Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has had his say on the Premier League's plan to cut down on abusive behaviour towards referees.

Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has announced that from the start of next season, the Premier League hopes to get clubs to crackdown on “unacceptable” behaviour by players and managers towards referees.

Sir Alex Ferguson is currently serving a five-game touchline ban for comments made about referee Martin Atkinson, but he insists that there is no issue.

Speaking at Friday's press conference, Sir Alex said: “Richard Scudamore hasn't got an awful lot to do, doesn't he? He's trying to elevate the Premier League - fine, that's good, that's his job.

“I don't think managers disrespect referees. I got fined for what I thought was a fair comment. He didn't, he gave me a five-match ban, that's fine.

“But there's a difference to say that we don't respect referees”

"They've got a difficult job, we all know that. You wouldn't referee a game, would you? Neither would I. And we do need them.

“But I think Richard is diving off a high board here without thinking about it.”

Ahead of Man United's game against Chelsea on Tuesday, Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has dismissed Chelsea's chances of winning the league title.

Sir Alex said: "I think Arsenal or ourselves will win it”
"What I said earlier in the season was that normally two teams break away. You come towards the end of the season and it always seems to come down to two teams and that's the way it's looking now."

Before of today's game, Man United are currently top of the table, with Arsenal a point behind the league leaders but have played a game extra. A win away at Wigan Athletic this afternoon would take Man United four points clear of second place Arsenal.

Chelsea currently sit fifth in the Premier League table, 12 points behind Man United. They are two points behind Tottenham and four behind Man City.

Sir Alex continued: “It won't be easy [for Chelsea] to come back from that kind of points deficit.

"I said some time ago, the team that is most consistent would win the league. That is why I stress that we have to keep our momentum going and get that consistency."

Back in 2002 Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was all set to retire, but after a change of heart it was agreed that he would stay on for another three years. Eight years later Sir Alex is still in charge of Man United, with rumours surfacing yet again suggesting that he will retire after next season.

I think most Man United fans are dreading the day that Sir Alex retires, it will come because it has to but I believe these are just newspaper rumours. I believe that Sir Alex will announce his retirement completely out of the blue, without any warning at all and that will be it.

I also believe that Man United and Sir Alex Ferguson together will have chosen his successor. Fergie isn’t going to leave United in a mess, he will help chose the next manager, who will be right for the job.

I also don’t believe that right now Sir Alex has any dates in his mind. I can see him wanting to knock Liverpool off their perch and help United win 19 league titles, which could happen this season. Also maybe win the UEFA Champions League once more, that can’t happen this season.

So whom are the papers lining up as his successor?

Hot favourite is Inter Milan boss Jose Mourinho. Everyone knows he wants the job, he’s said it. There would be some positive and negative points with having Mourinho as United manager. He will need to have a big personality and Mourinho certainly has that.

Everton boss David Moyes is another name in frame. The Toffees manager is the second favourite to replace Sir Alex, he’s done well at Everton but could he manage a massive club? No offence to Everton.

Aston Villa manager Martin O’Neill down as third favourite, I would love to see a British manager given the job but with O’Neill I would also worry about the pressure of managing such a big club.

Back in December 2009 a Barcelona based newspaper believed that Pepe Guardiola had been lined up to be the next United manager. They went as far as saying that had already been offered a lucrative contract. Guardiola’s done a fantastic job with Barca and may not be a bad choice.

United’s former number two Carlos Queiroz is also being mentioned. I like Queiroz but I believe that he is at his best when he’s assistant manager. The Portuguese has managed many teams, the biggest probably being Real Madrid and now International side Portugal. I don’t think he’d be the right man for the job.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has done an amazing job managing the Man United reserves. I would love to see Solskjaer manage United’s first team but it is a massive step between reserves and the first team.

Past and present United players are being linked with the job. Ryan Giggs is one of those, he is another person who I’d like to see manage United but that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Past players being linked with the job other than Solskjaer are Mark Hughes, Eric Cantona, Laurent Blanc, Roy Keane, Steve Bruce and even David Beckham has been mentioned.

When the manager is decided on, surely they will have experience in managing a football club already. They need to be able to manage very well paid superstars, could Giggs really do that with his former teammates? There’s a lot of banter in a dressing room, would they listen and take him seriously?

