Posts Tagged ‘Rio Ferdinand’

Fergie rules out Sol swoop

United duo out until New Year

Ferguson concerned over Fratton din

• Ferguson begins his touchline ban at Portsmouth
• United manager praises ‘fantastic’ Wes Brown

Sir Alex Ferguson begins his two-match ban from the touchline tomorrow admitting he has misgivings about whether it will affect his ability to pass on instructions to his Manchester United players.

Ferguson will be wired up to his assistant, Mike Phelan, for the game against Portsmouth but he is concerned the noise generated by a sell-out crowd at Fratton Park may reduce him to the role of a helpless spectator as he watches from the stand.

“I have got the communication lines in place but the only problem is that it’s such a noisy place,” Ferguson said. “It’s one of these old stadiums – it’s a bit rickety, the stand nowadays. The directors’ box is towards the end where all the noise comes from – the drums and whatever the hell they have got going on at that place. But it’s a good racket. It’s a terrific football stadium, really.”

Ferguson, starting the Football Association’s punishment for his outspoken criticisms of the referee Alan Wiley, has a shortage of defenders going into Avram Grant’s first game in charge of Portsmouth, but the form of Wes Brown has encouraged him when Rio Ferdinand is still weeks away from returning from his back injury, while John O’Shea and Jonny Evans are “very doubtful” to be involved at Fratton Park.

“I must say that Nemanja Vidic and Wes Brown have been absolutely fantastic in recent games and it just reminds me that when, Wes Brown is fit, he’s the best natural defender in the country,” Ferguson said. “He’s as good as anybody else out there and I think that most people recognise it.

“You have to pay tribute to the lad, that he keeps coming back from the serious injuries he’s had over his career. He’s had two cruciates, a broken ankle, other injuries – calf injuries and things like that. Last season he had a staggered season in terms of interruptions but the previous season he was our most consistent defender in the year we won the European Cup in Moscow.

“Now he’s fit again and looking fantastic, he gets better all the time. Players always need that run of games to get that consistency and the timing and tempo of their game. We’re seeing that at the moment with Wes and long may it continue.

“We were doing a summary of players, ages and contracts the other day and I saw that Wes is 30 and I still think he’s 22 or 23. He’s got a young approach to life and he’s done well to deal with all the things he’s had to deal with and still come out fighting.”

England won’t win World Cup, claims Ferguson

• Brazil ‘are a supplier of great players’ says United manager
• ‘Liverpool would struggle’ to produce young English players

The Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson does not believe England will win the World Cup next summer, even though nine members of his squad are aiming to be in Fabio Capello’s line-up for the finals.

The Scot is instead tipping Brazil to win the trophy for the sixth time. “I can’t see past Brazil, actually,” Ferguson was quoted as saying in the Daily Mail. “They are going to be the ones in South Africa. They are going to be hard to beat. You just have to think of the players they can bring in – they are a supplier of great players.

“Last season, there were 103 Brazilians in the Champions League and only 15 Englishmen. More Scots played in the Champions League last season than English players. I thought the 11/10 on Brazil to beat England was the bet of the century.”

Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick, Wes Brown and Ben Foster are all likely to go to South Africa while Owen Hargreaves, Michael Owen, Gary Neville and Danny Welbeck are on the preipheries of the squad as Capello attempts to lead England to a World Cup victory abroad for the first time.

“The small number of English players in the Champions League is down to the way the Premier League has developed,” Ferguson said. “The eternal question is at what point the Premier League is going to have to feature more English players.

“We are not too bad at this club in terms of young players coming through but Liverpool would struggle.”

Manchester United 3-0 Everton

Manchester United had won only two of their previous five Premier League matches, and were eight points behind Chelsea at kick-off, but they quickly trimmed that back to five with a comfortable victory over the basket case poor Everton resemble at present.

It is interesting to note that, at this stage last season, United were running third, behind Chelsea and Liverpool, and they stayed there until the new year, when they hit the top on the back of an irresistible surge of 11 successive wins.

Traditionally, they move up as the Christmas decorations come down. This time, however, there is no Cristiano Ronaldo to leave opposing defenders with what, in George Best’s heyday, they used to call “twisted blood”. Ronaldo’s replacement, Antonio Valencia, not only lacks his predecessor’s mesmeric skills on the ball, he is not contributing his share of goals.

No team has experienced a worse catalogue of injuries than Everton and they were again without seven first-teamers, including such important figures as Mikel Arteta, Phil Jagielka, Phil Neville and Steven Pienaar. On the credit side, Tim Cahill was passed fit to play. Notable absentees from the United line-up were Rio Ferdinand, John O’Shea, Jonny Evans and Dimitar Berbatov. Without Berbatov, injured on international duty with Bulgaria, Sir Alex Ferguson partnered Little and Little, aka Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen, in attack for only the second time in the league. Ominously, on the only other occasion, United lost at Burnley.

The combination provided an interesting sub-text: might they dovetail effectively for England at the World Cup? Probably not, on this evidence. They were rarely on the same wavelength in the first half.

Louis Saha, who spent more time in the treatment room than on the field in his mutually frustrating spell with United, was back at Old Trafford for the first time as an Everton player and keen to demonstrate his worth by adding to the nine goals he had scored this season – the most recent at West Ham last weekend.

His first attempt left something to be desired, a “Thierry Henry”, as surreptitious handballs will now be known, found Steve Bennett eagled-eyed where Sweden’s Martin Hansson had been Mr Magoo in Paris.

As might have been expected, United made all the running and were rewarded after 35 minutes, when they took the lead in handsome fashion. Valencia’s headed knockdown fell to Darren Fletcher in the centre of the D, where the Scot met it with a flying right-footed volley that ripped into the top right-hand corner of Tim Howard’s net.

Everton’s visible discomfiture was reflected in back-to-back bookings for Cahill and Marouane Fellaini, and Howard had to be smartly off his line to thwart Owen in pursuit of the second goal that would have settled the issue before half-time.

David Moyes sent on an extra striker, Yakubu Aiyegbeni, in place of young Dan Gosling for the second half. It was a midfielder, John Heitinga, however, who raised Evertonian spirits with a curling 20-yarder that demanded Edwin Van der Sar’s careful attention. The United keeper was soon called upon again, advancing from his line to sprawl at the feet of Cahill. In the collision, both players were injured and needed treatment.

The Owen of old would surely have put the outcome beyond doubt 10 minutes after the break, when he took the ball wide of Howard, but nudged it too far to the left to get in a decent shot. Rooney was more impressive when he clipped the crossbar with a shot from 25 yards out.

The second goal United needed for comfort came midway through the half, when Ryan Giggs’s corner from the left came back to him and his second delivery was driven in by Carrick from 17 yards out. Everton knew the game was up. One goal was likely to be too much to pull back, two was mission impossible. Valencia drilled in the third from wide on the right, with the aid of a deflection.