ALEX FERGUSON celebrates the 10th anniversary of his arrival at Manchester United today, secure in the knowledge that his achievements already place him alongside the greatest managerial figures of post-war English league football: Nicholson, Shankly, Revie, Clough, Paisley and his own immortal predecessor, Matt Busby. So posterity has been taken care of. Next week is another matter.
Ferguson is United's seventh post-war manager. His team are the current Premiership champions and holders of the FA Cup, representing a unique second Double to follow that of 1993-94, when victory in the championship broke the 26-year spell hanging over all Busby's successors. United lie sixth in the current table, which is not such a bad place to be at the beginning of November, and can still qualify for the lucrative knockout phases of the European Cup. In terms of commercial prosperity, they stand among the half-dozen greatest clubs in world football.
Yet uneasy lies the head that wears this particular crown, and aside from his immediate difficulties, caused by a run of spectacularly poor results, Ferguson remains sensitive to the resentment fed in jealous breasts by his club's success.
Last week he spoke of listening to the radio while driving to United's training ground on the morning after the recent 6-3 defeat at Southampton, and of hearing a pair of announcers taking a noisy delight in the club's latest humiliation. He remembered the exact time: 7.17 a.m.
"Is this the message the BBC is sending out," he mused, "that it's all right to hate Manchester United? Maybe it's a social thing. There's more hatred in people than in previous generations. We must be a threat to the nation, with me as Public Enemy Number One."
he is in no Doubt, however, about the need to fight fire with fire. One of his clearest memories as United's manager involves watching a group of Liverpool fans asking two of his young players, Lee Sharpe and Ryan Giggs, for their autographs outside the entrance at Anfield, and then contemptuously tearing the paper into shreds in front of the players' eyes. "I told the lads never to forget that incident," he said.
Until two and a half weeks ago, his historic feats would have made this a day of unsullied rejoicing among United's huge following, which stretches from Salford to Shanghai and which he had done much to consolidate.
Yet such is the way of sport that Ferguson's deserved celebrations will take place in the shadow of a sequence of defeats casting a greater gloom on his tenure than at any time since the winter of 1989-90, when chants of "Ferguson out" were briefly heard at Old Trafford.
In the past 18 days his players have lost 5-0 to Newcastle United and 6-3 to Southampton, surrendered a proud record of European invincibility at Old Trafford to the unconsidered Fenerbahce, and seen the end of a 35-match unbeaten Premiership home run to Chelsea. A League Cup win over Swindon Town, with a team including several reserves, brought no meaningful relief.
Self-evidently, such results mean that the team have been playing badly. But the manner of their poor performances - callow in defence, disjointed in midfield, lacklustre in attack - is clearly posing Ferguson a set of questions that go far beyond the simple need for a win to put an end to the sequence.
Yet such periods of turbulence inevitably come upon a long-serving manager, and Ferguson's record since joining United on November 6th 1986 certainly supports the belief that he will steer the team back into clear air.
He has been learning hard lessons about European football since the first visit to Istanbul in the winter of 1993, and few managers of any era or nationality have been forced to confront the moral dilemma he faced in the early weeks of 1995, when Eric Cantona, his greatest star, assaulted a spectator.
The long perspective suggests that his transfer record is as good as anyone's. For his first match, a 2-0 defeat at Oxford United, he sent out an inherited team: Turner in goal, Duxbury, Albiston, Moran, McGrath and Hogg in defence, Blackmore, Moses and Barnes in midfield, Stapleton and Davenport in attack.
Over the next five years he sold 26 players for £4.5 million and bought 21 for £15.9 million. Among the key arrivals were Brian McClair, Mark Hughes, Steve Bruce, Paul Ince, Denis Irwin, Gary Pallister, Peter Schmeichel and Andrei Kanchelskis.
Just as significantly, he revived a Busby tradition by overhauling the club's atrophied youth scheme, beginning with the snatch of the boy Ryan Giggs from under Manchester City's noses and going on to nurture the precious talents of the Neville brothers, David Beckham and others.
"There's a lot of talk about the last 10 years," he said last week, "but the work that's been done has prepared the club for the next 10 years."
At 54, and a few months into a four-year extension of a contract which, after hard bargaining during the summer, is believed to be worth a basic £250,000 a year, he is not interested in discussing retirement.
"Retirement at 65 should be against the law," he said. His father, a Govan shipyard worker, died at 66, after retiring the year before. "That's one of the reasons why you shouldn't retire. The mechanism stops. So I don't think about retirement."
Even in the dark days of 1990, when some thought that only a 1-0 away win over Nottingham Forest in the third round of the FA Cup averted his dismissal, the one-time shipyard shop steward never believed himself in jeopardy. "I didn't think there was anyone daft enough to sack me," he said.
