It was Bill Shankly who said football is a simple game that people would be well advised not to make complicated and perhaps in that spirit Sir Alex Ferguson has just revealed the secret of his phenomenal success. "At a club like Manchester United there's an expectation to live up to," Ferguson said. "You really need to win all the time and that's all there is to it."
Ferguson has implemented that strategy so well that by rights the guard of honour at the Emirates on Sunday should be solely for his benefit since, with 13 English titles to his name, the United manager has just equalled Arsenal's all-time haul, amassed over nine decades dating back to Herbert Chapman and including the not inconsiderable contributions of Arsène Wenger and George Graham.
As Arsenal are the third most successful club in English league history, with only Manchester United and Liverpool placed above them, that bare fact alone stands as a testament to the unprecedented scale of what Ferguson has achieved. Some of the most lauded and revered managers in the game have finished on top of the pile on only two or three occasions – Shankly, Brian Clough and Bill Nicholson, to pick three hugely iconic figures, managed six titles between them – while Ferguson long ago moved out of the shadow of his nearest modern challengers in Bob Paisley (six) and Matt Busby (five).
It is hard to believe now but, when Ferguson arrived at Old Trafford in 1986, those five Busby titles formed the bulk of United's somewhat puny total of seven league championships. Liverpool's total 27 years ago stood at 16 and would rise to 18 before United could commence the knocking-off-the-perch exercise, yet once that process was under way another indication of its thoroughness is that the Anfield record has remained unchanged, a fossil set in the upper strata of pre-Premier League stone. At risk of causing more pain than is strictly necessary to the Merseyside end of the great north-west rivalry, it ought to be acknowledged that were Ferguson a slightly younger man he could soon be looking at reeling in Liverpool's all-time record in exactly the same way as he has managed to match Arsenal's. At his present rate of accumulation it might take only another decade.
That, one trusts, is fantasy, yet for one manager to accomplish in just over 20 years what the country's leading clubs have stacked up in more than a century of existence is already in the realms of the seriously improbable. His achievements are more remarkable for taking place against a backdrop of huge financial uncertainty at home, with the Glazer takeover loading the club with barely controllable levels of debt, at a time when rivals such as Chelsea and Manchester City were making giant strides through finding backers of unimaginable wealth. No one could say English football has been uncompetitive during Ferguson's reign, with Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal all reaching European Cup finals and the neighbours becoming noisy for the first time in 40-odd years, though what appears to have worked in United's favour is the top-four scenario, whereby more or less the same teams challenge for the elite places each season and at least two end up dropping out of the title race to concentrate on securing their Champions League status.
What United do these days to win their titles is not wait until the 96th minute to score a winner against Sheffield Wednesday, or reduce Kevin Keegan to a gibbering wreck on live television, but identify their main rivals, match them up and play the long game. Ferguson's own longevity has made them adept at that. It is possible that José Mourinho would have given him more of a run for his money by staying a few more seasons at Chelsea, though it is important to remember that United had already re-established themselves as champions by getting off to a flying start in the 2006-07 season and were part of the reason the pressure built up at Stamford Bridge a few months later. That three-year hiatus in the middle of the last decade is the longest United have had to wait for a Premier League trophy, which is one reason Ferguson is rarely said to be under pressure from fans.
He has had his critics from time to time and even been accused of losing the plot but he has yet to lose his eye for a player or his appetite for success. Adding a league title to the honours board every other season or so tends to drown out dissenting voices, not to mention appealing to the inner child of transfer targets such as Robin van Persie.
If there is a secret, apart from the unique castle of control he has built around himself, it could be a flexibility rare in one who has spent most of his working career being proved spectacularly right. Even now he does not believe he has seen it all, refuses to become set in his ways and is endlessly willing to learn. "You have to, the competition is much more severe now," Ferguson said. "I think what is important is to always keep looking forward rather than looking back."
The United manager might not have put himself in line for any talent-spotting awards by signing Van Persie to make the difference this season, though significantly what he did do was break his own guideline about the preferred age of incoming players, hand over a serious amount of money to a major rival for a 29-year-old with a record of injuries and not give two hoots what impact the new acquisition would have on Wayne Rooney. Something needed to change, so Ferguson adapted and changed it. Not every manager would have done the same but the whole point about Ferguson is that he is not just any old manager. He is old all right but still bold and possibly getting bolder. He could keep this show on the road for quite a while yet.
Arsenal v Manchester United, 4pm SS1