Sir Alex Ferguson Comments on David Moyes Hiring in Updated Autobiography

Sir Alex Ferguson has come out strongly against any idea that the club he left behind at Manchester United for his successor David Moyes was "antiquated" with an ageing and declining team. 

In updated chapters of his book, My Autobiography, Ferguson insists he is not to blame for the Red Devils' malaise last season, instead citing Moyes' introduction of a new, slower, unfamiliar style of play at a club where his fellow Scot was out of his depth.

He has also debunked the idea that he was solely responsible for picking Moyes as his replacement—and thus shouldering the blame for the former Everton man's poor showing at Old Trafford—insisting it was a group process, via Daniel Taylor in The Guardian:

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He [Moyes] hadn’t realised just how big United is as a club. The reason for playing at speed was that United players had been accustomed to operating that way. If the tempo slowed for any reason, I would be into them at half-time. ‘This is not us,’ I would say. Playing with speed never hindered our results. It was our way: energy and determination in the last third of the pitch. 

There appears to be an accepted view out there that there was no process. Nonsense. We feel we did everything the right way: quietly, thoroughly, professionally. [...]

Antiquated was a bizarre description of the structure I left behind at Manchester United. Have you seen our new training ground?

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Ferguson called time on 26 years in charge at Old Trafford after winning the Premier League for the 13th time in 2012-13—by a comfortable 11-point margin.

Scott Heppell/Associated Press

Moyes replaced him for the start of the 2013-14 season—following his own successful 11-year stint at Everton—but was subsequently sacked in April after leading United to their worst ever Premier League season, the Red Devils eventually finishing seventh, 15 points off the Champions League spots.

However, many have put the blame upon Ferguson for United's decline, suggesting the 72-year-old left behind a weak team, per Daniel Harris in The Guardian.

Indeed, despite winning two league titles in his last three seasons in charge at Old Trafford, he did leave behind a club with a lack of quality in central midfield and an inconsistent defence, and some of the blame for United's recent issues surely must lie at his feet, per the Manchester Evening News' Samuel Luckhurst:

Despite another change of manager over the summer—the much-respected Louis van Gaal is now at the helm—the Manchester outfit are still struggling, having picked up just 12 points in eight games, not much of an improvement on last season, per Inside World Football:

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Louis van Gaal has guided Man United to 12 points from 8 league games, one more than David Moyes achieved at the same stage in 2013-14

— InsideWorldFootball (@insidewldftball) October 21, 2014"

Having forked out over £150 million over the summer transfer window on players like Angel di Maria, Daley Blind and Luke Shaw, United must surely improve in time.

However, the necessity for such a massive overhaul at the club does suggest that Ferguson left behind a club in need of a fix.

The former Aberdeen boss is an indisputable giant of the world game and is clearly not set to admit that he left behind a poor team, but he must share some of the blame for United's current plight.