SAF: Heinze, Saha & Spurs
Independent: Whether it is a good time or not to be playing a Manchester United side without a win this season – and missing Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo – Tottenham Hotspur will find Sir Alex Ferguson in combative mood at Old Trafford today; an emotion he is likely to have transmitted to his players.
Certainly no prisoners were taken when he met the media to discuss the game, with Gabriel Heinze’s advisers, Michel Platini and the evil empire of Anfield all receiving both barrels. But there was only sympathy for Martin Jol in his current predicament at Spurs.
Understandably peeved at losing a player of Heinze’s ability, albeit to European rivalsin Real Madrid rather than domestic ones in Liverpool, Ferguson revealed the background to regular attempts by the Argentinian’s agents to create disruption after his first, excellent season for the club.
According to United’s manager, the day before Heinze sustained a bad injury at Villar-real, his agent asked the club to sell him. “Meanwhile his agents kept having meetings with [chief executive] David Gill, asking to [let him] leave, or double his money,” Ferguson said. “So whatever happened in the last few months was only a culmination of the drip-drip-drip effect you get when you deal with agents. Absolutely one thing in mind, to make money themselves. They wanted him to be the top-paid player in Manchester United, which is absolutely ridiculous given the quality of players as forwards.”
At a Premier League tribunallast week, rumours emerged of a plan for Heinze to be sold to the unlikely destination of Crystal Palace and then moved on to Liverpool, which United are convinced Liverpool must have been aware of. “We are looking into Liverpool’s role and will take it as far as it goes,” added Ferguson, whose relationship with Rafa Benitez has been seriously impaired by the affair.
There was short shrift too for Platini, the new Uefa chairman, and his proposal to award the fourth English Champions’ League place to the FA Cup winners. Ferguson’s argument, which he will put to a Europeancoaches’ meeting this week, was that winning the Cup is sometimes not much of an achievement: “You can win the FA Cup like Chelsea did last season by playing nobody up until the semi-finals, when they met Blackburn. Does that warrant a place in the Champions’ League? We got Millwall in the final a few years ago and no disrespect to them, but what a final that was for us to get. I think it’s totally ridiculous. It devalues the Champions’ League. Teams have battled through 38 games in a tough League.”
An unexpectedly tough opening three matches have yielded two points and one goal forUnited, yet they have had more shots and corners than any other side. “A bizarre game and a bizarre result,” was the manager’s summing up of last Sunday’s 1-0 defeat by Manchester City: “I mean, there’s not been a derby game in the history of this world where the home team didn’t get a corner kick. Not even when I was playing with Rangers against Celtic! In terms of goals scored it’s an easy criticism. But if you look at the other side of it, the number of chances missed, and comparing last season’s opening three games, we have had twice the number of chances. I’ll ride along with it, I’ll be patient with it, because the performance level is very, very good.”
What he cannot deny, how-ever, is that those games last season yielded 10 goals, and that Ronaldo, Rooney and Louis Saha, who contributed five between them, are being missed. Circumstances are hardly ideal for integrating Carlos Tevez into the side, and as television pundits have pointed out after every game, shots and crosses are being whipped across the opponents’ six-yard area with no natural striker there to turn them in, as was happening a year ago.
The absence of Ledley King, Michael Dawson and the powerful French newcomer Younes Kaboul from Tottenham’s def-ensive heart will offer further opportunities this afternoon, so Saha should be among the substitutes at least. “He gives us options because he is a different striker to what we have,” Ferguson said. “He’s got two great feet, he’s good in the air, he’s got an athletic presence. You look at last season and in the first half he was terrific, got us 15 goals up to the beginning of December, and if he had stayed fit he would maybe have got us 30 goals.”
As for Jol, his United counterpart will offer solidarity along with the red wine today. “Knee-jerk reactions don’t just come from the board. In modern-day football you get these guys, hangers-on, who mix with the directors and they all have a voice and put the seed in.
“When I came down here, they had what they called the ’second board’ who used to meet in the grill room in Old Trafford on a Monday afternoon and assess the results and get the axe out for Ferguson. That was the kind of rubbish I had to deal with.”
…
Times: Into each life some rain must fall. Into the existences of strikers, however, there inevitably invades drought. No forward is immune, and Sir Alex Ferguson knows perfectly well what it is to become parched. Towards the end of a playing career marked by steady scoring for every side he represented, Ferguson experienced a sudden crisis, netting just once in his final season at Falkirk in 1972-73. Determined not to finish in that way, he joined Ayr United, where he fought back to sprinkle his last playing campaign with goals, struck at the respectable rate of almost one every other game.
The Manchester United manager is hoping those in his charge will show similar character now. One hesitates to dignify through usage that Iain Dowie invention “bouncebackability”, but after Tottenham’s week and United’s timid start in defence of their Premier League title, it is the theme at Old Trafford today. Resilience is key. For Spurs it is required of their man in the dugout. For United, those in Tottenham’s penalty box.
Carlos Tevez, whose scarred neck is due to a scalding accident when he was a toddler which resulted in a two-month stint in intensive care, has always been a fighter. He was at West Ham for six months before scoring his first goal for the club, but it was a choice one, a free kick flighted so confidently past the goalkeeper, you would have sworn he had been scoring hat-tricks every week. Spurs were the opposition, but the Argentinian should not need the sight of the white shirts for a prompt. The sense that he owes his new club should be sufficient to fuel a determined performance. For profligate United in the Manchester derby, Tevez was wastrel-in-chief.
