Source: Daily_Mail
History men: United boss Sir Alex has a chance to join football's immortals
Creating history is one of Sir Alex Ferguson's main motivations for embarking on a 36th season in football management and today is the start of a campaign that could see him eclipse the legendary Herbert Chapman and Bob Paisley with an unprecedented fourth league championship in a row.
While Ferguson will ensure his players stay focused on 'one match at a time' and look no further than their opening game against Birmingham City at Old Trafford, in the back of his own mind will be the incentive of doing something no other manager has achieved in the English League's 121-year-old history.
It says a lot for the competitiveness of English football that no club have ever managed to win more than three consecutive titles.
Chapman's Huddersfield and Arsenal sides achieved it in the Twenties and Thirties. Liverpool managed it under Paisley (1981-84) and Ferguson's Treble-winning side also claimed a league hat-
trick (1999-2001). But all fell at the fourth hurdle.
Now Ferguson has a second chance at the 'Quadruple'. He is assured of his place in the pantheon of managers even if he fails to win another match in his life, but, typically, he refuses to see things that way.
As the sacking of Bryan Gunn at Norwich after only one game
illustrates, football management is a precarious business. And memories of 2005-06 when there were calls for Ferguson's head after United failed to qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League are still fresh in the mind despite the plaudits, and trophies, that have come his way since.
'I always work with the fear of failure. I never think about being bullet-proof,' he says. 'The only time you can say you are bullet-proof is before you play your first match.'
The haunting prospect of being written off as a loser still runs as deeply in the 67-year-old today as it did when he stepped into his first managerial job at East Stirling in 1974.
'Fear of failure, that's how I think, even now,' he admits. 'You have got to think that way because this world is waiting for those who are complacent.
'I've got something in me that doesn't think about anything else but winning. You use that fear for yourself and your players. You try to transmit that mentality to the players, that winning matters and losing matters even more. Right now, failure would be losing against Birmingham. It is a results industry. It is the same for any manager.
'It doesn't matter what you've spent and what you haven't spent. If they don't stay in that Premier Division they get the sack and that's a horrible part of life. I remember a manager being sacked because the pools panel had him down to lose!'
Manchester United will have to cope this season without the departed Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez. Even though Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen and Antonio Valencia have all vowed to fill Ronaldo's boots in different ways, Ferguson can not be certain how his team will fare.
He anticipates United, Chelsea and Liverpool, in particular, could take the title race down to the wire. 'You could throw a net over us, it's that even,' he says.
The United boss faces his first big decision of the season when he has to choose between Ben Foster and Tomasz Kuszczak in goal.
He wanted to give Foster an extended run in the side while Edwin van der Sar recovers from a finger operation but his shaky performance in last weekend's Community Shield against Chelsea was followed by his withdrawal from the England squad to face Holland with a slight knee injury.
Ferguson will be loath to leave Foster out but is seriously considering the option. With Nemanja Vidic sidelined and Jonny Evans doubtful, he will be looking for Rio Ferdinand to bounce back from his lethargic display for England.
