Sir Alex Ferguson’s lost fourth great Manchester United team

Written By Ben Jones

As the July of pre season in 2011 passed into the August of a new campaign, Sir Alex Ferguson’s third great Manchester United team were coming off the back of five glorious trophy laden years. In these five seasons, from 2006/07 to 2010/11 Manchester United had won four premier league titles and a European cup. In addition to this there had been two further European cup finals, one as recently as 3 months ago. Ferguson however knew the end of this team was imminent.

Five years earlier in July 2006 after three years without a Premier League title, or even coming within 8 points of one, Alex Ferguson was accused in the Guardian of ‘shredding his legacy at every turn’. Sir Alex however knew ‘a wind of change was coming’ . Rejuvenation was a key feature of Ferguson’s United tenure and something he is rightly feted for. One of the Premier Leagues earliest legends, tells of the summer of 1995. After the failure to win any major honours in the 94/95 season Ferguson sold, to much uproar, key players Paul Ince, Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis. In doing so starting to process of replacing his first great team. As perceived chaos reigned in the club, the Manchester Evening News ran a poll asking if ‘Fergie should be sacked’. More than half respondents believed the United manager should go. History proved Ferguson’s ruthlessness correct as he ushered in his second great team based on the burgeoning talent of the class of ’92. There are some parallels in the anxious days of July 2006. That summer he had sold the previous seasons club top scorer Ruud Van Nistelrooy. This followed on from the excommunication of captain Roy Keane six months earlier. Both of whom had fallen out with increasingly influential assistant Carlos Quieroz who was returning to the club after a spell managing Real Madrid. Aided by Quieroz, Ferguson built a young team based on greater fluidity, utilising the growing talents of Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo built on a rock solid foundation of Rio Ferdinand and relatively unheralded January 2006 signings Nemanja Vidić and Patrice Evra. Now after this third team had become perhaps his greatest, Ferguson realised this team needed change. Reaching the Champions League final of 2011 and winning the Premier League represented a successful season. However the age profile of the team and the humiliation at the hands of Barcelona left Ferguson in a revolutionary mood. Of the team that started against Pep Guardiola’s team in the Wembley final, Van der Saar was aged 40, Evra was 30, Rio Ferdinand was 32 and nursing his back injury through every game after being told by Ferguson he needed to ‘step back a yard or two to give himself a chance’, Vidic 29, Ryan Giggs 37, Michael Carrick 29 and Ji Sung Park 29. Ferguson’s attempts to take the game to Barcelona had fallen victim to a tactically unconvinced team, unable to attack with intensity and an ageing defence more comfortable defending their own box than meeting the Catalan ‘carousel’ face on. As Ferguson bemoaned ‘noone has given us a hiding like that’. Later elaborating that ‘our centre backs weren’t moving forwards onto the ball. They wanted to sit back.’ Ferdinand himself counters this stating, ‘tactically he [Ferguson] did get it wrong…he feels the romance of the club…He thought: I want to win it our way….which was all about attacking taking risks…he let his heart rule his head.’ This ethos was in contrast to the approach against Barcelona as pioneered By Queiroz in 2008. Gary Neville describes how 'Carlos was obsessive…We'd never seen such attention to detail. We rehearsed time and again, sometimes walking through the tactics slowly with the ball in our hands.’ Man United sat back and soaked up the pressure, not conceding a goal over the entire 180 minutes of the tie. By 2011 with the departure of Queiroz for the second and final time in 2008, Ferguson had less of the patient counterbalance to his nature as a risk taker. Queiroz as Jonathan Wilson notes, ‘influence…led to United becoming far cagier.’ This had been a ‘different United. The cavalier days of old were gone…United’s progress was predicated on solidity’. Ferguson had been left with a squad suited to playing Queiroz football at the highest level, but retained a desire to play attacking, front footed football.

