Manchester United news and links

Manchester United midfielder Nani is refusing to give up on his title dream after taking the race to the final day of the season.


The Portugal international’s 28th-minute strike handed United a 1-0 victory at Sunderland yesterday and kept them a point behind Barclays Premier League leaders Chelsea.

Nani’s first-half goal keeps alive hopes of a fourth successive title.

Manchester United midfielder Nani is refusing to give up on his title dream after taking the race to the final day of the season.


The Portugal international’s 28th-minute strike handed United a 1-0 victory at Sunderland yesterday and kept them a point behind Barclays Premier League leaders Chelsea.

• Bordeaux’s manager to decide at end of domestic season
• French Football Federation confirms offer

Laurent Blanc has been offered the chance to replace Raymond Domenech as France coach after the World Cup and will make a decision at the end of the season, according to a report.

L’Equipe today quoted the France Football Federation president, Jean-Pierre Escalettes, as saying the ball is now in Blanc’s court, and he will decide at the end of the Ligue 1 season.

Speaking prior to Bordeaux’s 1-0 win over Toulouse yesterday, Escalettes said: “Laurent Blanc is under contract until 2011. There are four Ligue 1 games remaining, we must let him work in peace. Then he will decide. No one will decide for him.”

Blanc, who played for Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United between 2001 and his retirement in 2003, is considered among the leading candidates for the manager’s job at Old Trafford whenever the Scot retires. Earlier this year Ferguson advised him not to move into international management. “I think Laurent has a lot of things to do before taking this kind of role,” he said. “This is his first season as a champion and managing his team in the Champions League. He should stay at Bordeaux.”

Domenech, the often controversial incumbent France coach, is set to leave his post after the World Cup.

Sir Alex Ferguson will definitely have money to spend on new players in the summer, Manchester United chief executive David Gill has pledged.


The debts built up by the Glazer family at Old Trafford have led to suggestions Ferguson is working on a reduced transfer budget, although he has already agreed deals for Chris Smalling and Javier Hernandez.

Manchester United were determined to attack from the start

Shape

Sir Alex Ferguson selected an attacking line-up, knowing that only a win would be good enough. He picked a pair of strikers, supplied from the wings by Nani and Ryan Giggs. Darren Fletcher and Paul Scholes were in central midfield, with the evergreen Scholes the quarterback again and Fletcher more advanced. Giggs would be the more narrow of the wingers, with Patrice Evra ready to raid into the space he vacated – but United would also be aware that Darren Bent or Fraizer Campbell would be looking to run into that channel if the left-back was caught out of position.

Tactics and Teamwork

Sunderland began tigerishly, with players from midfield and defence supporting two eager front men when they pressed United’s defence. But slowly United took over the game and, when Nani’s well-taken goal relieved the tension, they took the initiative. Whenever Nemanja Vidic or Jonny Evans had the ball, Scholes dropped deeper to receive and instigate attacks He was aided by Wayne Rooney and/or Dimitar Berbatov, who would drop deep off their markers and help to outnumber Sunderland’s midfield. Rooney’s movements towards the ball contrasted starkly with those of his aspiring England team-mate Bent, who stayed forward with Campbell, Sunderland’s strikers allowing themselves to be tightly marked. Rooney’s insatiable desire to attract the ball was an influencing factor.

Did it succeed?

United continued to dominate passing and to control the game after half-time. Sunderland’s rearranged central midfield, with Lorik Cana and Lee Cattermole, who had replaced David Meyler in the first half, could not cope with the clever triangles that United played using a combination of their midfield and front men. The work of continually making angles requires application and intelligence. Scholes always had passing options and Sunderland, though they fought to resist, were never able to get enough of the ball to create. Their front two were too far from their midfield, who were forced back, and longer passes were won by Vidic and Evans. Sunderland’s best chance of gaining more possession would have come from replacing one of their front players with a midfielder, who might have deterred Rooney, and certainly made it harder for him to collect the ball. At the very least one forward needed to drop back and lend support to his midfield but no tactical shift was forthcoming. Berbatov, who worked well, with some clever touches, had no luck near goal and was replaced by Michael Carrick as United sought to hold the game. Rio Ferdinand and Owen Hargreaves were further additions in the final minutes but United should have been well clear by that late stage.

Man Utd boss Sir Alex Ferguson remains hopeful that Wigan can get a result at Chelsea to turn the title race in his side’s favour.

Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson remains hopeful that Wigan can get a result at Chelsea to turn the title race in his side’s favour.

Find out how we rated the Manchester United players’ performance in the 1-0 win at Sunderland.

Sir Alex Ferguson refused to give up on the title following Chelsea’s 2-0 win at Liverpool.


United took care of their own business, beating Sunderland 1-0 thanks to Nani’s first-half strike, and go into the final weekend of Premier League action trailing the Blues by a point.

The prime minister may have had trouble on Wearside over the weekend but Manchester United’s record these past four years is more difficult to fault, and the defending Premier League champions are doing all they can to cling on to power, winning yesterday at the safe seat Sunderland call the Stadium of Light in a style more convincing than the arithmetic would suggest.

To extend the political metaphor, the Reds’ problem is that the Blues are ahead going into Denouement Day, and the swingometer will go into meltdown if Chelsea lose at home to Wigan Athletic next Sunday. If the top two both win, Carlo Ancelotti and company will be champions by a single point and Sir Alex Ferguson, who knows a thing about bookmakers and their odds, is not about to gainsay the 33-1 they are offering against his team claiming the title for a record fourth season. “We’re clutching at straws,” he said tonight.

United knew their crown was slipping from the moment Chelsea overcame Liverpool earlier in the day. They still set about their work with obvious spirit and desire, as one expects from any line-up Ferguson sends out, but the momentum has been with London’s pride since their 2-1 victory at Old Trafford four weeks ago – a situation reinforced when United were held 0-0 by Blackburn eight days later.

Ferguson will not have it, but without the matchwinning magic of Cristiano Ronaldo and the goals he and Carlos Tevez used to score, they are not as good as they were. Chelsea kept their best players last summer and are about to reap the rewards.

Sunderland have made good progress after finishing 15th a year ago, and Steve Bruce could teach his old mentor a thing or two about the value of strikers, having profited handsomely from his £10m investment in Darren Bent. United knew this one was never going to be a gimme. Bruce’s charges had lost only one of 17 previous home games in the league and in Bent paraded a striker at the peak of his powers, with 24 goals in the league this season. Any misgivings United fans may have had will have been exacerbated when Ferguson’s starting line-up was announced, and two England defenders, Rio Ferdinand and Wes Brown, were on the bench, with Johnny Evans and John O’Shea given preference. Ferdinand and Brown would both have preferred to play, so close to the World Cup.

Ferguson tweaked his formation to accommodate an extra striker, Dimitar Berbatov, alongside Wayne Rooney, and again restricted Michael Carrick to a substitute’s cameo, underlining how the England midfielder has been marginalised since the error which cost United dear against Bayern Munich.

If Carrick’s future is in question, Berbatov’s surely lies elsewhere after another exasperating performance. Finishing more like Uncle Bulgaria than that country’s principal goalscorer, the £30m man spurned three inviting chances, two of them at close range.

After an even-steven start, which saw Rooney and Ryan Giggs threaten at one end and John Mensah and Lorik Cana head over at the other, United seized control and took a deserved lead in the 28th minute when Nani, set up by Darren Fletcher, scored with a bristling shot from right to left. It was a classy goal, but talk of a new Ronaldo is ridiculously premature. They may have their Portuguese origins in common, but Nani has contributed three league goals this season to Ronaldo’s 18 last.

