SAF: Hang The Hangers On
Given that his team need the points as desperately as Tottenham Hotspur, Sir Alex Ferguson made it clear that he would be in no mood to do Martin Jol any favours at Old Trafford tomorrow, but the Manchester United manager still had some strong words of support for his embattled counterpart, and some even stronger ones for the faceless corporate moneymen he blames for turning British football into a never-ending sack race.
Should United beat Tottenham, as Ferguson boldly predicted they would yesterday, it would not only revive the Barclays Premier League champions’ faltering start to the season, but increase the pressure on Jol, whose position has come under scrutiny this week after the club’s poor start to the campaign.
But Ferguson, who came close to appointing Jol as his assistant at United three years ago when Carlos Queiroz left to coach Real Madrid, believes that clubs are mad to get rid of their managers after only a few games of the season.
And he hopes that Daniel Levy, the Tottenham chairman, stands by his decision to back the Dutchman and not let himself be influenced by “the hangers-on” that he fears often wield an unhealthy influence at clubs.
“There’s a root to this quick criticism in football today,” the United manager said. “If you look at the corporate hospitality of football today, you go into some boardrooms and there’s only about four directors but 30 or 40 hangers-on. They [the hang-ers-on] are the ones who think they know everything and are the ones who are probably laying the seeds of it.
“When I first came here [to United] they used to call it the second board. They used to meet on Monday in the Grill Room [at Old Trafford] and discuss everything that happened on the Saturday and make their opinions known. That was the way. That happens at football clubs and that maybe is where the seed is sewn. And so when somebody like Martin at a club with Tottenham’s expectations has a bad spell the inevitable happens.”
It was 3½ years before Ferguson won his first trophy at United, the FA Cup in 1990, and over six years before his team won the league championship, but the Scot is surprised that more clubs have not heeded the lesson that being successful more often than not requires patience. Jol has only held the position of Tottenham head coach outright since November 2004.
“There have been managers sacked after four of five games at the start of the season and you say to yourself what are they [the clubs] doing,” Ferguson said.
“If you look at the situation I faced it’s similar. In the case of Martin this is only his third full season in charge. I don’t think it’s the right time [to be talking about being sacked].
“You need plenty of time with a massive club like that to change it all around to win a championship.
“I don’t know how many times I have sat here over the years and supported managers under pressure because you know it’s not fair, but it doesn’t change.
“There’s no evidence that sacking a manager gets you success. If you take a line through longevity and look back to Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest, the length of time he was there brought good success. It’s worthwhile thinking about continuity with staff.”
United will line up against Tottenham without Gary Neville, who has been ruled out for another two weeks with a thigh strain, but Ferguson is confident that Edwin van der Sar, the goalkeeper, and Owen Hargreaves, the midfield player, will be fit, while Louis Saha and Anderson, the forwards, could figure on the substitutes’ bench.
Ferguson, meanwhile, has said that United are looking into the possibility that Liverpool made an illegal approach for Gabriel Heinze, the Argen-tina defender, who joined Real Madrid this week after his acrimonious attempts to move from Old Trafford to Anfield.
The United manager has also accused Rafael BenÍtez of having a “chip on his shoulder” after his Liverpool counterpart claimed that the champions have received preferential treatment from the Premier League over everything from the Heinze and Carlos Tévez affairs to kick-off times.
“We’re investigating Liverpool’s role in this,” Ferguson said. “We’re not letting them off with this. We’ll see how it comes out. David [Gill, the United chief executive] is working on that at the moment and he’ll get to the bottom of it.”