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As in 1995 and 2006 Ferguson knew what was coming and what was needed. He had been preparing for this moment. Ferguson famously advocated building from a position of strength and had quietly been assembling his fourth great team. Almost as soon as the revolution of 2006 had begun Ferguson was initiating the counter revolution. As he states in his autobiography, ‘There was no resting on the status quo even in the best times. The longer I stayed, the further I looked ahead. Regeneration was an everyday duty’. In the summer of 2007 following their return to the summit of the premier league in the 2006/07 season, Man United had spent big, purchasing 23 year old Carlos Tevez on a complicated loan deal. On the 30th May United signed both Portuguese winger Nani aged 20, described by Ferguson as ‘pure raw talent’ for a fee of €25million and Brazilian attacking midfielder Anderson 19, recommended by Ferguson’s brother as ‘better than Rooney’ for €30million. As Ferguson noted, ‘after 2006, we redoubled our efforts to avoid falling into the same trap of seeing a team grow old together.’ Thrillingly for Ferguson both young signings played a key role in the successful year that followed and both scored in the champions league final penalty shootout against Chelsea. Nani scored under extreme pressure to keep Man Utd in the game with their fifth penalty and Anderson converted the first penalty of sudden death, following John Terry’s miss. The evidence seemed to point towards two young players who could handle the demands of playing at the highest level for Manchester United.

Sir Alex did not stop there. Aware of a glut in talent in United’s youth ranks including Danny Welbeck, Jonny Evans and Tom Cleverly he pressed on. In January 2008 Brazilian youth international twin full backs Rafael and Fabio Da Silva joined from Fluminense under the noses of Arsenal. Ferguson was to show similar faith in the twins as he did in Nani and Anderson. By 2010 Rafael aged 19 was playing (and getting sent off) in the Champions League quarter final against Bayern Munich. The following year his brother Fabio started the Champions league final. In the summer of 2010, when ‘Rio Ferdinand started having problems with his back,’ centre back Chris Smalling ‘an outstanding talent’ signed from Fulham for a free believed to be in the region of £7million. Arriving alongside Smalling that summer was 22 year old Mexican striker Javier Hernandez, who within a year was starting the showpiece defeat to Barcelona. Most excitingly of all, 19 year old Phil Jones joined for £16.5 million in 2011 after impressing under Ferguson’s friend Sam Allardyce at Blackburn. On watching Jones for United, Bobby Charlton was soon moved to compare him to his old teammate and United legend Duncan Edwards.

While the loss of both Ronaldo (24) and Tevez (25) in the summer of 2009 following another title and a Champions League final defeat in 08/09, was a blow to Man United’s future plans it was not an unexpected one. Ronaldo’s desire to play in Spain was well known and the deal bringing the fiery Tevez to the club was complex and unstable. United nevertheless kept winning. After conceding the title to Chelsea in 2009/2010 by one point, United bounced back in 2010/2011 to win the league by 9 points and to a third champions league final in four years.

Edwin Van Der Saar retired in that summer of 2011 following the Barcelona defeat. Once again Ferguson was looking to the future and spent a British record for a goal keeper £18.9 million on Spanish 20 year old David De Gea who went straight into the first team line-up.

Ferguson approached August 2011 as he had August 1995. Encouraged along by a string of injuries Ferguson unleashed his ‘nucleus of young talent’ , having ‘reduced…the average age of the squad…to around 24’. Ferguson was ready to shed the cautious and aging nature of his team, determined that ‘when we play Barcelona next time in the Champions League final, I would have Jones and Smalling, or Smalling and Evans, right on top of Messi. I wasn’t going to let him torture us again’.

In 1995 there was an initial misstep in losing 3-1 to Aston Villa on the opening day of the season. In 2011 however the team took to the season with emphatic effect. Warning had been served in the Community Shield against big spending Manchester City. 2-0 down at half time, Ferguson symbolically brought on Phil Jones, Jonny Evans and Tom Cleverley for key arrivals of the revolution of 2006, Vidic and Carrick, as well as the 2008 Champions League winning captain Rio Ferdinand. Ferguson notes the intention of this was ‘to push right on top of the opposition.’ This sparked a turnaround that saw United emerge as 3-2 victors. United kicked off the league season with a workman like victory over Roy Hodgson’s West Brom, in which Cleverley started after impressing at Wembley and Rio Ferdinand was taken off injured. After this United took flight. Lining up with De Gea (20) Evans (23), Smalling (21), Jones (19) Nani (24) Cleverley (21), Anderson (23) and Welbeck (20) they tore into a strong Spurs team that went on to finish 4th that season, winning 3-0. The following week saw an unchanged team with Ashley Young (26) and Wayne Rooney (25) seen as relative veterans to face Ferguson’s old nemesis Arsene Wenger. What unfolded was an astonishing demolition as United ran out 8-2 victors against a bereft Arsenal. Under an unusually cloudy August sky a new era had dawned. Sir Alex had done it again.