With United ahead, Paul Scholes and Giggs kept possession flowing towards Craig Gordon’s goal, and it took a combination of Sunderland’s assiduous defending and Berbatov’s profligacy to keep the score down. Supplied twice by Rooney, the strolling sulk fired horribly wide, then missed from two yards. For a gobsmacking encore, he wasted a cross from Giggs at similar range and was promptly substituted – surplus to requirements, permanently it would seem.

Carrick, who replaced him, had a shot cleared off the line by Michael Turner, and by the end 1-0 did scant justice to United’s superiority. Almost as an afterthought Ferguson sent on Owen Hargreaves in the fourth minute of added time. England’s forgotten man, making his first appearance for 21 months, was on for all of 35 seconds. We can safely assume that Fabio Capello will not have been nudged.

From that perspective, neither will Bent have done his World Cup prospects much good with an anonymous performance which left in question his ability to succeed against defenders of Nemanja Vidic’s calibre.

Nani’s first-half strike gave United a deserved win against Steve Bruce’s Sunderland and ensured the title race went down to the final weekend of the Premier League programme.

The Portuguese winger fired wide of Black Cats goalkeeper Craig Gordon in the 28th minute to keep the Reds within a point of leaders Chelsea.

So, then. Are Sunderland, managed by a former Manchester United captain, going to throw this? Well, are they? Liverpool caught hell all week, after all, it’s only fair the nonsense gets spread around.

Of course they’re not. In fact, the Black Cats start the game surely at an advantage, United being thrown into a hot funk after the result at Anfield. They have to win, really, to keep up their faint hopes of a fourth title in a row, and finally turning the English league into the SPL while they win it.

Kick off: 4pm.

Sunderland: Gordon, Bardsley, Turner, Mensah, Richardson, Henderson, Meyler, Cana, Malbranque, Campbell, Bent.
Subs: Carson, Ferdinand, Zenden, Jones, Da Silva, Kilgallon, Cattermole.

Manchester United: Van der Sar, O’Shea, Jonathan Evans, Vidic, Evra, Nani, Scholes, Fletcher, Giggs, Berbatov, Rooney.
Subs: Foster, Hargreaves, Ferdinand, Brown, Park, Carrick, Macheda.

Referee: Steve Bennett (Kent)

Ferguson’s pre-match interview: “Steven Gerrard is a great player, he’ll be disappointed with that … these things happen … they were probably tired after extra time on Thursday, so it was a big ask for them to beat Chelsea … you can’t win everything every year.” Not for the first time this season, Fergie is the voice of reason when you really expect a dangerous therm of hot, hot heat. Not even Sky Man’s repeated queries regarding That Backpass - stopping just short of prodding his chest plate and screaming EH? EH? EH? repeatedly - rouses him from his equanimity. That’s slightly worrying if you’re a Manchester United fan, no? Is the fire really going out?

And they’re off! United start with a steely determination, Nani driving down the right, feeding Rooney, and nearly getting on the end of an immediate return chip. Only one result will do, because Chelsea have about ten goals on United in the goal-difference column.

3 min: Sunderland are pressing all over the park. Not much shape to the game yet.

4 min: Rooney chests down a cross from the right and, just to the right of goal, hammers an exquisite low shot goalwards. Gordon parries majestically, though there’s nothing he can do other than send the ball in the direction of Giggs, coming in from the left. It looks like a certain goal for a nanosecond, but Bardsley gets over to cover, Giggs’ shot clipping his heel and bouncing away from danger. Wonderful play all round, though the perfectionist Giggs may consider it a chance missed.

7 min: United are stroking it around at the back, in the middle of the field. Suddenly, Campbell, Bent, Richardson and Cana are right up in their grilles. They press United all the way back to their box. Nothing comes of it, but this high-tempo stuff shows Sunderland mean business too.

9 min: Sunderland stream forward through Meyler and Malbranque, pinning United back for a bit. First Richardson has a pop at goal, cutting in from the left, then Malbranque wastes a dangerous crossing opportunity down the same wing. This is nice and open, and end to end, just like Liverpool v Chelsea before That Backpass.

12 min: United probe down the right, Scholes at the heart of the move. it breaks down when O’Shea attempts to thread an elaborate backheel through two converging Sunderland defenders. Let’s be realistic here.

14 min: Bent and Campbell criss-cross around for a while, confusing United’s back line to the extent that, when Malbranque delivers a poor cross from the left, Evans panics and heads behind for a corner. From the set piece, delivered from the right by Henderson, Mensah gets a powerful head on the ball, but can only guide it high and right from eight yards out. Half a chance spurned, that.

16 min: Evans upends Campbell, 30 yards out, to the left of goal. Sunderland load the box with the big lads. Malbranque fires the ball into the area on a low arc, Meyler getting his head to it but sending it rising over the bar. Not too far from the top-right corner, though. Sunderland are on top.

18 min: Mensah, either injured or mortally embarrassed at that miss, is replaced by Kilgallon.

20 min: Meyler, running towards the right wing, clips a reverse ball into the United area. Bent, on the penalty spot, takes a wild - though, it must be stressed, legitimate - swing at the dropping ball. O’Shea has the same idea, clearing the ball, and coming off worst in the inevitable collision. He goes down for some treatment, having tweaked his knee, but is soon enough up on his feet again.

21 min: United, after a bright start, can’t get anything together. Berbatov tries a backheel down the right, but it doesn’t come off. Who does he think he is? John O’Shea?

22 min: And having done nothing, they so nearly score. Evra tears down the left, slots the ball forward to Giggs, who, just outside the area, drops a shoulder, cuts inside, and hits a rising shot towards the top-right corner. It’s only just too high, clattering off the topside of the crossbar and out of play. A magnificent effort. Will it wake United from their slumber?

24 min: This would have been one of the goals of the season. Henderson starts the move off with a dragback in his own half, then races straight down the middle of the park. He lays the ball off, keeps going straight, takes a quick return, and lays off to Malbranque just outside the area, who races onto the pass and unleashes a fair old wallop towards the top left. Van der Sar parries it over the bar. The corner isn’t worth describing, so I won’t.

28 min: GOAL!!! Sunderland 0-1 Manchester United. United pass and pass and pass across the front of the Sunderland area. The home side break clear, but soon cede possession and United are back, back, back, pass, pass, passing across the front of the Sunderland area again. The ball’s shuttled left to right, finally Fletcher moving it on to Nani, cutting in from the right. The Portuguese hammers a low, unstoppable shot into the bottom-left corner - and this title isn’t done and dusted quite yet.

31 min: Evans kicks Campbell in the face, Sunderland being gifted a free kick for the striker’s pains. Malbranque whips it towards the near post, Van der Sar punches it out with ease. For all Sunderland’s determined play, they haven’t really bothered the United keeper at all, Malbranque’s earlier shot apart.

34 min: Meyler and Evra come together in a sliding tackle. The Sunderland player doesn’t get up, in real pain, holding his right knee. On comes the stretcher, and a wee pause in play. Nani, by the way, should hold his head in shame, for 30 seconds earlier he went down as though shot through the back of the head by JFK’s magic bullet after deliberately running into Richardson. In context, his dive and triple pike was truly pathetic.

38 min: Meyler is carted off, lugging freely from the oxygen mask. Are these oxygen hits good? I like the look of them. Cattermole comes on in his stead, to continue his never-ending quest for bookings.

39 min: This is brilliant. From corner to corner, across the diagonal, both teams fly in with a non-stop series of wild tackles. First Evans nips at Richardson’s ankles, then Sana and Cattermole get stuck into Fletcher and Rooney, and finally Bardsley lunges in on Evra. Fergie, on the touchline, is going ballistic, but that just looked like a good old-fashioned battle with everyone getting stuck in, not spiteful play. It’s like 1972 never ended.

