Ferguson explains break down in relationship with former United star.
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Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson says in his new autobiography that he knew David Beckham’s time at Old Trafford was up as soon as the midfield player started to believe he was bigger than the Scot, according to reports in the Daily Mail.
The ex-England international skipper was a hero at the ‘Theatre of Dreanms’ for a ten-year period between 1993 and 2003, before his shock departure to Spanish giants Real Madrid for £29m.
And now the legendary Scot has revealed the real reasons as to why the Red Devils allowed Beckham to move to the Santiago Bernabeu in the summer of 2003, with Ferguson claiming that the breakdown in the pairs’ previously rock-solid relationship had begun earlier that campaign following a 2-0 loss to arch-rivals Arsenal in an FA Cup tie at Old Trafford.
After the defeat, Fergie says that he told Beckham that he was at fault for the north London club’s second decisive strike, scored by Frenchman Sylvain Wiltord, whose run the midfielder had failed to track.
And then during a heated post-match exchange in the dressing-room, Ferguson famously kicked a stray football boot that hit Beckham just above the eyebrow, cutting the star.
“Of course he rose to have a go at me and the players stopped him. ‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘You’ve let your team down,'” writes the former United boss in ‘Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography’.
However, when the story then broke to the media, the United boss realised that: “David thought he was bigger than Alex Ferguson,” and so made the choice to offload Beckham to Madrid that summer.
And Ferguson went on to claim that Becks then “surrendered” football by opting to leave the world’s biggest football club in order to join the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007 and “made it his mission to be known outside the game.”