Former Middlesbrough manager Bryan Robson has quashed rumours there was a drinking culture at the Riverside during his reign.
Robson has been invited to take part in coaching session at Manchester United but has moved to defend his Boro record before speaking to Sir Alex Ferguson.
"To say that there were ever any drinking problems at Boro is absolute rubbish. It's an insult to the players," Robson told the Daily Express.
"Yes there were an isolated incidents involving alcohol, but nothing you don't get at any other club.
"A lot of attention was drawn to us when Paul Gascoigne would go into one of his depressions, and Paul Merson left suggesting that there was a drinking culture.
"But Merson had problems of his own and maybe it suited him to say what he did as a way of getting himself back further south. The rest of it is rubbish, simple as that. My conscience is clear, completely clear, on how I handled the job and the players".
"How can players, some of them who have spent five out of six seasons in the Premiership and got to three cup finals, be portrayed as a bunch of drinkers?
"I just dismiss as total rubbish that the ethics of the club under me were the wrong ones, that there was some sort of drinking culture. And I do so not on my behalf but on behalf of the players left behind, as that is as much of a slur on their reputations as it is on mine".
PA