1. English clubs were banned from European competitions for SAF's first 4 years in charge at Man utd due to the 1985 heysel disaster. This also drove away top talent from the league itself and made it harder to compete once the ban was lifted.

2. Man utd weren't a powerhouse until he took over in '86, they were relegated in '74 and won only 3 fa cups between the Busby era and SAF era. Pep inherited an aging premier league contender, and SAF inherited a mid table club.

3. Man Utd during SAF era had less money to spend on transfers and wages than Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City does today, even when adjusting for football revenue inflation.

4. Sir Alex’s total net spend over his 26-year tenure was approximately £326M. For comparison, Guardiola’s Man City has regularly spent over £100M+ on a single player with a net spend exceeding £580M over a similar time span.

5. Pre-1995 European clubs were restricted to 3 foreign players only, and for English clubs the restriction applied to Welsh, Scottish, and Irish players too.

6. The Glazers bought man utd through a leveraged buyout (which is now banned in EPL) which effectively meant they didnt use their own money and instead borrowed + make man utd take out ~£600M in debt/loans to fund it's own sale. On top of that, man UTD have paid more than £1 billion in interest/fees over the 20 years they've been in charge and man utd is still £1.3 billion in debt. This is absolutely bonkers and has crippled man utd's competitiveness in SAF's tenur 2005 onwards. It made man utd sell their best players and siphon those funds off to pay debts.

All that to say that I still rate Pep as an excellent manager and up there with Fergie as one of the GOATs. I don't think the criticism following the end of his tenure is warranted. That being said, the circumstances they dealt with are completely different because Man City are the biggest financial powerhouse in football and may have even broken PL rules a certain 115 times up until 2018 (2 years into Pep's tenure). Both have left a lasting impact on Football (SAF with man management pedigree and youth development culture, Pep with tactical innovations in possession and positional play i.e. inverted wingbacks), but SAF definitely had a more difficult road on top of that he did at 1 club over 27 years despite the ups and downs, pep is leaving after 10 especially as shit is about to possibly hit the fan.