Paul Scholes points finger at Sir Alex Ferguson for his 'excuse' for brutal Man Utd snub
Paul Scholes has hinted at there being another reason for Sir Alex Ferguson's ruthless sale of Jaap Stam beyond the former Manchester United defender's decision to publish an autobiography
by Alan Smith · The MirrorPaul Scholes has questioned whether Sir Alex Ferguson had an additional motive for his ruthless dismissal of Jaap Stam at Manchester United.
Ferguson has always claimed that the publication of Stam’s autobiography, in which he hinted at United tapping him up while he was still a PSV Eindhoven player, signalled the end for the Dutch centre half at Old Trafford.
But Scholes, speaking on the Football’s Greatest Eras podcast alongside fellow team-mate Nicky Butt, hinted that there may have been more to the decision to sell Stam to Serie A giants Lazio than meets the eye.
The former Netherlands star never reached the same heights when going on to spend time with Milan and Ajax.
And in a discussion over Ferguson’s most brutal axings, Scholes asked Butt:: “What do you think the most ruthless one was? I thought Jaap was a big one.”
Butt replied: “I thought Jaap was the biggest one. Only because Jaap was in his pomp and he still had many years to go. I don't think Jaap was the kind of person to do the thing he was accused of doing.”
'You shouldn't really be writing a book when you're still playing, should you? That was his mistake,” Scholes said.
He later added: “I always wondered whether the manager, well, I might be speaking out of turn, whether he used that as a bit of excuse - the book thing - to get rid of Jaap to fast forward it a little bit... But he maybe felt that Jaap was going against team ethics and team principles. I don't think any of the team ever thought that.”
Ferguson later admitted that selling Stam was a “bad decision.”
“They’ve scored five goals and three of them were against Southampton – that probably tells you the forwards just aren’t good enough.
"Leaving Marcus Rashford out on Saturday was a strange one – he’s not scored for such a long time and suddenly, he comes and scores three goals in two games and he’s not playing. He [Erik ten Hag] said it was rotation – come on, do me a favour.
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