A lot of fuss has been made over Sir Alex Ferguson’s decision to call back Ritche de Laet, Joshua King and Matty James from their loan spell at Preston North End, following the sacking of Darren Ferguson.

Whilst not discounting the probability that Sir Alex is furious that his son has been made redundant, before thinking this is all about our manager and his ego, that he is behaving in a completely unreasonable way and is damaging the careers of our youngsters for the sake of his petty falling out with Preston (all of which I’ve heard reds say since yesterday), it would do us good to consider other factors.

1. De Laet and King were due back at United on January 4th. James is the only player who had signed up for a season long-loan.

2. Chances of De Laet, King and James being loaned to Preston without Darren Ferguson as the manager are slim to none. Preston were happy to reap the benefits of having Sir Alex’s son as their manager, now they are facing the negatives.

3. Preston enjoyed all the facilities of Carrington, one of the best training grounds in Europe, thanks to the fact Darren Ferguson was their manager. Preston were happy to reap the benefits of having Sir Alex’s son as their manager, now they are facing the negatives.

4. Preston aren’t very good but having our youngsters at a club where the manager would have a special interest in them was worth sacrificing the quality of the club. Now Preston don’t have a manager that takes a special interest in our players, let’s get them at a better club, where they can possibly fight a promotion battle rather than a relegation one.

5. King has made 6 appearances (2 as sub), James has made 10 appearances, and De Laet has made 5 appearances. We’ve got around 10 players out on loan at the moment playing regular football in the Premiership/Championship. These three players will now go and play regular football elsewhere, most likely at a better club with better quality team mates to learn from.