Quote:
Originally Posted by sherer
Ronaldo was sold because he was always going to go to Spain at some point and so it was either cash in or get nothing. Make no mistakes £80m will make anyone sit up and take notice.
Roy was getting old and not much use to the team. Ruud didn't fit into the team plans and style of football going forwards but I always rated him and wished he had stayed longer.
Beckham and Stam both could have stayed longer than they did
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The thing is - and I will admit to freely being a Utd hater - that Ferguson is such a good manager because even in this era, he still maintains the traditional values of building a team, running a club from the ground up, and subordinating his superstars to the ethos of the team and club as a whole.
Ferguson knows precisely what the club employees - especially the playing staff - are capable of because he has been there almost 25 years and requires the level of control to have the influence where it matters. He knows precisely what his fringe players are capable of and whether or not they are ready for the team or need loaning out or dispensing with. How many players has he released who have played for as big a club? Pretty much none. He knows what is good enough and keeps players whilst they are useful and releases them before the wider world realises they are not.
Admittedly maybe he could have got a few more years out of Beckham and Stam but I daresay he got rid of both for non-footballing reasons anyway. As I said, in his ethos no player is bigger than the team and Beckham had become a media circus attached to a footballer and this would disrupt the team if the attention was focused on a player more for his off-field antics than on it; not to mention there had been disputes between the two and in these cases only the manager should win. As for Stam, I happen to think a certain biography was the nail - you don't undermine your employers.
The rest were sold because the price was right and they were waning anyway. Chelsea have kept with their aging stars and it will affect their resale and possibility of using any resale to fund the squad. Arsenal do the same as Utd, look at Vieira, Henry, Petit etc after leaving and yeah, the clubs they have gone to have got maybe a few years out of them and that's all but they never were as good. Part of that is also Wenger's genius as a man manager, and he deals the same hands as Ferguson, only with a completely different character - look at how Anelka was dispatched - in that he runs the club and has done for a long time and builds teams based on bringing players through as well as signing them.
Chelsea bought a team and this season the result of doing so has been cruelly exposed. Man City are about to make the same mistake.