Sir Alex Ferguson is on the verge of becoming the longest-ever serving manager at Manchester United, and that is solely because he is a one-of-kind visionary.
Everyone knows that, “hindsight is always 20/20,” but the foresight that Ferguson possesses is uncanny to say the least, and that has enabled to carry on managing at the highest level for over 24 years.
The patience of the United board of directors, should be mentioned as well, because without it, Sir Alex would not have been able to bring his ideas from conception to reality, and re-lay the groundwork that Sir Matt Busby had done himself.
Like Sir Matt was able to do, the Ferguson has amazingly been able to adapt his way of thinking as the game has progressed over the last quarter of a century, and, of course, United and their supporters have reaped the benefits from his prophetic mindset.
Sir Alex’s resume clearly speaks for itself as he has simply become the most successful manager in English football, and now some of his closest rivals are trying to mimic his vision.
However, these artificial emulators are now realizing just how good Ferguson, who is one of the greatest man managers the sport has ever seen, is at what he does and have been served a conscientious dose of the saying, “Often imitated, never duplicated.”
As everyone is cognizant of, Arsene Wenger has introduced an influx of young players into his Arsenal squad, and he has learned the hard way that there must be a proper balance of youth and experience – something that the Gaffer has done very well over the years.
However, it has been over five years since Arsenal won a trophy, and that is down to Wenger letting some of his prized assets, like Thierry Henry and Patrick Viera, go rather than using them to help flourish his poor man’s version of Ferguson’s Fledglings.
Wenger has resorted to conjuring up umpteen excuses, like blaming the pitch at Old Trafford, as to why his team has failed to live up to the expectations, and the Professor clearly does not offer the protection of his players that the Gaffer does, either.
Now it is there for everyone to see that another one of their other title-chasing challengers has been trying to replicate the Ferguson mold, and completely abandoning their original ideas of bringing in just experienced, over-priced players.
After winning two titles during the middle of the last decade, Chelsea lost out to a youthful United team, and that conveyed dollars signs into the eyes of their owner, Roman Abramovich, which could very well be the reason why Jose Mourinho left his managerial by “mutual consent.”
Being the business man he is, as well as the encouragement of Peter Kenyon, the Russian billionaire saw this as a chance to develop a youth system and he brought in Frank Arnesen to build up the Chelsea academy.
Both of them have failed to live up to the Blues’ dictator’s expectations and Kenyon was fired last year, and it was just announced that Arnesen is out of his job at the end of the year.
Yes, Chelsea are reigning champions of the Barclays Premier League, but the lack of balance and youth in their squad right now show just how significant Sir Alex’s influence is on levels at Old Trafford.
Chelsea has parted with ways with some of the aging stars that helped them to those titles, and now their fans have to wait and see if their owner is patient enough to allow the likes of Josh McEachran, Jeffrey Bruma and Gaël Kakuta prosper into professionals.
Sunderland may have fielded the youngest team this year in the Premier League, but that included just one of the many hungry United youngsters, who are about to be unleashed in the next seasons and set the English top-flight alight.
There has been a lot of commotion about Sir Alex offering long-term deals to this player, or that player, but that is only because he knows how important the nucleus of a team is, and to be successful in the near, or distant, one needs to do that.
As Manchester United’s Board of Directors did at the beginning of his tenure, the supporters now trust Sir Alex Ferguson to bestow even more success in the coming years, which has all been down to his vision.
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