Respect My Fresh

Attention beginning to focus on the Champions League Final, and a new keeper on his way, plus The Daily Mail foiled my plans to boycott them by publishing a very long interview with Sir Bobby Charlton today.

We'll get the keeper out the way first, David De Gea:

"We've been working on it for quite a while," said Ferguson of the signing. "We identified him quite a while back as one we should go for. He's young, very quick, good composure, presence and an outstanding replacement for Van der Sar.

"We were looking for the same type of qualities as Edwin, because the one great quality Edwin always had was his composure and organisational ability. David de Gea is very similar that way."

The fee is "believed to be in the region of £17 million," making him the 2nd most expensive keeper behind Buffon

Onto the Champions League and Kevin McCarra in The Guardian looks back to Sir Alex's first European triumph with Aberdeen, but argues that Sir Alex isn't a man distracted by nostalgia:

Managers seldom lose their attachment to football. It is the readiness to react to new developments in the sport that fails. The temptation to retreat into reminiscence is ever present. Ferguson himself can enjoy reliving old times but it is a temporary piece of self-indulgence.

Daniel Taylor has a good piece from the press conference yesterday with some analysis thrown in:

...Ronaldo demonstrated some of his more self-absorbed traits in Rome, shooting from the kind of distances and angles to concoct the sense among many observers he single-handedly wanted to turn Europe's premier club game into a one-man event.

Ferguson, for the record, disagrees, confiding once that Ronaldo was one of the few players not to warrant any blame. But he also believes there is enough hard evidence now to remove the sense that, without the Portuguese, they are a lesser team. United have just won the league by nine points. They qualified for this final without having conceded an away goal.

"All I can say is that all teams are different, the game evolves," he says. "I am well aware we have our critics, people who think we lack flair and don't play fantasy football, who believe we fall short of being a vintage side. As I once said to a pressman who observed that we were winning, but without firing on all cylinders, 'What do you want ... blood?'"

Those who are closest to Ferguson say that part of his strategy this time is to avoid talking up United's opponents too much. This is a side, he has told his players, who can be brilliant in thrilling, sporadic flashes, but who were only a miscued Nicklas Bendtner toe-poke from being eliminated against Arsenal in the last 16.

Still on Sir Alex, James Lawton has a piece stemming from Sir Alex's contretemps with a journalist at the press conference (which I'm not going into, one of those things journalist like to make a big deal off, sticking together, reported here if you're interested), but, and I'm saying this far too often recently, I'm worried for my sanity, Lawton makes the incident the jumping off point for not  a bad article:

His mood is not improved, though, when he is told that this may be his greatest achievement, one forged from within the limits of what many believe is his least talented championship team, because any such acknowledgment from him would inevitably be seen as a slur on his players, a betrayal no less.

It would offend the tribal instincts that were as visible, and as abrasive, as ever yesterday. It would say that there were frailties at a place where they cannot be allowed to exist. About such things there is supposed to be a rule of silence. If we had forgotten, we have been reminded once again.

Henry Winter has a good interview with Michael Owen, here on Sir Alex:

“I think I would love to be a manager one day but then I watch the manager [Ferguson] at work and think there are so many attributes needed that I couldn’t be bothered doing that. Then I think there are some great bits as well, and I’d love to take responsibility. As I’ve got older, I’ve got more inquisitive: why is the manager saying this, trying to motivate a certain player like that.”

Ferguson is an inspiration. “He’s been manager here for 25 years. It’s amazing how he has moved with the times, been so open-minded to new ideas, implemented different things, how he delegates to different people yet still have everything in control. He’s got one million and one things in his armoury, rotating and motivating, which has enabled him to get where he is now.”

And the bit all the other papers pick up on, bit of a go at Capello not having him in England squad:

“I’ve given up trying to understand. I’ve not given up on England. It’s just come to an abrupt stop under this manager.

"For the first couple of squads I missed, I looked at the players and looked at what I had done. I was disappointed. For the last dozen squads, I haven’t looked. It’s sad really.” When Capello leaves after Euro 2012, Owen could be recalled. “Cheers! I hope you’re right.”

Oliver Holt bleats on about Giggs again; one bit worth quoting:

Ryan Giggs is not a landmark in English legal history. He is one of the greatest players we have ever seen.

Humorous quote from Vidic (funny because it's true) on Barcelona and their "ways": 

"Obviously their players have a different mentality to us. But it wont be a problem for us to deal with these things.

"They may do things and argue more than they should do, but it won't affect us. The referee for the game will probably be the best referee around. I think he can cope with that."

And finally a very long and worthwhile interview with Sir Bobby Charlton in The Mail, I'll pick out one quote, but frankly, much as it pains me to direct people to their website, you should just go and read the whole thing:

'...when I’m asked to name the best players in the history of our club (excluding himself), the first three are Edwards, Best and Law.’

Suddenly, that poster of Duncan Edwards is beckoning. The  greatest Red of all. Dead at 21. The elephant is in the house. For years the tale of Munich was told and re-told in tears. 

Of Big Duncan, Bobby could hardly speak. Time helps. Now his testament helps keep the memory of Edwards alive: ‘Just a boy. But what a boy. Look at our old team pictures when he was still only 16 and he was already the giant on the end of the row.

'We were  England’s pioneers in what used to be the European Cup. The League were against us entering but the Old Man took us in anyway. What they couldn’t believe, either, was that he was going to take on the might of Europe, Real Madrid and all, with a bunch of kids. His Busby Babes. 

‘Then they saw Duncan. He was already the complete footballer. Mighty in the air. Unbreakable in the tackle. Rampaging tirelessly across the pitch. Perfect first touch followed by raking 40, 50-yard passes with either foot.  Unstoppable on the run with the ball. Deadly in front of goal. He was already a colossus. 

‘Ask me who is the greatest  footballer the world has ever seen. Ask me who is the greatest  footballer I ever played with. Ask me who is the greatest footballer I ever played against. Same answer: Duncan Edwards. Don’t ask me how much greater he would have become. It defies imagination. What’s bigger than a colossus?

‘Think about that. Then  remember that I played not only with George and Denis but with Bobby Moore. That I played against Pele. They were truly great, but Duncan was the greatest.’

Read it.