The rest of the 2011/12 season was not quite the successful revolution it had threatened to be. Following a 5-0 thrashing of Bolton, United beat the previous season runners up, Chelsea 3-1 at home with much of the same lineup as August in a game described by Michael Cox as ‘crazily open’. The only changes had been Fletcher replacing the injured Cleverley and Hernandez started in place of Welbeck. Rio Ferdinand returned the following week in a 1-1 draw against Stoke. Whilst eventually in 2011/12, United achieved 8 more points than the title winning side of 2010/11, they lost the title on goal difference in the last minute of the season to Manchester City. This goal difference deficit, and perhaps the 2011 revolution hinged on the landmark 6-1 loss to City in late October. Heading into the the match unbeaten United had been 1-0 down at half time. The game’s destiny was decided on Jonny Evans sending off after 47 minutes which allowed City to run riot late in the match. Sir Alex without the restraining Queiroz, encouraged United to pour forward and refuse to accept the loss and thus leave glaring gaps in defence. As Ferguson put it, it was ‘suicide’. United became more prosaic as the season wore on. Cleverley and Anderson missed much of the rest of the season due to injury and the generation of 2006-2011 returned. While Vidić was largely absent through injury, Ferdinand, Carrick and Evra ended the season with the most minutes in the squad and all made more than 30 appearances in the league. 38 year old  Ryan Giggs managed 25. The August run and the future as Ferguson saw it had hinged on the energy in midfield provided by Anderson and Cleverley and the bravery in defence of Jones, Evans and Smalling. It is fascinating to note given the rise of pressing based systems in the years since Ferguson retired, that Ferguson was thinking in these terms as early as 2011. The 2010/11 had seen Jurgen Klopp’s first Bundesliga win with Dortmund. Ever the footballing magpie it is possible Ferguson had been influenced by Klopp’s gegenpressing as well as the intense pressing employed at Barcelona. With Anderson and Cleverly injured and older players returning however this was not possible. Perhaps too, Ferguson was shaken by the defeat to City. Nonetheless many of the young players gained good experience and 89 points was a strong performance. As Ferguson was keen to instil in his stricken young players after losing the title in the last minute. ‘Always remember this feeling and don’t let it happen again’. Much more was expected to come from this young squad.

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Nani, the oldest player of Ferguson’s fourth rebuild is still just 33. According to Ferguson’s plan this team should be gradually being replaced now after carrying his winning culture into a new era and new management. Ferguson retired two years after the revolution of August 2011 and as he viewed it had left this squad to his predecessor as the final gift to the club he has served so well. Whilst the handover of 2006 had been preceded by three years of turbulence, it is testament to Ferguson’s talent that United kept winning throughout this period. In fact the transition between teams three and four was perhaps the smoothest in his time at the club. United won the league five years out of Ferguson’s last seven. The fruits of that transition however were an unmitigated disaster. None of the outfield players from that grey August day have been United regulars for some time and most have long since departed as United embarked on a yet unfulfilled 7 year premier league title drought.

