Some people of suspicious minds may reflect that a week laden with tributes to the vaulting achievements of retiring Sir Alex Ferguson was a devilishly crafty way to silence the noisy neighbours. Manchester City play their second FA Cup final in three seasons on Saturday, favourites to beat Wigan Athletic, yet all attention in what otherwise would have been sluggish news days has been claimed by supplements, pages, airtime and Twitter trending, devoted to the glories of United.

Many have complained of overkill, that Ferguson was 71 and always going to retire sometime, so while it felt remarkable when the day actually arrived, it was not exactly a shock. Letters were written to editors about this being only football, of other things going on in the world — the death toll in the collapsed Bangladesh clothing sweatshop rose to 1,000 while half the English media jostled for room at David Moyes' press conference.

Yet the truth is that millions of people, here and all over the world, drank up the story of Sir Alex, were captivated by all the details, the extraordinary 27-year span in which he drove United from drinking culture decline to corporate powerhouse of the £5.5bn Premier League. The Guardian online had 5.75m readers the day Ferguson retired, more than for the resignation of Pope Benedict. That seemed to emphasise again football's status as a modern global religion — full of meaning to its adherents, a baffling opium of the masses to those who do not believe.

It was a similarly major emotional landmark, less the Twittersphere and football's media ubiquity, when Sir Matt Busby finally retired, for the first time, in 1969 – and some of the similarities have the seeds of potential discomfort for United. Eamon Dunphy's biography of Busby, A Strange Kind of Glory, one of the best football books ever written, tells the great story with an insider's intimate feel. The career remains astonishing, how Busby built and characterised a United transformation similar to Ferguson's: 24 years, three great teams, from a bombed Old Trafford in 1945 to Best, Law and Charlton and the first English club to win the European Cup, 10 years after eight United players died in Munich.

Dunphy, the former United player turned journalist, does not shy away from Busby's and United's disappointments after the great manager stepped down, and United always said they would never make the same mistakes when Ferguson finally retired.

Essentially these were two-fold. Busby, knighted, cherished, the crumpled face of United's odyssey, was allowed to play too keen a role in choosing his successor, then remained too involved for them to manage with independence. Wilf McGuinness, a United protege, similar to Ferguson's Gary Neville in his total devotion, was anointed to take charge of a fading club without any previous management experience. Busby stayed on as general manager and a director, and he stepped back in after just a year. McGuinness, still a lifelong United enthusiast, lost his hair with the stress of it.

Frank O'Farrell, who arrived from Leicester City, whom he had taken to the 1969 FA Cup final, which they lost 1-0 to City, told the same story for years afterwards to illustrate Sir Matt's continued presence. On his first day, O'Farrell was shown up to the manager's office, then Busby said he still occupied it and that O'Farrell's was down the corridor. "This isn't right, Matt," O'Farrell told him. And it never was.

The subsequent decline, ignominy of relegation in 1974, and hard journey back was said to be ingrained into the collective memory of United, a club always respectful of its history, even in this strange era of the Glazers' US ownership and registration in the Cayman Islands tax haven. So it took a little clearing of the head to wonder whether United, after all, may know their history so well, only to be in danger of repeating it.

This transition is different, of course; United are immeasurably stronger as a team and club than they were in 1969, or when Ferguson took over in 1986. Premier League winners again, with world-class infrastructure, the team a fine blend of age and experience, as Ferguson said in his leaving statement – although the all-round power of Bayern Munich is a swaggering challenge to United's level of investment under the Glazers.

Moyes's 10-year achievement of keeping Everton at the very limit of their potential, his dedication and attention to detail, have all been justly recognised since it emerged that the next United manager would be another driven Scot, and not, for example, a pugnacious Portuguese currently residing in Madrid. Then United's statement came, after the club's Facebook site breached its own embargo, and the level of Ferguson's involvement in appointing his own successor was revealed as remarkable. Avi Glazer, one of the six children of Malcolm Glazer who own United, said in the official statement: "The search for a new manager has been very short. Alex was very clear with his recommendation."

United had already made it clear that Ferguson will be on the football club board, along with the chief executive, David Gill, who is also resigning. He will have an office at the club and be an ambassador too; not involved but available for wise counsel should the fiercely independent Moyes feel he needs it.

United will not discuss in detail the process of appointing the new manager, but it is odd that Avi Glazer said it was "short" and amounted to accepting a recommendation made by Ferguson himself. Between 1986 and 2013 Manchester United, and football in England and Europe, changed exponentially, so supporters may expect some time to be taken to consider how the club can best position itself, and with whom, to progress from here.

For all the rightful eulogies to Ferguson's brilliant career, it remains the case that United, although they won the Champions League narrowly twice, did not build the European dominance their financial power in the 2000s might have claimed. Partly this is due to the Glazers draining £550m out of the club in interest and fees from their takeover, a contrast with Bayern and Barcelona; supporter-owned clubs where every euro goes into the core football purpose.

City, and other clubs here, are moving towards a European-style structure with a director of football, or technical director, to oversee sophisticated football operations that can survive a turnover of coaches. In the year that Pep Guardiola was looking for a job, United had a short search, accepting a recommendation by Ferguson of a manager as close to his image as possible, and one without much European experience.

Ferguson promises to stay away from the dressing room, saying he has had enough of it, but the lure of the action, and fear of what he will do in his spare time without it, kept him away from retirement for so long. He has also asked that Neville be given a job on the coaching staff, a fine idea no doubt, but odd for the outgoing manager even to have a say in.

Moyes has worked his way to the greatest of jobs from playing as a centre-half at Cambridge United, and his abilities, and the wisdom of Ferguson's recommendation, should not be doubted. Yet he will arrive at his own career equivalent of 1986, past the immortalising statue of his predecessor, beneath a stand bearing Ferguson's name in massive red letters, with the great man still on the football club board, his presence and appointments all around.

United say Gill announced his own resignation with just an inkling, rather than knowledge, that Ferguson would be going, but anyway, the two who looked after the shop at Old Trafford while the Glazers sweated the dollars from it are both now gone. Edward Woodward, who has worked in London for the Glazers selling United's name to sponsors around the world, steps into Gill's office, to steward the football club itself, where he has limited experience.

This was a week dominated by reflections on the Ferguson phenomenon, emotional looks back, admiration, some reservations for Moyes, and City's Wembley appearance struggling for a look-in. Yet in the summer, and next season, United have to get on with it, and their own history tells them the transition from a manager of legend, who remains at the club, can be a very difficult one.