Gary Neville On David Moyes

Giving Moyes the job proves our system CAN work. I have talked many times this season about the madness of football, about the reduction of British coaches, about pathways being blocked, about the rush to follow fashions or make quick, seemingly easy changes. 

So I had a surge of pride and optimism this week when the club I supported and grew up with, a club who are one of the biggest two or three in the world, the Premier League champions, a club that could have their pick of managers, appointed David Moyes. It seemed like a return to sanity. 

What that means is that all those people on coaching courses that I have attended for the past seven years, people from Cheltenham to Chelsea, from Southampton to Southport, have been given an enormous incentive.

David Moyes had 24 games for Celtic before playing for Cambridge, Bristol City, Shrewsbury, Dunfermline, Hamilton and Preston. But it doesn't matter where you've played football. If you are a properly trained British coach who works hard and serves an apprenticeship - as he did at Preston - and then moves on to do such an impressive job at a club like Everton, then you can still be given one of the biggest jobs in world football.

That tells me the system can work. It is not an issue that he has not won a trophy. His body of work is credible over a long period. And if a club of Manchester United's stature go for that kind of appointment, it sends a message. He reaffirms their values of stability and continuity. 

From my brother, I know he is incredibly hard-working and will immerse himself in the club. He has done the hard graft of watching hundreds of thousands of matches, getting in at six and getting back at midnight. He is out of the same industrious and determined Glaswegian mould as Sir Alex. 

It will take time to understand how everything works at United and the scale of it. Everyone from outside is taken aback. Losing is almost like a funeral, everything is bigger. Many players struggle initially as they come to terms with the magnitude of the club. And there are challenges. There is a big difference in handling 24 very motivated and talented players, rather than a smaller core squad like Everton. 

But there will be no complications with David Moyes. He will bring it back to the basics: a bag of balls, a set of cones, a piece of grass and some human beings. He will coach and manage players to put his own imprint on the club. The message sent out with the appointment and the six-year contract is that United will give him time to meet the challenges and enough space to make his own impression.

Gary Neville On Sir Alex: Part II

He helped us grow up fast. Sir Alex does not like his young players having agents. I am sure cynics would say it was so he could reduce their wages. But it was not that. He wanted his players to mature, to take charge of their own affairs, to become masters of their destiny rather than always looking for someone else to take responsibility. He would want to speak to his footballers face to face, to say: 'I know you. I've brought you through the ranks.' 

Sometimes, of course, they did need some help with negotiations, so I would go in to argue their case for what they wanted. Normally he would complain: 'Neville, you're having me over here.' But eventually he would give the player what he was asking for. Because he knew if he turned me down it would support the idea that players needed an agent to represent them in situations like that. 

And it was in those meetings that you would witness the paternal side of him. There was a young player who was worried to death as to whether he would be taken on next year, a big moment in a young player's career. So I went in with him and the bad news was that he was being let go.

But in the next breath he would say: 'I'll make sure you have a football club.' Within 10 minutes, he would have made a few phone calls to contacts in clubs and that young man was fixed up with a deal somewhere else.

Before he could even begin to feel sorry for himself, his next move had been sorted. Once, at a hotel in Reading before an away game, the manager sat at a table with some of the senior players and wrote down every player in the country who had been through Manchester United's youth team but were playing at other clubs. 

The list was huge, up to 60 players. He wanted to add it up in his own mind. It was massively important to him that he brought young players through to the first team but it was also massively important to him that players who did not make it at United made careers in football. 

Once you were a Manchester United player under him, you were always a Manchester United player, even if you left the club.

Gary Neville On Sir Alex: Part I

 It is impossible to identify what made Fergie such a gigantic force, but my memories of him provide a few clues.

It was a Saturday morning game for the youth team at the old Cliff training ground. I was lucky. I was in a side that had Paul Scholes, David Beckham and Nicky Butt, who had scored a hat-trick, and at half-time we were 3-0 up against Chester. 

We were all 16 or 17 so we must have felt pretty pleased with ourselves. That was until we got to the dressing room. Sir Alex Ferguson was there. The room went quiet. It was not a surprise for him to come to watch, but on this occasion he had decided he wanted to take the half-time team talk. And he set about us. There was something he had seen, maybe a slackness or an over-confidence, that he wanted to address. And he let us know about it. We would have been terrified even if he had not been the manager. He had an aura, as did his assistant, Archie Knox. You would hear those deep Scottish accents and they would walk into a room and everything would go quiet immediately.

