Sir Alex Ferguson was ruthless as the manager of Manchester United – but seemingly had a soft spot for one player.
The legendary Manchester United gaffer adopted a strict no-nonsense policy with his players whilst he had the reigns at Old Trafford.
The Scotsman was renowned for not taking any prisoners when it came to relationships with is side, which led to a deep respect between the squad and coaching staff.
But when players did step over the line – Ferguson used a tactic called the ‘hairdryer treatment’. It was a mightily effective method, that most senior members had at one point or another. Except one.
Patrice Evra reveals Paul Scholes never got the ‘hairdryer treatment’
According to Patrice Evra, Ferguson never issued Paul Scholes the hairdryer treatment.
Speaking to TalkSport Breakfast in 2021, the ex-United left-back spoke about Scholes and how Fergie never gave him the infamous verbal nightmare.
“The only player who never got the hairdryer by Sir Alex Ferguson,” Evra says.
Ferguson evidently had a soft spot for Scholesy. Either that or he was just too damn good to risk shouting at.
Evra continued on to say only great things about the maestro of a midfielder:
“Paul Scholes is such a good guy and we are still really close. What a player. When people ask me who was the best player I played with and they expect me to say Cristiano Ronaldo. I’m talking about Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes.
“You ask Zinedine Zidane, Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry – it is all about Paul Scholes. I don’t know why, when I signed for Manchester United, he always tackled me. Like bad tackles because of course Paul Scholes can’t tackle!
“I said, ‘Scholesy… why?’ And he just said, ‘why not?’ That was his answer and he just walked out! But Paul Scholes is a genius. When we weren’t in charge of a game, Ferguson said ‘just pass the ball to Scholesy’. When we did those boxes in training, he never went in the middle. He never lost the ball.
“He would motivate me, in the first six months I was not the real Patrice Evra. He said ‘Patrice, I think you are a joker, we will send you back to Monaco on a free’, all those things because he is real and straight and I love those kinds of people.”
What was Sir Alex Ferguson’s hairdryer treatment?
The “hairdryer treatment” is a term commonly associated with Sir Alex. It refers to Ferguson’s intense and often fiery method of confronting players when he was displeased with their performance on the pitch or their behaviour off the pitch.
The term originated from the way Ferguson would allegedly stand extremely close to a player during a dressing-room tirade, shouting loudly and forcefully, resembling the blast of a hairdryer.
One thing’s for certain, we wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of it.