Sir Alex Ferguson blasted Man Utd claim as an insult before Gary Lineker comments

Manchester United have endured 12 largely miserable years since Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure, with Gary Lineker suggesting that their woes stem from the end of the Scotsman’s reign

Sir Alex Ferguson has already blasted Gary Lineker’s suggestion that Manchester United’s current struggles are linked to his tenure, calling it “an insult”.

United failed to defend their FA Cup crown on Sunday as they lost to Fulham on penalties after their fifth-round clash at Old Trafford ended 1-1. The Red Devils have endured a woeful 2024/25 campaign, currently languishing in 14th place and on track to suffer their worst-ever finish in a Premier League season.

While Ruben Amorim struggles to get results on the pitch, club co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has brought turmoil off it, making headlines for highly controversial redundancies and cost-cutting measures.

Following their latest lacklustre display, BBC’s Match of the Day host Gary Lineker talked about United’s fall from grace since the Ferguson era. And he pinpointed the set-up which the legendary manager left behind when he decided to retire in 2013 as the reason for their troubles.

Lineker said: “If you look at Liverpool now, they’ve got a new manager in Arne Slot, and it’s testament to how Jurgen Klopp left the club in a really good state. So the structure is really good. That probably wasn’t the case at the end of Sir Alex Ferguson’s [time at Old Trafford].”

Ferguson won the league an astonishing 13 times with United, including a relatively straightforward victory in 2012/13 despite an ageing squad. Lineker continued: “I know they won the league that season. But it wasn’t their best side, and a lot of their great players were coming to the end of their careers. I think from there they had problems. The academy wasn’t delivering the players that they were before.”

Such an argument over United’s sharp decline in the past 12 years, which has seen Ferguson’s seven successors flounder to varying degrees, is not new. Back in 2014, after Sir Alex’s handpicked successor David Moyes had been sacked, there were similar accusations that the legendary manager had not given enough attention to future planning beforehand.

Yet the 83-year-old, who enjoyed 26 years of unrivalled success, responded to critics by attributing Moyes’ failure to another factor. “It is an insult to say that I left an ageing squad,” Ferguson said at an event to publicise his updated autobiography.

“Chelsea have seven players over 30 but nobody talks about them being an old team. It is easy to defend myself against all of that because all the statistics are there.

“My advice to David [Moyes] was that he should maybe keep Mike Phelan. He was a United man – loyal, hard-working and a good judge of the players. I was always supportive of David – whenever he called I gave him the advice I would have wanted when I was manager.”

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