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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Sam Meade

Ben Foster lifts lid on brutal Sir Alex Ferguson hairdryer treatment

Ben Foster has detailed some of the grillings he received from Sir Alex Ferguson during his time at Manchester United.

The goalkeeper had a spell as No 1 at Old Trafford, but it came with some harsh criticism.

Foster made two errors in the space of a fortnight which saw Ferguson let rip and tell him he was "finished".

Paul Scholes, then a mainstay of the United dressing room, attempted to console the shot stopper but he confessed he "wasn't ready for Man United at the time".

He told the Peter Crouch podcast : “I started the season and did really well. Then I had a few shaky games. The one game which did it for me was the United v City derby. 4-3; the Michael Owen one.

"I remember coming in at full time and Sir Alex Ferguson nailed me. We’d just won the game, so everyone was buzzing. He shut everyone up to nail me.

"He said, ‘You pull this s *** ever again and that’s you f***ing done’. Thankfully he kept me in the team and I had a few more decent games, but then I dropped another clanger.

"We were at home to Sunderland. Kenwyne Jones bullied me to the ball and scored with the header. Thankfully Patrice Evra scores a last minute equaliser, so I’m kind of buzzing again.

"But nah, Fergie’s gone in at me at full time for 2-3 minutes: ‘You’re finished. You’re out. You’re in the reserves now, that’s you done’.

“Scholesy was the only person who went, ‘don’t worry about it, he does it to everyone’. Scholesy was the only one.

“I wasn’t ready for Man United at the time. It was the wrong place at the wrong time for me – I just couldn’t deal with it.”

“Nobody could ever drop their standards ever. That’s what drove them to be the best.”

That Peter Crouch Podcast is available via BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 5 Live

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