With transfer season taking over the headlines for the last few weeks, it seems Sir Alex Ferguson hasn’t been in the news all that often.
With his a new book, ‘Leading’, on the way, we can expect the former United manager to be back in the news in the weeks to come.
In an extract of the book published on the Facebook page for the club, the Scot admits that his hard-line approach to disciplining some of his high-profile Manchester United stars could well have cost the club some Premier League titles.
The likes of Roy Keane, Jaap Stam, Ruud van Nistelrooy and, perhaps most famously, David Beckham all crossed Ferguson during his United tenure – with all of them departing the club soon after.
Reflecting on his time in the job and even drawing on his childhood memories, he makes it very clear that he valued discipline above everything else in his time as a manager.
‘People will give a manager plenty of opportunities to crack the whip so it’s best to pick and choose your moments. You don’t have to dish out a punishment very often before everyone gets the message.
‘I place discipline above all else and it might have cost us several titles. But if I had to repeat things I’d do it precisely the same because discipline has to come before anything else.
‘Discipline was drummed into me from an early age. On school days my dad would alwas shake my leg promptly at 6am. Maybe that’s why, a couple of decades later as manager, I got into the habit of appearing for work before the milkman arrived.’
H/T The Telegraph