Ferguson is often criticised for having left the squad in a terrible state and thus blamed for the years of decline that have followed. The supposition being that he neglected the team leaving ‘a consensus of opinion that the group was too old’. That clearly was not his intention and the old master had evidently planned for a long time the intricacies of succession. Ferguson himself when he left the club was upbeat about the young players left behind and positive about the future direction of the club. ‘It was important to me to leave an organisation in the strongest possible shape and I believe I have done so.’ Outlining that the ‘balance of ages…bodes well for continued success at the highest level.’ He later dismissed the claims the squad was too old as ‘nonsense’ By this stage however the problems were evident. The squad that won the league in 2012/2013 in Ferguson’s final year, is perhaps rightly viewed as one of United’s poorest league winners in the Premier League era. A team nursed (admittedly comfortably) over the line by Ferguson’s managerial genius and his indulgent leaving present to himself of Robin Van Persie. Anderson had long become a cautionary tale of wasted potential and his breakthrough United season was the only time he had played over 20 league games for United (or ever excluding one season for Internacional in Brazil in 2015). After his strong start to the 11/12 season, he was injured in a Champions league game at the start of November and barely featured for the rest of the season. He is now playing in the Turkish second tier. While Nani had been named Man United players player of the year in 2010/11 and was nominated for the PFA player of the year the same season, Ferguson had not trusted him to start to the Champions league final in May. He had become increasingly frustrating and used less in the intervening years, culminating in his sending off against Real Madrid in Ferguson’s last Champion’s league match. After last playing for United in 2014, Nani drifted around Europe and did not play for the same club in successive seasons until 2020. Nani is now playing for Orlando City in the MLS. Despite Tom Cleverley’s promising start he never established himself as a regular and regressed towards being a mid table Premier League level player. Following the 8-2 against Arsenal, Cleverley started and was injured in United next match, a 5-0 victory away Bolton and only played another 6 league matches that season after a series of niggling injuries. He played his last game for United in 2014. The Da Silva brothers remained inconsistent. Fabio’s moment in the spotlight in the spring of 2011 had begun to look more like a blip than a sign of things to come. Fabio left United in 2014 and played ten games in Ligue Une for Nantes last season. Rafael left the club in 2015 and recently joined Istanbul Basasksehir after being used with decreasing frequency for Lyon. As Ferguson lamented ‘Rafael…made mistakes. Some players can never stop making mistakes. It’s hereditary.’

Then there is Wayne Rooney. While up until as late as his 27 league goals in 2011/2012 aged 26 he would have been seen as the player to lead United into the new era. By summer 2013 Rooney’s form and his relationship with Ferguson had deteriorated to the extent that he was regularly left out of important matches. Ferguson felt he was ‘struggling to get by people and had lost some of his old thrust.’ After 2012 Rooney never scored 20 goals in a season or reached the heights of his teens and early 20s. He left United aged 31 in 2017.

Nevertheless, Ferguson’s positivity as he retired was perhaps with some merit. Ferguson felt he had left a ‘nucleus who would be good for the long haul’. Smalling and Jones both remained good prospects on Ferguson’s watch. Even after the trauma of David Moyes season, United’s young centre backs were taken to England’s doomed World Cup campaign to Brazil in 2014 and started the dead rudder against Costa Rica as a look into the future of English defenders. As late as April 2013 Ferguson stated he believed Phil Jones, ‘arguably the way he is looking could be our best ever player.’ Welbeck had developed into a key player for England by the World Cup and was preferred to Rooney in the crucial last 16 game against Real Madrid in 2013. In the intervening period, however from a combination of injuries, mismanagement and failure to develop, none of the three have become regulars in successful United teams and despite all being aged 30 or younger Welbeck is currently at Championship Watford and Jones and Smalling are in limbo at United, neither considered a viable option to solve United’s weakness at centre back.

Ferguson attempted to continue to rebuild in his final year by investing in such talents as Shinji Kagawa signed aged 23, Nick Powell aged 18 and Wilfried Zaha, Ferguson’s last signing aged 21. Unfortunately Kagawa never settled, perhaps usurped by the opportunistic signing of Van Persie. Powell, who Ferguson described as ‘a certainty to be in the England team one day’ never established himself at United and Zaha was not given an opportunity by Ferguson’s replacements before being quickly returned to Crystal Palace where he has again flourished.

Thus Ferguson’s forth great team never materialised and his parting gift was one of underachievement. Whether the legacy of this team building would have developed better had Ferguson stayed on after 2013 is unclear. It is however as much a cause of United’s post Ferguson ennui as anything that the fleeting greatness of the boys of summer 2011, so painstaking created and nurtured by the clubs greatest ever manager remain a lost team.

Ben Jones, The Left-Sided Problem

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