42 min: Vidic is booked for sarcastically applauding the referee after O’Shea was pulled back for a foul. Or was he booked for applauding O’Shea picking up a yellow? I’m not sure, to be honest, and will check at half time. But the referee was waving his card around in the manner of Solti conducting the Ring Cycle, so it wasn’t wholly clear.

44 min: This is frantic, with not a lot of end product.

45 min: There will be four added minutes, Meyler’s injury the root cause of each and every one.

45 min +1: Rooney strokes a first-time ball down the middle of the park with the outside of his boot, Evra latching onto it on the edge of the area. The full back attempts an extravagent stroke into the bottom-right corner, but Gordon is wise to his game and is down there waiting, like a dandy draped across a chaise longue, for the ball to arrive.

45 min +3: Rooney, standing on the apex of the D, clips a reverse ball to the right for Berbatov, who’s clear on goal. The £30m striker’s first-time slapshot doesn’t even bother the side netting. Dear God.

HALF TIME: Sunderland 0-1 Manchester United. And that’s pretty much that for the half. “It is a shame 1972 had to end (39 min),” writes Ian Copestake, “as had it not, Liverpool would be winning the league with Man Utd finishing 18th.”

And we’re off again! O’Shea wasn’t booked by Sir Georg Bennett, just to clarify. United begin the half by stroking it around a lot. There’s not much in the way of tempo yet. Well, there is, it’s very slow, but you know what I mean.

48 min: Just a lot of misplaced passes early doors in this half. “Those oxygen masks (38 mins) aren’t oxygen,” explains Dr William Gibson, who I’ve just awarded a doctorate to, in order to give more weight to his explanation, “it’s Entonox - or gas and air as used in childbirth. Painkiller, innit.”

49 min: Nani cuts into the area from the right and dinks an effort goalwards. Gordon sticks up an arm and deflects the shot away from danger. Apart from their keeper, Sunderland haven’t started this half yet.

52 min: THE £30m MISS OF THE SEASON! Rooney skates up and down the left, twisting the blood of every striped-shirted man he passes. He eventually bustles towards the byline, and dinks a delicious cross over to Berbatov, one yard out, inches to the right of an open goal. Somehow the striker spoons the ball over - and wide. The pained look in Berbatov’s eyes, visible when he finally peels himself off the turf, suggests he really wants to smoke a few cartons of high-tar cigarettes.

54 min: Dear Jesus. Rooney, prone on the floor, takes a wild swipe at the ankles of Cana as he passes. That could easily be a red, but is only a yellow. The World Cup’s going to be quite predictable, isn’t it?

55 min: Bardsley tears into the box from the right, then goes down like a sack of spuds, Giggs trailing behind and nowhere near him. Not sure whether he dived, or simply fell over like a clumsy oaf, but he’s booked as the referee thinks he deliberately took a fall.

56 min: Now Berbatov heads over from four yards. This is becoming a sick joke.

59 min: Sunderland are beginning to string a few passes together now, Cana, Malbranque and Campbell combining well down the left only for Malbranque to attempt an overly ambitious Xavi-esque angled pass, the ball running out for a goal kick. Will United end up regretting Berbatov’s misses? If they do, will Berbatov regret Berbatov’s misses, or will the existential striker be too busy relaxing to some hard bop 78s, his senses dulled by the toasted hit of high-tar tabs, to bother?

62 min: Nani goes down for a couple of minutes’ worth of treatment on his knee. He seems to be OK once the work is done.

65 min: The Stadium of Light is noisy, appreciative of the effort the home side is putting in. There’s little to cheer in truth, though; Van der Sar’s yet to make a save of note.

68 min: Cattermole has a whack from 30 yards; Fletcher blocks. United are looking a little bit nervous at the moment, understandble as they know a draw here will effectively see them lose their title. Speaking of understandable nervousness, John Delaney has an explanation for Berbatov’s profligacy in front of goal: “To be fair to him, I wouldn’t want to risk Gary Neville lunging open mouthed at me.”

71 min: To a chorus of boos, Newcastle’s Michael Carrick comes on for Berbatov, who doesn’t look happy about the decision at all. Maybe he’ll go home and pen some incendiary beat poetry about it.

73 min: Rooney pulls a low snapshot wide left from the edge of the area. It’s a reminder that United haven’t done much up front of late. They’ll be desperate for a second goal …

75 min: … and Sunderland are desperate for an equaliser, which explains Steve Bruce’s decision to replace Henderson with Kenwyne Jones.

77 min: Nani outrageously evades a yellow card for cynically tugging an in-flight Richardson to the floor. The stadium erupts in incensed laughter. “The 30 million Man Utd paid for Berbatov represents about 20 quid for each glaring miss this season,” writes Ben Bamford, rounding it up to the nearest ten so as not to be rude.

78 min: Nani swaggers in from the right and lays the ball into the centre for Carrick to have a free pop at goal. He beats Gordon, but Turner is on the line to hack clear. This game started poorly, but it’s a genuinely entertaining end-to-end affair now.

81 min: Malbranque is booked for a dreadful lunge on Evans. He’s lucky not to be sent off, though nobody makes much of a song and dance by way of complaint.

84 min: Richardson is booked for a late nick at Nani’s ankles.

86 min: United look to have weathered the Sunderland storm, such as it was. Bardsley attempts to bustle straight through the centre, but Vidic nicks the ball off him and the danger is easily snuffed out.

88 min: Ferdinand comes on for Flecther.

90 min: There will be three more minutes of this.

90 min +1: Bardsley breaks down the right. He swings the ball in towards Jones, who wins a corner. It’s swung in from the right towards the back post, Vidic easing Turner slightly out of the road, the latter’s attempted header being eyebrowed well wide left. Eyebrow doesn’t really work as a verb, does it.

90 min +3: Nani is replaced by Hargreaves.

FULL TIME: Sunderland 0-1 Manchester United. And that’s that. The title will go to the last day, United trailing Chelsea by one point. They’ll have to beat Stoke at Old Trafford, and hope Chelsea fail to win against Wigan at Stamford Bridge. Looking forward to it? Of course you are.

The ability of core players to shape events over eras rather than a few seasons lies at the heart of Old Trafford’s success

Four years ago this weekend Manchester United endured a calamitous trip to London. Outshone again in the Premier League by José Mourinho’s Chelsea, Sir Alex Ferguson’s men were assailed by indignity as William Gallas opened the scoring, a shaggy-haired Joe Cole tore off his shirt and booted an advertising hoarding after doubling Chelsea’s lead and Ricardo Carvalho puffed an imaginary cigar with Didier Drogba after blasting in a third.

Worse: Wayne Rooney, the shape of United’s future and the little knuckleduster of England’s 2006 World Cup squad, left the pitch on a stretcher with a double metatarsal break. As their second coronation was confirmed, Chelsea were 12 points clear of United, whose Gary Neville clashed with an angry United fan in their next game, against Middlesbrough. United’s season ended with Ruud van Nistelrooy in purdah and Mourinho’s side eight points to the good as the league trophy stayed at Stamford Bridge.

In that 2005-2006 campaign United finished runners-up to the Roman Abramovich project and won only the Carling Cup: which will be their fate again today should Chelsea beat Liverpool at Anfield and United lose at Sunderland. The echoes from four years ago are abundant but not necessarily agony to United ears. Ferguson was growing a new vintage crop out of Cristiano Ronaldo and Rooney. “We’ve put a marker down. There are some young players developing,” he said at the time. “I’m very happy with the squad now.”

Next: United win three consecutive championships and reach two Champions League finals, winning one, against Chelsea, in Moscow, in 2008. After Mourinho’s conquest of Barcelona with Inter in midweek it should be reiterated that United’s recovery was assisted by Abramovich’s disastrous inability to see that he had a manager of Fergusonian stature on his payroll. But the twin tornados of Rooney and Ronaldo were also pretty influential in restoring United’s primacy, which Ferguson is now desperate to extend to a 19th title for his club and an unprecedented fourth in a row.

