He is extremely controlling. Wants everything his way. What Beckham should wear, how he should cut his hair, how many days he should spend on his honeymoon, who should he marry and who should he not be with … Is this OK for you? And he would get away after physically assaulting him? For SAF, everything was always about himself.
Arsene Wenger on the other hand is so different. He only controlled what people ate (and that too, through education and not “enforcement”). I never hear any such stories about him. He too was a winner, wasn’t he? But completely different style of management.
Seems Ferguson controlled through fear while Arsene Wenger coached through love.
I don’t think many people would claim that Ferguson is some morally exceptional person. He was, quite simply, an exceptional manager. Quite possibly the best ever.
Wenger isn’t in the same conversation. And Wenger was an excellent manager himself. But his legacy isn’t on the same level as Ferguson’s.
Theirs was a function vs. form rivalry. Ferguson’s focus was entirely on what made Man Utd win. If it was ugly, so be it. If it was beautiful, that was a nice bonus. But ultimately, winning was all that mattered.
Contrastingly, Wenger would sacrifice a certain level of competitiveness for the sake of aesthetics. That 5-10% he sacrificed was a key difference between winning titles and finishing 4th so often in the latter years of his Arsenal reign.