LIKENING any manager to Sir Alex Ferguson is brave - but many can at least see similarities with Gordon Strachan.

The Saints boss has a fiery reputation, an all-consuming passion for football and he is also constructing a team at St Mary's capable of out-stripping all expectations.

Strachan smiles at any comparison with his fellow Scot and emphatically replies that no one can be compared to the King of Old Trafford.

He said: "He is a one-off, you can't go to management classes and be like him. You can't patent greatness.

"He is the best sports pyschologist I have ever seen in my life.

"Everyone talks about his best teams. You could say they are all the best teams and that is what he can create.

"What he has done I don't think has been done by any manager. When he was at St Mirren he took them right up to third in the Premier League and then he did what he did at Aberdeen and Manchester United.

"The man has got the capacity to keep pulling out the 'best' teams - and remember he didn't have money at Aberdeen and St Mirren.

"Sometimes you can achieve greatness with what you have got - you have to get greatness out of your players.

"Most players look back and say I was at my best under Sir Alex Ferguson - and it's because he was there. I think I was at my flamboyant best under him as a player."

With United currently second in the Premiership, through to the Worthington Cup final, in the last 16 of the FA Cup and top of their Champions' League group, talk has begun of an unprecedented quadruple.

"I think four trophies could be a bit too much to ask. But he is capable of it," said Strachan.

In an extraordinary insight into Fergie's early days as a manager, Strachan remembered him listening to tapes of Liverpool legend Bill Shankly talking about football.

"He is now right up there with the legends, people like Bill Shankly and Matt Busby," he said.

"He had a tape of Shanks in his car and he would listen to him talking about football.

"I used to have to listen to it when I was in his car, he would just say 'sit down ugly and listen to this!'

"I was only 23 at the time and even though I have never met Shankly, just listening to him was special."

The Saints boss played under Fergie for much of the 1980s at Aberdeen and Manchester United.

Strachan was sold to Leeds by Ferguson in 1989 and came back to haunt his old boss by snatching the 1992 League title for the Yorkshire outfit after United looked certain to break their 25-year championship drought.

Ferguson has since assumed legendary status for his trophy gathering feats, the pinnacle coming in 1999 with the treble of European Cup, FA Cup and Premiership, which earned him a knighthood.

But in his autobiography 'Managing My Life' he accuses Strachan of going behind his back to engineer moves away from him.

Strachan has kept a dignified silence on the subject and most feel Fergie's comments were unjustified, particularly as the Saints boss was not alone in suffering criticism in the book.

Strachan played down any talk of an ongoing rift with Ferguson, but said he was not the major influence on his

decision to go into coaching.

"A lot of his ex-players went on to become managers. His teams are full of players who take responsibility, who can handle the pressure," he said.

"I think there is five or six from the old Aberdeen side that have gone on to manage.

"I only started to think about coaching under Howard Wilkinson."

He added: "I have no problem with Sir Alex Ferguson. The hospitality today will be the same as with every manager, we can have a cup of tea after the game."