Nobody could replace Sir Alex Ferguson he has been an amazing manager. He wasn’t well known when he first came to United, so you could argue the case for maybe a less experienced manager but United are a lot bigger club than they were when Fergie joined.

Personally, one of my favourites would be Guardiola.

Man United defender Nemanja Vidic was accused by Bolton manager Owen Coyle of deliberately elbowing Johan Elmander during United’s 4-0 win over Bolton at the weekend.

The FA have said that they are not looking into the alleged elbow by Vidic and Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has defended the Serbian today.

After the game, Coyle had said: "Anyone who has seen it knows it was a terrible challenge.

"I am not looking for excuses but Vidic has caught him with an elbow and there was blood pouring out of it. I can only assume the referee has not seen it."

Speaking at a press conference today ahead of the Bayern Munich match tomorrow, Sir Alex Ferguson said:

“Vidic came in at half-time with a lump on his head the size of an egg, a swollen jaw and a black eye.”

"What's that story about living in glass houses?

“I would be totally amazed if Vidic is charged… it was a clear eye-on-the-ball header from a centre-back. There was no intent whatsoever and no eye towards the opponent. I don’t even know if he knew who was beside him or where he was.

"His sole intention was to attack that ball and head it clear, and he did that.”

It had already been believed that Vidic wouldn’t face any punishment because referee Martin Atkinson had seen the incident and hadn’t believed it to be malicious.

Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafael Benitez may not have got on last season (that is putting it lightly) but the United manager does have some sympathy for the Liverpool boss.

According to the Mirror, Sir Alex has offered the olive branch to Benitez and offers his sympathy.

Liverpool and Man United have had mixed season’s. United have won the Carling Cup and are still in the running for the Premier League title and UEFA Champions League.
Liverpool on the other hand are fighting for the fourth place and final Champions League spot in the Premier League and are in the Europa Cup.

Is that why Fergie is being nice? If Liverpool were competing against United for the same trophies, would Sir Alex have sympathy for Benitez? Is it all just mind games, he is the best at those?

I’m not quite convinced but hopefully Benitez responds.

Ahead of the massive match between Manchester United and Liverpool on Sunday, Sir Alex Ferguson has slammed the FA over their decisions.

The FA decided to review video footage and charge Man United defender Rio Ferdinand after he elbowed Hull’s Craig Fagan. Ferdinand appealed this decision, which was rejected and in return Ferdinand was handed an extra game ban.

Last Monday Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard deliberately elbowed Portsmouth’s Michael Brown. The FA reviewed the video footage and decided not to charge the Liverpool skipper.

Sir Alex said:
"I didn't expect anything to happen to Steven Gerrard. It (the disciplinary panel) is a dysfunctional unit. I don't know what they are doing.
"There is no consistency for a start and I didn't expect to get any.
"I am not too bothered about it. They can do what they want down there. It is crazy at times."

Ferdinand deserved his ban, he did elbow the Hull player but how can they give Ferdinand a ban and not Gerrard? There needs to be more consistency, it’s not right.

I believed, like many others, that it was density that Man United were going to meet Real Madrid in the Champions League this season. There had been a few seasons of animosity between United and Real Madrid over their pursuit of Cristiano Ronaldo, last summer the Spanish club finally got their man.

United comfortably got through to quarter finals of the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday after a 4-0 (7-2 on aggregate) win over AC Milan. Real Madrid played Lyon on the same day; they had to recover from a 1-0 loss in France, in the first leg.

Madrid did go 1-0 up courtesy of a Ronaldo goal but with an away goal scored by Miralem Pjanic with just 15 minutes remaining that was enough to knock out Madrid.

I honestly believed we would play this season, I would have loved to play them but it is just as amusing to see them go out at this stage, especially after all the money they spent during the summer.

If we had played them, how would we have stopped Ronaldo? Well if you are Sir Alex Ferguson, then the only way is by using a machine gun.

"In my mind, I had a thought that, somewhere along the line, we were going to meet them [Real Madrid] and Ronaldo would be up against us,” Sir Alex said.

"We would have needed a machine gun to stop him!"

