There are a lot of managers with a better European record than him to be fair, so its not actually so ludicrous to suggest he isn't clearly the best manager of all time. However, he will, rightly, go down as one of the best ever and I don't know how District Line can dismiss the claim that he is the best ever so easily.
The stats dont show that he is, the facts dont and anyone with more than zero braincells would agree that Wenger is 100million times the manager RDM is. Dont let a CL trophy cloud your judgement, even Benitez has a ****ing CL trophy. Thing is neither of them achieved **** all where it counts, Wenger did, Fergie even more so.
Anyone can win a cup once in a while.... Dominating one of the toughest ( and at many points in his career the best league in football ) is something few have ever done. And to continue this dominance in the wake of the billions splashed by other clubs further cements his place as the best ever. However I suspect Fergies only regret will be not winning more CL titles, though he wont lose any sleep over it. 2 is more than most.
No there aren't. Trappatoni is the only one I can think of with more European trophies, if you ignore the CWC, although Paisley obviously has one more European Cup. And neither of those even come close to his haul of 16 domestic titles - only Jock Stein comes close to him there with 10.
Although I am pretty sad at the news, my son will be gutted , as I have said for the last few years, that when Sir Alex retires that's me done and I won't be renewing my season tickets. Anyone want to take over 2 seats in the Sir Alex Ferguson stand ( formerly the North Stand ) entrance 47, second tier ?????
I was talking specifically about the big one. After all, other competitions are ****e and inferior, aren't they? Thursday night, channel 5 and all that ****... If we are looking at the big one, which is the true mark of how good someone's European record is then Paisley, Mourinho, Guardiola, Sacchi, Ancelotti & Del Bosque have won it as many times, or once more in Paisley's case, even though they were at their respective clubs for a lot less than Ferguson has been at Man Utd.
I completely disagree, the " big one" for me is the Premier league, which you have to play 38 games to win, as opposed to a mere cup competition and this is from someone who has been to every European final United have been in.
It is the big one when compared to the cup winners cup and uefa cup though... I agree that cup competitions rely less on consistency and more on form on the day and who you are drawn against than the league is (as you play everyone X2) but it still takes a very good manager to win the champions league/european cup more than once in a short space of time.
SAF won his two CWCs before the CL expansion and Europa League, back when the other competitions were still taken more seriously. And like you say, only one manager has won it more times, and that was during an era when his club was the undisputed dominant force in European football. As for the other managers being at their clubs for a lot less, that was usually cos they couldn't hack it and were fired or moved on. You can hardly claim SAF's ability to succeed at the same club time and time again is a blot on his managerial record! The fact is that SAF has a comparable European record to any other manager, with only Paisley able to claim a slight advantage in European trophies. When you compare that to how far SAF's domestic record is above every single manager you have named, and given that his focus has always been on the league, even a slight European edge does not affect SAF's overall superiority.
Hard to say if he is the best manager that there's ever been, if someone like Shankly was younger and put in at United at that point he may have done better, we'll never know. He is undoubtedly up there though, and its hard to argue that he's not the most successful, I don't think even I will see another manager as successful. Today has been the biggest day in English football since the prem started IMO.
a Sad day for us and for Football. There will never be a Sir Alex in this league again and his achievements will never be surpassed. Emotional day today. I was at work and i heard some of the workers talking about Sir Alex has retired and i didn't believe it so i went on BBC football and there it was, the headline "Sir Alex has retired", i was shattered, didn't expect this. Rumors are that it's Moyes, whoever the manager is i will back him, even though its a HUGE job and he will have huge pressure too.
