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Manchester United are closing in on a summer deal for Tottenham centre-forward Dimitar Berbatov.
The News of the World says United boss Sir Alex Ferguson plans to use Louis Saha as bait to prise the Bulgaria international away from White Hart Lane.
Berbatov, 26, revealed United made an “unconvincing” move to sign him prior to his £10.9million Spurs switch.
But this time the bidding could even go as high as £16m as Fergie looks to beef up a strike-force which most believe is one quality striker short.
Saha, 28, is valued at £6m and a United source revealed: “Berbatov is the one Fergie wants and he’d be ready to let Louis go.
“Pairing Wayne Rooney with Dimitar would be incredible and the money is there - as well as for Owen Hargreaves’ Bayern Munich switch.”
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Sampdoria have asked Manchester United for young striker Giuseppe Rossi during talks over Fabio Quagliarella. Gazzetta dello Sport says United have stepped up negotiations for Quagliarella, who is co-owned by Sampdoria and Udinese.
Samp want £10 million for Quagliarella and have raised the possibility of Rossi being included in the deal. The youngster has starred on-loan at Parma in the second-half of this season.
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Sky: Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has been ruled out of next week’s UEFA Champions League clash with Milan because of injury.
Ferdinand picked up a recurrence of the groin strain he sustained in last weekend’s FA Cup semi-final with Watford during United’s 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough at Old Trafford on Saturday.
The England defender was forced off at half-time with the problem and United boss Sir Alex Ferguson confirmed after the game that Ferdinand faces up to two weeks on the sidelines.
“The injuries killed us in the first half. I was hoping to get to halftime to get Rio off,” Ferguson told Sky Sports 1. “Rio was limping, he just couldn’t get to it.Maybe if I’d taken him off it would have been OK. It is not a long-term problem. At the very worst he will be out for two weeks.”
It means that Ferdinand will miss Tuesday’s semi-final first leg against Milan as well as next weekend’s Premiership clash at Everton and the return leg with Milan in Italy.
United will be hoping Ferdinand will recover in time to face Manchester City on 5th May. The news is another blow to United who have seen their defensive options ravaged by injuries in the last few weeks.
Ferdinand joins the likes of Gary Neville and Nemanja Vidic on the sidelines leaving United with a makeshift defence for some crucial games coming up.
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Sunday Mirror: GORDON Strachan has told the Manchester United players: Stop Kaka and you’ll become legends - just like your manager.
The Celtic boss believes stifling the AC Milan star is the key to overcoming the Italians in the Champions League semi-final - and winning the Treble for the second time in eight years.
Strachan, whose Hoops have played both sides in Europe’s premier competition this season, thinks Sir Alex Ferguson’s men definitely have the edge over the Rossoneri.
He said: “Manchester United are a far more exciting team than AC Milan. It will be a close-run thing but United have got the players to do it. But AC Milan have got an incredible determination not to be beaten. That’s what really struck me in our tie with them.
“Most of all, though, they’ve got Kaka. He is their matchwinner - he’s two-footed, he’s really quick and he’s lethal. But if United do their homework on him, and on Pirlo’s free-kicks, which I’m sure they will do, they’ll go through to the final.” The ex-Old Trafford star has had his differences with Ferguson in the past - but he bows to no man in his admiration of his fellow Scot’s achievements in the game.
Strachan said: “Fergie is a legend. If you look at any team that has picked up Trebles, they’ve always done it with legendary managers. I definitely think United can win all three trophies.
“I’m not sure if they’re better than the side who did it in 1999, but they’ve got the two things you need to win the Treble - a legendary manager and an incredible squad.
“Look at how they smashed Roma in the quarter-finals. Roma were doing brilliantly in Serie A but United played magical football that night.
“Nobody can stop Ronaldo at the moment. I can see him doing really well against Milan.”
Kaka is top scorer in the Champions League this season with seven goals and it was his extra-time winner which knocked out brave Celtic at the San Siro. But Strachan, who took the Scottish champions to the last 16 of the competition for the first time in the club’s history - a run which included a shock win over United in the group stage - insists he is not in the least bit envious.
He said: “There is a song called It Could Have Been Me, about a girl watching a wedding saying it should have been her getting married. But I don’t think that, not at all.
“We did as well as we could against both AC Milan and Man United. We narrowly lost at Old Trafford and beat them at our place. And Kaka did us in Milan. There was a handball involving Paolo Maldini when we were denied a penalty. But to beat teams like that we need more quality.
“AC Milan have a lot of stars but they are good athletes, physically very strong. I think they will play with one striker at Old Trafford on Tuesday. “It will probably be Filippo Inzaghi. He can doing nothing at all for 89 minutes then suddenly he scores a goal.
“I think they’ll play with Kaka and three strong midfield players behind him. They will try to smother United in midfield.” Strachan, however, dismissed suggestions that Carlo Ancelotti’s outfit would be desperate to restore Italian pride following the Reds’ 7-1 walloping of Roma.
