Manchester United news and links

Sir Alex Ferguson will just have to hope things do not prove so tight next May because the secrets of his 11th-hour sleights of hand are out in the open. His growls, on Friday, about Bolton Wanderers’ survival celebrations and the advantage they might be presenting to Chelsea were, of course, a ruse – or, as Ferguson put it yesterday, “a little nibble at [Bolton] to keep their minds alert”.

The Manchester United chief executive, David Gill, yesterday reflected on what last summer’s £50m had delivered for the club this season and promised the manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, money to build yet again.

The title race is not yet over and the Champions League final is 13 days away, but today the battle over what happened between Manchester United’s players and Chelsea’s groundstaff on 26 April at Stamford Bridge commences. Chelsea will file their report which, sources at the club say, includes more incidents involving United players than those which have already been reported.

Avram Grant saluted his players for pushing Manchester United to the final day with their victory at St James’ Park yesterday and added that he thinks Wigan’s manager, Steve Bruce, “will not give the game to United” on Sunday.

“The dourest and most dependable defender to play for me.” That’s how Sir Alex Ferguson once summed up Steve Bruce, the man who now stands between him and a 10th League title.

Manchester United and Chelsea were doing their utmost yesterday to ensure that their supporters would be able to get to Moscow for the European Cup final on 21 May.

Frank Rijkaard, doomed but surely not dishonoured at Barcelona after winning one Champions League title of imperishable beauty with players like Ronaldinho and Lionel Messi, may well have provoked the best of all possible scenarios when Manchester United and Chelsea collide beside the Moscow River in three weeks’ time.

It could be dismissed as sour grapes from a coach who knows he is to be fired, but Frank Rijkaard had a point yesterday when he added a barbed caveat to his glowing tribute to the strength of English club football. “I think the level of English teams is very high,” said the Dutch coach who oversaw Barcelona’s Champions League success in 2006. He added: “If it were not for the fact two had to play each other [Liverpool beat Arsenal in the quarter-finals] you could easily have had four teams in the semi-finals as it is very difficult to beat them. They are very strong and very disciplined, really very tough to beat.”

As Manchester United basked in the glory of reaching their third European Cup final yesterday there was positive news on the injury front as they turn their attentions to wrapping up the Premier League title.

There is an old tale about Paul Scholes’ years playing junior football in Salford that he would find the competition so easy he had a habit of ditching games at half-time or not bothering to turn up at all. So much so that Manchester United dispatched their then assistant manager Brian Kidd to watch and to encourage Scholes to show up. Twenty years on and he has not lost that tendency to slip away quietly.

The issue was always going to revolve around Sir Alex Ferguson’s assertion that he had “boys” he could trust to carry him on the last steps of the road to Moscow. It was a big leap of faith, considering how United lost their way on the Fulham Road at the weekend, but then maybe the boy he had most in mind came fresh to the night that would shape Manchester United’s season.

In a month’s time Bruce Springsteen, that quintessential purveyor of blue-collar dreams, will be taking centre stage at Old Trafford singing his rock’n'roll narratives. For now, though, the Theatre of Dreams belongs to footballers and last night the working-class hero came not from New Jersey but from Salford. The ambition, though, was the same. Like Springsteen’s steelworkers and panel beaters Paul Scholes wanted to make a mark, to rise above the rest, to seek “Glory Days” and “The Promised Land”.

A winners’ dressing room is a jubilant place, one might think. Champagne everywhere, cheers and celebrations. Playing for a big club, however, brings with it an inherent stress. While Rio Ferdinand said he was unable to “put his feelings into words” after Manchester United’s victory last night, Michael Carrick gave a revealing insight into the demands felt by Manchester United players. Asked what the mood was in the dressing room he said it was, “more than anything, relief”. He added: “We put ourselves under so much pressure to win things, and we are still only in the final, and that is going to be tough.”

Sir Alex Ferguson may one day remember it as the prelude to his finest hour; the rest of us will consider it the siege of Old Trafford or the night when Manchester United took on Lionel Messi for a place in the European Cup final. The little Argentine might just have done it on his own were it not for the extraordinary contribution of Paul Scholes, whose goal pitched a match, a night, the whole history of his famous club into a thrilling new chapter.

Manchester United’s statements to the Football Association on the Stamford Bridge fracas between their players and members of Chelsea’s ground staff will detail allegations that Patrice Evra was racially abused.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s dream of winning the European Cup again could be undone tonight by a player who was not even alive when the Manchester United manager lifted his first trophy for the club in 1990. The 17-year-old striker, Bojan Krkic, who was born three months after Ferguson got his hands on the FA Cup with United’s replay win over Crystal Palace, has been breaking records and ripping up reputations all season.

Cristiano Ronaldo was last night named the Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year for the second season in a row. The Manchester United midfielder has enjoyed another outstanding campaign having scored 38 goals.

Thierry Henry was recalling memories of past Old Trafford glories last night
as he prepared for his first match on English soil since his move from
Arsenal last summer. Henry helped Monaco dump Manchester United out of
Europe in the 1997-98 season and believes Barcelona have already shown
themselves more than capable of doing the same tomorrow night.

Let’s face it, if Sir Alex Ferguson had to choose between a result against Chelsea on Saturday or one against Barcelona tomorrow it would be the latter every time. Which must have been the compromise he made with himself when he sketched out a team sheet on Saturday morning that did not include Cristiano Ronaldo, Patrice Evra and, to a lesser extent, Paul Scholes and Carlos Tevez.

If Cristiano Ronaldo’s missed penalty cost him any sleep on Wednesday night, then he did not betray any signs of it. “I’m always confident,” he said. “I’ve 38 goals this season so it’s not a problem if you miss one or two. I’ve scored 16 or 17 penalties since joining United and I’ve missed two. If I get another penalty in Manchester I’ll score. I have confidence in my own ability.”

On his home turf at Old Trafford, Cristiano Ronaldo may look like the player he is supposed to be when the requirement is of the highest class, and the most natural-born commitment, and United may get more of a touch of the ball. Meanwhile, though, Sir Alex Ferguson is entitled to wonder whether the team on the verge of a Champions League and Premier League double have the decisive and defining quality of his boys of ‘99.

Thierry Henry remains Barcelona’s biggest doubt ahead of tomorrow night’s Champions League semi-final against Manchester United after missing training for the second day running complaining of a fever.

It may be a topic which is subject to much conjecture but Cristiano Ronaldo believes the amount of medals he has hanging round his neck at the end of the season will provide “a definite answer” as to whether the current Manchester United team are the best in the club’s illustrious history.

The world’s greatest player, the manager’s greatest squad; there will be plenty of factors to discuss if Manchester United win a title chase which might yet go the final day of the season. But Mark Hughes – boyhood Chelsea fan, a legend for both title contenders and better qualified to discuss the finale than most – provides a more prosaic explanation for United’s current greatness.

The Football Association launched a High Court action today to blow the
whistle on cheaper live televised Barclays Premier League matches.

Rio Ferdinand is on the brink of signing a five-year extension to his contract which will keep him at Manchester United until beyond his 33rd birthday, according to reports.

Sir Alex Ferguson is refusing to take anything for granted as Manchester United home in on a second successive Premier League title.

It takes a certain kind of confidence to tell Cristiano Ronaldo to stand aside when there is a potentially crucial free-kick to be hit, but then there has been a certain kind of confidence about Manchester United all season. Enter Owen Hargreaves stage right: an unlikely match-winner in a title race that is starting to look entirely predictable.

The embraces between the players before the kick-off were as fulsome as ever. They showed for all to see that Arsenal, here in the last chance saloon, were ready prove that the agonies they had suffered at Anfield could be put away and the embers of this season rekindled for one week more at least.

A 10th league title under Sir Alex Ferguson remains Manchester United’s to lose, but they came close to doing just that yesterday during a frantic, breathless match on snowy Teesside that returned some dramatic tension to the race to the top.

After the kicks, the shoves and the whistles had come to nothing in the Stadio Olimpico, Italy awoke yesterday to a curious sense of longing for the player it somehow just could not abhor.