Proud Premier League champion displays heightened sense of geographical awareness
If Alex Ferguson dedicates his time to anything this summer, it should be to a greater study of the field of geography. In the build up to the final weekend of the season, the red nosed one had the following to offer:
“I speak to people abroad and they love the Premier League.
“That’s why they show it all over the world. When we played Arsenal the match was seen in 200 countries.”
Being watched in over 200 countries is very impressive, especially considering that most experts believe there are between 190 and 195 countries in the world today.
Ginger midfielder puts United in the Champions League final
It won’t go down as an all-time classic match, but Fergie’s men did enough to stave off Barcelona (well, just Messi and Xavi) and book a place in Moscow. Roll on May 21!
United Gaffer’s nonsense comments come back to haunt him
March 2008: Alex Ferguson is the first to support the FA’s Respect Campaign following Ashley Cole’s controversial booking at White Hart Lane:
“Haranguing referees is ridiculous. Since the Andy D’Urso incident some years ago, we have not done anything like that. Respect for referees is absolutely correct.”
April 2008: Manchester Utd players ‘harangue’ referee Alan Wiley for awarding Chelsea a perfectly legitimate penalty, and eight of Fergie’s men face FA Disciplinary charges for abusing fourth official Mike Riley in the tunnel.
It is said that a camel is a horse designed by committee. That being the case, which strange organisation designed Avram Grant as a Premier League coach? Overweight, tactically uninspired, and with so little charisma players would be hard pushed to follow him into the next room let alone into battle, how on earth did he find himself on the threshold of two major trophies, including one that not even Mourinho could reel in at Chelsea, the Champions League? Yet maybe the Avram Grant design project was not some pranky end-of-year student joke after all, but a recognition that such is the pressure at this stage of the season that coaches are prone to push themselves to the brink of insanity trying to win “the mental game”. The Grant method is to sit back and let the other guy stitch himself into a tactical strait jacket, then defend like the side of a warehouse and emerge towards the end to take full advantage of their frustration. It worked against Liverpool on Wednesday, and it will work against United again tomorrow. Chelsea to win.
The statistics
* It has been twenty years since Manchester Utd last did the double over Chelsea in the league.
As a Lampard-less Chelsea gifted two points to Wigan (and left my Betfair account emptier than Ashley Cole’s sense of morality), Avram Grant looked to be a man with far too much on his plate. Nipping on his heels as the next candidate to spend more time with the missus at weekends is mouthy Spaniard Rafa Benitez, whose threat to quit amid the boardroom shitstorm at Anfield should not be taken lightly.
So who will be next to go? It seems to be a two horse race between the Chelsea and Liverpool gaffers, but there’s always the threat of Arsene ‘Injustice’ Wenger calling time after a season of slow decay - could the Arsenal conspiracy theorists be right about his departure? And how about Fergie - he bottled retirement after a lukewarm season at Old Trafford a few years back, so why not go out on a high?
Arsenal’s fragile minds collapsed under pressure from Drogba and Liverpool were being played off the park before Mascherano’s mouth was sent down the tunnel. Alan Hansen says it’s United’s to lose, but football is a funny game.
With 24 hours to go until their fifth round tie, and decades and decades of football experience, Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger have the kind of keen insightful knowledge that only the good Lord can provide. Their earth shattering prediction for the weekend’s corker: Adebayor and Ronaldo will be dangerous.
Such educated insights come direct from the same stable of football sound-bites that
The big news sloshing around the enormous snazzy Spoiler offices this Friday morning is that back in the days before Carlos Queiroz became the coach at Manchester United, Ferguson and his honchos were interested in getting Martin Jol on board. He ticked all the right boxes, and was this close to getting the job, until Ferguson decided that he was just too bloody fat!
The Scot was adamant that his players wouldn’t be able to take a fat man seriously, and that he would ultimately
