Ferguson has come in for criticism for his intention to play a weakened team in the key relegation game at the KC Stadium, with the Champions League decider against Barcelona coming up on Wednesday night.Most of that criticism coming from The Sun, obviously... And the second half of the sentence - why are we coming in for criticism when it's not only absolutely obvious why we're playing a weakened team, but also essential that we do, as Sir Alex points out:
"Our responsibility is to win the European Cup and everyone is aware of that. That's why we are talking about changes. But it is not a weak team. It is a strong team – a good team, a team with fantastic potential in some cases. I know that if we don't win on Sunday we will be slaughtered and it will be the 'worst thing that has happened in the British game' and people will talk about the integrity of the league. But it is a natural thing for us to use our squad."Sir Alex also points out what would happen if he played a stronger team:
The alternative, he argued, was that a player could be injured and United's strategy for taking on Barcelona in Rome on Wednesday would be ruined. "The players wouldn't forgive me if I played the strongest team on Sunday. They would say: 'What?' They would possibly be tiptoeing around, knowing they have a European final on the Wednesday. The rest of the league may think it's good but it could actually be the worst thing that could happen to them. Someone would get one of those 50-50 tackles and be somersaulted over their shoulder in the first tackle and, after that, they might say: 'Right, that's enough for me.' It would be the best thing that could happen to Hull."He also points out that the Premier League could have played the games on the Saturday, although he's realistic enough to admit he still wouldn't have played a full strength team:
However, the United manager is annoyed that the Premier League, which has become accustomed to seeing English clubs reach the European Cup final in recent seasons, did not move its final round of matches from a Sunday to Saturday. “Barcelona are playing on Saturday night yet we have a full programme on Sunday when there is only one play-off game on the Saturday,” Ferguson said.
“England have had a team in the Champions League final for the last five years now, so it is not as though the Premier League were short of knowledge. They could easily have put the whole programme to a Saturday. That might have made the situation a bit easier. I still would not have played my strongest team, of course, but there may have been one or two more who played.”
And when you look at a proposed team, it's not even that weak:
It is almost certain that the strikers will be young Italian star Federico Macheda and English prospect Danny Welbeck, and his midfield four are expected to be Darren Fletcher - suspended for the Champions League final against Barcelona - Darron Gibson, Nani and 22-year-old winger Lee Martin.
At the back, club captain Gary Neville will play while two other experienced defenders, Wes Brown and Rio Ferdinand, both coming back from injury, will travel with the team.
In goal it is thought that Ferguson will risk Poland’s Tomasz Kuszczak and pray that he does not pick up an injury ahead of taking his place as Edwin van der Sar’s understudy in Rome.
One final word from Sir Alex on the matter:
"Nobody should worry themselves about our intentions. If I can trust these players in an FA Cup semi-final, then why can't I trust them in the final game of the season when we have already won the league?"
Ronaldo has told friends and team-mates to forget stories he is staying at Old Trafford.
After a hat-trick of titles and two Champions League finals, he feels he has achieved what he wanted.
Now he is keen to revive Real's fortunes in a record-breaking switch to the Bernabeu.
A United source said: "He looks to have made up his mind again. He is not saying it publicly with such a big game coming up next week in the Champions League final.
"But in his mind that will be his last. The fact Real trailed Barcelona in La Liga this season only makes the challenge more exciting for him."
Rooney's magnificent form over the past few months, helping drive United to the Premier League title and to Wednesday's Champions League final, has been slightly overlooked as garlands are bestowed on Ryan Giggs by the PFA and Nemanja Vidic by the Stretford End and dressing-room.
The contributions, body language and futures of Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez also elbowed the pure footballing story of Rooney's brilliance out of the headlines. Yet if Rooney delivers in Rome, eclipsing Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Thierry Henry, he will inevitably be tipped as a front-runner for European Footballer of the Year.
At 23, Rooney ascends towards the dream balance of head and heart. "It's the improvement you expect from young players with talent,'' reflected Ferguson. "The most important attribute is his fantastic hunger and desire. Of course, you have to channel that desire. Sometimes it exceeds the emotions, the anger.''
Ferguson builds on the fantastic groundwork of Everton's David Moyes in nurturing a supreme all-round talent for England, an attacker prepared to help out his defence. "He is willing to sacrifice the part of the game every forward in the world wants to do – which is just attack,'' added Ferguson.
"We have some players who are not able to do what Wayne does. He's got the stamina and resilience to keep doing that and still cause a threat to the other side when he attacks. Brian McClair was exactly the same. I could say to him 'fill in at right-back for 10 minutes' and he would.''
There is, after all, something uncanny about the symmetry of desire and chronology represented by Ferguson, Charlton, and the Old Man. Charlton provided the link, was a key factor in the hiring of Ferguson, and today is inevitably the man who feels most strongly the astonishing force of a script which sometimes seems to have taken on a surreal life of its own.
Charlton played in the victorious European Cup final which came 10 years after he took off his overcoat and wrapped it around Busby on the snowy airfield of Munich.
He was in the Nou Camp in Barcelona when United made their astonishing recovery against Bayern Munich in 1999 – on a day that would have been Busby's 90th birthday. ...
Charlton, a recently appointed director of the club he represented so brilliantly on the field, argued passionately for the appointment of Ferguson in 1986 – and he won the fight against a powerful lobby advocating Terry Venables. He said at the time, "I have never seen a man so capable of carrying the burden of following the Old Man. He has the strength and the powers of leadership and I know if he gets the job the club is in the best possible hands."
Busby liked Ferguson, a man not made in his own image, one who was more overtly forceful, more impatient, more irascible, but in the matter of ambition and determination to be the best might have been joined to him at the hip.
The man who had been christened the Father of Football felt the strength of his fellow Scot in their frequent conversations in the office he had been assigned in those days when the appointment of Ferguson was seen not as an act of genius but still another desperate attempt to revive the tradition he had created with three different teams of great brilliance, the last, of Charlton, Best and Law, in the years after the ravages of the Munich tragedy.
The year before Busby died in 1994, United won their first title in 35 years, and on the day that he was buried, when the rain fell from the sky as it had at so many of the Munich burials, the people who lined the streets at last had the sense that they had been returned to some of the old glory.
For Charlton it was a day of overwhelming emotion. He said, "So much of what I have known and seen at Manchester United has been a feast and I know it will nourish me to the last of my days. Maybe the most unforgettable contribution came on the day we buried the Old Man. I looked at the thousands who crowded the streets, I saw the tears – and the meaning of the best of what could be achieved in the game in which we had made our lives. The Old Man always told us that football is more than a game. It has the power to bring happiness to ordinary people. In the sadness and the rain, that belief was the glory of the life that had just ended – and the unbreakable pride I felt at being part of it. He was Manchester United."
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