I know that this post is a bit late. But i just want to know what everyone's feelings are on fergie walking out of the press conference last week after their draw with benfica. He took offence to one journalist's claim that "both manchester clubs re struggling in europe". Now i personally think that this is a perfectly reasonable comment, I'm all for backing your team right till the end. But for someone of ferries' experience and for someone who has experienced so much success i thought that it was a bit needless for him to react the way he did and say "we're not struggling". Now come on, in a group with fc galati basel and benfica, manchester go into the final game needing to get a result to qualify, now i would say that for a team of man utd's stature that is struggling. And i think that it was extremely naive and maybe even childish for fergie to have reacted in the way he did. He must have expected to have qualified by now especially in a group easier than all the other english team's. Again i apologise for this article being a bit late, just wondering what people views are on this action.
Not seen the whole interview so I don't really know. Our attitude has been poor. We seem to have turned up to each game expecting to win and have been so sloppy.
On the basis of that one question yes. Obviously like berb said we haven't seen the the whole press confrence though. Nor would i say we are struggling particularly in Europe. We've been playing like that everywhere.
Not seen the full interview so cant say for sure. But I think SAF has had to put up with a lot of crap from the media, not just the main gripe with the BBC but the constant sniping and doom-mongering. Im sure AVB is getting fed up with every press conference bringing up his job security after a couple of losses and Wenger gets irritated about talk of arsenal not competing at the top. I imagine after 25 years of the media looking for stories (ie **** stirring) its no wonder he's quite short with them when they're looking to cast doubt on the team/club.
I don't think he was being petty. I saw the clip and based on what was happening you could see the journo was **** stirring. If any other manager did this, it wouldn't be mentioned (Unless the team was in crisis - e.g. If Wenger did it a few weeks back or AVB does it now or Kean of Blackburn).
Ok so benfica are on a good run just now, but come on for a team of united's stature and class they should really be winning these games, especially at home. What really irritated me though was that fergie said "we're not struggling" now even he must know that in one of the easiest groups in this year's cl for united not to have qualified and to have drawn consecutive home games against basel and benfica. That is struggling and it wasn't even as if the reporter emphasised on the words struggling he was trying to ask if "it was just one of those things" fergie could hva easily just answered with the usual "thats football answer" but he really through the toys out the pram on this occasion.
We just need a draw to qualify but if we want to finish 1st then we must better Benfica's result. Benfica are playing Otelul Galati who are awful and Benfica will probably thrash them so we will probably finish 2nd meaning we could face some of the big guns.
I think it was a bit of an overreaction. Benfica seemed to have a better midfield than us in the recent draw and that should be ringing alarms bells in terms of us strugging.
Hard to tell without knowing the context. He could have already said that was the last question and, given how the guy phrased it, it could be that the same question had been asked several times during the interview in different forms and SAF had just gotten fed up of repeating himself. It could well have been pettiness, but more likely he just wanted to appear dismissive of the question to avoid harming team morale.
