Ferguson on:
On Mesut Ozil:
“Wayne said that we should have pursued Mesut Ozil, who had joined Real Madrid from Werder Bremen. My reply that it was none of his business who we should have gone for. I told him it was his job to play and perform.”
On Wayne Rooney in 2012:
“I felt he was struggling to get by people and had lost some of his old thrust. As time wore on, I felt he struggled more and more to do it for 90 minutes, and he seemed to tire in games.”
On Paulo Maldini:
“My favourite Italian player is Paulo Maldini. I spoke to his father once about signing him. He gave me a look which suggested that he’d never leave AC Milan.”
On an expected apology from Roy Keane:
“There was no game that week and I was due to go to Dubai to visit our soccer school. That morning Gary Neville called me from the players’ dressing room and asked me to come in. Down I went, expecting Roy to have apologised. I took my seat. Gary promptly announced that the players were not happy with training. I could not believe my ears.
‘You what?’ I said. Roy had a major influence on the dressing room and I believed that he had used that influence to try and turn the situation.”
On the 2009 Champions League final in Rome:
“A major inhibiting factor in Rome, I will say now, was the choice of hotel. It was a shambles. For meals we were in a room with no light; the food was late, it was cold.”