To return to 2006 as the most recent shift in power is to be reminded that this season’s title race has been driven to a climactic point by the same core of diehards who featured the last time dominance was won and lost. Rooney, who is again carrying an injury in a World Cup summer, is the Professional Footballers’ Association and Football Writers’ Association número uno. His sack of 26 Premier League goals is one larger than that of Didier Drogba, the Havana-sucker of 29 April 2006. Third on the list for the two clubs is the ubiquitous Frank Lampard with 20.

What we are seeing in these final eights days of the season, then, is the value of continuity at the heart of a top-two team: of players shaping events not just for a year or two but over eras. Four seasons ago Ferguson was already plotting beyond Mourinho’s double triumph. This season he has hot-housed Nani, Rafael da Silva, Jonny Evans and Antonio Valencia and laid foundations for the next five years by acquiring Chris Smalling from Fulham and Javier Hernández from Mexico. But the unbending pursuit of Chelsea is attributable in the main to Rooney, the home-grown Darren Fletcher and the characteristically robust late-season form of Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Neville, who have all signed one-year contract extensions to the summer of 2011.

With Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez elsewhere, United’s season has been one of miraculous stubbornness. Off the field the anti-Glazer and green and gold protests have prompted not a crisis of identity so much as a reaffirmation of the club’s deepest values.

Neville, who will enter his 20th season as a United professional in August, has studied the squad’s development to the point, today, when United could justifiably present the loss of their title as another evolutionary step. He says: “The manager’s been very careful throughout the transition stages. I can split my career into three distinct phases. The first was very British, with a sprinkling of foreign talent. Then there was a transition through to the 1999 treble-winning team. From 1994-97 there was a certain style: a lot of strength in the team, a lot of physical players – very British, 4-4-2 – then on the way to 1999 we started to introduce the more European approach of Jaap Stam and Ronny Johnsen. Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole weren’t European but they were in the way they played.

“There was still a British core to it but there was a switch to a more European style. From 2004-2005 onwards there has been a lot of interchanging and a much bigger foreign influence: Nani, Anderson, Tevez, Ronaldo, Vidic, Ji-sung Park, Valencia. In terms of British culture there have been fewer British players but the manager’s very aware that with the likes of Carrick, Rooney and Ferdinand he has to have a British culture in the dressing room.

“To actually secure success over a sustained period you need players who are going to stay with you. You can’t be changing your players season in, season out. The best way to do that is to have players who have that association with, or affection for, the club, or develop it, and British players are aware of the culture of Manchester United. We’ve been very lucky to have signed foreign players who’ve taken to it straight away.

“If you look at our squad now, me, Scholes, Giggs, Fletcher, John O’Shea, Wes Brown, Darron Gibson and Jonny Evans have come through the ranks. You then add to that Carrick, Ferdinand, [Owen] Hargreaves and Rooney: half of our squad have either come through the ranks or are aware of the Manchester United culture from an early age.” From this, Neville believes, United are imbued with the muscle-memory and psychological resistance to go on fighting when momentum turns against them or a superior force emerges.

Martin O’Neill, who was part of Brian Clough’s European Cup winning dynasty at Nottingham Forest, reserves a special regard for players who remain at the heart of consistently successful teams, or sides who regain power after a lull, as the Chelsea of Drogba, Lampard and John Terry are now trying to do.

“I won a championship as a player and to go back and try to repeat it again was unbelievably difficult,” O’Neill says. “We never achieved it, so I had great regard for Liverpool, who kept doing it, and now for the modern-day people such as Giggs. I met Giggs on a wee break just over a year ago, where he was celebrating his wedding anniversary with a couple of friends. I had my wife down in the south of Spain, during an international break. You speak to him and it’s as if he has never done anything in his life, you know?”

The Aston Villa manager then mimics Giggs playing down his achievements. “I said: ‘No, you’ve just won 10 championships.’ For somebody to go again – that comes as well from having a great manager with him, to drive them on.”

Ferguson, who is in the anomalous position of needing Liverpool to help him out, has ruled Old Trafford for 23½ years. The “Ayatollah”, as Steve Bruce says his generation of United players called him, is in combat with a Chelsea manager who has yet to complete a year as Abramovich’s latest chosen one. Yet from the collective vigour of the team Mourinho built has emerged another push back to the summit, with more entertainment to lace the physical power.

In this league campaign Chelsea have put seven past Sunderland, Aston Villa and Stoke; five through Blackburn and Portsmouth, and four beyond Bolton, Wolves and West Ham. Florent Malouda (with 12) has stepped from the mist to become a match-winning force. United, who have scored 12 fewer times and trail by eight on goal difference, have been less spectacularly destructive. Rooney’s 26 aside, Dimitar Berbatov is their next top scorer with 12.

Both protagonists today and (probably) next Sunday were banjoed in Europe before the semi-final stage. They have lost 13 Premier League matches between them. This has been a campaign to determine who has the fewer flaws. The difference, from 2006, is that Chelsea are compelled by budgetary constraints to copy the United model of self-regeneration. Next year’s Carling Cup will be used to hasten the development of academy recruits: among them Josh McEachran, Gaël Kakuta, Jeffrey Bruma, Jacob Mellis and Sam Hutchinson.

But first the old guard of a Chelsea side who ended a 50-year wait for the title in 2005 cling to a one-point advantage in their quest to reclaim a hold on power that seemed sure to last a generation on that April day four years ago, when two defenders scored in a 3-0 victory over United, Joe Cole was an inspired demon-angel and Rooney was doomed to become a shadow of his barnstorming self at the World Cup in Germany. Today, and perhaps next Sunday, that battle of the Bridge resumes.

But Sir Alex Ferguson could manage a surprise for manager of the year

Since the Premier League began, only one manager-of-the-year award has been bestowed on an individual whose team did not finish top. In 2001 George Burley was honoured for qualifying for the Uefa Cup with an Ipswich team in their first season back in the top flight, leaving Sir Alex Ferguson scantly rewarded for a then unprecedented third successive title.

The Manchester United manager would not have minded the award going to a fellow Scot. He had already won five of the gongs by that stage, has gone on to pick up another four, and probably felt like everyone else that distinctions handed out by sponsors are of comparatively little merit next to honours won on the pitch. Yet Ferguson is currently chief cheerleader for Roy Hodgson as manager of the year. Even if an official award did not exist, the managerial achievement of the season would still be a topic keenly discussed at every level of the game, precisely because the game has so many levels.

If it is a little disappointing that the official award tracks the destination of the title so closely it is hardly surprising, because any other course would be fiendishly difficult as well as endlessly controversial. David Moyes, for instance, has never won a trophy at Everton, yet there have been several seasons when the results and consistency he has produced on a limited budget have been little short of astonishing. Then there are all the relegation firefighters and the managers down through the divisions who produce small-scale miracles against all expectation. Ian Holloway at Blackpool this season comes to mind, as well as Chris Hughton at Newcastle, Steve Cotterill at Notts County and Keith Hill at Rochdale.

Sticking to the Premier League to simplify the argument, this season alone there have been claims made on behalf of Moyes, Harry Redknapp, Martin O’Neill and Tony Pulis, yet realistically, with their present clubs at least, none of those is'’ going to get close to a title. Rafael Benítez, on the other hand, has been agonisingly close to a title. In addition to a major miracle in Istanbul and a thrilling FA Cup final win in previous years, his Liverpool side of last season suffered only two league defeats, positively parsimonious compared to the present situation where everyone has lost at least half a dozen, yet manager of the year passed him by. Benítez ultimately had to face the fact that even beating United home and away could not prevent his rival and adversary picking up a third successive title for the second time in his career. It is hard to argue against success on that scale.

