What strikes me today is that when the papers talk about Ronaldo they always go for the "no player is bigger than the club" line - which is a right and proper line - however, today there is a number of reports which include talk of Tevez leaving as in some way dampening our Title celebrations. Since when did Tevez become bigger than the club? Who would be a bigger loss to the club - Tevez or Ronaldo?
I like this sentence from The Mail on Sunday's report:
The Argentine, who had scarcely had a kick all day, received the standing ovation he had virtually demanded with his waving hands and blown kisses.Yes, Tevez plays well, is a great team player, but all this showmanship, this working of the crowd, from him - the type of displays which would bring nothing but criticism on the head of Ronaldo - is a little much - especially as we want to keep him...
Let's look at this quote from Tevez (who really loves talking to the media these days doesn't he?):
Tevez said: 'I know that I am not going to continue at Manchester United. I feel that they have lacked respect towards me. It's not about whether they pay £5m more or £5m less, but I feel I have been badly treated. There are ways in which the club is managed that I don't understand.
'When you don't agree with the manager in how the club is run...I don't have faith in a lot of things that happen here. I've been here for two years and the directors have never come to speak to me. Not once have I had a meeting with them. Therefore, it's best that I leave the club so as not to clash with Alex Ferguson and the directors. Neither do I understand why I don't play in the team.
'I've asked Kia not to speak to me about offers during the next 10 days. I want to concentrate only on the final matches that we have to play. Afterwards, I've got a month to take a decision and choose where to go.'
Jonathan Northcroft in The Sunday Times points out the difference between Tevez's view of himself and Sir Alex's view of him:
What is awkward for Tevez and his admirers is that he is seldom as effective when starting matches than when charging into their midst from the bench. Ferguson values him as an impact substitute. When arriving into a game, Tevez is often able to affect it with his energy and enthusiasm, but asked to ration those qualities and deploy them over a longer period he proved unable to here. He was responsible for botching United’s best opening in a 90 minutes containing few opportunities. A Darren Fletcher centre found him near the penalty spot and Kolo Toure slipped, leaving Tevez space to control and be left one-on-one with Lukasz Fabianski. But his touch was heavy and Fabianski stopped him.Hugh McIlvanney has a perfectly timed interview with Sir Alex in which he heaps (deserved) praise on him:
Long before yet another Premier League title was clinched at Old Trafford yesterday, there was no option but to recognise Sir Alex Ferguson’s managerial career as the most remarkable in the history of British football. And when the cold testimony of the record books is given a pulse by countless personal recollections of the man at work, what strains credibility is not so much the extraordinary heights he has reached as the sustaining of the trajectory. The memory of being in Gothenburg when he gained his first major European honour — the Cup Winners’ Cup Aberdeen won by beating Real Madrid — is vivid enough to make it a jolt to realise that night was 26 years ago.It's a long interview (not helped by The Times website splitting it onto 3 pages), worth a read, I'll just quote the odd thing on Rooney, Ronaldo and Berbatov:
"You knew what you were getting with Rooney. He gets all your emotions going, drags you in with the physical, emotional way he plays. When he starts to compete and show that great desire and intensity, you say to yourself, ‘F****** hell, what is he made of, the boy?’Berbatov's post match interview was certainly a refreshing contrast to Tevez's attitude:“You’re starting to think, ‘I’ll maybe rest Rooney this week’. It was definitely an option to consider in the run-up to the second leg of the Champions League semi-final with Arsenal, which was to be played on the Tuesday following what was liable to be a tough league game at Middlesbrough. Then he comes up to you at training and says, ‘I hope I’m playing on Saturday. If I don’t play against Middlesbrough I won’t play well against Arsenal. I’m hopeless if I’m rested’. He’s something else."
