Martin Keown has reacted angrily to discovering that Sir Alex Ferguson described Arsenal players as ‘babies’ when motivating his Manchester United stars ahead of matches between the two.
Former United defender Rio Ferdinand revealed how Ferguson used to approach matches against the Gunners, who were his main domestic adversaries for much of his 27-year stint in the Old Trafford dugout.
The rivalry between the two clubs defined multiple Premier League titles in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before the North London side were eclipsed by Chelsea at the top end of the standings before Manchester City and later Liverpool became regular title contenders at their expense.
However, United and Arsenal shared seven successive Premier League titles between 1997 and 2004 – with United winning five more crowns in the years since – fostering an intense rivalry between the two sets of players, while there was plenty of animosity between Ferguson and his Arsenal adversary Arsene Wenger.
Former Red Devils defender Ferdinand explained earlier this week: “Something Alex Ferguson used to say about Arsenal during his team talks was, ‘Get in their faces. They don’t like it, they can’t deal with it. They’re babies.’ He told us: ‘Get right up against them and you’ll win this game. Rio, you’ll overrun them, you’ll overpower them’.”
Keown responded angrily to Ferdinand’s comments when speaking on talkSport: “That’s poor, it’s poor. Not a great topic was it. I thought the great Alex Ferguson would’ve found a bit more to have gone at with the players to motivate them.
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“Were they playing to stop us? Or were they playing to be a success for themselves? In our dressing room, for Wenger it was about us, not about the opposition. I’ve been in dressing rooms towards the end of my career where I went to work for a manager who would just ridicule the opposition manager.
“I wasn’t learning anything from that. I was very motivated myself, but thinking back to Graham Taylor as a club manager [he] was very good, George Graham of course very good, an extreme I suppose [compared] to Arsene Wenger.”
The former Gunners defender continued: “But I preferred a quiet approach, coming in at half time you play the game back in your mind’s eye, you work it through yourself and then you’re wanting to hear from the manager. But when you come in and they’re continually talking, you can’t think straight. So I just needed a quiet moment, but then tell me what I need to know, and let’s go and do it and improve and win the game.”
