Mary Hannigan is delighted that Alex Ferguson has confounded his admirers by postponing his retirement party and suggests that he has an ulterior motive
If the board of Manchester United picked up a carriage clock, lawnmower or a set of golf clubs in the January sales and had them all wrapped and ready to present to manager Alex Ferguson in May on the occasion of his retirement, they wasted their money.
And, being the financially prudent club that they are, they won't be happy with such superfluous expenditure. Indeed, some might even unkindly suggest the purchase of Sir's going away present was as needless as that of €45,908,925.88 million man Juan Veron.
Ferguson, we now know, has had a change of heart about retiring, deciding that another year or three talking tactics with Roy Keane and Co is preferable to pruning petunias in his back garden. "Or wha'ever it is ye doo wi' petunias," as he might put it himself.
Last May Ferguson said "I'm definitely going". Before Christmas he watered down his retirement pledge in to a "definitely maybe". Yesterday it was diluted further in to a "I'm definitely maybe staying on". It is a level of indecision mirrored only by United's back four and their goalkeeper this season.
When the club confirmed yesterday morning that they were talking to Ferguson about a new contract, to extend beyond May's planned retirement date, its shares rose by 3.7 per cent, the market buoyed by the prospects of the 60-year-old Glaswegian spontaneously combusting with rage at the insolent questions of impudent football reporters for a bit longer (e.g. "Sir Alex? In your revered opinion did your team slightly underperform in that 4-0 home defeat?").
Ferguson, lest you forget, was appointed United manager in 1986 and 16 barren years later, if you don't count the seven Premiership titles, four FA Cups, one League Cup, one European Cup Winners' Cup and one Champions League success, he's evidently tired of being regarded as a lame footballing duck and has decided that the prospect of becoming a part-time consultant with the club is about as exhilarating as watching Liverpool in Europe.
The news means, of course, that potential heirs apparent Fabio Capello, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Louis van Gaal, Martin O'Neill, David O'Leary, Sven Goran-Eriksson and Arsene Wenger won't be moving to Manchester just yet, all of whom were being lined up to form a seven-man co-managerial team to succeed Ferguson, and even then they wouldn't have been adequate successors.
But why the u-turn, you're asking? Theories abound. (1) Ferguson wouldn't know his Radiant Petunias from his Ray Parlours, so prefers to stick to football for now. (2) Martin O'Neill's contract with Celtic isn't up until the summer of 2003 - if Ferguson stays at United until then his alleged preferred successor will be free to take the job. (3) Sven Goran-Eriksson will have won all he can win with England by the summer of 2004 (namely the World Cup and European Championships - stop laughing at the back) so will be happy to return to club management, happier still to take over at Old Trafford where he is Ferguson's alleged preferred successor.
(4) The Cubic Expression company, a joint venture owned by Irish horse racing magnates J P McManus and John Magnier, good friends of Ferguson, are the second-largest shareholder in United - if Ferguson hangs on long enough they'll be the first-largest shareholders, they'll make him chairman and the new manager will be his alleged preferred successor . . . Roy Keane.
Yes. Now you're talking.
By 2004ish Keane will be at the tail end of his playing career and will be ready to effortlessly slip into Ferguson's throne. True, he'll have had no managerial experience and Ferguson will be hovering in the background, in a semi-ghostly fashion, but there aren't enough flies on Roy Keane to turn him into a Wilf McGuinness or Frank O'Farrell.
Yesterday Paddy Crerand said he believed every Manchester United fan would "thank God" that Ferguson is negotiating to remain as manager. Or, as he meant to say, every Manchester United fan will "thank Roy" that Alex is keeping the seat warm.
Alex and Roy? The dream ticket?
Be afraid ABUs, be immensely afraid.
