Fergie attacks critics over retirement talk..

On November 6th Fergie will celebrate 20 years in charge of Manchester United, and some critics like the Daily Mirror's Oliver Holt (Sports journalist of the year) has written that Fergie should have retired when he said he was going to in 2002. While recognising SAFs achiements, Holt went on to write that since 2002 Fergie has tarnished his reputation citing bad many transfer deals and his soured relationship with horse racing tycoons John Magner and JP McManus.

On the latter point, the two horse traders never said that they were investing in United for the good of Manchester United, they simply used United as an investment vehicle, they bought low and sold high, to them it was like any other business transaction, they were in it for the money and nothing else.

Holt uses Fergie's fall out with M&M as the reason behind their decision to dump stock which resulted in the Glazer family acquiring the club. Not so. Conspiracy theorists will always jump to whatever conclusion suits their agenda, on this occasion they are wrong and so is Holt. M&M sold United out to Glazer not because of this personal fall out, but for profit, they were always going to sell after buying so cheaply.

Fergie has let himself down badly lately, telling fans that they shouldn't expect any say in the running of the club. Fergie also complained about the lack of noise at Old Trafford during some games. The trouble is with Fergie he says things then often contradicts himself by saying the exact opposite. A case in point was when he encouraged fans to join supporters group Shareholders United saying "I urge fans to get involved with supporters groups like Shareholders United as it could only be for the good of football". When Fergie said that we believed we had a champion in the boardroom, someome who spoke for the fans...

So we the fans can never be 100% sure what he truly means these days, this wasn't the case a few years ago, we were all singing from the same hymn sheet. Sadly it seems no more.

Over the next couple of days much will be written about Fergie's 20 years, but only when he's gone will we truly reflect on the many memories his teams have given us United fans. Like in life, we will choose to remember the good times over the bad, because that is human nature.

BBC online: Fergie hits back