Football legend Sir Alex Ferguson offered up a hot take about Newcastle United’s win over Aston Villa on Saturday on NBC Sports last night.
As difficult as it is to admit for those of us who saw Newcastle United come second best to his Manchester United side in the 90’s, Sir Alex Ferguson is one of, if not the best manager to ever grace the game.
Fergie was a serial winner with Manchester United and since his retirement they’ve been a shadow of their former selves, although Erik ten Hag seems to be finally steering the ship in the right direction – with a lot of help from Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles on VAR last night.
Ferguson must have been watching a different game to the rest of us
As part of NBC Sports’ coverage of the game last night, Ferguson was asked which team has impressed him over the opening weekend and the 81-year-old offered up a very hot take.
“To be honest with you, I watched Aston Villa and Newcastle and I can’t believe the scoreline,” said Ferguson. “Honestly, Aston Villa played fantastic football and just lost bad goals. Newcastle are going to be very difficult to beat at their home ground and the manager has done a great job there. But a surprising game, you can play teams off the pitch and not score and that’s what happened to Villa.”
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So, I agree that everybody is entitled to their opinion, but what game was he watching? Bad goals? Played off the park? I know Sir Alex doesn’t hold Newcastle in the highest regard, but come on.
Am I looking at the game through black and white tinted lenses? Possibly. But in what way and at what point did Aston Villa play Newcastle off the park? They were very lively and quite dangerous for the first 20 minutes, but once they lost Tyrone Mings their heads went down and they were there for the taking.
Ferguson said they went down to bad goals, yeah, they were bad because Villa played a high line that Newcastle exploited for fun.
Newcastle’s players all put in a top performance on Saturday
Don’t get me wrong, I do think this was a blip for Aston Villa and I still back them to have a great season under Unai Emery, but this little analysis from Fergie is so bizarre.
His comment also suggested that Newcastle might struggle away from home which again, is nonsense. Yes, St James’ Park is our fortress but it’s not like we turn into Farley’s Rusks on the road, give us some credit here, Mr Ferguson.
Apologies for the rant but I just felt that Sir Alex Ferguson’s comments were a tad disrespectful in light of the excellent performance Eddie Howe‘s men put in on Saturday evening.