He said: “They will be looking it from an AC Milan point of view only. People say they have an ageing defence but it is a very experienced defence. They won’t be as exposedas Roma, that’s for sure.”
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Sky: Manchester United chief Sir Alex Ferguson has warned Milan that they will face a team of men rather than boys next week.
Two years ago Milan knocked United out of the UEFA Champions League, but as the two prepare to face each other again next week - Ferguson feels the Italians could get a shock.
“Players such as Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo were not ready for those kind of nights and found it difficult against experienced and accomplished opponents,” Ferguson told the Sun.
“As far as a lot of the players were concerned in that tie they were just setting out on a learning curve in Europe.
“How different they looked in the 7-1 win over Roma - boys had become men. It was a maturity that has developed through the squad.”
Rooney too admits that he and many of his team-mates have progressed in a big way. “The difference now is me and the other young lads have matured,” Rooney said. “In some games we realise now that you have to be more disciplined and can’t score at every opportunity.
“We’ve started doing that more this season, whereas in the past two we’d maybe been a little naive and tried to score every time we went forward. I think we’ve grown up as a team in the big games.
“This is still a young team, and the experience of the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville has been invaluable.
“They have been through it all so all the young ones listen to them when they are talking and giving advice.
“You can’t afford to be complacent in any game, but we understand our roles and our jobs, and what we have to do to have a chance of winning the league. Hopefully we can do that going into the last few games.
“We’ve been at the top for a while and have never been either over- confident or naive about it. We know we have to do our jobs right, and so far it’s been really good.
“Hopefully that can carry on. It’s in our hands and it’d be a shame if we didn’t take advantage of it.”
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Sir Alex Ferguson has urged his Manchester United team not to feel sorry for themselves after their 1-1 home draw with Middlesbrough.
Mark Viduka’s injury-time header at the end of the first half guaranteed a well-deserved point for the visitors, which leaves Chelsea knowing a win at Newcastle on Sunday will see them cut the gap on United at the top to a single point.
With a potential decider between the top two looming at Stamford Bridge on May 9, suddenly the championship trophy is not entirely in United’s hands any more.
But, after detecting signs of negativity as his side tried and failed to find a winner, Ferguson has told them to lift their spirits.
“We must not feel sorry for ourselves,” said the Scot. “It looked like we were a little bit in the second half but this is not a time for that.
“The history of our club is that we make it hard for ourselves anyway and we are back to square one.
“The game at Chelsea was always going to be critical and the door is open to them now.
“We always knew if we made mistakes they have got the ability to come back. It is a big task now.”
United’s prospects are not made any easier by chronic injury list which got even longer as Rio Ferdinand was ruled out for another two weeks after suffering a recurrence of the groin injury he picked up against Watford last week.
Ferdinand signalled to the bench he was injured just before he was beaten to Stewart Downing’s near-post cross by Viduka.
“Their goal just before half-time was a killer,” said Ferguson. “If Rio had been fit we might not have given it away.It is not a long-term problem. At the very worst he will be out for two weeks.
“Effectively, we are operating with 12 players. We have even lost young Craig Cathcart for the season when he got injured earlier this week.”
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Sunday Mirror: SIR ALEX FERGUSON believes Manchester United’s Champions League showdown with AC Milan will be decided by a shoot-out between the world’s two best players.
The Premiership leaders face the Italians at Old Trafford in the first leg on Tuesday night, with Ferguson promising a skill-fest between United’s quickstepping king Cristiano Ronaldo and Milan’s mercurial Brazilian Kaka.
Ferguson said: “On present form I would say that Ronaldo and Kaka are currently the two best players in the world.
“Ronaldo has been fantastic for us this season, while Kaka is a great talent. “There are other wonderful players on both sides, but Ronaldo and Kaka do stand out.”
United were knocked out by the Italians two years ago, losing 1-0 at Old Trafford before losing by the same score at the San Siro.
But Ferguson’s team hammered Roma 7-1 two weeks ago to secure an 8-3 quarterfinal success.
And he added: “The one thing I can promise Milan is that they will be facing a much better team than the last time they played us - and I am also hoping that they aren’t as good as they were on that occasion. “The key or me is that we don’t lose a goal on our own ground.
“This time of the season you look for signs from players. I haven’t seen any bad signs so far.
There is great banter around the place, the atmosphere in the dressing room is fantastic. The team know that they have the skills, they know they can play great football.
“But what we have also got is a real determination to fight things through as well. That. for me, is really good. “Once you get that smell of success then that togetherness comes.”
Meanwhile, Ferguson knows who to blame if Rino Gattuso inspires AC Milan to victory over United.
Fergie need look no further than his old mate and former assistant Walter Smith, now in charge of Scotland. Smith was Rangers boss when Gattuso spent a year there on loan and the World Cup winner insisted:
“Walter is the best coach I’ve worked with. He was a second father to me and a great teacher. I learned so much from him that’s still in my head. My stay with Rangers was the makings of me as a player - and I met my wife Monica there!”
