Fergie ‘greatest in history’

You can never escape history at Manchester United; the place is steeped in it.

So when Bobby Charlton, a man who links the club’s glorious present to its glorious past, describes Alex Ferguson as the greatest manager in the history of football he doesn’t mean it lightly.

Charlton, who has been a director at Old Trafford since 1984, was influential in the appointment of Ferguson when he arrived in Manchester two years later and has seen at close quarters how the Scotsman has transformed the club over a period of more than 26 years.

A World Cup and European Cup winner himself and the man who best embodies the values of England’s most famous and prestigious club, it’s typical of Charlton that he wasn’t in Manchester celebrating the day after United beat Aston Villa 3-0 but instead at St George’s Park, the new home of English football, to attend the unveiling of a bust of Walter Winterbottom.

Walterbottom played for United in the 1930s and went on to be not only England’s longest-serving manager — he was in charge at four World Cups — but also one of the founding fathers of coach education and The FA’s first Director of Coaching.

“He’s been everything that Manchester United wanted,” said Charlton. “A major success. The greatest manager there’s ever been; it’s just unquestioned.

“He is such a motivator. He is in control, totally. And I’m happy just to say ‘on you go Alex, you just do it the way you’ve always done it’. And it shows in the performances and the goals we are scoring.

“People ask me the secret to his success and I can’t answer. But he reads the game and he knows the game and he finds young players.

“Young players are really, really important in the future of the club. And once you have got some experienced people in like van Persie, then Alex wants to make the others, the young ones, be that successful too.

“How he does it — well it’s a talent. He knows everything about the game. He tries to keep the players responsible, he tries to improve them with a work ethic.”

“And the players just respond because they want to be as enthusiastic as him. And as successful.”

Certainly youth — combined with the signing of van Persie — has been a big part of United’s success this season when you consider the remarkable improvement shown by the likes of Rafael Da Silva, Danny Welbeck, Tom Cleverley, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, Shinji Kagawa and Javier Hernandez.

So Charlton sees an even brighter future for a side that has worked so hard to win back their title from the noisy neighbours.

“We have lots and lots of goalscorers and most of them are quite young. I have no doubt that the future looks pretty good,” he said.

And Alex will already be planning next year. As soon as we won that match against Villa his thoughts will have been on next year.

“We have a busy tour in Asia and Australia in the summer and when they come back it will be the start of the campaign to win the league again.

The next question, of course, is one that Charlton has to answer almost every time he faces a microphone or a camera wherever he happens to be in the world; the one about when Alex will finally call it a day as manager and hand over the reins to someone else.

“He never talks about it and I wouldn’t deem to talk about it myself,” he insisted.

“But we all get older and Alex will get older and of course one day the decision will be made. I think that maybe some of the newspapers would love to find out what Alex is going to do with his future; but I can’t help you because I don’t know. And I don’t even ask any questions in case I trigger something!”

What can be said, however, is that as it stands there are absolutely no indications whatsoever from anyone at Old Trafford — least of all Ferguson himself — that the great man has even contemplated drawing a line under his remarkable managerial career; not while he has a team in front of him that could finish the current season with a record points haul and go on to be even better in 2014.

“We do have a good squad of players, probably one of the best squads we’ve ever had,” said Charlton. “It’s just been fantastic this season. We had a period when we were really on song and it was impossible for City to follow us. And it’s been brilliant ever since. Hopefully it’s the start of more.”

Given Ferguson’s record it would be a brave man to bet against that sentiment; and as Charlton admired a bronze statue of one coaching giant he found it impossible to imagine life without another — one who is most definitely still working.

“Everybody keeps asking me about him and when he will retire,” he admitted. “I honestly don’t know — maybe one day he’ll tell me! But until then let’s just enjoy it. These are marvellous times.”