According to Gary Pallister, the mercurial Eric Cantona even escaped it after attacking a fan at Crystal Palace
One constant of every interview with Manchester United players from Alex Ferguson’s reign was the question ‘did you get the hairdryer treatment?’.
Without fail, from Roy Keane to Ryan Giggs, they all confirmed they did. But according to Gary Pallister, one player never got it, even after he committed arguably the most heinous offence in the entire Ferguson era.
In an interview with the Manchester Evening News, Pallister revealed that in the aftermath of Eric Cantona attacking a fan at Selhurst Park in 1995, the other Manchester United players expected Ferguson to lose the head completely. They were wrong.
‘We all wondered how the manager would deal with Eric after that,’ the former United defender told the Manchester Evening News.
‘He had never had the hairdryer. Virtually everyone else had, but not Eric. We wondered if finally this was it. We expected Fergie to go berserk.
‘But he didn’t. Hardly anything was said immediately after in the dressing room. We couldn’t believe it!’
Pallister also says that the kung fu kick incident with Matthew Simmons was the result of Cantona finally snapping after all the abuse he had received.
“It was awful some of the stuff he had to put up with on and off the pitch. It was no wonder he cracked. For a guy with a short fuse I actually think he showed a lot of restraint up to that point.”