"I am disappointed for Ronaldo not having qualified. We had someone at the game [against Lyon] and the report was he [Ronaldo] was absolutely fantastic.”

Thats one way to stop him, I suppose.

Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has set Wayne Rooney a target of scoring 40 goals this season. After breaking the 30 barrier last night against AC Milan, Rooney’s next target is the big 40.

Two seasons ago winger Cristiano Ronaldo scored a massive haul of 42 goals, but Sir Alex isn’t going to be greedy, he would only like another 10 goals this season from Rooney.

"I am delighted he has got to 30," said Sir Alex.
"That is what I wanted. But he is there now.

"We have nine league games left and hopefully five European matches, so that is 14 in total. If he gets a goal a game he will do it.

"But I am not greedy. I would be happy if he got to 40."

I would love to see Rooney beat Ronaldo’s tally of 42 goals, not because I’m bitter because Ronaldo left but because I believe he deserves it. Over recent season’s when we had Ronaldo, Rooney has been so unselfish, it would be great to see him get that amount of goals.

Chelsea lost 2-1 to Inter Milan tonight (I just thought I would point that out) and they have another important game this weekend. On Saturday 4th place contenders Manchester City travel down to London to play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson believes that Man City have a chance of taking points off Chelsea, and in turn helping their fierce rivals Man United out.

Sir Alex said: “We hope so [Man City taking points off Chelsea ],”

“They’re a good side, chasing that fourth place.”

“They’ll have a chance because Chelsea are coming back from a game against Inter.”

United’s win over West Ham took us one point behind Chelsea, who have played a game less. United aren’t playing in the Premier League this weekend due to it being the Carling Cup final, so the game against West Ham was moved forward.

Both teams will drop points before the end of the season, hopefully Chelsea can drop a few on Saturday.

Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has reportedly banned the youth players from doing any interviews with MUTV, the clubs official television channel.

It is has also recently been revealed that the Under-18’s are only allowed to wear black boots. The youngsters may have beaten Blackburn 6-1 in their last game but before that United saw loses to Liverpool and West Brom, before that they lost to Blackburn in the Youth Cup.

Three straight defeats for a Man United team is not acceptable so Sir Alex has decided to show the players who is boss.

Man United defender John O’Shea has been quoted as saying:

“The restrictions are on the youth team”


“They are told they have to stick to wearing black. Once in the reserve or first-team squad there are no restrictions, but if you are wearing flashy colours and don’t play too well you’re likely to get singled out.”

Man United defender Patrice Evra has revealed that Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is like a ‘child’ when he is watching a football match. It’s all good though, Sir Alex hasn’t gone soft, when things are bad he will still use the ‘hairdryer treatment’.

"Sir Alex is a child," The Sun quote Evra as saying.

"We saw it against Manchester City. He's so passionate. He was jumping up and down like a child after that game.


"You could be forgiven for thinking he'd never won a game before!


"At 70 [sic], he doesn't see himself taking it easy at home reading a book or watching TV. Personally I think that would bore him.


"I don't think he will call an end to his career. As long as he's strong he will carry on.


"He will stay until his last breath."


"Manchester United is a factory workers' club. You have to respect that culture.


"It's a club where we work hard. They will not congratulate you after each win. Sir Alex frequently says 'Well done my son' and that says it all.


"For them it's normal when you play a good game.


"It's normal to win the championship. It's Manchester United.


"We don't have the right to make mistakes."


"I do what I have to on the pitch. I'm not like Ferguson's son. But as soon as I'm not good, Ferguson will give me the 'hairdryer'."

British tabloid The Sun are claiming that Man United captain Gary Neville has been frozen out because of his gesture towards Carlos Tevez.

During the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final’s former Man United striker Tevez gestured towards Neville. The day before an interview with Neville had been made public, when asked if Tevez was worth the amount City paid for, Neville had replied no. Tevez response was to gesture towards Neville telling him to keep his mouth shut, Neville responded by showing Tevez his middle finger.

This incident was repeated over and over again on a TV channel, Sir Alex Ferguson’s response was to ban the channel from his press conferences. The Sun claim that Sir Alex is so angry with Neville he is now being frozen out.

Neville was not in the squad for the game against Arsenal, even though he wasn’t injured.

