ALEX FERGUSON has claimed that Manchester United’s sudden slump might have done them a favour when it comes to the final two months of the season.
The manager feels his players were getting caught up in the talk of going for a clean sweep of all five trophies and had allowed complacency to creep in.
“We have had to listen to all this nonsense about how magnificent we are,” Ferguson said. “I am trying to dampen things down, trying to dismiss all the talk about five trophies. That job has been done for me by the Fulham result [a 2-0 defeat].
“What it’s done is get rid of all that nonsense about us being untouchable and unbeatable, all that stuff I’ve had to try to dampen down. We’ve been done a favour now.
“We can concentrate on playing football now instead of reading about how good we are in the newspapers. There’s never been a game won in a newspaper yet.”
Ferguson has never been known to chastise reporters for being too congratulatory, but the United manager believes a misplaced sense of invincibility might have contributed to their 4-1 thrashing at home to Liverpool and the defeat at Fulham, a performance he described as “terrible”.
Those losses have cut United’s lead at the top of the table from seven points to one and Liverpool will overtake them if they draw or win at Fulham today.
Ferguson’s men will then have two games in hand and take on Aston Villa at Old Trafford tomorrow, but Wayne Rooney, Paul Scholes and Nemanja Vidic are all suspended, while Ferguson reported that Dimitar Berbatov’s ankle injury might keep him out for another fortnight.
Carlos Tevez is United’s only available striker and was not due to arrive back from Argentina’s 6-1 defeat in Bolivia until 4pm yesterday. Ferguson said it felt like the Argentinian had been on Mars.
In the circumstances, the United manager believes the club were right to switch the game from a lunchtime kick-off today to 4pm tomorrow, even though they have a Champions League quarter-final against FC Porto on Tuesday.
“If we had to play on Saturday we had to play at lunchtime [for Sky], which is crazy,” he said. “As usual, television don’t do us any favours. We have spoken about it time and again and there’s nothing we can do. But there was no way I was going to play on Saturday lunchtime after all the internationals, particularly as I have three players suspended, Dimitar Berbatov injured and Tevez coming back so late.”
Ferguson is so unhappy about Sky’s scheduling of matches he refused to be interviewed by them after the defeat to Liverpool – another Saturday-lunchtime kick-off.
Meanwhile, Guus Hiddink has warned Alan Shearer that his experience as a leading player will not prepare him fully for management. Although the Chelsea manager expects Shearer’s appointment to galvanise Newcastle United, beginning today at St James’ Park in their Premier League fixture, he believes that former players who have not taken coaching courses are wrong to think they know it all.
He also feels the most outstanding players, of which Shearer was one, can have trouble as managers in relating to others who are less gifted.
( Guardian Service)
Ireland injury reprieve for Robinho
MARK HUGHES may have to abandon his plans to drop Robinho from Manchester City’s game at Arsenal today after Stephen Ireland suffered an ankle injury in training and did not travel with the squad to London last night.
Ireland was due to replace Robinho on the left side of a three-man attack but was hurt in City’s final practice match.
That could mean a reprieve for Robinho, largely on the basis that Hughes does not have any other left-sided attackers for today’s game.
