Why Ferguson is football’s top manager

What has made Sir Alex Ferguson the most successful manager in both the history of the Premier League and British football? An us-against-them siege mentality, writes Paul Wilson in the Guardian.

Ferguson "stands on the verge of making his mark in Europe this week if Manchester United can become the first club to retain a Champions League title". Yet, says Wilson, he is far from happy.

This "phenomenal pensioner" may take pride in what he is about to achieve, but there is also a downside. '"It would be great to win a league and Champions League double again," Ferguson says. "But the trouble with doing that a second time is that people will expect it every year. It will become the new minimum standard. Manchester United will have to set out to do that every season and the minute we don't we will have failed. That's the way football is."'

Nor is the 67-year-old Glaswegian, who "happily concedes that a domestic title already in the bag and a second successive European Cup final to look forward to", one for pausing to express satisfaction with all he surveys, writes Wilson.

"That is possibly the key to the success of all his United teams over the years: the fighting spirit, the restless energy, the inability to give up until the final whistle has sounded. United, like Ferguson, are simply not in the habit of letting up. They go on from one challenge to the next and never expect anyone to make their life easy." ·