I personally wouldn’t have been angry with Neville, he didn’t say anything bad about Tevez and was being provoked. I think many people would have reacted the same way.

Before the clash with Man City yesterday, Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was urging the Man United fans to get behind the team. If you have been on a different world then you wouldn’t know that Man United fans are trying to push the owners of Man United out of Old Trafford.

Fans are not buying tickets, merchandise, cancelling a MUTV subscription, wearing green and yellow, protesting and more. Sir Alex has reacted and he is asking for fans to pull together.
Last night the Man United fans were 100% behind the team and that has resulted in Sir Alex saying that the fans were fantastic.

“I thought our fans were unbelievable tonight,” Sir Alex told MUTV. “When Old Trafford is like that, the players really respond to it. They dragged us home. I have to pay special tribute to them. They were wonderful.”

You didn’t have to be inside the stadium last night to hear what an unbelievable atmosphere there was.

Peterborough’s Director of Football Barry Fry isn’t too happy with Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Fry claims that Peterborough wanted to sign Danny Welbeck on loan first, this comes after it was announced that Welbeck had joined Preston on loan.

Fry believes that Sir Alex didn’t allow Welbeck to join the Posh because they sacked Fergie’s son Darren Ferguson earlier on in the season. So instead, Welbeck has joined Darren’s new club Preston North End until the rest of the season yesterday.

"We asked United if they would let Welbeck join us on loan but were told there was no way they would allow him to play in the Championship," Fry said in The Sun.
"Yet United have let him join Preston. Obviously Alex wants to give us a good hiding for his son leaving."

I honestly don’t know what Fry expected, if it was the other way round he probably would have done the same thing. Darren is Fergie’s son; of course he is going to back him, what father wouldn’t?

Man United’s 21-year old midfielder Anderson has put his Old Trafford future in doubt after not turning up for training yesterday. Anderson wasn’t included in the Man United squad for Hull. that was after feeling the full force of Sir Alex Ferguson’s ‘hair dryer’ treatment after United’s 2-1 loss to Man City.

Anderson has reportedly said that he was fit to play against Hull and was furious to have been left out.

Anderson is only 21-years old and ok, he has got some improving to do but we have to trust Sir Alex Ferguson. Many moaned about Darren Fletcher being rubbish, look at him now. If Anderson isn’t good enough for Man United, Fergie will get rid of him.

If it is true and Anderson has gone off in a strop then that really won’t help things. Fergie won’t stand for that and he probably won’t be in the squad for the game against Manchester City tomorrow evening.

Hopefully this is just another case of the press making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Man United defender Rio Ferdinand hasn’t played for Man United since United’s defeat to Liverpool on the 25th October. Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has confirmed that Ferdinand will make his comeback from injury against Hull City tomorrow afternoon.

"Rio has been training very well in the last few weeks. He will play tomorrow," Ferguson told reporters at his Friday press conference.
"This is the time to bring him back," Sir Alex added.

"We have gone through the whole situation with him in terms of enough training and endurance work.
"It is a big boost because the defence has been the weakest part of our game this season.

"At various times we have lost Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Edwin Van Der Sar, John O'Shea.

"It has been a rough time, so to get them back can only be good for us."

This is fantastic news, especially when you consider that yesterday Sir Alex Ferguson was confirming that John O’Shea was out for the rest of the season.

Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is well known for his ‘hair dryer’ treatment when it comes to players who aren’t performing at the level they should. Sir Alex has spoken about how he deals with multi millionaire footballers.

Speaking at a lecture in Dublin, he said: "If I lose control of these multi-millionaires in the Manchester United dressing room then I'm dead.

"So I never lose control. If anyone steps out of my control, that's them dead.

"Through my development, I've come across two issues - power and control.

"Control is important, very, very important. My control is the most important thing."

Winger Luis Nani is thought to have been one of the most recent to be on the end of one of Sir Alex’s rants.

Nani said: “He is a very complicated guy,”
“He's tough. If things are OK, he will be OK, but if there is anything he believes to be wrong, you are screwed. He can go from complimenting you to just plain trashing in a couple of minutes. Has it happened to me? Hell, yes. He'll say "Nani, how could you miss this or this?”