The class of 92: United's famous all-star youth team, consisting of (left-right) Gary Neville, Ben Thornley, Steven Riley, Chris Casper, Nicky Butt, David Beckham, Robbie Savage, Eric Harrison (coach), Richard Irving, Paul Scholes, Mark Rawlinson, John O'Kane, Jovan Kirovski, Keith Gillespie and David Pierce

It has been a momentous week with Sir Alex announcing his intention to retire at the end of the season, and though we all knew it had to come, it is still hard to process. It is impossible to identify exactly what has made him unique in football, such a gigantic force. 

There are many complex reasons why he is as successful as he is. But a few memories do come back from the years I spent playing under him that perhaps provide some clues. and that team talk at the Cliff is one. It tells you so much about Sir Alex; about his work ethic for one thing. Both he and his assistants would work every single minute God sent with every single footballer at that club. It was not just youth team games he would come to watch. When we were 14-years-old he would even come down to watch us train as schoolboys on a Thursday night. Back then we trained in a gym - the coldest gym I have known, more like a freezer - and sometimes Archie would take the session. You wouldn't ever hear of it now, the manager coming to watch kids training and his assistant coaching them. Archie would stand in the hall and you would pass the ball at him with a sidefoot. And he would say: 'Take that ball back, son! Drive that pass.' It also demonstrates Sir Alex's passion for developing the talent of young people, the fact that he has always seen it as a duty to bring through home-grown players. 

And then there is his attitude, his absolute determination to reach the highest standards. Even though we were 3-0 up, he had seen something in that game that he wanted to correct and it mattered deeply to him. He wanted to mould us into what he wanted in terms of attitude, spirit, flair, skill, mentality and being a winner. And, yes, there was an element of fear about his presence, though people who think that he ruled by fear or was constantly intimidating people do not know him. But in those days, when we were kids, there was fear. Or you could call it respect for someone who was in charge of our football destinies, appropriate deference to an elder. Because fear hampers you but he never inhibited us, never bullied us. He was teaching us to be better. And we believed in him and would have hung on every word he said.

Later, as a group of us progressed to the first team, he would keep teaching us about what it meant to be a team. He was always impressing on us that we should look after our own. It was the upbringing he had in Glasgow, that sense that you all work bloody hard together but that you stick together through that. So I can remember a couple of occasions when individual players had got into trouble and he was angrier with the team rather than the individuals concerned. His reasoning was: 'Why did you let your team-mate get into trouble? Why weren't you there to protect him? You're all responsible for not looking after him. You make sure he doesn't get into trouble.' He very rarely fines footballers because he does not believe in it as a means of discipline. But often when he did, it would be the whole squad who were fined because he believed we had failed to meet those standards of collective responsibility. 

On one occasion when Roy Keane had been wrongly arrested - he was subsequently freed after a night in the cells and no charges were ever brought - the manager was furious and tore into us. 'Why didn't you ring me?' he said. 'Why didn't you tell me this was happening? You've all gone home and got into your beds and left one of your team-mates on his own! Why didn't any of you think to tell me?' 

A few years later, when I was captain and a similar incident had taken place, I questioned him in a team meeting as to whether he should fine the whole squad. It was a situation where I thought the senior players, including myself, should bear the responsibility rather than the younger ones. He pulled me aside afterwards and said: 'Never question me again in front of the players.' His belief was that if one falls, we all suffer. He wanted to instil that into his players, to drive into them the sense of solidarity he so values.  But the idea he is somebody who is continually abrasive is absolutely incorrect. He is a very relaxed individual, somebody who until a few years ago would join in warm-up drills, where two players try to get the ball back from eight players who are passing it around. He could talk to his players on all manner of different subjects, far beyond football, and the myth he is someone always looking for confrontation is absolutely wrong. Training had to be hard, it had to be 100 per cent. But it was a relaxed environment, with fun and enjoyment because for him it was important the players were not inhibited. Everything was about expressing yourself and taking risks. 

He has never been a conservative coach. His mantra is that you had to take risks to win football matches. He wants his players to have freedom to take players on and beat people and believe wholeheartedly in the Manchester United way. Manchester United cannot play a 4-5-1, deep in their own box, getting behind the ball. Manchester united have to attack. He embraced that. He would never turn around and say: 'You're 1-0 up so now shut up shop.' He was always giving out positive messages. 'Go and get a second goal and kill the game.' And when you had the second goal it was: 'Think about the goal difference. Get that third goal.'

When you try to identify Sir Alex's greatest achievements it becomes an impossible task. As soon as you decide on one, you come up with another that surpasses it. Some have spoken this week about his ability to keep building winning teams in the last decade in the face of new challenges from Chelsea and then Manchester City. As a United fan, winning that first Premier League title in 1993 to remove that burden from the club, the team and the fans, would have to rank as his greatest accomplishment. You cannot call yourself one of the best clubs in the world if you can't win the championship in your country for 26 years. He had made Manchester United great again. The floodgates opened from there. It re-energised the club and the way players and fans felt about themselves. But from my player's perspective, winning the Treble, an unprecedented achievement, with seven players who had come through the youth ranks as the core of the squad, was his moment of personal utopia. That is when you sense he must have felt: 'That's why I was in that gym on a Thursday night watching a 15-year-old David Beckham and Paul Scholes passing a football. Because I knew 10 years later they'd be lifting the European Cup. That's what I came down from Aberdeen to do.'

Somehow, Sir Alex managed to be an arch-traditionalist while also being a pioneer. As captain, I would sometimes ask him before the longer flights whether we could travel in tracksuits. He would say: 'You'll wear your club blazer, son. You're walking through an airport, representing Manchester United. Once you're on the plane, you can put your tracksuit on. But at the other end you put your blazer back on.' The uniform really meant something. It was the values from my grandparents' generation. 

But he was ahead of the times in so much he did. If you go back 20 years, coaches would say: 'You never change your back four.' He did. Or they might have said: 'Four forwards? How would you keep them all happy?' He did. No one ever played seven kids in the League Cup before he did. Or had two players for every position in a squad of 24. His management of older players was the first of its kind here. About seven years ago, AC Milan had Serginho, Paolo Maldini, Cafu and Alessandro Costacurta, all in their mid-to-late thirties. Sir Alex gave us a presentation with sports scientists about how players could play on until 38. He trusted people in areas that were not his expertise. But they knew the principles and standards the club set. He had the self-assurance to delegate where necessary. 

Something To Laugh About

Here's something my cousin came across. Read it folks! 

After a meeting I was coming out of a hotel and I was looking for my car keys. They were not in my pockets. A quick search in the meeting room... it wasn't there.

Suddenly I realized I must have left them in the car. My husband has shouted many times for leaving the keys in the ignition. My theory is, the ignition is the best place not to lose them. His theory is that the car will be stolen. Immediately I rushed to the parking lot, I came to a terrifying conclusion. His theory was right. The parking lot was empty.

I immediately called the police. I gave them my location, car number and description of the place where I parked etc. I equally confessed that I had left my keys in the car, and that it had been stolen. 

Then I made the most difficult call of all, to my husband!!! 

"Honey," I stammered; I always call him "honey" in times like these.

"I left my keys in the car, and it has been stolen.

" There was a period of silence. I thought the call had been dropped, but then I heard his voice. 

"Idiot", he shouted, "I dropped you at the hotel !"

Now it was my time to be silent. Embarrassed, I said, "Well, come and get me."

He shouted again, "I will, as soon as I manage to convince this policeman that I have not stolen your car." 

Long Live The King

To one side, the twin captains who helped him secure his first league title, Bryan Robson and Steve Bruce. To the other, the two skippers of the side who won his 13th, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra, handing him the Premier League trophy and insisting he hoisted it high above his head. Sir Alex Ferguson, football management's greatest winner, bowed out at Old Trafford on a high. This was the perfect goodbye.

One thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine down, one to go. Ferguson has 90 minutes remaining, at West Bromwich Albion on Sunday, of his 1,500-match, 26-year reign but an era has ended at Old Trafford. As Swansea manager Michael Laudrup said: "It's a new world from July 1."

United have enjoyed the old world. The regulars in the stands at the Theatre of Dreams are accustomed to regular, but predictable, twists in the tale and Ferguson's 895th win as United manager was no exception. Inevitably, it was secured by a late goal.

Unusually, the encore came when Ferguson marched on to the pitch, armed with a microphone. "My retirement doesn't mean the end of my life with the club," he said. "I will be able to enjoy watching them rather than suffer with them. The last-minute goals, the comebacks, even the defeats are part of this great football club and it has been an unbelievable experience for all of us."

They have been remarkable, transformative times. Ferguson's first home game, a 1-0 win over QPR on November 22, 1986, took United to the dizzy heights of 17th in the old Division 1. They had kicked off in the relegation zone. They are distant days indeed.

For his farewell, Ferguson entered to a guard of honour and the sound of The Impossible Dream. He has made the impossible possible, the unimaginable reality. The consequence of the catalyst's success was that an often quiet ground echoed toGlory, Glory Man United. Glory has come predictably for United, Ferguson making trophy-winning second nature.

Supporters were provided with flags reading "Champions 20" and, as they waved them, Sir Bobby Charlton and David Gill rather unconvincingly attempted to join in. Neither, it is safe to say, has much practice at this sort of thing. Yet for the lifelong socialist in Ferguson, it was fitting: no one else has kept the red flag flying as high or as long as him.

One of Old Trafford's more famous banners proclaims it "the people's republik of Mancunia" but, despite their left-wing leanings, there is a king. Ferguson's reign has been long and glorious for United. "The most fantastic experience of my life," he said.

Needless to say, he was not allowed to go quite as quietly as he has wished. "He's been an unbelievable player for this club," Ferguson said, singling out the veteran. The faithful servant got a great ovation; the unfaithful one was consigned to the stands. Ferguson has sent a statement with his teamsheet numerous times before and Wayne Rooney was omitted altogether, his manager saying: "I don't think he was keen to play."

In his absence, Robin van Persie, operating as the No. 10, was the supply line. Javier Hernandez hit the underside of the bar from the Dutchman's pass. When Ashley Williams failed to clear his cross, the Mexican slid his shot underneath Gerhard Tremmel.

After the interval, Michu volleyed in Nathan Dyer's cross and, jokingly, the Swansea supporters told Ferguson he would be sacked in the morning. Instead, of course, United managed a late goal. Ryan Giggs, making his 940th appearance under Ferguson, took a corner and Rio Ferdinand converted it.

Out of contract in the summer, he may not be at Old Trafford next season. David Moyes will be and Ferguson, referring to the time in 1989 when many wanted him sacked, urged them to show the man he anointed the patience he was granted.

"I would like to remind you that when we had bad times here, the club stood by me, all my staff stood by me and the players stood by me," he concluded. "Your job now is to stand by our new manager."

If Mancunian music was a theme of the playlist, Ferguson probably enjoyed the anomaly the most. He has been a fan of Frank Sinatra for more than half a century. To his lasting regret, he once turned down the chance to see 'Ol' Blue Eyes' in concert because he was particularly disappointed by a defeat to Charlton. But if Ferguson wouldn't go to see Sinatra, there was an airing of the 'Chairman of the Board' at the farewell to the godfather of managers. It was, inevitably, My Way. And now, as the end is near, Ferguson faces his final curtain, safe in the knowledge he has done it in his own inimitable way and that, time and again, he has been vindicated.

The soundtrack during the match, decided by the Stretford End, featured different types of Ferguson's favourites: paeans to Robson, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Gary Neville, Eric Cantona and even the cult hero Diego Forlan.

"I have been fortunate to manage some of the greatest players in the country, let alone Manchester United," Ferguson said. It was a send-off, too, to one of the finest. Paul Scholes, the reclusive retiree, has long looked for others to obscure him. He was content to be overshadowed by Ferguson, much as the timing of his departure, at the end of the day when Frank Lampard had rewritten Chelsea's goalscoring records, Wigan had lifted the FA Cup and Roberto Mancini moved closer to his own exit from a Manchester club, seemed designed to allow him to blend into the background.

Fergie's Time Comes To An End

It will be mighty odd next season, nestling down to watch a game from Old Trafford and not seeing The Hairdryer prowling the touchline. I hear that, as part of a lasting tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson, a cuckoo clock is to be installed above the main stand which, every 15 minutes, will spit out a mini-Ferg that will chew gum furiously, berate a selection of match officials and repeatedly point at his watch.

I was just one when Fergie took over, and he's been the one dominating, demonstrative figure running through my football fanship. Yes, I've hurled insults at him - some probably as naughty as those he's growled in the ears of hundreds of linesman over years – but, more often than not, chuckled at his one-liners, his mocking of other managers and even his monstrous recalibrating of on-pitch events. Love him or loathe him, there's no doubt that the Premier League will be a poorer place without him.

It wasn't just Fergie who was emotional but, unlike Paul Scholes, you'd back Govan's finest to stick to his retirement plan. The only blot on the landscape was the podgy figure of Wayne Rooney, not even in the match squad after asking to leave the club. Again. That boy sure has some big kahunas, doesn't he?

The departing boss then responded to questions over the striker's future by saying: "It's not my problem." It's the first thing David Moyes will tackle and, given how their last spat ended at Everton, it might well be a full-on rugby tackle.

Come on feel the Moyes

Well, they were never going to give it Jose, were they? Fergie didn't have to look far when selecting his successor - about five miles, in fact. That's all that separates the Govan and Beardsden suburbs of Glasgow.

David Moyes had, no doubt, been standing in front of his bathroom mirror for the previous week, perfecting his own version of the hairdryer and kicking boots around the room in preparation for taking one of the biggest jobs in world football.

Just like Fergie down the road, tears moistened the corners of Moyes' scary eyes - the pair that will bore into Wayne Rooney's spoilt face the second he makes his way down the M62. His 11 years' service at Goodison isn't even half of Fergie's at Old Trafford, but recognition for the job he has done rightfully rained down from the stands as he secured another top-six finish, one place above the mob from across the park.

He said he was "gobsmacked" at the reception and applause from the stewards alone had almost been enough to set him off (though that may have been shock at seeing them actually contribute something).

It's all champagne and cigars now, and Moyes should lap it up while he can because what is coming his way is scrutiny on a level he'll never have shouldered before. He's essentially going from splashing around in a puddle to doing lengths in an Olympic pool with 250 journalists watching his every stroke.

But the start has been a success - seeing off one Manchester City manager before he's even behind his new desk. Now, once the season ends, all he needs is Fergie's magic wristwatch and he's good to go.

Elementary, My Dear Watson

Finally, redemption for a Wigan hero who battled against the odds to recover from a broken leg and watch with tears in his eyes as the plucky little club from Nowheresville lifted the FA Cup. Good on you, Ben Watson.

His majestic glancing header was a blow for oppressed ginger-haired people everywhere and provided a big reality slap for Manchester City and outgoing gaffer Roberto Mancini.

Listening to any range of pundits, bookies and managers, one team were merely turning up to enjoy the day, take a few snaps of Wembley and hopefully get to keep their suits.

Turns out that was City. This was a cup final display as limp as a sodden cheese straw and as disinterested as any I can remember, with the usual silk of David Silva and drive of Yaya Toure blunted by the might of Roger Espinoza and Antolin Alcaraz. Oh, the shame, and oh, the hilarity.

As for Roberto's opposite Roberto, this is the crowning glory in what has been a four-year audition for a top job. But with the cup final out of the way, it is now onto the real cup final - a must-win clash with Arsenal. But that is for Tuesday.

For now, let us bask in the euphoria of their achievement and allow the final word to go to man of the match Callum McManaman, who summed it up thus: Interviewer: "Did you believe you could win when you stepped out onto the pitch?" McManaman: "Yes." Interviewer: "So, how does it feel now?" McManaman: "I can't believe it."

Tricky Vicky

Wigan's wizardry was also, it seems, the final act of an eventful three years in charge at Manchester City for your friend and mine, the permanently-scarfed Roberto Mancini.

Eminently more talented, City's collective failure boiled down to a lack of motivation among their players, summed up by Mancini's indifferent attempt at lambasting their shamefulness. "They did not run a lot," was all he could muster to explain the inexplicable.

By the time he'd sloped into his post-match press conference, though, he was ready to roll, but the focus of his ire was City's happy-go-lucky press officer Vicky Kloss, who shifted uncomfortably in the same room as Roberto blamed her for not shutting down the sack stories, as if she could physically reach into the editorial offices of AS, and wipe their "Pellegrini to City", exclusive off the face of the earth. Not once, it appears, did Roberto consider that the stories are everywhere because they might be true.

But before any overblown sympathy starts to pour forth, let us not forget that he climbed into bed with City knowing exactly their penchant for ruthlessness. After all, he sat happily in the stands to witness Mark Hughes' final game in charge, knowing he would soon have the keys to Sheikh Mansour's pot of gold. This is football, after all, and what goes around usually tends to come around.