In the tone that an underworld criminal might use to refer to a fellow gangster, ‘We’ll deal with it, don’t you worry,’ were the words Sir Alex Ferguson used when referring to Rio Ferdinand, and his latest cause of controversy. The irate manager has opened a debate on whether his comments were justly or not, on a weekend when other Premier League managers supported their players who opted against promoting the Kick It Out campaign.
Opting Out: Rio choosing to ignore his manager and not wear Kick It Out t-shirt against Stoke City
Throughout his career at Old Trafford, Ferguson has been known for his man-management – the ability to deal with high profile players and the determination not to let any player become bigger than the club. His attitude has not come without trouble in the past. Stories of boots being thrown around the Manchester changing rooms have been well published. Ruud van Nistelrooy soon left United after a training ground row with Ronaldo and Roy Keane was shown the door following his criticism of younger players at the club. On the whole though, players who play for United know the score and they know the manager is not to be disrespected.
So how should, or more importantly, how will Sir Alex Ferguson react to this latest tension around the club?
Rio Ferdinand, one of a number of players who refused to support the Kick It Out campaign this weekend, is perhaps closer to the issue than anyone else. After all it was his younger brother, Anton, who was victim of racial abuse from John Terry twelve months ago, Terry who was given a minimal punishment of a four game ban this week. With recent events in Serbia with Danny Rose experiencing racial abuse when playing for England U21’s, and the cases of Patrice Evra and Anton Ferdninand over the last year, fears that this stain on the game is not completely abolished have been heavily sparked.
Club problems: A red-faced Ferguson shows his anger at Rio’s decision
So Rio’s view, along with players like Jason Roberts and Joleon Lescott, is clear, he does not feel the Kick It Out campaign is doing enough to abolish racism in football. An opinion entitled to him. The problem the defender faces is that Ferguson made it clear to Friday’s press that all players would be wearing the campaign’s t-shirts. Either a break-down in communication between manager and player has occurred, or Mr Ferdinand simply stood by his views and ignored Ferguson, either way it has left Sir Alex red-faced and Ferdinand no doubt facing disciplinary action, formal or not.If this wasn’t enough for the English defender, then a shaky performance in United’s defence would not have helped his situation. The 33-year-old was at fault for Stoke’s second goal in Saturday’s 4-2 win when he let midfielder Michael Kightly ease through the centre of Manchester United’s defence.
As well as all of this, his contact expires at the end of this season; do not expect renewal talks to be imminent.
What’s your view on the Rio/Ferguson saga? Who was right, who was wrong, and what actions should now be taken?
Written by Alfie Long. See more of his work at: pitchsidetalk.wordpress.com or follow him on twitter @pitchsidetalk Edited by Charlie Cook @charlie_cook09 Thoughts and comments welcome, all support appreciated!
I said it last week and I’ll say it again. Manchester City have yet to really hit their stride. I thought they would do that last week against Fulham, but they scraped a 2-1 win with a late Edin Dzeko goal. They were even more unconvincing, only just managing to nick a last minute equaliser at home to Borrussia Dortmund midweek. It says something about their performance, that Joe Hart was man of the match pulling of a number of outstanding saves to keep them in the game.
This has been a very good week for Chelsea. The win against Arsenal may not have been the cleanest of performances, but it was a fantastic result. The greatest sides find a way to win when they are not playing that well and Chelsea did exactly that. I am not suggesting they are a great side yet, but they have definitely added an attacking flare to the team in the summer. They followed the win over Arsenal with a 4-0 thumping of FC Nordsjælland in the Champions League too.
Swansea were a revelation at the start of the season, but they are in a bit of a rut now. They have failed to score in their last 3 Premier League games. This will be a huge game for Michael Laudrup’s Swansea to show that they weren’t just on a hot streak. Reading are the weakest of the promoted sides by the looks of it. They gave a spirited performance against Newcastle last week in drawing 2-2 with Newcastle, and if it wasn’t for the 
West Brom are the unsung heroes of the season so far. Not much has been said about them, but Steve Clarke’s side have made a great start. They have only lost once, and are sitting comfortably in 6th place. QPR on the other hand, are really struggling. Mark Hughes has had plenty of financial backing, and they should be picking up more points with the players they have. It won’t be long before he starts really feeling the pressure. West Brom have won all 3 of their home matches this season, and QPR have lost 9 of the last 10 away from home. This has home win written all over it.
What a start to the season for Everton. 2nd in the league behind Chelsea, they are playing very good football, and bar the loss of the monumental loss of Fellaini, finally look to have some real depth to their squad. I have been very impressed by the new signing Kevin Mirallas, very quick, can play on the wing or up front, he works hard and looks like he scores a few goals too. He is a very good foil for the brilliant Nikica Jelavic, who is a brilliant finisher.
Arsene Wenger has had many opponents during his time at Arsenal, but ‘Big Sam’ Allardyce may just be one of the toughest. His record in home matches against Arsenal is 5-3-4, which is unlikely to have been bettered by many. It is as much the style of football that his teams play, as opposed to tactical nous. Arsenal used to dread trips to The Reebok Stadium to meet ‘Big Sam’s’ Bolton and he has created a similar side at Upton Park. Marshalled by the consistently dangerous Kevin Nolan, West Ham provide threats in every supposed area of Arsenal weakness. The return of Andy Carroll will also worry Arsenal, he has caused them many problems in the past.
I was really pleased for Southampton when they got their first win of the season against Aston Villa a couple of weeks ago, but it was back down to earth with a bump last week as Everton beat them 3-1 pretty comfortably. Gaston Ramirez scored first but it was all Everton for the rest of the game and they really could have scored more than 3 in the end. One thing that Southampton offer is goals, whether for against, I think this could be a high scoring game. Fulham have been a touch inconsistent, but they were unlucky not to get a point against Man City last weekend and Mladen Petric and Bryan Ruiz look to be forming a good partnership. Southampton will be hoping to get all 3 points at home especially as Fulham are still missing Dimitar Berbatov and I can see them doing that.
Spurs recorded their first win in 23 years at Old Trafford last week. Remarkably they only had 26% possession yet still came away with the points. They look very dangerous on the break, and they attack with a lot of pace. Aston Villa will be looking to not give Spurs as much space to play in, they will be sitting deeper and they may well find it harder to break a team down at White Hart Lane, as they have showed so far with disappointing draws at home to QPR and Norwich. I still think Tottenham will be too strong for Villa though and I think if they can break the deadlock early then they could run out comfortable winners.
This is going to be a cracking game. Man Utd have a glittering attack with Wayne Rooney back, joining Robin van Persie and Shinji Kagawa, but their defence looks very brittle. Nemanja Vidic is a huge loss and Rio Ferdinand looks to be on his last legs. He was very vulnerable when left defending against the pace of Gareth Bale, and Newcastle will be hoping that Hatem Ben Arfa will get a chance to run at him too. 
