- Following the media reports during the week that Anderson and Sir Alex Ferguson had a big bust up ahead of the Community Shield because he wasn’t picked, I can reveal that there is an element in truth to it. On the Friday before the Chelsea game Anderson kicked off massively with Federico Macheda on the training ground. The manager was not at all impressed and told Anderson he wouldn’t be playing at the weekend - something the player wasn’t happy about but did back down, contrary to reports in the press.

- Michael Owen is loving life at Manchester United and is ever so polite to all the staff - the admin ladies, the people who work at the canteen and those at the MU Foundation. He is friendly and professional with all those he comes in to contact with and still can’t quite believe we snapped him up.

- The players were not happy at having to attend the launch of the “incredible” Hublot clock in the carpark outside Old Trafford. Having to get in the gear and pose in front of some tacky clock was not high up on their list of things to do on Friday tea-time ahead of a big game. For those of you at the game yesterday, you will have noticed that one of the lights lining the stand had blown, adding to the shoddy look.

- Dimitar Berbatov is always very straight faced and doesn’t have many mates. When told to ‘cheer up’ and ‘look like he wanted to be here’ he responded by claiming that in his heart he was very happy and loved being here. He was told he was a very good actor then which did get him smiling!

- Whilst reports keep insisting Nemanja Vidic’s wife is unhappy in Manchester, it’s news to anyone at the club who has dealings with her. She’s always at the charity events with a smile on her face (something some of the other wives and girlfriends have a problem with - Gabby Heinze’s wife was a right bitch apparently!) and doesn’t appear to be at all unhappy.

- Nani isn’t sad about Ronaldo’s departure and like he said in the press, sees it as his chance to shine.

- New signing Obertan speaks perfect English, whilst Valencia really struggles to communicate and his only mate so far is Anderson.

"Everybody in the team watches a lot of movies, but with me it is a real hobby,” said Berbatov. “When you are a foreign player in another country sometimes you have a lot of time on your hands. I am always watching movies at home. If I wanted to, I could open a video store with my DVDs! At the moment, though, I am more into watching TV shows. I watch House and Entourage, and I’m waiting for the new series of Heroes and Lost. My favourite is House, I never miss an episode.”

Wayne Rooney recently joined an elite group of players who have scored one hundred goals for Manchester United. He has since claimed that he wants to stay at the club forever, which has sparked comments from Gary Neville, who reckons Rooney could one day become our all time top scorer.

Rooney is currently on 102 club goals which is still some way behind Sir Bobby Charlton’s record of 249. Rooney’s strike rate is better than Charlton’s though, so if Rooney can stay fit and continue to thrive in his natural central position, who knows what he could achieve?


“There is a long time to go before he gets there but Wayne does have an opportunity to beat Bobby Charlton’s scoring record,” said Neville. “He will have to play a lot more games and stay clear of injury because that record has stood for many years and will be very difficult to break. But a player of his ability should score goals. He plays centre-forward for Manchester United. That points you in the right direction.”

When the £80m transfer deal for Cristiano Ronaldo was confirmed United fans were writing out their shopping list of players they wanted Sir Alex Ferguson sign. We could do with another winger, another central midfielder, another striker, maybe a right-back, but our transfer kitty meant we could buy as many players as we wanted.

Then the summer whizzed by, the transfer deadline passed and a lot of United fans were left wanting. Antonio Valencia has had a good start (forgetting his performance against Arsenal), Michael Owen will get your goals and on a free you can hardly complain, and then there’s some French kid, Obertan, who Larry White was very surprised to see us sign. Regardless, when we’d been thinking about the Benzema’s and Ribery’s of the transfer market, you couldn’t help but feel at least a slight pang of disappointment.

Some have claimed it’s because of the debt we haven’t spent, whilst Sir Alex Ferguson says it’s down to a crazy transfer market, with fees massively inflated thanks to the likes of Real Madrid and City. Given that Bayern Munich were asking for €100 million to sign Ribery, then you have to think it’s probably better to bide our time than spend way over the odds on someone we could get cheaper next summer.

Still, whilst you might be disappointed with our dealings in the transfer market, we should thank our lucky stars we’re not stuck in Chelsea’s position!


FIFA have banned Chelsea from registering anyone in the next two transfer windows, meaning they can’t buy anyone until January 2011.

French club Lens made an official complaint over Chelsea’s signing of their young player Gael Kakuta in 2007, just two years after they were fined £300k and given a three point deduction suspended sentence for tapping up Ashley Cole.

Whilst this would be a pretty devastating blow for any club, it will likely effect Chelsea more than any club in top four, given the age of their best and most effective players.

By the time Chelsea can buy again: Frank Lampard will be approaching his 33rd birthday, Michael Ballack will be 33, Drogba will be two months short of his 33rd birthday, Deco will be 33, Anelka will be two months short of his 32rd birthday, John Terry, Ashley Cole and Malouda will be 30, Joe Cole will be 29, Michael Essien, Bosingwa and Petr Cech will be 28 and so on. In fact, of the current (21 man) squad, the only players who will be 27 and younger by the time they can buy again are Sturridge, Kalou, Mikel, Turnball, Ivanovic and Hutchinson!

Of course, Chelsea do have the likes of Michael Mancienne, Franco di Santo, Scott Sinclair and Slobodan Rajkovic to return from loan, but as yet, none of them have proved their worth in the first team. They could be great but equally, they could be shit. The loan period away tends to make or break players and we’ve seen plenty not good enough for United this way, and we have a successful and long established youth system.

Sir Alex Ferguson did question the age of the squad last summer when Chelsea pushed us to the final day of the season. They of course refuted this claim but went on to finish third the following season having never really challenged for the title. Given they haven’t strengthened their squad much at all this summer, it does make you wonder what they are going to be like by the time their transfer bid has been lifted.

The worry, of course, is that they have been dealt with more severely because they are an English club, which tends to be the general theme for our footballing bodies. It speaks volumes that UEFA have just confirmed they will not be reviewing any more cases of diving, following their dishing out of a two match ban to Arsenal’s Eduardo! Clearly they didn’t want to be put in a position where they had to hand out a ban to a Real Madrid or AC Milan player!

No big team in Europe has a totally clean nose where transfers are concerned, but for some reason Chelsea keep getting caught. Keep up on the good Peter Kenyon!

Owen Hargreaves has been named in Manchester United’s 25-man Champions League squad, as has new signing Obertan and plenty of youngsters, but there is no place for Zoran Tosic.

The Serbian winger featured heavily in our pre-season but hasn’t played for United since the friendly against Valencia at Old Trafford at the beginning of August.


1.Van der Sar, 2.Neville, 3.Evra, 4.Hargreaves, 5.Ferdinand, 6.Brown, 7.Owen, 9.Berbatov, 10.Rooney, 11.Giggs, 12.Foster, 13.Park, 15.Vidic, 16.Carrick, 17.Nani, 18.Scholes, 20.Fabio, 21.Rafael, 22.O’Shea, 24.Fletcher, 25.Valencia, 26.Obertan, 27.Macheda, 28.Gibson, 29.Kuszczak.

Additional players registered (UEFA rules permit any player born on or after 1 January 1988 who has been eligible to play for the club for any uninterrupted period of two years since his 15th birthday to be registered outside of the 25-man squad limit): 8.Anderson, 19.Welbeck, 23.J.Evans, 31.C.Evans, 33.Hewson, 36.Gray, 37.Cathcart, 38.Zieler, 39.Chester, 40.Amos