So while Hodgson would be a wonderfully romantic and completely deserving choice as manager of the season for his magnificent feat in guiding Fulham to the Europa League final, logic and precedent are not on his side. Carlo Ancelotti is on course to win a league and Cup Double in his first season in England, and no one has ever done that before. Arsène Wenger managed it in his first full season in England, which was a considerable achievement in its own way and earned him the manager-of-the-year award in 1998, though it felt much more like his second season here as he arrived in September of 1996. José Mourinho won just the league in his first season with Chelsea, repeated the achievement the following year, and was manager of the year both times. So Ancelotti could feel aggrieved, to say the least, were a double in his first season to count for nothing.

Manchester United could still derail Chelsea’s title bid today, or to be more exact Liverpool could, and were the title to end up at Old Trafford it would be United’s fourth in a row, and no one has done that in the entire history of English football. Were Ferguson to claim such a success at the age of 68, breaking Liverpool’s record of 18 titles to boot, Hodgson might have to get on the pitch and score the winning goal in Hamburg to wrest the award from its most regular recipient.

The way Fulham’s fairytale has been panning out, however, you wouldn’t bet against him doing that. Even Ferguson is behind him, describing Fulham’s run to the final as one of the best British performances of all time, though he could simply be playing down Chelsea claims. It amounts to little in the scheme of things: it is only a talking point, a matter of opinion. But Fulham’s success is unexpected, Chelsea’s more or less demanded. And Hodgson has built a squad, with the help of considerable funds from his owner, whereas Ancelotti inherited an already capable one.

Here’s the weird bit, though. Hodgson is definitely getting younger. No one else in football management has ever managed to pull off that trick. Hodgson has not just reinvented the glory game, he appears to have stumbled on an antidote to stress as well as the secret of eternal youth. Why stop at manager of the year? Based on his Thursday performances there is still time to be the next prime minister.

And Mourinho to get an award for his own special skills?

Still no back-to-back European Cup winners in the Champions League era. Oh dear, what a pity, never mind. I’m not sure how much more beautiful-game drooling from grown men I could have taken in any case had Barcelona made it to Madrid. And splendidly though they performed in Rome, Barcelona were lucky to reach last year’s final, so it is perhaps as well that history is not going to be made through the inadvertent assistance of Tom  Henning Ovrebo.

There’s just one thing I still don’t understand, inspector. Barcelona paying Inter £42m plus Samuel Eto’o for Zlatan Ibrahimovic now seems even more like the silliest deal of the century, and that includes all of Portsmouth’s recently uncovered excesses. Eto’o is only six months older than the Swedish striker and had the clubs simply exchanged players without any financial adjustment many would have considered Inter to have got the better of the bargain. As it was they had an extra lump of money with which to strengthen to good effect, bringing in Diego Milito, Wesley Sneijder and Thiago Motta.

Ibrahimovic is far from a bad player and was Serie A top scorer and footballer of the year in his final season in Italy, yet he is finding the reputation of big-game bottler hard to shake off. He generally fails to make an impression in Champions League matches and has yet to appear in a final, let alone score in one. Whereas Eto’o has scored in two already, and now has a chance to score for different clubs in consecutive finals. When José Mourinho named his four most outstanding players in the world just over a year ago the other three – Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Kaká – already boasted Champions League medals. Even so he named Ibrahimovic the best of the lot, then said his goodbyes. Salesman of the year, anyone?

The Rivals reign victorious at OT after beating United on penalties.

Rafael Benitez will tell his Liverpool side to adopt an “offensive mentality” when they take on Chelsea on Sunday.

Paul Scholes remembers Upton Park 1995 very well - which is why he knows Manchester United must ensure they are in the right frame of mind to do their own jobs on Sunday rather than worry about Liverpool’s approach to their clash with Chelsea.


Scholes is the only survivor from that frustrating last-day trip to West Ham 15 years ago.

Reds held by a stubborn Bolton and must wait to learn title fate.

Sunderland ace Fraizer looks forward to facing his old United team-mates.

The boss backs his players to win the title if the opportunity arises.

Manchester United are poised to capture a record 19th English league title, but is Liverpool’s European Cup tally they want most

English football may be about to make history. Or not, as the case may be. In just over a week’s time Manchester United could be on the verge of becoming the first club to win the English league for a fourth successive season and the only one to win it 19 times. Of the two feats the latter would surely be the most welcome for United since it would take them ahead of Liverpool’s total of 18 titles, which was the unchallenged record until Sir Alex Ferguson completed his second Premier League hat-trick last season.

Such are Ferguson’s feelings for all things Anfield and so strong is the tribal rivalry between the followers of United and Liverpool that a 19th championship would leave Old Trafford basking in a triumphant afterglow until August even if Manchester experiences one of its wetter summers. There is therefore a delicious irony in the fact that Liverpool are the team best placed this weekend to help or hinder Manchester United’s ambitions, either by beating Chelsea at home tomorrow or suffering their second defeat of the season by Carlo Ancelotti’s side. Even a draw would do United a favour, always assuming they do not then drop points at Sunderland.

Statistics apart, another triumph for Ferguson would be bound to increase the feeling among Anfield fans that their club is being left further behind. It is 20 years since Liverpool won their 18th title and during this period Manchester United have topped the Premier League 11 times. As things stand the chances of Liverpool closing the gap appear remote. More than a few pundits fancied Rafael Benítez’s team this season after Liverpool finished runners-up last time. How wrong can a rune be?

By now more than a few Liverpool punters will have come to the conclusion that their team will not again be serious championship contenders until the club’s American owners, Tom and Jerry, have sold up and Benítez, the note-taking technocrat, has been replaced as manager by the arm-waving egotist, José Mourinho. Half a dozen footballers of superior quality might also help. Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres were never going to carry the side for a whole nine months.

Anfield supporters may take some comfort from remembering that Manchester United fans were experiencing similar feelings of frustration when Kenny Dalglish’s side won Liverpool’s most recent league championship in 1990, John Barnes completing the task with a penalty as Queens Park Rangers were beaten 2-1. It was Liverpool’s 10th title in 15 seasons whereas United had not won the First Division since 1967 and were about to finish 13th.

Rumours of discontent with the management of Ferguson, who had been in charge since 1986, were rife and he might have gone the way of Ron Atkinson, Dave Sexton and others who failed to recapture the heights of the Matt Busby era had United not won the FA Cup that season. At least Liverpool remain capable of winning other things at home and abroad, yet the regular presence of the Premier League trophy at Old Trafford still rankles.

It could be argued that Liverpool’s profusion of championships in the 60s, 70s and 80s had added merit because those were more egalitarian football times, whereas Ferguson’s United have owed much to the concentration of wealth and talent among a handful of clubs that resulted from the creation of the Premier League as a breakaway competition in the early 90s. At various times the Liverpool teams of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Dalglish faced serious competition not only from Busby’s United, Don Revie’s Leeds, Manchester City and Aston Villa but also Derby, Nottingham Forest, QPR, Ipswich, Watford and Southampton, clubs now several football worlds away from a place among the Premier League’s elite. Ferguson, by contrast, can usually assume that his principal rivals will be Chelsea, Arsenal and, if they can get their act together, Liverpool, with Manchester City and Tottenham the only plausible alternatives at present.

Should Manchester United break all records this time, further upstaging Liverpool in the process, speculation concerning Ferguson’s retirement will doubtless continue apace. Meanwhile, Fergie will probably deny he is going right up to the moment he decides to go.

And there is still the small matter of overhauling Liverpool’s record of four European Cups plus a Champions League. At present United trail 5-3 so Ferguson is going to need quite a bit of stoppage time. Getting ahead of Anfield in the domestic league would leave him satisfied but not sated.

