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Sir Alex Ferguson is arguably the greatest manager the game has ever had. Over a 27 year spell in charge of Manchester United, his storied trophy cabinet and cultural revolution with the Red Devils are testament to his legend.
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Despite his immense success, no record is absolutely perfect, with Sir Alex himself admitting to having made several mistakes over the course of his career. Here, we rank his five biggest mistakes in charge of Manchester United.
#5 Goalkeeper conundrums
There have been some legendary goalkeepers at the foundation of Sir Alex Ferguson's great teams. Peter Schmeichel, the Great Dane, was a commanding and imperious figure at goal, Edwin van der Sar was elegance and calmness personified, and even David De Gea saw a transformation from a nervy custodian to an amazing and innovative shot-stopper.
History, however, teaches us that Ferguson was not the best recruiter of goalkeepers. Among the aforementioned players, Manchester United suffered through several calamities in goal, with the likes of Roy Carroll, Massimo Taibi, Tim Howard and Ben Foster.
The most infamous was Fabian Barthez. The Frenchman's four-year spell brought two Premier League crowns, but he made several erratic errors that proved costly and was widely criticized by fans and pundits alike.
#4 Casting Paul Pogba away
Towards the end of his time at Manchester United, the academy was far from the footballing factory that produced the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and the Neville brothers. Despite the fact that there was always a Manchester United academy player involved in the squad, there was no breakthrough talent that lived up to the legends of the past.
Paul Pogba, in the turn of the 2010s, was touted as the biggest midfield talent to emerge from the academy. The talented dribbler, however, found few chances to force his way into the first team and grew immensely frustrated, forcing a move away by signing a contract with Italian giants Juventus at the age of 20. The move infuriated Sir Alex Ferguson, who at the time found it extremely disrespectful in conduct and spirit and did not contemplate the fact he had lost one of the defining talents of the generation.
Paul Pogba's time at Juventus saw him explode as a talent, as he played teams off the park alongside Arturo Vidal and Andrea Pirlo. Failing to retain him was a costly error that Manchester United had to correct by paying a club record £89 million fee in 2017 to bring the mercurial talent home.
#3 Champions League final 2011 tactics
A rampant Manchester United team met Pep Guardiola's Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League final in 2011. Both teams lined up with generational talent on either side in what was expected to be a hard-fought final that would be too close to call.
However, Barcelona ran out as 3-1 victors in a relatively comfortable final, which was largely down to Manchester United's unconvincing game plan.
Sir Alex Ferguson admitted recently that perhaps his biggest mistake on the pitch was not instructing Ji Sung Park to man-mark Messi out of the game. The man they called "Three Lung Park" was the only player on the pitch with the stamina and work rate to cover Messi's scintillating dribbles.
Sir Alex, however, with scores tied 1-1 at half-time, decided against such a "negative" move and felt Manchester United could go on to outplay their opposition. Second-half goals from David Villa and Messi meant for the second time in three years, Manchester United lost at the final hurdle to Barcelona.
#2 Selling Jaap Stam
Amongst many things Sir Alex Ferguson was revered for was his strong personality and headmaster-like control over his players. Often, however, this need to control his stars proved costly.
The most infamous of these fallouts was with Treble winning Dutch center-back, Jaap Stam. A strong fan favorite and an outstanding tackler, Stam was at the heart of a Manchester United defense that won the Premier League three years in a row. He was sold rather inexplicably at the time to Lazio in 2001 for £16.5 million when he had a lot more to offer in the red of Manchester United.
Later, details unraveled of how Sir Alex let the Dutchman know his career in England was ending in a meeting at a petrol station, of all places. Sir Alex Ferguson was underlyingly outraged by comments made in Stam's autobiography about his time at the club and was promptly declared Persona non Grata.
In the end it was United who suffered, as his replacement, Laurent Blanc, was nowhere close to his ability. Sir Alex went on to publicly declare the sale of Jaap Stam as one of his biggest ever regrets.
#1 Poor squad development in his last seasons
The greatest strength Sir Alex Ferguson possessed was the ability to squeeze the maximum out of underwhelming squads and players. At the end of his final season of glory, the Manchester United squad had an average age of close to 26. The pillars of their success in the modern era, such as Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Nemanja Vidic, Ryan Giggs, Ji Sung Park, Michael Carrick and the newly acquired Robin van Persie, were all past 30 years of age.
Instead of dipping into the transfer market and blooding in younger players, Ferguson depended on his trusted lieutenants, going as far as calling Paul Scholes out of retirement at 36! The ones he did bring in, such as Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Bebe and Alex Buttner, proved to be inadequate replacements for the stalwarts that preceded them.
The "Chosen One" David Moyes suffered working with a squad well past its prime due to Sir Alex Ferguson's short-sighted vision in his last few seasons at Old Trafford.
