Personality Crisis

A couple of lines to come out of Sir Alex's press conference - first off that Paul Scholes and Giggs will both be given new contracts. Sir Alex's comments have a couple of points of interest, firstly on Paul Scholes' comments the other day on his doubts about playing on:

“Every player who gets into his 30s starts to wonder what’s going to happen to them. But, when you see Paul’s performances at West Ham, and at Wolfsburg last Wednesday, there is no reason to think he can’t do it again next season. "

And this quote from The Guardian:

"We will certainly be offering him a new contract for next season," said the United manager, "That is what we think of him. He has been amazingly consistent. Scholesy seemed to be uncertain about his future – well, we are sure."

And the second point, there seems to be a bit of an indication that he feels no one has stepped up (And I guess I'm looking at Nani here...) to replace Giggs:

“The issue is: can he [Scholes] do it all the time, play in every game? He may feel he should play in every game but, of course, he can’t.

“Unlike Ryan, Paul has opposition from Darren Fletcher, Michael Carrick, Anderson and, now, Darron Gibson.

Sir Alex also comments on the transfer and money situation:

“The money is there if I want to use it.

“It was there in the summer if I wanted it. But I don't think there's any value in the market. I don't see any value and that is why I didn’t buy anyone.” ...

Ferguson used 21-year-old Senegalese striker Mame Biram Diouf as an example. He said: “Diouf, who we signed from Molde, has been absolutely brilliant in training. We’re going to apply for a work permit in January. That’s the kind of deal we’re looking at.”

And, obviously, he rubbished reports linking us with Sol Campbell...
Patrick Barclay has an article of praise for Giggs w/r/t the BBC Sports Personality thing, the usual type of thing so I won't quote it, I'll just quote his fairly obvious reasoning as to why Giggs probably won't win it:

But, to answer Ferguson’s rhetorical question, what it would say is that football is a tribal sport, unlike, say, motor racing. Maybe I live a sheltered life, but I have never heard banter about Brawn GP and cannot imagine that, if Jenson Button got the award, Ferrari supporters would melt the internet with puerile complaints. Nor do people get into fights over the likes of Victoria Pendleton or Sir Steve Redgrave.

Ferguson, for all the mischief that is never far from his lips these days, understands that the award is for people who bring the nation together. Few footballers do that. Even Gianfranco Zola, arguably the least divisive footballer of the Premier League era, brought only the football community together. Button, albeit for an instant, brought everyone together, just as Redgrave did every four years.

Interview with Valencia in The Independent, not much to be gleaned from it really, he does compare himself to Scholes in the media profile stakes, a bit on his move, a bit on his early life, on replacing Ronaldp, and on goal scoring:

Ferguson made no secret of the fact that he wanted more goals from his new recruit.

The seven goals which came in a near three-year Wigan career "probably included all the training sessions," Valencia joked recently – but the manager was serious. "He told me I must concentrate more in training and in matches, that I must try to score goals at every opportunity but also help my team-mates to score," Valencia says. "So I'm practising all the time. I practise with my team-mates and I like to improve and get better with it. I'm working on that side of my game but there are crosses, tackling back, making the right pass. I hope my all-round contribution is what counts, not just the goals."

Finally a "humorous" article on The Guardian blog about how our injury crisis makes us more likeable:

the Manchester United Defensive Injury Crisis will continue to lurch about the place unconstrained, in the process transforming itself into one of the most interesting things to have happened this season in the sweatily stagnant upper reaches of the Premier League. It has something freewheeling and topsy-turvy about it. You feel there might be cakes. Maybe Darren Fletcher will play the piano. Best of all is the spectacle of international midfielders playing as defenders, in particular the elegantly cosseted Michael Carrick, a stroller and a coaster, being forced to grapple and tangle in the sweatbox of central defence. Catching a glimpse of Carrick's flushed and mud-spattered face during the victory in Wolfsburg on Wednesday, it was hard not to love him slightly, to cherish his elegantly calibrated discomfort.