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Times: I could explain it but I willnae bother,” Sir Alex Ferguson said with a smile. How did he dump Europe’s most prolific striker and make Manchester United more deadly? “He kicked my soul,” said Ruud van Nistelrooy about being jettisoned, but Ferguson does not wish to put the boot in. In any case, all those footballs thudding into opponents’ nets speak louder than explanations.
Van Nistelrooy, nine months after being sold to Real Madrid, is already but an Old Trafford memory. He scored 150 times in 219 games for United but goal output is higher without him. “I think it’s the flow of the football and the speed at which we’re playing that’s created so many chances,” is all Ferguson will say of what has changed. “They’re all weighing in with their share. Cristiano Ronaldo, 21 goals, Wayne Rooney, 20, Louis Saha 13, Ole Gunnar [Solskjaer], 11. I mean, that’s quite good, that. We’ve had 19 different goalscorers — 19 is very high.”
When AC Milan met United in 2005 they could concentrate on one man. Then, Van Nistelrooy was returning after three months out and his comeback was supposed to tip the balance of the tie, but Alessandro Nesta policed him and he missed chances in both legs as United exited without scoring. It is perfectly imaginable that Milan might prevail again, but a repeat of United going goalless over three hours is extremely hard to conceive.
“When you’ve got one scorer the whole team looks to and he goes through a bad patch, what do you rely on?” said Frank Stapleton, the former United striker. “Last time Milan could pick up Van Nistelrooy but, now, who do they try and stop? If Cristiano Ronaldo’s marked, Paul Scholes will score. If Wayne Rooney’s off form, there’s Ryan Giggs. Alan Smith, Louis Saha and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer can get goals. Sheffield United went manto-man against the entire United forward line and Michael Carrick came from midfield to score.”
Carrick exemplifies how Ferguson’s squad are spurting goals. In eight years with West Ham and Tottenham he scored eight times. In nine months at United he has already struck on six occasions. It is down to Ferguson’s positive mien. Previous managers saw Carrick as purely a holding midfielder but Ferguson perceived something more.
Noting the beautifully clean way Carrick strikes a football, his long stride and appreciation of space, he felt there no reason why the player could not time a run forward and threaten with accurate shooting. Ferguson also remembered the young Carrick his scouts tracked when he was a teenage striker for Wallsend Boys Club. “We knew him as a schoolboy in Newcastle when he was a gangly kid,” said Ferguson, “He went to West Ham and was just a big skin-and-bones player, but you could see he had talent. At Tottenham you could see more improvement and last summer he’d come to that age, 25, when I just felt it was a good time to get him. He’s physically matured and done a lot of work on his strength with our people. In the last few weeks he’s been sensational. There’s no doubt success develops people.”
Carrick is one of several United players enjoying their best scoring seasons. Ronaldo and Rooney are others. United have hit the net more than 1,900 times under Ferguson but never at a better goals-per-game rate. They are on course to score more times in a campaign than any top division club since Tottenham in 1962-63. The fast and fluent football Ferguson feels is responsible was not achieved with Van Nistelrooy who, rather than interchange with colleagues, took up fixed positions, and whose link-up play, while proficient, was plodding. “The bottom line is, was he a team player?
“You’d say ‘no’ in the pure sense. It doesn’t mean he didn’t try and by scoring 30 goals per season he did his job, so you can’t criticise him, but the team looks better without him,” said Stapleton. “Look how the players rotate. Any one of six can play in the centre-forward position and all United’s attackers mix it up. Van Nistelrooy rarely moved out of the centre and had a set style: play off someone and get on the end of things.
“Now players move naturally. You see Rooney wide and Ronaldo in the middle, then vice versa. Giggs back in midfield, then Solskjaer.”
Ferguson believes camaraderie to be a factor. He spoke of “the friendships that have developed between players, forged through the team growing together over the last few years”. With Scholes suspended and Saha unlikely to be fit on Tuesday, his squad’s ability to cover for one another will be tested. A home first leg offers the opportunity to control the tie. It is an occasion for more scoring. “We created chances [in 2005] and we’ll create chances again,” said Ferguson. “The vital question is will we take them? If you don’t, at this level, you’ve only yourself to blame. But if we win on our own ground without conceding a goal we’ll be hard to beat.” He’s confident his team are two years stronger, two years wiser.
Ferguson ticked off a reporter who forgot to add the Champions League final to United’s number of remaining games, but when asked if he would prefer winning another English or European title, he was all humility. “The thing is not to be greedy in life. If I won the league I’d be delighted. If I won the Champions League I’d be delighted. If you win a big trophy nowadays, you’ve got to be happy. I’m no going to be greedy.”
Van Nistelrooy was and that was his problem. Without him United gorge on goals.
