Saturday, 19 July 2008

Get Money Stay True

Spurs attack us, Ronaldo stays with us, Evra faces charges. That's today's summary.

The Spurs attack seems to be based on bad information, from the report in The Guardian:
Spurs' chairman, Daniel Levy, launched a fierce attack on Ferguson for going public on his desire to sign Berbatov in a summer when the Manchester United manager had complained to Fifa about Real Madrid's public pursuit of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ferguson confirmed on Thursday that United had made a bid for Berbatov and said he expected a deal to go through. Spurs have also been angered by the comments of the Liverpool manager, Rafael Benítez, who said publicly this month that Keane was among his targets.

"[The] public comments by Manchester United's manager, announcing that he has made an offer for Dimitar and is confident that the deal will go through with time working in their favour, is a blatant example of sheer arrogance and interference with one of our players," Levy said. "It is also probably one of the worst offences by any manager in the Premier League to date and is unbelievably hypocritical given his recent comments in respect of Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid."

A classic case of newspapers printing something and then putting their own words from into the mouths of others. The Guardian states here that, "Ferguson confirmed on Thursday that United had made a bid for Berbatov", whereas yesterday The Guardian reported:

Sir Alex Ferguson has sparked fresh speculation that he is trying to sign the Tottenham striker Dimitar Berbatov, confirming that Manchester United have lodged a "bid for one player who would enhance us a great deal."
What yesterday "sparked speculation" is today a direct quote saying that we will sign Berbatov. Interesting. (Note I'm casually avoiding the larger charge of trying to unsettle a player - I'm tired...)

Sir Alex reports on his meeting with Ronaldo, and states categorically that he'll be staying, from The Times:
Speaking shortly after his arrival in Cape Town for the first leg of United’s pre-season tour to South Africa, Ferguson, whose team play Kaizer Chiefs today, said: “The meeting went well. We both made our points of view about where I stand and where the player stands and what I can say is that he will be a Manchester United player next summer. He won’t be sold.”
Which is nice.

The report on Evra being charged over the incident after the Chelsea game last season can be read here, nothing really worth quoting, there's a quote from Gary Neville near the end of it as well (what is with papers conflating two stories into one - solely saving on headline space?).

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