Sam Allardyce, the Blackburn manager, was suitably unimpressed, arguing that Ronaldo should not have been on the pitch to take the free-kick and noting conspiratorially that Howard Webb sent off the Portuguese at Manchester City earlier this season. Did he suspect it might have been playing on the referee's mind? Allardyce was not prepared to talk himself into trouble with the Football Association but the clear inference was that he did.
Ferguson disagreed, berating a television reporter for having the temerity to bring it up and arguing that it was highlighted only because it was Ronaldo. The United manager is often accused of being paranoid but on this occasion he had a point, considering that El Hadji Diouf not only aimed a kick at Wayne Rooney but appeared to flash a V-sign at the crowd – an offence that might have been brought up in parliament had Ronaldo been the perpetrator. ...
Allardyce suggested, pointedly, that Old Trafford could "intimidate" match officials, an argument that was undermined by the fact Webb had earlier disallowed a perfectly legitimate Jonny Evans goal for a perceived foul by Ronaldo. In any case, football should surely not be encouraging players who automatically hit the ground as soon as there is even a feather's weight of contact. Pedersen denied Ferguson's accusation of a "blatant dive" but perhaps in the future he will take the old-fashioned option of trying to score rather than win a penalty.
The only other thing I'll quote is this from James Ducker in The Times, which is a classic example of how a preconceived notion makes for nonsense writing:
Ferguson has rarely strayed from his seat in the stands in recent months, such has been the ease with which United have brushed aside the opposition. It said everything about the threat Blackburn posed that the United manager was glued to the touchline in the second half, barking orders at Ferdinand for not communicating with Rafael, before throwing on Vidic in the hope of shoring up his defence after Evans limped out.With the idea that we were defending desperately firmly on his mind he claims that putting a defender on for a defender is somehow "shoring up" a defence. And even though he points out that Johnny Evans "limped off" in his sentence, he still says that Vidic came on, not to replace an injured player, but to "shore up" the defence.
There's a lot more on Mourinho this morning. Sam Wallace in the Independent has a long article on Mourhino's record and future including a comparison with Sir Alex:
But what happens when the Mourinho magic fades, when two seasons down the line the team needs breaking up and rebuilding? What happens when a club needs a philosophy tangible enough that it can be passed to another generation of players? That was when, at Chelsea, Mourinho started to think about leaving. His rift with Roman Abramovich? Ferguson survived a much more sustained personal attack from the Cubic Expression shareholders in 2004 than Mourinho ever did from Abramovich.
The kindest thing to say is that while Mourinho is a great coach, Ferguson is a great manager. Ferguson has mastered the wider, more complex art of managing the life of a big football club and the infinite problems that presents. It requires a more sophisticated outlook than fixating upon the minutiae of your best XI. What Ferguson has done – and what Mourinho has shown no sign of attempting to do – is build an institution that is self-renewing, programmed to succeed.
Muntari said: “Everyone knows Ferguson is one of the best coaches around with the titles he has won in the Champions League and the English Premier League.
“But Mourinho is from a different planet. He is amazing, fantastic.
“I don’t think there is any manager on Earth like him.
“Both are probably the best coaches in the world at the moment. But I firmly believe there are hidden qualities in players that Mourinho brings out.
He dismissed the idea that United are so much stronger man-for-man and that a composite team might include only two or three from Inter. “It doesn’t matter how many of my team can get into theirs, because my team is more than the sum of the parts,” he said. “Players don’t play individually, and United is not better than us.”
The implication is that Mourinho can make the difference and we already know that any team led by him will be organised, resilient, full of purpose. The coat has changed, the old Armani replaced by a natty dark blue number with his name embroidered into the collar, but it was recognisably a Mourinho team on Saturday in Bologna down to the narrow midfield diamond, the efficiency over style and the quick reaction to adversity from the dugout.
"I kicked the ground just as I was trying to make a long ball," Evans said. "It's a recurrence of the ankle injury I had before. It's a bit tender and sore and I really don't know if I will be OK for Tuesday. The doctors have said they will see in the morning."They also have some quotes form Sir Alex and speculate on who might be called into defence in the worst case scenario:
"I just hope we can get two centre-backs out because at this moment it's very doubtful," said Ferguson. "We don't have [Nemanja] Vidic, we don't have Gary Neville and we don't have Wes Brown. I just hope we can get John O'Shea available.
"But we're having a nightmare with defenders this season. Gary, Wes and John all missed the Blackburn game and now Evans has done his ankle. Hopefully we can patch up a defence but it does leave us very, very short."
His best hope is O'Shea, who will have extensive treatment to ascertain whether he can play despite a heel problem. Failing that, Ferguson will have to find a partner for Ferdinand from elsewhere in the team. Fletcher, who has filled in as an emergency right-back before, would be an obvious candidate and the 6ft 2in Carrick is another option.
The Mail has a brief look at the referee for the Inter game, a referee with a history of favouring Italy:
Spanish referee Luis Medina Cantalejo, whose major decisions in recent years have favoured Italy, will take charge of Tuesday’s tie between Inter Milan and Manchester United:At the 2006 World Cup, Cantalejo awarded a controversial stoppage-time penalty when Australia’s Lucas Neill was adjudged to have fouled Italy’s Fabio Grosso.
In the final, Medina was the fourth official who told referee Horacio Elizondo that Zinedine Zidane had butted Italy defender Marco Materazzi off the ball, which saw the Frenchman sent-off.
The Spaniard denied he had watched the incident on a TV monitor — banned under FIFA regulations— before informing the referee.United striker Wayne Rooney will also remember Medina.
He refereed England’s Euro 2008 qualifier against Russia, in which Rooney tackled Konstantin Zyryanov on the edge of the box but was wrongly adjudged to have brought him down inside the area .
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment