Born To Raise Hell

More overkill on Rooney this morning, The News of the World has a comment from the Ukraine player who Rooney tackled, preceded by this excessive sentence:

WAYNE ROONEY could cost England the chance of World Cup glory if he doesn't learn to control himself, says the man whose leg he nearly broke at Wembley on Wednesday.

The player "fumes":

"His behaviour was a step too far, it was a bad tackle. I think it could end up hurting England in the future if he did it at the wrong time in a tournament."

Ian Ridley in The Mail on Sunday may as well not have bothered with his piece, rehashing as he does all the other words written in the previous week.
Elsewhere Sir Alex has a go at Mark Lawrenson and doesn't go far enough as far I'm concerned, from The Guardian:

After England's 4–0 victory over Slovakia last weekend, in which Rooney scored twice, Mark Lawrenson, the former Liverpool defender who is now a BBC summariser, said: "Everybody knows he had a massive row with Fergie after the Liverpool game and was then left out against Fulham. It is an ongoing problem, but if anyone can deal with it, it is Sir Alex."

Ferguson, though, when asked if he was aware of Lawrenson's comments, insisted that there had been no row. "I was made aware of it. Absolute nonsense. I don't know where that came from, but the revealing part of it is 'everybody knows', but I didn't know and I was in there. These people self-promote but who the hell's bothered about it? Nobody followed it up which tells you everything because if there was any truth you'd have found out."

That last point is interesting because these things always come out via some "insider". As it hasn't it makes you wonder even more about Lawrenson's agenda. The supposedly unbiased BBC should investigate him. Bias in football commentary may not be as important as bias in news coverage but still...
The same article has Sir Alex contemplating our attacking options for today's game:

"I've got options of course. I could play Ronaldo through the middle, I could play [Danny] Welbeck, I could play Macheda or I could play [Ryan] Giggs – the great thing is the flexibility of players, Giggs, Ronaldo, those types."The boy Macheda is developing at a great rate of speed now, his performances for the reserves have been very good, he's a natural finisher and he'll definitely be on the bench at least with Welbeck."

As well as humorous comment from Usain Bolt on Ronaldo:

The double Olympic sprint champion is due to give United a training session on 16 May before their penultimate game of the season against Arsenal. "The first thing I'm going to tell him: stop acting like a wuss," he said. "Seriously, because the fact why his game is kind of down right now is because these guys are picking on him because he's so soft. No one in football will try it with Rooney. Ronaldo's got to be a little like Rooney, he's got to be aggressive, then these guys will stop picking on him. If Ronaldo's aggressive back to these guys, and gets a few red cards, people will stop picking on him."

The Telegraph report Sir Alex's confidence in Tevez:

He arrived in the country on Friday afternoon, jet-lagged and not a little sheepish after Argentina's astonishing 6-1 capitulation to Bolivia at high altitude. From thin oxygen and five hours out of sync, straight into the intensity of a Premier League contest.

"He's used to that," Ferguson said. "The thing I'm confident about is that he's done it many, many times. He did it for us last season actually, came back on the Friday and played on the Saturday and he was outstanding."

The Independent have an in-depth look at Jonny Evans:

Ordinary yet extraordinary. When football men speak of Jonny Evans, this is usually the message. As a young lad making his way in life, Evans is known for an easy personality and quiet intelligence; as a 21-year-old Manchester United centre-half, he is known for maturity beyond those years, skill, bravery, two good feet, the lot. This is someone whose debut in senior football – for Northern Ireland against Spain in 2006 – will be written about for years. As the Sunderland manager Ricky Sbragia said this week of Evans: "The minute I saw him, you just knew he had something." ...

Although they knew all about him at United, and his Northern Ireland captain Aaron Hughes spoke of mentions of "the young lad Evans at Man U", the rest found out the night Evans ran into Fernando Torres on Spain's right wing at Windsor Park. Or, as it transpired, vice versa.

Torres was part of a Spanish three-man attack. Raul and David Villa were the others. Evans was part of a Northern Ireland team that had just lost 3-0 at home to Iceland. Evans was with the Under-21 squad that day but injuries meant a call-up and after one training session, Evans was in the team. Right-footed, he played left-back, and though Spain would eventually win Euro 2008, the Irish beat them 3-2 this night. Evans did not give Torres an inch.

"Jonny played like he'd 40 or 50 caps under his belt," Hughes recalled at the Irish base at Templepatrick this week, three days after Evans had scored his first international goal against Poland. "He was coming up against Torres, and he was playing left-back – out of position. Torres was drifting over to him and it still didn't faze him. He didn't stroll through the game, but he took the game in his stride. We knew we now had someone, someone who comes along only once in a while."

The News of The World has an "insider" saying plans are being discussed to retire the No. 11 shirt in honour of Giggs when he retires:

A United insider said: "Although people may talk of George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton, they played in an era when such moves were impossible as shirts were numbered 1-11.

"Retiring the number 11 shirt would have no complaints from many United fans - though on current form Ryan's departure looks to be quite a way off yet."

A couple of transfer rumours to round things off. The News of The World report that Franck Ribery is on his way, though here there is no source, making it similar to those Ronaldo stories that never go away:

The Spanish giants [Barcelona] believe Manchester United have already done the deal with Bayern Munich.

And that is a clear sign that Cristiano Ronaldo will finally be on his way to Real Madrid. Barca want to build on what looks like a certain La Liga crown by capturing the Bayern Munich star. But sources at the Nou Camp are convinced Ribery is heading for Old Trafford, suggesting that United are well advanced with preparations for life without Ronaldo.

While The Daily Star tell us that Edin Dzeko is being lined up as a replacement for Tevez:

The Tevez situation still appears to be deadlocked, with his loan period ending next month.

But Fergie insisted: “I’m not discussing his future.”

But in the meantime, United are eyeing Dzeko who has become one of the most wanted players in Europe.

He has been a big success in Germany’s Bundesliga with Wolfsburg and is currently the top European scorer in the World Cup qualifying campaign, with seven goals for Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Lots of other clubs are also interested it says as well, and again no sources or anything.