The legendary Red Devils coach: The road to success

Chapter 329: Undercurrents in the Locker Room

The Red Devils' dressing room is not always peaceful, nor is it always a harmonious scene of laughter and joy. This season, the team's failure to defend the title and the FA Cup have caused divisions among the players, and an unspeakable storm is forming under Ferguson's anger.

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At the end of the season, the pressure on Ferguson suddenly came. The Red Devils ended up empty-handed, and Ferguson was naturally not exempt from responsibility. Ferguson's pre-season rhetoric became ammunition for the reckoning, triggered by different media, and a whirlwind of accountability started with Ferguson and swept the entire team.

Ferguson shut the media up in a very high-profile manner. He directly admitted that it was his own problem that led to the team's defeat. He took full responsibility for the team and welcomed the media to go to the board of directors to demand the dismissal of the head coach.

The media was so choked that they rolled their eyes, and their criticism of the players soon died down.

Despite this, there was a turbulent undercurrent in the Red Devils dressing room. An internal discussion was held among the entire Red Devils team, which was specially organized by Ferguson to analyze and summarize the reasons for the team's defeat. Ferguson first believed that complacency led to the Red Devils' continuous defeat. Ferguson believed that if the Red Devils did not reform thoroughly, the team would encounter greater difficulties.

In the Red Devils board of directors, Ferguson eventually convinced the majority that the team was not capable of handling multiple fronts, which was the core reason for the team's eventual collapse at the end of the season.

The specific problem is first of all the mentality of the players. The Red Devils are filled with an unusual mood, too optimistic. From the main players to the substitutes, from the veterans to the youth training, they all seem too confident and proud. The two consecutive Premier League titles have given the players a lot of superiority out of thin air, but also made the players lack the desire to win and the hunger for honor.

Keane recalled many years later, "We felt that there was no rival in the country. No team could resist the Red Devils' attack, and no team could break through the Red Devils' defense. We all felt as if we had reached the peak, and there was nothing worth conquering. We didn't think about the Champions League at the time, we only thought about the domestic arena."

This mentality permeated the entire locker room and then slowly invaded everyone's mind. This unreal feeling of winning before the game is sometimes closer to reality at home, and the game will be won easily; but when things go wrong, the players can easily lose their strong fighting spirit. Even players of Keane's level said that the Red Devils can always win, and they always have the idea of ​​dominating the Premier League and being the best in the world.

The arrogant Red Devils lost the lead at the beginning of the season and became the chasers at the beginning of the season. As the season progressed, the embarrassment of the Red Devils became obvious. They thought they would sweep everything, but the illusory sense of victory killed them and their arrogance blinded their eyes. When they needed to fight hard to kill their opponents, they often lost their tenacious fighting spirit.

"The Red Devils' players are too proud!" The media criticized more than once that the Red Devils players, who have won the league championship for two consecutive years, have less hunger for honor.

The team's psychological and ideological problems will definitely affect the results. Even Ferguson has no good solution for the players' complacency. Competitive sports are difficult to maintain the most excited state for a long time. Two consecutive years of championships have made the players lose their goals. It is useless to reprimand them at this time, and it is difficult to set new goals for them. At that time, the Champions League title was still too far away and unreal, so the players naturally lacked motivation.

Ferguson said after the season, "Two league titles and a few cup titles are just small dishes for me. What I hope to build is a Red Devils team that continues to win titles and continues to be strong. I found that there is still a sense of pride and complacency in the team, which has stopped the team's pace of progress. This is an outcome I cannot accept. I will no longer tolerate these behaviors. Failure is just like a signal. I will perform large-scale surgery on the team."

No one expected Ferguson to really do what he said. At that time, everyone thought it was just a polite remark, but they didn't expect Ferguson to use drastic measures to ruthlessly clean up the championship team.

The second undercurrent in the Red Devils' locker room was conflicts between core players.

After Robson left, Bruce took over as captain. Bruce has a mild temper and is willing to provide support and service to his teammates. He is a very responsible captain. But for other teams of the Red Devils, he is not domineering enough and lacks deterrence. He is more like a good man, but not a tough manager. People don't have any respect for him.

Besides Bruce, there are many other big names in the Red Devils. First is Cantona, who was originally the most suitable to be the boss, but this maverick Frenchman has no interest in getting involved in the specific affairs of the locker room. Cantona likes to be omnipotent on the court and likes to train alone. He is not the kind of captain who can strictly manage the locker room. This season, Cantona's flying kick to the fans had a great impact. He is not suitable to be a leader in the Red Devils locker room.

Paul Ince was the first to challenge, and he became the biggest trouble in the Red Devils dressing room. This black player who likes to brag about being the "Governor" has a fiery temper. Ince, who has an English household registration, has always believed that he is the irreplaceable core of the team and the undisputed boss of the team. Bruce? He thinks he is not domineering; Cantona? Although that guy is very brave, he arrived later than him! Mark Hughes? This guy is old enough! Schmeichel? He is an outsider, not an English player, so there is no chance to talk nonsense...

Keane? Ince was both terrified and in awe of him, but he still thought his opponent was a latecomer and he was the boss of the Red Devils. At that time, the Red Devils Keane was indeed not as formidable as he was later, but he played almost the same position as Ince. Keane, who was equally strong, was once pulled by Ferguson to play as a defender to save the team. He was trusted as much as Ince and was Ince's biggest competitor in the team.

