Personal Jesus

The Manchester derby obviously occupies the papers today, some if it is stuff recycled from the previous day's coverage of the pre-game press conferences, though there are actually some interesting around as well. I shall try and select some different quotes than I did yesterday.
There's a bit more from Sir Alex on Tevez, and buying players more generally:

"He felt he didn't play enough football in his last season and maybe he had a point. You can't keep all the players all the time. Cristiano Ronaldo proved that. We had six good seasons out of him then it was time to move on.

"You can't keep everyone happy, especially these days when some players appear to be dominated by their agents. Gabriel Heinze was only here a year and then he wanted away. That surprised me but the next day he picked up a cruciate injury, so he had to stay. Then as soon as he was fit again he wanted away again. I'm certainly not envious of City picking up Tevez, I've got my squad and I'm happy with it but, as I say, they are playing to different financial rules to everyone else. I could have bought a player for £52m in summer had I wanted to [Atlético Madrid's Sergio Aguero has a buy-out clause for roughly that amount, though Ferguson could have been referring to Franck Ribéry or even Karim Benzema] but I didn't think it was worth it. I didn't think the summer just past was a particularly good time to buy any players. Prices were too high all round."

Steve Tongue has an okay round-up of the match/quotes in The Independent:

Barely a mile away at United's training headquarters, however, his former mentor was adopting an attitude of studied indifference. If his taste in comedy stretches as far as Catherine Tate, he could have borrowed her recalcitrant schoolgirl's "Am I bovvered?" catchphrase. For Ferguson, matches against Liverpool are still the real derbies and if he has long ago knocked them off their perch as promised, they have at least remained a threat.

In contrast City have been able to look down on United at the end of a season only once since 1978 and even then (1991, see panel above) they did not have to look far. Ferguson has labelled the new (or nouveau) City "cocky" and, when they got under his skin with Tevez banners reading "Welcome to Manchester" this summer, he famously categorised them as "a small club with a small mentality".

There's a good article in The Telegraph by Duncan White on Sir Alex's "tinkering:"

the last time he named the same side for consecutive games it was over two years ago, after losing the Manchester derby to Sven-Goran Eriksson's City.

Going back to that game it tells you a lot about how radically different the recent history of these two sides has been. Only one player in that City starting line-up – Micah Richards – has a chance of starting the derby this afternoon.

By contrast all but one of United's starters that day are still at the club. Who is the odd man out? Carlos Tévez, who is desperately hopeful of passing a fitness test on a knee injury so he can play against his former employers this afternoon.

The same United XI beat Tottenham a week later, on Aug 26 2007, and Ferguson has not retained a starting line up since. It is a remarkable run that will continue this afternoon: Darren Fletcher and Ryan Giggs were rested for the midweek defeat of Besiktas and will come back into the starting XI today. ...

Rotation had always been labelled a foreign practice – British managers know their best team and stick to it. Well, nobody tinkers more than Ferguson: he is the consummate squad manager.

Why is it that Ferguson's compulsive tweaking has snuck under the radar?

Success more than anything, but it is also important that players accept their role in a squad system. You rarely hear a United player complaining about being left out ...

The only player who has failed to live with it is Tévez, who left for City and the promise of regular starts.

"He did his job well and I have no complaints about that at all," Ferguson said of Tévez. "He didn't think he played enough football last year but I thought he played plenty of football last year.

"I'm not bothered about it [the way it ended]. Believe me, I'm not the slightest bit worried about it. It happens and you can't keep all of the players all the time. I always thought these players were dominated by their agents."

There is a productive contradiction at the heart of Ferguson's rotational policy: he changes the team for every game, but the squad remains largely the same. Ferguson shuffles his cards, but he does so from a well-thumbed deck. Hence his sangfroid in the transfer market after losing one of his aces to Real Madrid.

Henry Winter has a look at the Sheffield derby and offers some lessons:

So here is the moral for Adebayor and Rooney. If you want to have a strop go to a smaller club. And here is the moral for football generally. Don’t automatically assume that leading players are the worst behaved; they are just scrutinised more closely. And certainly don’t lump Rooney and Adebayor in together. Rooney’s short outburst was borne of frustration that he could not deliver for the team. Adebayor’s stemmed from pure selfishness. The debate over discipline is far more complicated than depicted.

Some player comments on the game - Wes Brown:

"I remember as a kid City won a few of the games. But in terms of championships and trophies, we have always dominated," said the 29-year-old.

"They will be confident at the moment with all the games they have won and I am sure they will come at us.

"They probably think they can win. But we are still Manchester United and we are going to prove we are the champions."

Berbatov:

“City have signed some great players and look a different team from last year, but we are not worried.

“You cannot become like United, Barcelona or AC Milan overnight. You need to earn that.

“We still believe we are the greatest team in the world and do not fear anybody – let alone a team that isn’t even playing Champions League football.”

And Giggs is sometimes a little too diplomatic:

"I think this is the most anticipated derby for a long time because of City's spending.

"No one knows what they can and will achieve this year. That means it's the biggest derby for a long, long time.

"They have so many quality players now - and they perhaps haven't had that for a long time.

"It's strange preparing for a derby against a City side playing to prove they are a genuine title rival to us.

"But you've got to take notice because of the money they have spent and the top-quality people that they have brought in.

"They're going to be up there - no one knows how far up there but they're certainly going to be up there.

"And they have made a good start to the season as well. They have got plenty of match-winners in the team and when you have them you always have a chance.''

Peter Schmeichel has some reasonable words:

“City are not on level terms,” he said. “In a one-off match anyone can win. Even Burnley can beat United.

“But can City realistically win the Premier League? This year, no.

“And can Mark Hughes go toe to toe with Fergie? No. But I don’t think anyone can do that. For me Sir Alex is the greatest manager of all time.

One non derby comment, from Rio on Ronaldo:

Ferdinand, 30, still has a lot of respect for the mercurial winger, he said he is not afraid to get dirty if they go head to head in Europe.

United stopper Ferdinand said: “He will get a ‘hello’ and a shake of the hand but if he needs to be kicked, he will be kicked.”

The Mail On Sunday revist the Pogba thing, saying that the matter is now in FIFA's hands. Good. Then we get finally move on.

Finally, The Guardian blog has an offbeat little article on whether Paul Scholes is Jesus:

First, he is an Englishman.

Second, he is a one-club man. Messiahs do not have agents. Messiahs do not chop and change clubs in search of an extra five large. Messiahs remain loyal even as their club transforms itself into a global conglomerate more concerned with shifting replica shirts in the East than preaching the beautiful game in the West. It is easier to be a messiah at, say, Woking than at the Theatre of Dreams. This is a dressing room that includes Wayne Rooney – slated to write five volumes of ghosted autobiography, one more than the Holy Ghost-written gospels that relate Christ's, arguably more impressive, achievements.