Football Food For Thought / Ralph Ellis / 20 April 2010 /

Jose Mourinho is the favourite to take over from Sir Alex Ferguson when he eventually calls it a day with both David Moyes and Martin O'Neill also fancied. Ralph Ellis tells us why the most likely candidate may be a lot further down the list...

Sir Alex Ferguson hasn't made many mistakes in his 23 and a half years in charge of Manchester United. But there was one big one. That was when he announced to the world that he was going to retire.

It was at the start of the 2001-2 season, and by the time he'd changed his mind in February the damage was done to that particular campaign. All of a sudden he'd found that whenever he tried to switch on his famous hairdryer, all it produced was hot air. The players knew he was going and it meant he lost, temporarily, his steely grip on the Old Trafford dressing room.

So don't expect Fergie to make any massive advance announcements the next time he starts planning to step down. It will happen one stunning day when we are least expecting it.

But there will be leaks, and some of them have been rumbling around this week. It began on Monday when the Daily Star's veteran Manchester reporter Bill Thornton, one of the handful of journalists who can claim to be close to Fergie, wrote that he will quit in the summer of 2011 and that Jose Mourinho will be his successor.

Today the Sun's chief football writer Shaun Custis has been following up the story, and while he's not so well connected in Manchester itself, he has plenty of friends of friends. He says Sir Alex has flagged up his intention to leave and United are beginning to draw up their list of potential successors.

In Betfair's Specials market it's not surprising the Special One is favourite at [3.05]. He gets the chance to prove his credentials again tonight as his Inter team look to stop the brilliance of Barcelona. But as a bet it offers no value, even if the market does get settled as soon as 12 months time. Looking for a way out of Inter Milan, he could well be bedded in a new big job by then. Martin O'Neill [8.0] and David Moyes [8.6] come next in the odds, but the gossip I hear should take you much further down the list of potential new United managers.

Alex McLeish has been the success story of this Premier League season, spending barely £12million to put newly promoted Birmingham into the top half of the table. Giving Barry Ferguson a route out of his troubles in Glasgow was a master stroke, as was reviving the career of Lee Bowyer - and digging up two defenders from the Championship in Roger Johnson and Scott Dann. (His Blues are great value at [6.0] to win Sunday's second city derby against a tired Aston Villa, incidentally).

The word is that when Fergie does go he will want to stay around Old Trafford in some form of advisory capacity. Because of that he'll play a big part in nominating who takes over. McLeish, his old captain at Aberdeen, would be comfortable with that. He ticks other boxes, having managed at club level in Europe and as an international boss with Scotland.

And for us he ticks the most important box of all - sensational value between [25.0]. and [55.0] to make it worth locking up a long-term and very speculative punt.


Five things you might not know about Barry Ferguson

1. Born in Hamilton in February 1978, his dad was a roof sheeter. Brother Derek, 11 years his elder, played 111 times for Rangers

2. Wife Margaret is a Roman Catholic and Ferguson has spoken out fiercely against the old religious rivalries between Glasgow's two big clubs.

3. When Margaret made a video to mark the award of his MBE, it showed the Ferguson house with "the captain of a successful team" having a cup of tea - none other than Neil Lennon, then captain of Celtic

4. He bought a share of his local pub in Glasgow, The Popinjay, to stop it going bust because he was concerned about the number of wedding receptions which would have to be cancelled

5.He has a tattoo on his right arm which reads: "Every Saint has a past, every sinner has a future". It's an Oscar Wilde quote.

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