He [Ronaldo]certainly would have to expect a comedown from the kind of opportunities to demonstrate greatness that he is being afforded at United. Ferguson believes such considerations will count with Ronaldo. “The indications I’m getting from the dressing room are that the other players don’t feel he’s behaving as if he’s discontented. He seems to be happy in his game and to know that he is at the right club. Obviously you can’t stop people pressing him with offers but we have handled that the best way we can. His contract with us runs until 2012 and we are in the driving seat.”
“Berbatov’s style of running is languid but the stats tell us he does plenty of it, that his work rate is good. He doesn’t have the speed response of a Ronaldo or a Rooney but his pace is all right. And his touch, control, composure and quality of passing are all excellent. He has made and scored a lot of important goals for us. I’m pleased with how he’s doing.”
“My season has been okay – but we have won the title and that is all that matters.”Understatement, Tevez could learn a thing about that.
More praise for Sir Alex from Patrick Collins in The Mail on Sunday:
In an age of grey technocrats, Ferguson remains a red-blooded manager from another era. Those who know him well tell us that many of his biggest decisions are taken on instinct, because they feel right to a football man.
And because he knows that Stein, Shankly, Busby and his wondrous predecessors from the West of Scotland would have faced the same problems in the same fashion.
Ferguson is acutely aware of his link to those great figures, yet he is equally capable of connecting with the young men who danced across Old Trafford yesterday. They are
aware of his status — not a drop of the celebratory champagne barrage stained Ferguson’s elegant grey suit — but they also recognise and respond to his endless enthusiasm, his drive, his desire to be the very best. ...Sir Alex Ferguson remains at the top of his game. And nobody has ever played it better.
Sir Alex's words on matching Liverpool, already looking forward to going beyond them:
"They were the target because they were the greatest side in the land," he said. "But I never thought we could get 11 titles - never in a million years. When I came down Liverpool were the top guns at the time and my job was to try and change that.
"We’ve achieved many things since then. Every moment is special and we’ve had some great players at the football club, unbelievable characters and great teams. The great challenge is to win it next year – that would be something special. That would give us 19 leagues and would set a special precedent in the club’s history.”
It was characteristic of the granite determination of the man that he was already thinking of games, trophies and records to come, rather than merely revelling in this latest success.
“There’s nothing else for it. You just drive on.” One television interrogator asked about possible retirement. Short shrift. "I'm not contemplating it. I'll carry on. I'm going to stay as a manager and my health will tell me when to quit."
If one quality has swept United to the brink of the Treble it is their industry. Rooney was immense, tracking back to help Evra, putting in a series of challenges on Bacary Sagna, including one that left the Arsenal right-back careering into a hoarding advertising expensive German motors. Why are footballers are always drawn to fast cars?
Rooney's commitment to the red cause is captured by the shirt turning wet with sweat even before the heavens opened, with his jumping up immediately after a bad knock on the calf. No self-pity. No call for the physio. Rooney just wanted to get on with the game, although Ferguson sensibly withdrew him from the fray as Old Trafford stood in salute.
If Rooney shines in Rome, putting Messi and Iniesta in the shade, he must be a leading contender for European Footballer of the Year, particularly with no summer tournament.
Cristiano Ronaldo is set to sign a £6million-a-year sponsorship deal with sportswear giants Nike.
The Manchester United star is on the verge of agreeing the biggest annual endorsement package in the game.
He will move closer to becoming the highest-paid footballer in the world.
The deal will mean Ronaldo doubling his current £120,000-a-week United salary and will once again help Sir Alex Ferguson keep his top player out of the clutches of Real Madrid this summer.
It would not make marketing sense to Nike – who are in the middle of a kit deal with United worth £300m – if Ronaldo joined a club sponsored by commercial rivals adidas.
"You can be absolutely certain that one day there will be a permanent reminder at Old Trafford of what Alex has done for this club - in fact he should get six statues," said Charlton.
"I think he is the greatest manager of all time - and not just because of what he has done at United. When he came here he said he wanted to knock Liverpool off their perch.
