Three More Years For Fergie

After years of stating 'I will go on as long as I feel healthy', Fergie finally gave us the date of his retirement.

Well, not quite: he confirmed he will retire within three years. And if he stays for three that will come as a surprise even for him.

"I won`t be managing here any more than three years at the very, very most," he told reporters.

"Without question. I can assure you of that."

He has also revealed some of his greatest fears attached to the thought of impending retirement which lies heavily on his heart.

'I know I would find it hard to give up managing United,' he said.

'I can't do it, not at the moment anyway.'

'The big fear about retirement is what do you do with yourself?

'There are too many cases of people who retire and end up in a box soon afterwards because they have lost the very thing that keeps them alive.

'What I would like to do is travel to places I have never been to. I would love to go to the States and spend three or four months there. But that is only one year—you can only do that once. You can only go to Australia once. You don't go every year.

'What you're left with is the time when you wake up at six o'clock in the morning and you go to get out of bed and you say to yourself: 'I'm finished.' That's the hard part.'

And he added he does not think he will ever be sacked from the club. Fergie expects it will be his own decision to step down. Well, after winning a glorious Double, sealing his third European Cup success I guess his position is pretty secure indeed.

Sacking Sir Alex Ferguson? Once it seemed an option but not anymore.