Their failure to score at Eastlands took the record of Ferguson’s team to a bone-dry two goals in its past eight competitive games – and one of those was a penalty. The run is curious given that preceding the sequence, which started with a scoreless trip to Milan in the Champions League, United had scored 21 times in six games and were on course to break the modern scoring record for an English team in a single season.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s suspension and Wayne Rooney’s metatarsal injury are not excuses, for Ferguson has just spent in the region of £40m on fattening his forward options, with Tevez among the recruits.
“Tevez did well against City, but he tired in the last 20 minutes and that’s a result of the adrenaline going from his first game at Portsmouth, when he was fantastic,” Ferguson said. “I think it was just a bizarre game and a bizarre result. You can’t judge Manchester United in those circumstances.”
It is always tricky accepting it when the manager of any team that has dominated a match but failed to score pleads misfortune. Nobody thinks misplaced passing is unlucky, so why are misplaced shots?
It is hard not to sympathise with Ferguson, however, given that the derby was the third consecutive match in which United’s overall football has been excellent and something unusual has happened against their favour to influence the result.
Last Sunday it was Geovanni’s deflected shot for City’s goal. “We are missing chances,” admitted Ferguson, “and in terms of goals scored it’s easy to criticise us, but if you look at the other side of it, the number of chances made and the comparison with last season’s first three games [United scored 10 goals] we had almost twice the number of chances [this season].
“I’ll ride along with it. I’ll be patient, because the performance level is very, very good. I mean, there’s not been a derby game in the history of the world where the home team didn’t get a corner kick. Not even when I was playing with Rangers against Celtic.”
The last comment was a joke. Ferguson’s spell at Rangers coincided with the greatest period in Celtic’s history and the Lisbon Lions won the European Cup, never mind corner kicks. But he can afford to be mirthful because experience allows it.
The last time United started a campaign without a win in their first three games was 1992-93. They had blown the title against Leeds the previous season and were still chasing their first since decimalisation.
“We hadn’t won the league back in 92-93, so we were in unknown territory and we actually conceded the first ever goal in the Premier League at Sheffield United in our first game, so that was a right good start. Then we lost to Everton at home and drew with Ipswich. Our first result was a win at Southampton, and you have to get that first result quickly. After that, the consistency came,” Ferguson recalled.
“We lost Dion Dublin but got Eric Cantona. He was the catalyst because he brought the confidence and arrogance to our play and more or less opened the door for us. I think we’d probably have won the title, but he made certain of it. It was a much bigger crisis back then.”
United moved on Friday to dismiss claims by Dimitar Berbatov’s agent they want to sign Spurs’ Bulgarian striker, and Ferguson confirmed that there will be no attempt to effect a transformation through a Cantona-like capture during this transfer window. “I don’t think there’s anything in the market for us,” he said. In any case, a French striker has just been added to his options.
United did their best attacking last season when they had a strong central striker playing right up against the last line of defence. Between January and March it was Henrik Larsson; in the 7-1 thrashing of Roma it was Alan Smith; and during the first half of the campaign, it was Louis Saha. Saha’s subsequent struggles with injuries exasperated Ferguson, who wondered if the most fragile thing about the player might be not his body but his mind, yet a fit and committed Saha would always be welcome.
“He’s trained well in the past couple of weeks,” said Ferguson, who also revealed that Ander-son, United’s close-season signing from Porto, is in contention to play. “If Louis feels good about himself, he will be involved [against Spurs]. I don’t think he’ll be fit enough to start, he’ll probably be on the bench. He gives us options because he’s a different type of striker to what we have. He has explosive feet, an athletic presence and is good in the air. In the first half of last season he was terrific. He got us about 15 goals up to the beginning of December, and if he’d stayed fit, he’d maybe have got us 30 goals.”
United, with a clean sheet, would settle for just one today.
Heinze ‘too greedy’
SIR ALEX FERGUSON says “ridiculous” wage demands were the reason for Gabriel Heinze’s exit from Manchester United. He claims the defender wanted his salary doubled to about £120,000 per week after returning from injury at the 2006 World Cup – more than Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney. The left-back finally joined Real Madrid last week after failing in a legal attempt to force a move to Liverpool.
United’s goal drought
Since beating Everton 4-2 on April 28, the last time they scored more than once in a match, United have managed just three goals in nine games
May 2 AC Milan 3 Man Utd 0 CL May 5 Man City 0 Man Utd 1 PL May 9 Chelsea 0 Man Utd 0 PL May 13 West Ham 1 Man Utd 0 PL May 19 Chelsea 1 Man Utd 0 FA Aug 5 Man Utd 1 Chelsea 1 CS Aug 12 Man Utd 0 Reading 0 PL Aug 15 Portsmouth 1 Man Utd 1 PL Aug 19 Man City 1 Man Utd 0 PL
Inside track
Howard Webb has refereed United seven times in the Premier League, booking seven different players in that time In the past 12 meetings between the sides, United have won 10 and drawn two. Premier League matches between the sides have produced 80 goals Les Ferdinand, Chris Armstrong and Sol Campbell are Spurs’ leading scorers in the fixture with just three goals apiece Tottenham have scored just once in their past seven visits to Old Trafford. United have taken 39 from 45 points in this fixture at Old Trafford, and 71 from 90 in total Away from home last season, Spurs fell behind 12 times and managed to win only one of those games
