League of Extraordinary Nobodies

An interview with Sir Alex makes most of the headlines this morning. The fullest account of it seems to be this, from The Observer. I'm in 2 minds about the benefit of the things he says about Man City in it, on the one hand, it seems like the best thing to do would be just to ignore them, but on the other hand, it is very humorous and what Sir Alex says is spot on. Here he is on that poster:

"It's City isn't it? They are a small club with a small mentality," Ferguson retorts. "All they can talk about is Manchester United; they can't get away from it. That arrogance will be rewarded. It is a go at us, that's the one thing it is. They think taking Carlos Tevez away from Manchester United is a triumph. It is poor stuff."

And what he has to say about Adebayor is pretty much what everyone knew, but it's still nice to hear Sir Alex say it:

"When someone offers you that kind of money, it is a big attraction to people nowadays. That is the reason they have gone there. At the last minute, from what I can gather, either Emmanuel Adebayor or his agent phoned us after they had agreed a deal with City and then did the same with Chelsea. He was desperate to get to either Chelsea or us."

Here's what he has to say about the transfer market:

"It has been a crazy summer," he sighs. "I would have been interested in some buying, but not when they talked of £50m for David Villa or £55m for Sergio Agüero. That does not seem sensible. But maybe the Ronaldo transfer and Kaká's move to Madrid for £56m sparked something off. Then you had Karim Benzema for £42m.

My favourite quote of the interview is the little dig he has at Tevez at the end of this bit, talking about where our goals are going to come from:

"The area that does concern us is where do we get 26 goals [that Ronaldo scored last season]?" Ferguson says. "That is a concern because I don't have a midfielder like a young Paul Scholes or a young Ryan Giggs who can give me 15-plus goals from midfield areas. We will have to redirect our play a bit more.

"Nani will improve, although he is not as mature as Ronaldo was at his age. I expect Anderson to improve and Darren Fletcher to establish himself as a big player in our squad. [Michael] Owen will get me goals, [Dimitar] Berbatov will be much better. And I don't have to deal with a certain person who is miserable because he is not playing."

Superb. In the rest of the interview he also talks about Wenger and, briefly Benitez, and rules Manchester City out of the title race. The whole thing is worth a read.
The interview leads to a piece on The Guardian blog with a broader look at the ability of Sir Alex's comments to have an impact:

while regretting the modern obsession with first the quote and then the soundbite, it is possible to acknowledge that some people are better at it than others and the football world will be a duller place when all-round entertainers such as Fergie are gone and every club has an interchangeable coach with a thin-lipped smile, a wealth of statistical information and a deferential attitude to the owners.

Two things set Ferguson apart from every other Premier League manager, with the possible exception of Arsène Wenger, who took a while to warm to the idea of fighting battles in the press but now finds it comes naturally. The first is that he enjoys talking about football, and will happily deal with sensible questions instead of regarding press conferences as an unpleasant chore. The second is that he has nothing to prove and therefore nothing to fear. Unlike most managers, Ferguson does not have to guard too many of his words. He can say what he likes and frequently does, because he controls Manchester United and not the other way around. Again, Wenger is in a somewhat similar position at Arsenal, though the studious Frenchman is hardly in the same league for Taggart impressions, Glaswegian feistiness or European Cups.

And that's it. All the other papers cover the story, and they all do it in the same way, "An extraordinary attack," Man City have "irritated Ferguson beyond measure," etc.. Tell the truth in football and it becomes "extraordinary."