Manager and star must begin the healing process

WHEN Alex Ferguson is asked what advice he would offer any young manager, he has a stock reply, the result of his vast experience that stretches back almost four decades.

“Don’t seek confrontation,” he says. “In this job, it will find you.”

And so, instead of sitting back in the afterglow of what should have been satisfactory 70th birthday celebrations, with Manchester United at the Barclays Premier League summit and his own future secure for another three years, Ferguson finds himself fire-fighting once more.