Ferguson: Ferdinand absence was so costly
Alex Ferguson has claimed Rio Ferdinand’s suspension was the key factor in Manchester United losing the title to Arsenal.
The Old Trafford manager looked on with a sense of disbelief as his team fell away in the second half of the season.
Ferdinand was banned for failing to take a drugs test – he is not due back until September.
Ferguson’s frustration increased when defenders Mikael Silvestre, Gary Neville and Quinton Fortune all suffered injuries.
When asked if it was Arsenal stepping up a gear or United dropping off, Ferguson said: “Obviously we’ll point to the Rio Ferdinand suspension, and that will always stick in my throat.
“That’s simply because we were four points clear. We had the best defensive record in the country.
“We were playing with great consistency and we usually do well in the second halves of the season, but after Rio’s ban, we then hit a spate of injuries.
“Quinton Fortune, first of all, injured himself in training in early February and missed the rest of the season.
“Then Mikael Silvestre got his ankle injury and he was out for three to four weeks.
“Gary Neville got a thigh injury and a suspension so our back four was changing every minute.
“There is no question that unless you have a regular back four at that level, going in to that part of the season you are going to struggle – and we did.”
Ferguson is looking to regain the high ground in the new season.
“I think that we’ve got to make sure that we are better,“ he told www.leaguemanagers.com.
“I am not concerning myself with what Arsenal are going to do, I’m only interested in what Manchester United are going to do.
“Our issue is to make sure we’re covered better defensively than we were last season, and we’ll get that improvement.”
United also missed out on a place in the Champions League semi-finals, losing to eventual winners Porto when they scored from a late free-kick.
Ferguson said: “I think everybody knows about the refereeing decisions in the game – but they had only one shot on goal.
“Then there was the free-kick in the last kick of the game, in the last minute of injury time and everyone was gutted.
“It was so sudden because you couldn’t see a goal coming. You could not see them mustering an attack.
“We handled them really well on the night even though we didn’t play particularly well. They didn’t give us any problems.
“Any chances that were made were made by us, so to lose was really disappointing for the players and hard to take.”
