Stubborn Fergie holds exit door open for Ruud
Tuesday February 28th 2006
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sk,3 While Alex Ferguson and Carlos Queiroz celebrate Manchester United´s Carling Cup victory, Ruud van Nistelrooy´s post match demeanour has not gone down well at Old Trafford
Matt
Dickinson
AS Ruud van Nistelrooy attempts to quantify the long-term significance of his omission from the Carling Cup final, he should know that the recriminations can last a lifetime.
Jim Leighton was the most famous victim of Alex Ferguson´s axe and there are signs that, almost 16 years on, he still cannot share the same dressing-room as his former manager.
It was in 1990 that Ferguson dropped Leighton from the FA Cup Final replay against Crystal Palace after an eccentric performance by the Manchester United goalkeeper in the initial 3-3 draw and a restaging of that match, at Selhurst Park on April 6, seemed a perfect opportunity to bury the hatchet.
It is all in a good cause, with the proceeds going to the leukaemia charities that helped to save the life of Geoff Thomas, the former Palace captain, but Leighton remains the only player yet to respond to the invitation.
He has not spoken to Ferguson for years and perhaps the wounds are still raw.
Linda Leighton was so upset with the demotion of her husband that, as the other families celebrated, she stuck two fingers up at Ferguson. "That stung," he said later.
There were no reports of anything similar from Mrs van Nistelrooy on Sunday and, rather than Leighton, the more accurate comparison may be with Patrick Vieira.
Transfer
At 29, Vieira was tossed out of Highbury. Van Nistelrooy is also 29 and a transfer free of about £15million would probably seem about right for him, too.
He is on course to finish top scorer in the Premiership and yet no one could dispute that he is playing with half the enthusiasm of his best, the championship-winning season of 2002-03. His listless display in the recent FA Cup defeat by Liverpool was the cause of post-match ructions.
Van Nistelrooy will play for United again, but it would appear a long way back from the kind of public humiliation that Ferguson heaped upon him on Sunday and the striker´s post-match demeanour and moody walk away from the celebrations have not gone down well at Old Trafford.
Van Nistelrooy´s demotion carried strong echoes of the last, divisive days of David Beckham. While selling the club´s most accomplished all-round striker may seem a big risk, rather like offloading Vieira, Ferguson is unlikely to make Arsene Wenger´s mistake of failing to sign a successor.
Failure
Replacing Van Nistelrooy would not be easy, but the United manager could make Liverpool rue their failure to bring back Michael Owen.
The forward could hardly resist the opportunity and he would be available from Newcastle United for less than the proceeds from Van Nistelrooy´s sale.
Axeings from finals are not to be taken lightly, as Ferguson knows, having been the victim of one in 1965 when he was omitted from Dunfermline Athletic´s team in the Scottish Cup.
He called Willie Cunningham, his manager, "a b******," but went on to "feed on the injustice" by scoring 45 goals in 51 matches.
Van Nistelrooy may have to respond similarly if Sunday is not to be the start of his long goodbye. © (The Times, London)
Source : the irish independent
La source est pas plus fiable que ca, mais pour avoir vu le match dimanche, c´est vrai que Ruud avait pas vraiment l´air heureux et qu´il est rentre aux vestiaires avant ses coequipiers.
Maintenant Ferguson a pas non plus apprecie son attitude, et on sait que si un joueur va au clash avec Fergie, il en sort pas gagnant ( cf Staam et Beckham...).
