with his first ever press conference, referring to himself as the special one, as if the Chelsea players needed any reminder that they had a winner in their camp.

COMING SOON ON THE FERGIE SERIES: HOW TO WIN THE BATTLE OVER THE REFEREES?

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