Top 140 Alex Ferguson Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Keeping players happy is not easy and I think anyone with a big squad will tell you that.”

— Alex Ferguson

102. “I tried it 100 or a million times it couldn’t happen again. If I could, I would have carried on playing.”

— Alex Ferguson

103. “I feel sympathy for the working class lad. I’ve always championed about ticket prices and try to equate that to people’s salaries.”

— Alex Ferguson

104. “I am such a bloody talented guy. I might go into painting or something like that.”

— Alex Ferguson

105. “You are not going to be happy if you lose to a goal in the last minute. It is difficult to take and difficult to get out of your mind.”

— Alex Ferguson

106. “It’s great news. The reality of negotiations today is that they take time. But these have always been conducted in a good spirit and we are very pleased with the outcome. We can now look forward to the future.”

— Alex Ferguson

107. “Games–like life–are all about waiting for chances and then pouncing on them.”

— Alex Ferguson

108. “If I have my health I can carry on. There will be a point when I do quit but I have absolutely no idea when that is.”

— Alex Ferguson

109. “As long as you don’t criticise individual players in public, admonishing the team is fine, not a problem. We can all share in the blame: the manager, his staff, the players. Expressed properly, criticism can be an acceptance of collective responsibility. Under.”

— Alex Ferguson

110. “The lads really ran their socks into the ground.”

— Alex Ferguson

111. “Part of the pursuit of excellence involves eliminating as many surprises as possible because life is full of the unexpected.”

— Alex Ferguson

112. “Everyone remembers Stuart Pearce as a determined, aggressive player, who played with great heart and enthusiasm that gave him a great career in the game.”

— Alex Ferguson

113. “Cole should be scoring from those distances, but I’m not going to single him out.”

— Alex Ferguson

114. “You don’t get the best out of people by hitting them with an iron rod. You do so by gaining their respect, getting them accustomed to triumphs and convincing them that they are capable of improving their performance.”

— Alex Ferguson

115. “The philosophy of a lot of European teams, even in home matches, is not to give a goal away.”

— Alex Ferguson

116. “There are members of the London press who seek to antagonise me, deliberately.”

— Alex Ferguson

117. “Myths grow all the time. If I was to listen to the number of times I’ve thrown teacups then we’ve gone through some crockery in this place. It’s completely exaggerated, but I don’t like people arguing back with me.”

— Alex Ferguson

118. “They say it was Cesc Fabregas who threw the pizza at me but, to this day, I have no idea who the culprit was.”

— Alex Ferguson

119. “There are plenty of attributes that separate the great leader from the good manager. Both may put their work before family and friends, survive on little sleep, endure a lifetime of red-eye flights. Look more closely and you will find that the great leader possesses an unusual, and essential, characteristic – he will think and operate like an owner, or a person who owns a substantial stake of the business, even if, in a financial or legal sense, he is neither.”

— Alex Ferguson

120. “As with every young player these days, Ronaldo is 18.”

— Alex Ferguson

121. “Look at me – it’s taken 10 years off me today. It’s these tablets, they’re great!”

— Alex Ferguson

122. “Her Majesty said she hoped I would have time for my horses – I own two and have shares in four.”

— Alex Ferguson

123. “If you need one person to change your destiny, then you have not built a very solid organisation.”

— Alex Ferguson

124. “In any normal season, most of the teams below Chelsea would think they are doing quite well.”

— Alex Ferguson

125. “I bet him he wouldn’t get 15 league goals and I’m going to have to change my bet with him. If he gets to 15 I can change it and I am allowed to do that because I’m the manager. I’m going to make it 150 now!”

— Alex Ferguson

126. “Wayne is truly blessed. He doesn’t just have ability, he has a fire inside him.”

— Alex Ferguson

127. “I understand the intensity of the supporters. I wonder how they could turn up for work on Monday morning after we lost 5-1 to Manchester City.”

— Alex Ferguson

128. “Inexperienced, or insecure, leaders are often tempted to make any infraction a capital offence.”

— Alex Ferguson

129. “One mark of a leader is his willingness to share information.”

— Alex Ferguson

130. “When you run any organisation, you have to look as far down the road as you can.”

— Alex Ferguson

131. “When I was lost in my own thoughts, Cathy would always say, ‘You’re not listening to me.’ She was right.”

— Alex Ferguson

132. “I never had a problem reaching a decision based on imperfect information. That’s just the way the world works.”

— Alex Ferguson

133. “Jose was one of those guys on a surfboard who can stay longer on the wave than anyone else.”

— Alex Ferguson

134. “You can’t do anything about them...”

— Alex Ferguson

135. “Young people will always manage to achieve the impossible–whether that is on the football field or inside a company or other big organisation. If I were running a company, I would always want to listen to the thoughts of its most talented youngsters, because they are the people most in touch with the realities of today and the prospects for tomorrow.”

— Alex Ferguson

136. “Leaders are usually unaware, or at least underestimate, the motivating power of their presence. Nobody sees themselves as others see them.”

— Alex Ferguson

137. “He was taking 30 seconds to book a player. He was needing a rest. It was ridiculous.”

— Alex Ferguson

138. “With young people you have to try to impart a sense of responsibility. If they can add greater awareness to their energy and their talents they can be rewarded with great careers.”

— Alex Ferguson

139. “The medical scans of the players who hailed from climates warmer than Britain tended to reveal much healthier joints.”

— Alex Ferguson

140. “There was no way I could contemplate taking the England job. Can you imagine me doing that? A Scotsman? I always joked that I would take the position and relegate them: make them the 150th rated country in the world, with Scotland 149.”

— Alex Ferguson

141. “No matter how hard we worked to blood youngsters, Barcelona is still able to do this better than any club. The way they develop boys into some of the best players in the world is breathtaking.”

— Alex Ferguson

142. “If they lose faith in your knowledge, they lose faith in you. That grasp of the facts must be kept at a high level, for all time. You have to be accurate in what you say to the players.”

— Alex Ferguson

143. “The most important aspect of our system was training.”

— Alex Ferguson

144. “The supporters were entitled to know when I was unhappy with a performance. But not an individual.”

— Alex Ferguson