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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, Sir Alex Ferguson is in a league of his own. He’s managed Manchester United since 1986 and led the team to dominance in English football and today will lead his 2013 Champions out to a guard of honour at Arsenal. So what is his secret? Well I’m joined now by sports writer Patrick Barclay who has written a biography no less of Sir Alex Ferguson, good to see you.

PATRICK BARCLAY: You too.

DM: We’ll start with football and then maybe broaden it out, what is the secret of his success? How has he reinvented that Manchester United team how many times?

PB: Well it’s a combination of knowledge and work. The research in the book, I approached the question of is he a genius and I came up with no, not compared with Brian Clough and say Jose Mourinho, but the Scottish essayist Carlisle wrote that genius was an infinite capacity for taking pains and I think that Ferguson has worked his way to absolutely peerless status. I mean he just covers every base in the way no manager does.

DM: How does he though? I mean how does he handle the players? I mean they are supremely well paid players and you it at other big clubs, sometimes managers, well qualified managers, very good technical coaches, can’t control the players so to speak.

PB: Yes and I think that’s because he relies on timeless human qualities. It has become fashionable to sort of be too soft with players, to treat them like little tin gods, Ferguson knows exactly when to back off and when to be the old fashioned martinet and he is certainly the best there’s ever been in any country in managing this squad system.

DM: I mean the case of David Beckham is oft mentioned, football boots flying in the changing room, no player is bigger than the club.

PB: That’s what I mean, sometimes they are. You see if Ferguson needs them enough they suddenly become for a time bigger than the club, do you remember Cantona? Not to do with the disciplinary issue but when there was the famous story of Ferguson having a three line whip on some celebration dinner at Manchester Town Hall and the players were told club blazer, club tie, black shoes not brown, they were given the dress code for this particular thing and Cantona turned up in a shell suit. Now any other player would have felt the rough end of Ferguson’s temper but Ferguson just sort of smiled and said, oh that Cantona, what a mad hatter. So he backed off and he backed off with Wayne Rooney of course 18 months go but the power game is now back in Ferguson’s hands.

DM: But would it translate, we’ve got Justin King coming on next, the CEO of Sainsbury’s, could he run Sainsbury’s?

PB: Yes, I’m now convinced of that, I think he could, I think he could do anything. I think he has got antennae, Ferguson, that he is a profoundly intelligent man. He has drawbacks but a lack of intelligence is not one of them, he is incredibly intelligent and as an example of his antennae, the Iraq War.

DM: All right, getting into politics.

PB: His Socialism in my opinion is tribal rather than intellectual, sentimental, but he told Tony Blair – and you may or may not disagree with Iraq but he told Tony Blair do not get involved with the Americans in Iraq and that was in 2002. He sent a message through Alistair Campbell. Now whatever you may think about the rights and wrong of that politically, he was …

DM: Do you know what Sir Alex’s reading was? Was it as transpired, i.e. there won’t be any weapons of mass destruction or you will have this blot on your history forever more, Tony Blair?

PB: The story was told by Alistair Campbell and my guess is, he didn’t go into great details but my guess would be that it was a practical decision, that it was the same kind of judgement that would lead him to buy Eric Cantona or if he were Managing Director of Marks and Spencer’s, to go into quality clothing as opposed to cheap clothing or whatever.

DM: Okay Paddy, good to see you, thank you very much indeed and of course a guard of honour at the Emirates today, that will please him too, he’ll like that. Paddy Barclay there on Sir Alex Ferguson.