Happiest man at Etihad was …Mr Wagner
MANCHESTER CITY
when Kevin De Bruyne drove a left-footer into his chest.
In a late City charge Bernardo Silva and Benjamin Mendy threatened from distance but there might have been injurytime drama when Huddersfield substitute Scott Malone dispossessed Silva and advanced before driving straight at Emerson.
Guardiola said: “We cannot deny, it would be nice to set records but it’s nicer when you win the Premier League.
“I’m so satisfied but the game showed me how difficult everything is. They came here, played defensively perfect, so a lot of credit to them.”
MAN CITY (4-3-3): REMAINING GAMES: HUDDERSFIELD (3-5-1-1):
SIR ALEX FERGUSON set the bar so high over such a long period of time it looks virtually impossible for any manager to match him. It is a legacy which has made him the standard-bearer for the modern era, and beyond.
It began with brief spells at East Stirling and St Mirren, then there were the nine years in charge of Aberdeen before 27 seasons at Manchester United.
In total, staggeringly, he won 49 trophies, was made a CBE, received a knighthood for his services to football and had a statue erected at Old Trafford where the giant North Stand has been named after him.
But his football story is about so much more than the champagne and glory moments.
It is a story with chapter after chapter telling the tales of Fergie’s appetite for hard graft, no matter his age, no matter the time of year, from freezing cold mornings at 7am to long evenings scouting for players or watching opponents. He was first in at United’s training ground and often last out.
Hard work and loyalty are the qualities he inherited from his father and were nurtured by working as an apprentice toolmaker in the shipyards on the Clyde in his native Glasgow before he became a professional player. He was also trade union shop steward prepared to fight for his fellow workers’ rights.
Skills of leadership, manmanagement and negotiating in the real world helped enormously in his managerial career, a career which ended five years ago but remains the benchmark for whoever takes on a job in the Premier League.
Will anyone ever match Fergie’s one-club record of 38 trophies at United? It is more likely that a manager’s lifespan at a club is 27 months, not 27 seasons.
But Ferguson was the man who proved that the lack of instant success does not mean failure, that faith in the man in charge can turn a club around spectacularly.
At Aberdeen, Fergie broke the stranglehold Celtic and Rangers had on Scottish football but also, improbably, brought them a European Cup Winners’ Cup, beating the might of Real Madrid in the final in1983. At United, after three and a half years of no success, he turned an under-achieving
giant of a club into the global colossus it is now – the high point being the historic Treble of Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup in 1999.
But while the amount of honours is tangible proof of his managerial ability it merely scratches at the surface of Sir Alex’s legacy.
The style and swagger of his teams, the never-say-die attitude that saw them score those unforgettable two goals in added time in the Nou Camp to break Bayern Munich’s hearts, lift Europe’s top club prize and give the club its finest hour.
Ferguson overhauled United’s youth development system to ensure an assembly line of young talent for the first team. Everyone remembers