SAF: No One Is Safe …
Mirror: SIR ALEX Ferguson has assembled his finest Manchester United squad since the Treble-winning season of 1999, but yesterday he warned his world-class stars that none of them is untouchable.
As he paraded new signings Owen Hargreaves and Nani at United’s training ground and prepared to take his summer spending through the £70million barrier with the imminent arrival of Carlos Tevez, Fergie understandably was in upbeat mood.
His normally ruddy complexion soothed by the residue of his summer tan, the customary scowl was absent as Fergie exuded the air of a confident man, one who knows he has left his managerial rivals floundering with his formidable summer spending spree.
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The pursuit of a second Champions League triumph and another potential Treble is what is keeping the 65-year-old Scot at the United helm after 21 years, and with the acquisitions of Hargreaves, Nani, Anderson and Tevez, he will never have a better chance. United went close to another Treble last season, clinching the Premiership on the penultimate weekend of the campaign but losing to AC Milan in the semi-finals of the Champions League and then coming off second best to Chelsea in the FA Cup Final.
Fergie admitted that his squad lacked sufficient strength in depth last season, which meant the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney were not allowed a rest throughout and were subsequently shot to pieces by the business end of the campaign.
The United boss is determined not to suffer the same again, and the new arrivals will ensure the likes of Rooney, Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes will get the rest they need as Fergie rotates his squad like never before. As such, no-one’s place is guaranteed.
“Maybe our downfall last season was that when we got into the final part of the season, we just didn’t have enough in the squad to handle all the competitions we were in,” said Fergie.
“But now we have a very strong squad and the evidence of last year tells us that we need a stronger squad with the number of games there are.
“Yes, it’s going to take management. But I think players understand today quite clearly that in order to challenge for everything you do need a strong squad and it means that they don’t play all the games.
“No-one will play all the games next year and hopefully they accept that and move on to the business of trying to achieve success for us.
“In the 1990s we rotated our squad very well. Last season we were involved in the three tournaments - the final of the FA Cup, the semifinal of the European Cup as well as the Premiership - and had a great opportunity in front of us. But we just didn’t have enough bodies to stretch our squad out and save legs where we could have saved legs. We got a lot of injuries all in the space of a few weeks near the end of the season.
“We lost Mikael Silvestre, Gary Neville and Ji-Sung Park for the rest of the season, Nemanja Vidic was out until the last couple of games, Patrice Evra was also injured, Rio Ferdinand had a groin problem and Louis Saha missed the second half of the season.
“In that situation I regretted allowing the young players to stay out on loan. If I’d been selfish and kept them we would have had a far better chance - a terrific chance - of getting to the final of the European Cup and winning the FA Cup.
While last season’s title success - United’s first for four seasons - proved Fergie is still the man to lead the world’s biggest club after 21 years in charge, his solitary success in the European Cup is what continues to drive him on.
“You’re forced to challenge for the Premier League, because it’s such a competitive league and a really tribal situation,” said Fergie. “You’re forced to compete against areas of England that makes it a tribal war in a way. But without question, when talking about the profile of this club, we should have done better in Europe. Last season was the third Champions League semifinal we’ve failed in.
“We don’t like that, we think we should be doing better, and signing the kind of players we have gives us a bigger chance.
“It brings us quality and experience of Europe. It brings us good intensity of play. I’m very hopeful we can do better this season.”
UNITED’S BIG SUMMER SIGNINGS
2001: Juan Sebastian Veron (left) £28m, Ruud van Nistelrooy (right) £19.1m
2002: Rio Ferdinand £29m
2003: Cristiano Ronaldo £12.24m, Kleberson £7m, Tim Howard £2.5m, Eric Djemba-Djemba £4m
2004: Wayne Rooney £27m, Gabriel Heinze £7m, Alan Smith £7m
2005: Ji-Sung Park £4m, Edwin van der Sar £2m, Ben Foster £1m
2006: Michael Carrick £18.6m, Tomasz Kuszczak £4m
2007: Owen Hargreaves £17m, Anderson £19m, Nani £16m
Big enough to have two first teams
Team one
FIRST FIRST TEAM 4-3-3
Team two
SECOND FIRST TEAM 4-4-2
WITH his summer spending set to pass £70m barrier with the arrival of Carlos Tevez, Sir Alex Ferguson effectively now has two first-teams at his disposal. Fergie said a lack of numbers cost United the chance of a Treble last term, but with no departures as yet this summer, he has options and can rest his star names for the really big games.
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Guardian: There are still 33 days to go before his side launch the defence of their title yet Sir Alex Ferguson has already begun the mind games. The Manchester United manager yesterday took an dig at his rivals Jose Mourinho and Arsène Wenger, the managers of Chelsea and Arsenal, who have been forced to play second fiddle to United and Liverpool in the transfer market.
“I thought there would be more spending,” said Ferguson, sitting alongside Owen Hargreaves, his £17m investment from Bayern Munich and Nani, who cost a combined £30m when joining from Sporting Lisbon along with Porto’s Anderson. That was without his intended investment in Carlos Tevez, with Ferguson saying United were on the brink of completing a deal for the Argentinian striker.
“There is a lot of money in the Premier League because of the television so I probably expected more to be spent. The thing about doing the business with two young players like Nani and Anderson is great timing for us. They won’t play every game next season, but they will play a lot of games and it gives us a future.”
Ferguson also took the opportunity describe his squad for next season as one of the best in Europe and said that no one in the side was “untouchable”, an apparent reference to Mourinho’s comment last December that nine of his first team were “untouchables” who could not be dropped.
“In the 90s we rotated our squad very well,” he added. “Last season we were involved in the three tournaments - the final of the FA Cup, the semi-final of the European Cup as well as the league.
“We had a great opportunity [to win the treble] but we just didn’t have enough bodies to stretch our squad out and save legs where we could have saved legs. In that situation I sort of regretted allowing the young players to stay out on loan.
“If I had been selfish and kept them we would have had a far better chance of getting to the final of the European Cup and a good chance of winning the FA Cup.” He insisted, though, that none of his players could be guaranteed a place.
“No one will play all the games next year and hopefully they accept that and move on to the business of trying to achieve success for us.”
Ferguson said that negotiations had been taking place with Tevez over the past month with United believed to have agreed to pay £6m for a loan deal over two years plus wages of £90,000-a-week, with an option to buy the player outright for £20m in 2009.
The Premier League has said any money from the deal must go to West Ham although United had expected to pay the money to Kia Joorabchian and the two companies that had brought Tevez to England, Media Sports Investments and Just Sports Inc.
The Premier League yesterday said it had not heard from either West Ham or Joorabchian. Tevez is currently involved in the Copa America. Ferguson said United were following the example set by Liverpool when they signed Tevez’s compatriot Javier Mascherano from West Ham on an 18-month loan at the end of which they have the option to buy the player permanently.
“We followed that procedure set by Liverpool, but I thought it would have all been sorted by the weekend just gone. It must be the Premier League that is holding it up.”
He added: “I don’t know the intricacies about it, I’ve left that to Maurice Watkins, the club solicitor. He’s dealing with that, but I’m sure that the outcome will be that we will be taking him with complete transparency in the deal, with no suspicions and nothing dodgy about it.
“There is no way that we can be involved in anything underhand at all and Maurice has been working on it for a month, maybe more, to make sure the deal is perfectly clear as far as we are concerned and that we take him with no side issues to it.”