"We have now equalled their record of 18 championships and we have the chance to win a fourth European Cup - and it's that ambition that keeps Alex going.
"But he did exactly the same to Rangers and Celtic when he was in Scotland with Aberdeen.
"For me, that makes him the best there has ever been." He added: "Matt Busby's philosophy was that you have to always play football that will please the fans - and Alex has always built his teams in the same way. It is the way we play - always adventurous.
Sometimes when you play like that you can get caught out but Alex's teams have always played in the finest traditions of Manchester United.
"You have to play attractive football at this club. It is not enough to win if you are boring.
"Alex has continued it after Matt Busby. Sometimes it drives you mad because the way we play means we always seem to go right to the brink.
"I just feel if United win it and beat Barcelona too in the Champions' League final, this has got to be the best team of all time. After winning that Double last season, they will have proved it by collecting trophies."
Ian Herbert praises the lesser lights of the team:
the men he has most to thank for the latest title are not those whose names adorn the replica shirts that drifted off down Sir Matt Busby Way, to the sounds of "18 titles and that's a fact".They are, above all, his defenders, and after them the individuals who were pounding away at the end here, as they have been all season, grinding out the wins and sometimes pinching them. With a title 24 minutes from the club's grasp, it would once have been the Manchester United way to shoot for the stars and seek some crowning glories. But what did their manager do? Take off a striker and send on Park Ji-Sung.
The South Korean is the embodiment of those individuals from the fringes whose contributions have been so much greater this season than last. Two more of the same ilk were in the starting XI and, not insignificantly, Ferguson devoted a sizeable section of his programme notes to them. "Don't underestimate their contribution," he counselled us of Darren Fletcher and John O'Shea.
O'Shea might look the regular spare part but only four United players have appeared more frequently than him in this title campaign. Jonny Evans is also in that number. He made his presence felt at Stamford Bridge this season, with an elegant, composed full League debut and the timing of yesterday's first-half tackle on Andrey Arshavin in the six-yard box, after the Russian had weaved a path past O'Shea, Michael Carrick and Nemanja Vidic, pretty much sums up the value now attached to him for Ferguson.
How curious that United's prime industrialist should have become the odd one out, his fans' questionable decision to drown out Ferguson's victory speech yesterday contributing sizeably to the sense that it's over.Daniel Taylor has some words on our player of the season:
It is probably a measure of Manchester United's position on English football's top table that the club will hold their own player-of-the-year awards ceremony tomorrow night and nobody expects that Cristiano Ronaldo will win. Or, indeed, that he will even get in the top five. He has 26 goals in 47 starts, making him the most prolific scorer in English football for the second successive season (even though he is primarily a winger), and yet the competition at Old Trafford is such there could be half a dozen players ahead of him.
Ryan Giggs or Nemanja Vidic? Wayne Rooney or Rio Ferdinand? Michael Carrick, anyone? Or how about Darren Fletcher and, no, not as a sympathy vote for being suspended for the Champions League final? Sir Alex Ferguson, for one, is uncertain about who deserves it, eventually plumping for Vidic, but Fletcher is among the players he believes have a credible chance.
"People ask me who I think is United's player of the year. For me, it's the whole lot of them! How can you separate the achievements of Ryan Giggs, the PFA player of the year, and Nemanja Vidic, who I think will probably edge it? Nemanja has had an unbelievable season but don't underestimate the contributions of two of our relatively unsung players, Darren Fletcher and John O'Shea. Both have been fantastic."
"I see absolutely no reason why the success can't continue if we stay focused collectively and individually.And we'll finish with the words of Sir Alex:"It has been a magnificent season for the club and it's not finished yet. Obviously the icing on the cake would be the successful defence of our European crown.
"And a great deal of the credit has to go the manager, whose hunger and desire has impacted on the team and brought us that success."
“We’ve got a nice trip to Rome next,” Ferguson told the supporters in his post-match address. “We’re going to bring that cup back.”
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