• Arch-rivals are a ‘great’ club who will do their duty
• Stopping United winning record 19th title not a concern

Sir Alex Ferguson has expressed his confidence that Liverpool will try their hardest to derail Chelsea’s championship ambitions on Sunday even though it could mean directing Manchester United towards the 19th league title that would establish them above the Merseysiders as the most successful league club in English football.

Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, has injury concerns about several key players and admitted today that it would be difficult to pick up his players for Sunday’s game at home to Chelsea after going out of the Europa League in a gruelling 120-minute match with Atlético Madrid yesterday.

Ferguson, however, does not believe United’s arch-rivals will play with restraint and he cited the end of the 1994-95 season when Liverpool beat Blackburn Rovers on the final Sunday and the title went to Ewood Park only because his own team could not win at West Ham.

“I am confident and I have to be confident,” said Ferguson, whose team trail Chelsea by one point with two games to go and play at Sunderland on Sunday. “Great clubs don’t throw their histories away. They don’t throw their traditions away for one game. In 1995 it was exactly the same. We depended and hoped on Liverpool producing and we got that from them. I remember Roy Evans [the then Liverpool manager] saying to me: ‘You have to earn the right to win the title’ and that stands today. I think Liverpool will do their best on Sunday. They have to, there is no doubt about that. They have been in 10 European finals and won 18 titles, so that’s a fantastic history. You don’t throw that away just because of one game. And do you think their fans want to go home saying their team capitulated and didn’t try?”

Ferguson, though, was dismayed that Liverpool’s game against Atlético went to extra-time. “We would have preferred them to play for 90 minutes and I don’t think English teams get the proper help when they are in Europe,” he said. “To have to play a Sunday lunchtime kick-off after a Thursday game, to me, is not fair and it happens time and time again.”

The sapping effects of yesterday’s game have also left doubts over a number of Benítez’s players, including Dirk Kuyt, Javier Mascherano, Yossi Benayoun and Glen Johnson, and Liverpool’s manager described the mood at Anfield as “down” as they approach the end of what has been a dismal season for the pre-season favourites to win the league.

“It’s Rafa’s job to lift his players,” Ferguson said. “I’ve been there myself when we lost to Bayern Munich [in the Champions League quarter-final]. It was a difficult job to raise the players but you have to do it because that is your job. It took me a couple of days to get over it, of course, but you have to get over it. You cannot wallow in pity.”

Yet there remains an issue of fatigue for Liverpool’s players while Chelsea’s have had a blank week. “It was difficult to keep the intensity and tempo for the whole game and extra-time and it’s clear we will have to check on everyone,” Benítez said. “We changed Benayoun and Mascherano because they were very tired. Kuyt had a calf problem but we had to play him for the whole game and [David] Ngog was on the bench but wasn’t 100% to play. At the moment they are down but that is normal. Hopefully by Sunday they will be ready.”

Liverpool are seventh, with only a slender hope of overtaking Manchester City, Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur to qualify for the Champions League, but their goalkeeper, Pepe Reina, said the players were still motivated.

“People can think whatever they want. As a professional, if you are a proper professional, you will never, ever on your life play to lose or draw in any game,” Reina said. “It’s just not us. It’s a question of our pride. We will try to win and, if we don’t, it will be because we’re playing Chelsea, a tough team that is fighting for the championship, and we’re going into the game on the back of a disappointing night after playing 120 minutes. It won’t be easy but we will try.”

Wayne Rooney, named today as the Football Writers’ Association player of the year to go with his Professional Footballers’ Association award, could be back from injury when United play at the Stadium of Light on Sunday. Rio Ferdinand, who has been suffering from a groin problem related to his back issues, also hopes to be involved in a match that kicks off once the Liverpool game is finished.

Chelsea end the season next weekend at home to Wigan Athletic while United take on Stoke City at Old Trafford. “We hope it goes for one more game,” Ferguson said. “If we get a chance to win it on the last game, that’s exactly what we’d have wished for a few weeks back.”

Gary Neville, the United captain, has followed Edwin van der Sar, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes in extending his career at Old Trafford with a new 12-month contract. Neville, the former England international, is then expected to retire at the end of the 2010-11 season.

“Certain players make careers out of determination and will and Gary has been one of those players,” Ferguson said. Neville played only one game between March 2007 and August 2008 because of injury. “When you are out of the game in your 30s for a year and a half, for most players it is impossible to come back to the level he is now,” Ferguson added.

• Liverpool will want to beat us, warns Chelsea manager
• ‘We have to stay focused for every minute,’ says Ancelotti

Chelsea coach Carlo Ancelotti did not look like a man ready to crack under the intense pressure of this season’s title run-in as he shrugged off suggestions that the “old pals act” could provide one more twist in the tale.

Chelsea face Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday in a 1.30pm kick-off knowing nothing but victory will keep their title hopes on track. Manchester United then kick off at 4pm at Sunderland, a club managed by the former Old Trafford captain Steve Bruce.

The two games have thrown up a number of tantalising issues for the conspiracy theorists, but Ancelotti is mindful not to get drawn into them.

He dismissed suggestions that Liverpool would not try hard enough to beat his side because doing so would open the door for their rivals United to surpass their own total of 18 titles. And Ancelotti was also nonplussed by the possibility that Bruce would do his old mentor Sir Alex Ferguson a favour at the Stadium of Light.

“I don’t think about this,” said Ancelotti. “I think that Sunderland will do their best to beat United and Liverpool will do the same against us. Every team has respect for this Premier League and every team has to do their best until the end of the matches.

“We have to pay attention because Liverpool are a strong team and it’s very difficult to win at Anfield, but we have to try. We need to have three more points after Sunday. I am pleased to play first but I said we have one more point than United. With two victories we can be champions, so we have to focus on our game and not think about Sunderland’s result. We are not interested in that. We want to be champions and that’s the only important thing.”

Liverpool’s Europa League exertions and their semi-final exit to Atlético Madrid may also have given Chelsea the edge in terms of fitness and spirit but, even if he might think it privately, Ancelotti was guarded with his public comments.

“We have to play against a strong team with good players,” said the Italian. “We saw those good players against Madrid. This is in our minds. We have to play against fantastic players in a very difficult stadium, a very difficult atmosphere, because we know how the supporters of Liverpool support the team.

“I don’t know if it’s better for us to play a Liverpool side who did not make final of the Europa League. They played for two hours so maybe they’ll be a little bit tired, but I’ve never seen Liverpool look tired at Anfield. They play a strong 90 minutes every game. I think they will do the same on Sunday.”

Only when the subject of Liverpool’s injured striker Fernando Torres was raised did Ancelotti let the mask slip a little.

“They have the most important injury, to have Torres out is a disadvantage for them because he’s one of the most important strikers in the world,” said Ancelotti. “So, maybe with this, they have a problem. But the team that played against Atlético was a very good team. They didn’t get to the final, but they played a good match in my opinion.”

Ancelotti cannot afford any more errors and he knows it. The most burning issue will be answered within the opening quarter of their clash with Liverpool, because if Chelsea fail to start with any kind of tempo, they will be in trouble. Their last away game ended in a 2-1 defeat at Tottenham when the Blues simply failed to turn up. A repeat performance could have grave repercussions for their title hopes.

“I’m going to say the opposite to what I said before the Tottenham game,” said Ancelotti. “I think it’s very easy for me to give motivation to my players for this very important match. We have 180 minutes before the end of the season and we have to stay focused for every minute, keep our best concentration, and if we do that we can be champions.

“It’s not usual for me to tell my players: ‘We have to win.’ We will win if we do the things that we do at our best. We have to stay focused to play well, to play at our best, to maintain our concentration for 90 minutes, to play together. These are the things I usually tell my players before games.”

Sir Alex Ferguson’s plans to replicate the Treble-winning four-strong senior attack have been wrecked by injury this term.


But Dwight Yorke believes the United chief’s scheme was a potentially successful blend.

The midfielder won’t win any awards and won’t go to the World Cup, but he has proved his worth this season

The strange thing is that Paul Scholes has never had much of a look-in when the player of the year awards have been decided, even when he was that bit younger and quicker. The little ginger doyen of the Manchester United midfield has never had to fix a bow tie and mumble a few lines of acceptance. But then, you know it’s the last thing Scholes would want when he could be at home in Saddleworth, playing with Arron, Alicia and Aiden and getting ready for training the following day.

A word that is often applied to Scholes is “shy”. But how can a man who gives the impression he is on first-name terms with the ball in front of 75,000 people every other Saturday, with millions watching on television, be shy? Scholes is not shy. He just has his routine: pull on your boots, do your best, get in the car and go home. The rest, as Harvey Keitel’s character said in Mean Streets, is bullshit.

Scholes is very much from the “the rest is bullshit” school. He doesn’t do interviews. He doesn’t walk red carpets. He doesn’t have a flashy car with smoked-out windows. You won’t see his autobiography in the megastore or a six-page spread in Hello! Scholes is a reminder of what footballers used to be like and what many of us wish they could be again.

A reluctant hero, however, is still a hero. Ask Wayne Rooney, who is accumulating all this season’s individual trophies, to name his favourite player and without hesitation he will say Scholes. Sir Alex Ferguson regards the midfielder as “one of the best football brains Manchester United have ever had”. Edgar Davids: “We can all learn from Paul Scholes.” Marcello Lippi: “Scholes would have been one of my first choices for putting together a great team.” Zinedine Zidane: “My toughest opponent? Scholes.” All this when Scholes, bless him, still has trouble differentiating between a fair tackle and a pub-side hack.

One day last week Ferguson was asked why Michael Carrick could not get in the United team. “What can I do?” he replied, his eyes wide, his arms outstretched. “What are you saying? Drop Scholes?” His voice probably demanded an exclamation mark as well.

A couple of weekends before the blood in the veins of United’s supporters had been turned to wine with a goal out of nowhere against Manchester City, 17 seconds from the end of stoppage time. It was classic Scholes: the elusive little run, a twisting header, a yelp of joy and, finally, that familiar smile and punch of the air.

Last week, against Tottenham Hotspur, he was the outstanding player again. Opta statistics show that only Chelsea’s Mikel John Obi has a better pass percentage rate. Of Scholes’s 1,497 passes this season, 89.58% have reached their target. He was the Premier League’s most accurate passer last season (90.69%) and its third in 2007-08 (89.7%).

Scholes’s colleagues speak of him in almost disbelieving tones. “He’ll do ridiculous things in training,” Rio Ferdinand says. “He’ll say: ‘You see that tree over there?’ – it’ll be 40 yards away – ‘I’m going to hit it.’ And he’ll do it.”

Or another target will be identified. “Gary Neville was having a piss one day, 45 yards away, by a fence,” Ferguson remembers. “Scholes whacked him right in the arse.”

Scholes’s form has brought suggestions that Fabio Capello might make one last attempt to coax him back into the England squad. Scholes retired from international football at 29, when he had much more to give. “It’s a shame he didn’t play for England more,” Steve Bruce, Sunderland’s manager, said of his old team-mate before Sunday’s game at the Stadium of Light. “In the last two decades Scholes is arguably as good as you get in the Premier League.”

But Capello has decided to leave it and you get the feeling Scholes doesn’t care what the media – or anyone outside of Old Trafford – thinks. He had stopped enjoying going away with England. Yes, there is a World Cup looming, but Scholes has just signed a one-year contract and – in his mind, at least – stepping away from England is one of the reasons why he is still going strong at the age of 35.

Capello has tried to talk him round. It was a short conversation. Now, one of the Italian’s colleagues points out that the “Scholes for England” issue never gets raised when the player has not done so well. And there have been a few games this season when Scholes has fallen below the levels he sets himself. That level, however, is one to which most footballers can only aspire.

“People say he is a great player, but you have to define what a great player is,” says Peter Schmeichel, the former United goalkeeper. “For me, it is a player who has a bottom level that means his worst performance is not noticed. If he is having a bad game, a team-mate might feel Paul Scholes is not quite on his game, but a spectator wouldn’t notice. Scholes, of all the players I have played with, has the highest bottom level.”

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is confident Liverpool will not “throw away their history” by standing aside for Chelsea on Sunday.

Watch United’s annual awards live on MUTV and MUTV Online tonight.

Sir Alex Ferguson is confident Liverpool will not “throw away their history” by standing aside for Chelsea at Anfield on Sunday.


Manchester United head into the penultimate weekend of the campaign knowing their last realistic chance of overhauling Carlo Ancelotti’s side depends on Liverpool avoiding defeat this weekend.

• Liverpool win would help Manchester United secure the league
• ‘I’m confident they’ll do their maximum,’ says United manager

Sir Alex Ferguson is confident Liverpool will not “throw away their history” by standing aside for Chelsea at Anfield on Sunday.

Manchester United head into the penultimate weekend of the campaign knowing their last realistic chance of overhauling Carlo Ancelotti’s side depends on Liverpool avoiding defeat this weekend. If Chelsea are denied maximum points, United can seize the advantage in the title race by beating Sunderland at the Stadium of Light a couple of hours later and leapfrogging to the top of the table.

All this has been noted at an increasingly agitated Liverpool. And quite apart from drawing a veil over what has been a disastrous season for the Merseyside giants, which took another downturn last night with a Europa League semi-final exit at the hands of Atlético Madrid, the subplot is United attempting to clinch a record 19th league championship.

That would eclipse Liverpool, who with 18 titles currently stand alongside United, a situation that seemed impossible when Ferguson came south from Aberdeen in 1986.

It has led a number of Liverpool supporters to voice their desire for their team to lose, even though it would cost them what slender chance they still have of finishing in the Champions League places. But Ferguson cannot see that eventuality and is convinced Liverpool have too much to lose by not trying.

“I am confident they will do their maximum,” he said. “Great clubs don’t throw their history and traditions away for one game. They have been in 11 European finals. They have won 18 titles. That is a fantastic history. You don’t throw that away. The fans know that too. Do you think the fans want to go home saying their players capitulated and they didn’t try and thinking it wouldn’t happen again?”

There is a precedent. On the last day in 1995, United headed to West Ham knowing it would take a victory at Upton Park and a Liverpool win over Blackburn at Anfield to give them the title. Given that the Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish was the Blackburn manager, the situation was arguably even more complex. As it turned out, Liverpool did their job, but United were unable to capitalise.

“We were depending on Liverpool producing – and they did,” recalled Ferguson. “You have to earn a right to win the title. OK, there were a lot of English players in their team that day and they understood the history of Liverpool FC. But I don’t think there has been such a swing that the current players do not understand the history of Liverpool.”

They presumably also know they are tired, weary and unhappy given they slogged through 120 minutes last night before falling to Diego Forlán’s extra-time decider.

It leaves Rafael Benítez in a similar position to the one Ferguson found himself in when United crashed out of the Champions League at the hands of Bayern Munich. And it also gave the United manager a chance to air his long-held view about the Premier League not giving any assistance to clubs sidetracked by European commitments.

“It is difficult to say how Liverpool’s players will feel,” said Ferguson. “It is Rafa’s job to prepare his players. The way we lost to Bayern Munich gave me a difficult job to raise players. But you have to do it. That is your job. It took me a couple of days to get over it. But you can’t wallow in pity.

“I would totally agree that we would have preferred last night’s game to finish in 90 minutes and I have always said teams don’t get the proper help when they are in Europe. Having to play Sunday lunchtime after a Thursday game is not fair but it happens time and again when we see repeatedly teams abroad being allowed to bring games forward to suit their programme. That is a fact.

