Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson would not allow players to go out on loan until they completed training in an unusual thing, according to an ex-Red Devils star.
Ferguson, 83, is widely considered to be one of the greatest managers to have coached in the Premier League, having secured 13 league titles during his 26-year reign as Red Devils boss.
The Scot, who joined United in 1986, was more than just a coach, essentially having final say on most footballing decisions at United during his tenure and was not afraid to get rid of players if they stepped out of line, regardless of their importance to his side as the likes of Jaap Stam, Ruud van Nistelrooy and David Beckham found out in the early 2000s.
Aside from helping world-class players such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney thrive during the early stages of their careers, Ferguson was always keen to develop young players off the pitch and even helped them learn how to look after themselves away from the football field.
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On a recent episode of the ‘Fozcast’, former United, West Brom, Birmingham, Wrexham and England goalkeeper Ben Foster revealed the one thing Ferguson used to make players do before allowing them to leave on loan.
“They used to go to Iceland quite a lot of the players to Antwerp as well, but he’d always make sure that you could cook your own food first,” Foster explained to former Spurs defender Eric Dier, who featured on the episode.
United loaned 29 players – including John O’Shea, Luke Chadwick and Phil Bardsley - to Belgium-based Royal Antwerp during the clubs’ 12-year partnership between 1997 and 2009.
Foster added: “So, he’d make you go in with the chef into the kitchen... and the chef, it might be a two-week course or whatever, would be showing you how to make some food.
“He’s got to trust that when you're living in that apartment… that you can put a bit of food together at least [and] that you’re not eating McDonald’s.”
Dier, 31, who recently signed for AS Monaco, then opened up about his time under Vincent Kompany at Bayern Munich, explaining how young players are still expected to do ‘odd jobs’ around the training ground.
The 31-year-old revealed: “With Kompany, the young boys would clean up the pitch after training, they would pick up the cones, the balls. Any kids from the academy coming over [to the first team], they’d be doing that sort of thing. That has gone a little bit [in the modern game]."
Topics: Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United, Ben Foster, Premier League, Football
Luke Davies