Manchester City striker Carlos Tevez has said that Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and defender Gary Neville disrespected him. After scoring against Man United, Tevez provoked Neville, Sir Alex and the Man United fans because they have all said that he wasn’t ‘worth it’.

Tevez left Man United during the summer and joined Man City for £25 million; many people associated with Man United have said that he wasn’t worth that price. To be fair, he isn’t, in my opinion no footballer is worth that amount of money.

Tevez said: "I just think Gary was very disrespectful which, to be fair, is out of character, but he didn't know the whole story of why I left Manchester United and I believe I deserved his respect”
"We achieved a lot together at United, I was the second top scorer there in my first season at the club and I deserve respect from my fellow professionals."

Tevez went on to say: "Football is a form of theatre and as far as I am concerned it was just a form of banter”

"There was nothing malicious intended whatsoever. I was not trying to incite anyone but I was entitled to say to Neville that he should have been more respectful. For the second goal I ran to the touchline and cupped my ears and looked up to the part of the ground where the United directors were sitting, and also to Ferguson in the dugout, because I wanted them to know this was my response to them saying I was not worth the money."

"People from United have been speaking about me publicly and criticising me but I wanted to do my talking on the pitch because that was the best way of responding to all these people, such as Neville, who were saying United were right to let me go."

This may sound childish but Tevez did start it all off. When he left Man United he started coming out with rubbish like Mark Hughes is a lot better manager than Sir Alex Ferguson. This whole situation is rather childish, Sir Alex shouldn’t need to rile the players up for the next game but I am sure he could use this situation to his advantage and get the players up for the game (as if they didn’t need it).

Following a meeting on Saturday between Man United fans, The Guardian printed a story claiming that Man United fans are calling for Sir Alex Ferguson to resign.

Man United fans aired their opinions on what we can do to get rid of the Glazers. One fan said that we should call for Sir Alex Ferguson to resign. Sir Alex is one of the biggest names in world football, if he quits and shows the Glazers what he feels then surely they will leave. This is assuming that Sir Alex feels the same as the majority of fans and wants them to leave.

MUST (Manchester United Supporters Trust) has responded to this article and as a result, it has been changed.

The statement read:

Contrary to reports today regarding Manchester United supporters calling for Sir Alex Ferguson to resign MUST (the Manchester United Supporters Trust) wishes to put it on record that we believe the organisation and the vast majority of United supporters are 100% behind Sir Alex Ferguson. The only people we want to see leave Old Trafford are the Glazer family.

All United supporters are entitled to voice their opinion but these comments were made by one individual at a meeting where it was made clear it was private and journalists were briefed that it was totally off the record to allow supporters to speak freely. We believe that all those journalists who attended the meeting respected this agreement but the story came from reports on internet message boards followed by a call direct to Mr Flacks rather than from the meeting itself.... See More

MUST does not believe that the views expressed represented a widespread view of those present and indeed another speaker who offered the counter point of view was given a loud round of applause in response.

We believe Johnny Flacks and indeed every Manchester United supporter is absolutely entitled to express their views but it is important to distinguish individual views from those of organisations or those present at a meeting.

We believe Manchester United has the best manager, the best players and the best supporters. It is only the owners that let our great club down. They should go before they do any more damage.

Personally I wouldn’t want Sir Alex to resign and I don’t think it would work anyway. The only thing it would really do is get a lot more press attention to this story.

It looks like Man City manager Roberto Mancini doesn’t want to get into a war of words with Man United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Sir Alex is well known to get into a verbal battle with many managers, most recently Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez (who did start it).

Mancini has spoken about Sir Alex and has only has kinds words to say about the Man United manager. This was ahead of the Carling Cup first leg tie between the two teams, which has now been cancelled thanks to the snow.

"I hope that I stay here in this seat for many times," Mancini reportedly said.


"But it’s normal. It’s meant as a joke what he said, but now I hope I stay here for a long time.


"Has Sir Alex contacted me since I was appointed? No but he doesn’t have my number. But he’s a good man."


"I have great respect for him. Sir Alex has won many trophies and is the most important manager in the world.


"But we want to beat him, this is normal. We don’t play to lose. We have respect but we want to beat United and we want to beat Sir Alex."