Guardian:
‘Sir Alex Ferguson thought he had completely withdrawn his resignation in 2002 but it has really lain in the pending tray of public opinion ever since. Once the Manchester United manager had opened the question of the Old Trafford succession he could not close it down again. With just one Premiership title in the past four seasons there has been no way to restore the hush of dumbstruck respect. Now the volume of the debate has been turned up by the 4-1 strafing of his team at Middlesbrough on Saturday.
‘He must know what is happening because he presides over a situation remarkably similar to the one he inherited when he got the job in 1986. Then, as now, some extremely good footballers were sprinkled through a squad that could not be trusted to win with any regularity. Then, as now, a dilettante air suited the side to the knockout tournaments. This, too, was an era when a United manager could at least stave off the sack with that sort of trophy, as Ron Atkinson proved for a while.
‘Ferguson, always a student of football history, will be unable to stop himself from seeing the parallels between his present team and the FA Cup winners of 1985. For Wayne Rooney, Atkinson had Norman Whiteside, the 20-year-old scorer of a ravishing extra-time winner against Everton in the final. Roy Keane, bombarded by injury, can be treated as a counterpart to Bryan Robson, whose dislocated shoulder was a major topic on the sporting scene when Ferguson was appointed.
‘The manager has had his misfortunes but he cannot count on ever again having a dependably healthy Keane in the line-up and, outstanding as they are, Gary Neville and Gabriel Heinze will not be able to transform results from full-back when they return. The greatness of Ferguson had already been established at Aberdeen, with victory over Real Madrid in the 1983 Cup Winners' Cup final, but the revitalisation of United also tapped into a vein of good luck.
‘No amount of diligence guarantees the emergence of the sort of brilliant generation that included David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs. The tale of the past few years has been composed of Ferguson's efforts to purchase players who could replace them or lighten their load. The results are patchy. Juan Sebastián Verón, Kleberson and Eric Djemba-Djemba have all been discarded and, at present, there is a crater where the midfield should be. Fielding Alan Smith there ought to be a pet project reserved for sleepy nights in the Carling Cup, but Ferguson desperately needs to see it work immediately in the big-time.
‘There is scant proof that the Glazers, having raised some £790m for their takeover, can afford a sustained additional investment in fresh players. No manager can even count on the intangible benefits of goodwill since the world at large will watch United being crushed by an even more materialistic Chelsea and reckon they had it coming to them. The likelihood grows that the manager, amid a flurry of euphemism, will be removed next year.
‘That will not by itself extract United from their plight. Jose Mourinho had it absolutely right when he said that the person under the most crippling pressure of all at Old Trafford would be the manager who had to follow Ferguson.’