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Sir Alex Ferguson marked my card but it was a 'compliment' claims Kevin Davies
FORMER Southampton and Bolton star Kevin Davies believes ex-Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson was the master of gamesmanship and did his homework on him.
Davies has the unenvious record of committing the most fouls - more than 1000 during his 10-year career at Bolton.
Davies, who is now at Preston North End, explains how Ferguson once influence the referee to keep an eye on him.
"It’s all a bit of gamesmanship, I think the best one was Alex Ferguson," Davies told You-Are-The-Ref.com
"We were playing at Old Trafford, I think, and we were doing pretty well at the time and I think I kind of take it as a backhanded compliment, really.
It’s all a bit of gamesmanship, I think the best one was Alex Ferguson
"They kind of regard you as a threat and they know that they have to watch out for you.
"And I think he [Sir Alex] said once that the referee better be on his A-game with me coming to Old Trafford and what that did, it was blown up in the papers.
"And automatically that referee will be, if he wasn’t already looking, looking out for any instances, but what that did was take the edge [out] of my game.
"And that was Sir Alex Ferguson at his best because I was aware then that I couldn’t really go in for those 50/50s or whatever ‘cause I knew the crowd and everyone that read the papers and all the media, the officials … It worked, so I understand that managers do play those games and I think it worked to a certain extent for him in that game."