Sir Alex Ferguson was afraid that he left Manchester United at the wrong time

Sir Alex Ferguson watches Manchester United’s match against Southampton

Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson confessed that he was scared that he was “leaving the club in the lurch” when he announced his retirement in May, ESPN reports.

The legendary manager announced his retirement as manager after 27 glorious years at the helm. He lifted the clubs 20th Premier League trophy that same season.

The 71-year-old told former chief executive David Gill of his decision to quit before announcing it to the public three months later.

In an interview with MUTV, Sir Alex said he was hesitant to retire as Gill was stepping down as chief executive of the club that same year.

“I had a meeting with David Gill in my house,” Ferguson said. “He phoned me one lunchtime and said ‘are you busy’ – it was a Sunday – he said: ‘I’d like to come over and speak to you.’

“He came over to talk to me about him retiring himself. I say: ‘Christ, I’ve made up my mind to retire myself at the end of the season.’ That gave me a terrible quandary because you start thinking about leaving the club in the lurch.

“I said: ‘I’ll need to speak to Mr Glazer, to Joel.’ And he organised for Joel to give me a call and I explained to him why I wanted to retire and why it was the right reasons and he accepted that.

“That was at the end of February. So that period was difficult. I was trying to keep it quiet and couldn’t tell some members of my family.”

The Scot also stated that it was “difficult to ignore” the trying times of his United career in his second autobiography, which releases this week.

There are reports that the legendary manager also wrote about Wayne Rooney, whose future was uncertain this summer, in his book.

“You know the problem with doing a book is you have to bring in the elements and factors which in many ways either affected or determined your management decision-making,” Ferguson said.

“But because I’ve been at the club such a long time and you’re building team after team after team, there are areas that you can’t ignore.

“Why we sold certain players like David Beckham and Ruud van Nistelrooy. You can’t ignore these things because these guys were big, big figures in Manchester United’s career history.”