Ferguson has long gotten away with making comments on other people in the game. It's no laughing matter when the media end up portraying all these managers as the weaker animal, and by this I am thinking about the negative spin put on managers such as Wenger and Keegan, two vocal protagonists from past years. The media behaved like lap-dogs for Ferguson and dutifully turned against the two managers by suggesting they were flawed in some way, with Wenger the press made him out to be crazed and played on the fact he is foreign to these shores. His teams were 'too foreign' and the press took glee in counting the number of English nationals in his squad. When this didn't suffice, the media then went down the 'crazy Wenger' route, highlighting his manic gestures during a game and his outspoken comments on Ferguson and other managers as evidence of this.
In Keegan's case the press rounded on him for being passionate and 'too attacking'. I wonder how many goals Newcastle conceded that year in comparison with other league winning sides. Goal difference was not something the press every talked about, it was all about Newcastle conceding and being too gung-ho, this translated into Keegan being a poor manager who should consider himself lucky to be in the position he was. As Keegan's hair turned from black to white the media then pounced on the 'stress' angle and destroyed him, culminating in the 'love it' rant from Keegan which gave the media all the ammunition they needed.
The only manager to successfully buck the trend in recent years was Mourinho, and it was probably more to do with Ferguson announcing his retirement than anything. If Ferguson goes, who will be the daddy? Who will be the darling of the back pages when he goes? Mourinho was young, handsome and in charge of the richest club in the world, he had sound-bites and had even beaten Ferguson in the CL with Porto. Of course, once Ferguson decided he wasn't going after all the press billed both managers equally, you seldom saw an article with any 'angle' on either manager at that time. The press were too afraid of either of them to upset them.
Fast forward to the present day. A manager is on the block who knows exactly how to manipulate the press. Benitez uses the press as he pleases. He knows that he can't just come out with outrageous comments aimed at an established manager like Ferguson, because the press will label it with derision and call him a wacky foreigner, like Wenger. If Benitez had come out with what Ferguson has just said, then the press would have a field day. However, when Ferguson starts such a story it is treated like the scientific fact and Ferguson's judgement is at no time questioned.
So the only way Benitez can fight him is with 'facts' as he puts it. Benitez HAD to make a list of factual occurences because he knew that any discrepancy would be pounced upon by the press and would render the rest of his arguement 'mad'. The press circled the story for a couple of days, labelled it 'Rafas Rant' and then let the story drop. Why? Benitez offered journalists the ideal platform to construct an investigation into Ferguson's behaviour and irregularities in the way United are treated compared with every other club in the country. But who took on the story? Nobody. Too risky, Ferguson's too scary, holds too much power.
Thankfully Benitez understands this and thankfully 99% of Liverpool fans are untrusting of the media which is based on a couple of things but the most recent being the lies told by The Sun newspaper as to the events surrouding the Hillsborough disaster. The newspapers can write what they like about Benitez because it doesn't hold any sway within the corridors of Anfield or on the terraces.
Ferguson uses the press in the same way that the old Eastern Bloc tsar's used their own media, to whip people into a frenzy and shift public opinion on any one of a number of issues. If you put any stock in Ferguson's comments then more fool you. When all is said and done and the bright lights and loud bangs subside on his Old Trafford reign, you'll do well to look closely at his record at Old Trafford and see the real reasons why United are where they are now. A mixture of luck, money and timing is Ferguson's Old Trafford tale and is patently obvious when you look at the bare facts. I can't point them out to people because that's not for me to do, either you WANT to understand or you let yourself be told what happened. It's your choice.
