An interesting story appeared this week in My Football News with Sir Alex praising the Glazer ownership of Manchester United.
Sir Alex said he is delighted with the impact the Glazer family have made on the club since becoming the new owners. Malcolm Glazer took control of the Old Trafford outfit in June and Ferguson believes they are in safe hands:
“I have found the owners excellent. They have never failed in their promises and support for what we do. They have demonstrated this by their commitment to signing Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic.”
It is the first time Ferguson has spoken publicly about the Glazers’ involvement at the club since his first meeting with the family at United’s training camp in July.
Angry supporters protested the buyout fiercely and some fans were so disenchanted by the move they formed FC United – currently operating in the North-West Counties League.
Ferguson has splashed out a reported total of �12.5m on left-back Evra from Monaco and defender Vidic from Spartak Moscow, having brought in Edwin Van der Sar and Ji Sung-Park over the summer. United supporters feared the owners would not make money available for Ferguson to spend after the club crashed out at the group stage of the Champions League in December.
Cynically, one might say that Ferguson is greasing up to the Glazers in a bid to keep his job. But anybody who knows Fergie- will immediately reject that idea. He just has too much pride. And one could see how he is ready to take on anyone when he battled Irish duo McManus and Magnier over the breeding rights to their jointly owned horse, “Rock of Gibraltar”, and the time they were the largest shareholders in Man United, the Plc. By the way, if any of you are interested in reading an in-depth account of that story, Amazon are selling the recent book by Martin Hannan.
Fergie also has an uncanny sense of timing. It really does seem that most MU supporters have gotten over the takeover, where so much fear was built around it. And it’s not so much what the Glazers have done that is worth praising, but more what they haven’t- in other words, they have largely kept a low profile, said the right things and not panicked or done anything rash or impulsive when the chips have been down, such as when we crashed out of the Champions League. The criticism about the raised season ticket prices was slightly unfair on the Glazers, as this had been set in motion before their takeover- in order to fund the expansion of Old Trafford- some 7,000 seats.
It also can be quite a lot easier for the manager to get things done when he only has one boss to report to, as opposed to the bureaucracy of a public company. So maybe the Glazers are not so bad after all….?