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.
You have to remember that it wasn’t like it is now. Managers today are just managers. Clubs are run by other people. But back then, Ferguson was such a huge part of the way United was run. He wanted his players to conform to certain standards and his role in the club meant he could demand it from them…fairly or unfairly. But he also adapted. He wasn’t like that with the later generations of player like Rooney/Ronaldo etc.
What most people are failing to understand was the 90s and 2000s was the largest growth and innovation in how media was consumed, and how the subjects of that media were treated.
Newspapers and radio had been a dominant for of media, but now the advent of phones and smaller cameras were coming into existence, mixed with the explosion of internet and eventually social media.
Honestly can’t imagine Ferguson was clairvoyant but his method was incredible for the time. Now young players are media trained and have grown up with the media being deployed. Back then, Ferguson kept young players from interviews and it protected them and the team.