The other players were also restless. Schmeichel was the first to clamor for the captaincy, but he also lacked communication with his teammates and lacked sufficient sense of responsibility. This season, Schmeichel made many low-level mistakes, which seriously affected his position in the locker room.

Another senior player also complained, that is Mark Hughes. As the oldest youth player and one of the biggest contributors to the Red Devils' championship in recent years, Hughes believes that he should be respected more. Mark Hughes himself has a somewhat cold and arrogant personality, and his popularity in the locker room is not very good. If compared, Cantona is more respected than him, both in the coaching team and in the locker room. This season, Cantona was banned for kicking a fan, and Mark Hughes was very dissatisfied with this. On the one hand, he thought Cantona did not put the team first, and on the other hand, he thought Ferguson favored the French, which conflicted with Hughes' values.

The biggest conflict was the contract renewal. Cantona was banned until next season, but the club wanted to renew his contract early, but ignored Mark Hughes' request for a contract renewal, which was a huge stimulus for Hughes.

If there is no renewal, does that mean you are planning to sell it?

Cantona is a well-deserved superstar, and Mark Hughes thinks he is no less so. He doesn't understand why the Red Devils don't take the initiative to negotiate a contract extension with him. If the team renews Cantona's contract, and Cole is now the main striker, will his chances of playing be difficult to guarantee? Will his salary be seriously affected? All of this has become Mark Hughes's resentment.

Mark Hughes' contract extension requirement is a two-year contract and his salary cannot be reduced.

Such demands have seriously challenged Ferguson's authority.

The contradictions in the locker room began to gradually emerge, and the trend of competing for the limelight even spread to other players. Lee Sharpe played amazingly at the beginning of this season, but he was injured frequently after the middle of the season, and even had a serious injury. After Lee Sharpe returned from injury, he lost his starting position on the left wing. He had to accept playing in the middle or even as a defender, and he had fewer highlights. Lee Sharpe was dissatisfied with Giggs being favored. He thought that his performance was not worse than Giggs, and he was gloriously injured for the team. He had tried his best, and Ferguson and the club should not treat him like this.

For Kanchelskis, this was a super shining season, and he played extremely well. Kanchelskis' reputation was affected outside the field. He was addicted to gambling and completely lost his mind. He lost all his property in the casino and owed a huge gambling debt. When he saw the gangster debt collectors from the casino at the Carrington base, he thought of borrowing a large sum of money from the club, and then put forward a new contract renewal request, asking for a large salary advance to make up for the gambling debt, and even opened a jaw-dropping high salary request without considering the reality.

This was really unbearable for Ferguson.

There is also fierce competition within the team. For the old players, the collective emergence of youth players has become a huge threat. Many old players find it difficult to accept that their playing time has been reduced and their positions have been replaced.

Ferguson believes that the team's metabolism is normal, and the status of each player in the team is also very simple, that is, to see how much each person has contributed to the team and what role he has played. This is also one of his criteria for arranging the starting lineup, but this season his criteria did not convince all the players, and some people insisted that they were not that bad, and that Ferguson did it on purpose.

There was more and more dissatisfaction and criticism from the outside world about Ferguson's coaching. These doubts and dissatisfaction reached their peak in two periods. One was when Cantona kicked a fan, and the other was when the Red Devils lost two consecutive championships. Cantona's kicking a fan caused an uproar, and not all players stood with Cantona. Those players who criticized Cantona were very dissatisfied with Ferguson's blind protection of the Frenchman, and they believed that such behavior had lost its legitimacy. When the season was coming to an end, the Red Devils lost the championship trophy one after another, and Ferguson's deployment and personnel arrangements were also questioned by many people, especially in the absence of Cantona in the two games, Mark Hughes was not allowed to start, which caused a lot of criticism.

Ferguson did not give any explanation, and young players like Gary were very puzzled. He later said: "In the last game of the league, we had a chance to overtake Blackburn. We were very surprised when we heard the starting lineup. I was surprised like everyone else that the boss (Ferguson) actually kept Mark Hughes in the bench. This was too unexpected. In the previous few games, 'Sparks' started every game, scored goals continuously, and was the team's iron main force. How could he become a substitute at this time? I have no idea why he was not allowed to start in a game that we must win."

"Later everyone knew that Hughes had broken up with the boss, and the boss was completely disappointed in him at that time," Gary Neville said bitterly.

A reporter from the Times criticized, "Cole wasted so many opportunities from beginning to end, and failed to score more than twice when facing the goalkeeper directly in the penalty area. This is unimaginable. The Red Devils should start Mark Hughes and use the 'spark' to ignite the opponent at the beginning. In terms of experience, stability and psychological quality, Mark Hughes is much better than Cole!"

All media criticized this starting arrangement, and when Ferguson again left Hughes out of the starting lineup in the FA Cup final, all media criticized Ferguson one-sidedly and believed that it was because of this arrangement that the championship was lost. Even among the players, they whispered that they did not agree with Ferguson's approach.

Being questioned was unacceptable to Ferguson, and the undercurrent in the locker room was an unknown danger. The first generation of Red Devils created by Ferguson was facing the crisis of complete collapse.

Ferguson had to be extremely tough to resolve the crisis. No one expected that in the summer, Ferguson would once again resort to heavy-handedness, completely reorganizing the team, sending away a series of important players, and thoroughly cleaning up the locker room.

His determination and courage are astonishing.