ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE:ALEX FERGUSON has stated that reclaiming the Premier League title is "priority number one" for Manchester United. The club will begin the challenge of overhauling Manchester City when they kick off their campaign at Everton on August 20th, and Ferguson should have his captain, Nemanja Vidic, back from serious knee injury.
United play the opening match of pre-season against AmaZulu in Durban tomorrow and Ferguson said: “After the disappointment of last year we want to recover the title. We either win the title or come second, it’s an important part of the history of our club over the last 20 years. We have to recover, as we’ve done many times. That’s our target this year.
“Priority number one is to win the title back. When Arsenal won the title from us in 1998 we won the treble the next year. Then Chelsea came along and got off to a flyer in the league for the first two years [in 2005 and 2006], so we changed our pre-season a little to make sure we got off to quick starts. Recovery is so important and the same applies this season.”
Ferguson is embarking on a tricky pre-season, the challenges of which include negotiating a five-nation tour that covers 22,000 miles – including South Africa, China, Norway, Sweden and Germany – and a squad that is scattered due to injury, rehabilitation and London 2012 commitments.
Ryan Giggs, Tom Cleverley, David de Gea and Rafael da Silva are all involved with their respective countries at the Olympics and the manager is likely to be without Jonny Evans because of an ankle injury for the start of the league season.
While Darren Fletcher’s chronic bowel complaint has left his career in jeopardy, there is better news for Ferguson as Vidic and Chris Smalling, who is recovering from a groin problem, should be available for Everton.
“Vidic will start the season, I am sure of that,” Ferguson said. “He [Smalling] is gradually progressing and I expect him to start the season.”
Ferguson has a number of his younger players in the squad in South Africa and he compared these, who include Republic of Ireland under-21 international Robbie Brady and Jesse Lingard, to United’s famous homegrown wave led by David Beckham, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes: “When I first started picking the young players, we played Port Vale in a League Cup game and an MP from Stoke protested to the government, saying we were cheating the public and they wanted their money back,” said Ferguson.
“Little did she know she was watching perhaps the greatest group of young players to come through at a football club in England. The same applies here.”
Rio Ferdinand made 38 appearances for United last season and the defender is hopeful he can repeat that this campaign after managing to get a chronic back condition under control. “Last season, thanks to the physios and sports science team, I felt I managed my back really well. Long may that continue,” he said.
Ferdinand paid tribute to the selflessness of Nelson Mandela as South Africa prepares to celebrate their former president’s 94th birthday.
So inspiring does Ferdinand find the story of how Mandela fought apartheid, then spent 27 years in prison before he was released and won the country’s first fully representative democratic election, that he feels it should be taught in schools.
“Mandela was selfless,” he said. “He gave up the majority of his life for everybody else. In today’s society you see so much selfishness and me, me, me. But he gave up himself for a whole nation to make huge strides forward.
“He is someone any young kid now should be learning and writing about within the national curriculum. In today’s world, there could be no better inspiration from one human being.”
Guardian Service
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