“They say there is congestion but it is not that big you can’t help a team by one day or a few hours. We have all had to cope with it over the years. You depend on the great resilience of the English player.”

For his part, Ferguson could have Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand back in contention after recent groin injuries, providing a welcome selection poser ahead of a visit to Wearside, where Sunderland have lost just twice in the league all season.

• Rooney and Ferdinand close to return from groin injuries
• Both could be in squad to face Sunderland on Sunday

Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand could both be fit for Manchester United’s trip to Sunderland on Sunday in what would be a huge boost to the club’s Premier League title hopes.

The duo have been struggling with groin injuries. Rooney, who also had an ankle problem, picked up his injury in training last week while Ferdinand aggravated his groin against Blackburn Rovers earlier this month.

“We expect Wayne to join us in training and possibly Rio Ferdinand as well,” Sir Alex Ferguson said today. “We will see how they do but we have a couple of days.

“Wayne missed last week’s game against Tottenham to allow the ankle to settle. We don’t have any issues with that now. Hopefully he is OK. Groin injuries can be a problem at this time of year when the grounds start to get firm but hopefully if he comes through today it gives us something to think about on Sunday.”

Rooney has scored 34 goals in all competitions this season for United, who are a point behind the league leaders, Chelsea, with two games to play. Chelsea travel to Liverpool in Sunday’s early kick-off.

Get 10 per cent off everything at United Direct this weekend.

Sir Alex has no doubt that Sunday’s game at Anfield will be keenly contested.

Nani scores the only goal as Manchester United overcame Sunderland to ensure the Premier League title race will go down to the final day of the season.

Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand could return for Manchester United at Sunderland on Sunday.


The pair have both been suffering from groin injuries, Rooney having aggravated the problem in training last week on top of the ankle injury he picked up during the second leg of the Champions League defeat to Bayern Munich, whilst Ferdinand suffered his at Blackburn earlier this month and has since missed two Barclays Premier League games.

Club captain Gary Neville has been handed a one-year contract extension.

Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand could return for the trip to the Stadium of Light.

Manchester United club captain Gary Neville, 35, signs a new one-year contract at Old Trafford.

• 35-year-old to spend a 19th year at Old Trafford
• Deal caps impressive return from long-term injury

Manchester United’s 35-year-old defender Gary Neville has signed a one-year contract extension at the club.

The 35-year-old defender joins his fellow veterans Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs in committing themselves to United until the end of next season, which will be Neville’s 19th at the club.

A week ago Neville insisted that he would not decide his future until the summer, but Sir Alex Ferguson said he was likely to stay at Old Trafford. “I think Gary will be here next season,” he said. “I don’t think we have spoken [about contracts]. I don’t think we have had any dialogue at the moment.”

Neville is currently organising a testimonial game, with a proposed fixture against Rangers in August yesterday vetoed by local police and council officials. He has been troubled by injury in recent seasons, appearing in only one game between March 2007 and August 2008, but his recent impressive performances have prompted speculation that he may be included by Fabio Capello in England’s World Cup squad.

“When you are out of the game in your 30s for a year and a half, for most players it is impossible to come back to the level he is now,” Ferguson said. “But he’s an incredible man, really incredible. I wouldn’t be surprised if he went to South Africa. It’s not my job to say that. It’s difficult enough for an international manager but I wouldn’t be surprised if he [Capello] chose him.”

Gary Neville has signed a one-year contract extension with Manchester United.


The 35-year-old defender joins his fellow old stagers Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs in committing themselves to Old Trafford until the end of next season.

Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney has been voted the 2010 Footballer of the Year by the Football Writers’ Association.


The 24-year-old topped the poll of journalists with just over 81% of a record votes cast, finishing ahead of Chelsea forward Didier Drogba and Manchester City’s Carlos Tevez to win the prestigious accolade which has been running since 1948.

England’s top football writers have had their say: Rooney lands FWA gong.

The Red Knights are expecting to get a 100 per cent take up of wealthy United fan investors buying into their plans for their bid to take over from the Glazers at Old Trafford.


But the final green light from the full 50-plus list of interested parties has been delayed because of the volcanic ash crisis that grounded flights recently for five days.

The Sun claims Wayne Rooney is ready to return for United at Sunderland.

Wayne Rooney picks up his second individual award of the season after being voted Football Writers Association footballer of the year.

Forlan scores at Anfield in a game that could impact on United’s title bid.

• United captain’s preferred testimonial opponents blocked
• Manchester police feared re-run of 2008 Uefa Cup riots

Manchester United have abandoned plans to invite Rangers to be the opposition for Gary Neville’s testimonial match because of objections from the police and council officials about supporters of the Glasgow club returning to the city where they rioted two years ago.

Neville’s representatives had asked United to approach Rangers because the presence of the Scottish champions would virtually guarantee a sellout crowd at Old Trafford. United then made what are described as “unofficial soundings” with the relevant authorities and were told in no uncertain terms that Rangers were probably the least desirable opponents.

The police, in particular, were alarmed about the prospect of tens of thousands of Glaswegians flooding into Manchester, citing the running battles that turned the city centre into a battleground on the night of the 2008 Uefa Cup final.

An estimated 150,000 Rangers travelled for the game against Zenit St Petersburg and trouble flared when a giant screen failed in the largest fan zone. Rioting fans went on the rampage for five hours, causing hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of damage and injuring one policeman so badly he needed six months off work. One Zenit fan was stabbed as the Russian team won 2-0. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, branded the fans “a disgrace” and the first minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, said the violence was “shocking and unacceptable”.

Two years on, there is still enough bad feeling in Manchester for the police to have concerns that there could be reprisal attacks if Rangers were to play again in the city and that it could be a magnet for football hooligans from different clubs. The bigger concern, however, was the prospect of another mass invasion of Rangers fans and United were informed that, for such a match to take place, it would require a huge policing operation. United also sounded out Manchester city council as well as the security firm that supplies the club’s match-day stewards and concluded that, aside from the risk of trouble, the costs of organising the match would take up too great a percentage of the ticket profits.

The club are looking at other possible opponents but Celtic have informed them they cannot fit the match into their schedule. United wait to see whether they are involved in the Community Shield before finalising a date to honour Neville, their 35-year-old defender.

Larnell Cole caps his first Reserves start with a last-gasp winner.

A teenage debutant sealed United’s win over the Black Cats back in 2005.

• Man United manager would have preferred busier week
• ‘We needed to put pressure on Chelsea and we have done’

Sir Alex Ferguson says watching this week’s Champions League semi-finals “has been absolute agony”. While the lack of a midweek fixture has allowed Manchester United more time to prepare for Sunday’s Premier League trip to Sunderland, there is no doubt their manager would have preferred a busier build-up.

“It has been absolute agony watching the matches,” he said. “But that is what happens when you are not in it. You have to watch it on TV.

“Undoubtedly not being in the Champions League helps our preparation for the weekend but I know what I would rather have. The ordeals of playing on a Wednesday and then a Saturday are exactly what you want here. We have got to have it.”

United will kick off at the Stadium of Light with a good idea about their chances of winning a record fourth successive league title. Barely 30 minutes before Ferguson’s side get under way in Sunderland, the final whistle will blow at Anfield where Chelsea face Liverpool.

Darren Fletcher is acutely aware of the favour United now require off their fierce rivals. “We are relying on a favour from another team, which is not the best position to be in, but we are coming into form,” said the United midfielder. “We had that week where things didn’t go well, against Blackburn and Bayern, and there was a real low in the squad. But we had to pick ourselves up. There was a conscious effort around the place not to feel sorry for ourselves. We couldn’t afford. We needed to put some pressure on Chelsea, which is what we have done.”