Man Utd legend recalls fiery Sir Alex Ferguson incident at Liverpool that almost cost him Old Trafford career

Sir Alex Ferguson nearly banished a key player from the squad after a huge changing room bust-up at Anfield.

Manchester United dominated the 90s, with Sir Alex Ferguson's men winning six out of the eight Premier League titles on offer.

A huge reason for United's success during this period was goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, but the Dane's spell at Old Trafford was almost cut short following an altercation with Sir Alex.

Despite taking a three-goal lead, Schmeichel and co got pegged back level by Liverpool, with the game ending as a draw.

Sir Alex was understandably furious with the result, and singled out Schmeichel to take the brunt of the criticism, however, the United keeper chose to snap back at his manager.

Schmeichel opened up on the event on William Hill’s Up Front with Simon Jordan: "Feelings get mixed in without having time to cool off before you get into the dressing room, and then it was me who got picked on.

"I got picked on a lot by the manager. I understood that, I’d been there long enough by that point to understand that.

"But on that day, my brain was completely fried, and I just couldn’t take it, why me? I was thinking, ‘Look around, you could do that to literally anyone else in here, but not me, I kept us in it", He said.

Schmeichel added: “He called me into the office on the Monday morning the week after the game and said, ‘You were out of order and you know I have to let you go. But you’re still playing, but I don’t know when.’

Following the meeting, the Danish international decided to gather his teammates and apologise for his actions, which indirectly saved his United career.

Schmeichel playing for Man United in 1999- Getty

Without Schmeichel knowing, Sir Alex listened to his apology from another room and decided against letting his goalkeeper go.

Schmeichel recalled his apology on the podcast: “I then stood up and said, ‘Guys, I just want to say I really am sorry about what I did and said, I embarrassed you and I embarrassed the manager, I apologised to the manager, and I want to apologise to you guys, I was really out of order’. I never heard a thing about [my] sacking, but he told my agent that he was listening by the door thinking ‘I didn’t expect that, okay forget about it'."

Topics: Manchester United, Football, Liverpool, Premier League, Peter Schmeichel, Sir Alex Ferguson

Tom Jenkins

Tom Jenkins is a Social Editor and Journalist for SPORTBible. Specialises in Football and F1 but has experience covering a variety of sports such as MMA, Boxing and Cricket. Suffers weekly as an Evertonian.

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