Three managers who Sir Alex Ferguson thought were good enough to replace him at Manchester United have been revealed.
It is quite clear that Manchester United have never managed to recover since Sir Alex Ferguson retired from management back in 2013. He won 38 trophies during his 26 year stint at Old Trafford. Since his retirement, the club have managed only four. That is extraordinary when you think about it.
What many don’t know though is that Celtic tried to lure Sir Alex to Parkhead back in the late 1990s and the manager was apparently interested as well to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Jock Stein. Thankfully, he decided to stay on.
Later in 2000, he would tell Celtic’s largest individual shareholder, Dermot Desmond, the names of three managers he would be comfortable with replacing him at Old Trafford.
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This was brought to light in an interview that Desmond did with The Athletic:
"“I had asked Alex Ferguson to be manager of Celtic around 1997 and I offered to pay the money myself, twice the salary he was on at Manchester United. He said he would like to consider it, even though he had a Rangers background. He said, ‘I’d like to do it, to follow in the footsteps of Jock Stein,’ but he said his overriding ambition was to win the Champions League with Manchester United. In fact, my good friend JP McManus and I were his guests at the (1999) final in Barcelona, where he fulfilled his dream.“In 2000, I went back and asked him if he was to pick his replacement at that time who would it be. He said there were three people: Dave O’Leary, Alan Curbishley and Martin O’Neill. I said the one I’m interested in is Martin O’Neill.”"
This is very important since Ferguson originally had plans to retire back in 2002. Fortunately he decided to remain for a decade more and it was a trophy-laden period for the Red Devils.
Ultimately, when he did retire in 2013, David Moyes was picked as the man to replace him. We all know by now though that it did not work out well for Manchester United and he was sacked before even completing his first season at the club.
Since then, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer have been handed the keys to Old Trafford but none of them have managed to even approach the success that the club enjoyed under Sir Alex. And it is unlikely that anyone ever will.