Manchester United news and links

Guaranteed his place in the team, playing for the club who are set to win another Premier League title, in the form of his life, respected by the rest of the squad and a natural communicator. Rio Ferdinand as captain of England would appear to be one of the simpler decisions presented to Fabio Capello.

By Nick Harris

Ahead of the kind of high octane weekend Sir Alex Ferguson can expect, it sounds dangerously like tempting fate but the Manchester United manager has waded into the debate on protection of referees by claiming that his side affords them a respect which is lacking at Arsenal and Chelsea.

The word on Cristiano Ronaldo is becoming implacable. He is better than Denis Law and Sir Bobby Charlton and closing fast on George Best, says another Old Trafford legend, Pat Crerand.

There are no illusions about the real business which lies ahead, but the regulation work undertaken by a Manchester United side to go three points clear at the top of the Premier League with a prototype defence and a scattering of fringe players provided a mighty declaration of intent last night.

Sir Alex Ferguson had good reasons for watching only part of Bolton Wanderers’ Uefa Cup away leg against Sporting Lisbon last week. What little he viewed provided a reminder of the robust reception his side encountered at the Reebok in November which culminated in Bolton taking the points and Ferguson receiving a touchline ban for his comments about the referee Mark Clattenburg’s response to their physical approach.

Sir Alex Ferguson was yesterday a lone dissenting voice from the four English clubs that will be involved in today’s lunchtime draw for the Champions League quarter-finals in relishing the prospect of an all-Premier League tie.

In the week that Sir Alex Ferguson had refuted claims after an interview for French radio that he plans to quit in three years, he stressed that his retirement date depended on the success of his team – and his health. His players will recover from this, but yesterday there was some doubt whether the old ticker would last the match, let alone years.

Sir Alex Ferguson has praised his Scotland midfielder Darren Fletcher as “a terrific example to any young player”. The 24-year-old may not have the high profile of team-mates such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez, but his Manchester United manager has held him up as an example of “a true professional”.

More historical resonance looms for Manchester United in a Champions League campaign which is already laden with it. United fans need no reminding that it was in the club’s first European Cup-winning campaign that George Best scored more goals in a season than any winger for the side – 32 – and Cristiano Ronaldo, now two away from that target, may well have broken the record by the time United play their quarter-final tie.

Manchester United move on in pursuit of the second Champions League triumph that Sir Alex Ferguson craves with a growing passion, but it was the news from Milan that caused the biggest stir.

The United teamsheet delivered to Roy Hodgson contained no Rooney, no Ronaldo, no Giggs, no Vidic and no Carrick. No matter. Fulham still had no chance. If their manager received any kind of lift from the absentees, it was probably quickly deflated by the chill realisation that Sir Alex Ferguson was confident he would win in any case. He was right and the ease of the victory was discomforting in an apparently competitive league.

Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed he will pick Paul Scholes in his team for “sentimental” reasons if Manchester United go on to reach the Champions’ League final this season.

There are supposed to be no easy games in what many believe to be the world’s strongest league, but this was just about as easy as it gets away from home. The bonus for Manchester United came with confirmation that Arsenal had only drawn again, allowing the champions to cut the gap at the top of the table to a single point, with every indication that they are suddenly the form horses. They were even able to rest several key players ahead of Tuesday’s Champions’ League tie at home to Lyon.

Some day Sir Alex Ferguson will get the credit he deserves. Perhaps it will be when he is gone from Manchester United. A result as comprehensive as this inevitably provoked another outbreak of sneering at Newcastle United and Kevin Keegan, but that should not be allowed to obscure the controlled swirl of the champions’ attacking on Saturday night and Ferguson’s primary role in assembling both the personnel involved and instilling in them a philosophy that embraces risk and beauty with the overlooked genius of common-sense defending.

The Football Association said yesterday that the Premier League’s plans for an “international round” (IR) of matches overseas are unsustainable in their current format, with its chairman, Lord Triesman, unequivocal in citing four major reasons why a “39th game” – as mooted in a first blueprint earlier this month – cannot happen.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s mounting frustration at Manchester United’s failure to agree a new contract with Wes Brown has led him to launch a trenchant attack on the role of agents in the game.

You may never hear a breath of it in Barnsley, where no doubt victory at Anfield has already been placed alongside the legend of Skinner Normanton, but this was a terrible weekend for the FA Cup.

Bill Foulkes’ life after Manchester United has been colourful and varied, if not rich.

Manchester United wore the unadorned red and white of a more innocent age
yesterday but unfortunately it was just about all they could do for the
memory of the Busby Babes.

The weight of their club’s history is a burden that every great Manchester United team must learn to bear and yesterday – of all days – it bore down on Sir Alex Ferguson’s side like an anvil. The tribute to those they lost at Munich 50 years ago was moving, profound and fitting in all but one regrettable respect: the performance of the men in the retro 1958 red shirts.

There was no way, not then, that you could divide and quantify the grief in the streets that filled with mourners when it came to the burying of the brilliant young football team that perished in Munich 50 years ago today.

As if the prospect of a new beginning for England were not enough to dwell on, tonight carries a more profound significance for Wayne Rooney than for most of those whom Fabio Capello will send out at Wembley.

Sir Matt Busby’s seemingly invincible Manchester United side line up before the European Cup quarter final against the Yugoslav capital’s Red Star club that would see them into the sem-finals, with a 3-3 draw.

There was no way, not then, that you could divide and quantify the grief in the streets that filled with mourners when it came to the burying of the brilliant young football team that perished in Munich 50 years ago today.

One of the more inventive excuses Peter Ridsdale came up with as his Leeds United reign crumbled and Rio Ferdinand was sold to Manchester United for £30m in 2002 was that the defender had only been bought in the first place as cover for Jonathan Woodgate. He was probably only right in one aspect: that Woodgate, and his terrible injury problems, was always a defender who would need a lot of cover.

Like a punctuation mark that can never be erased, so many times the invitation has come to Sir Bobby Charlton. But then who would be more likely to receive it than the ultimate survivor and symbol of Manchester United’s resurrection?

The Manchester United midfielder Michael Carrick is aiming to take a “defining” step towards the treble this week – with a hat-trick of victories.

The Portsmouth manager, Harry Redknapp, believes his Manchester United counterpart Sir Alex Ferguson has created a squad which is close to matching the treble-winners of 1999.

Shortly before his team drew the League champions in the stand-out pairing of yesterday’s FA Cup fifth-round draw Arsène Wenger forecast that Manchester United’s money-making visit to Saudi Arabia last week could give Sir Alex Ferguson problems. He will hope that the difficulties manifest themselves on 17 February, when the pair are likely to play their Old Trafford tie.

Manucho scored two more goals as Angola came from behind for a surprise win over Senegal at the African Nations Cup yesterday.

Juande Ramos professed last night that he was too wrapped up in this match to think of transfer negotiations with Jonathan Woodgate, a player who would have come in handy on an afternoon when Tottenham’s makeshift defence self-destructed.

It was supposed to be a fitting tribute to honour the 23 men killed in one of football’s worst tragedies. But oversights and arguments threaten to overshadow Manchester United’s plans to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster next month.