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Posts Tagged ‘frenchman’

• Manchester United manager leaves decision to full-back
• United and Liverpool meet for first time since FA ban

Sir Alex Ferguson will recommend Patrice Evra does not ignore Luis Suaárez in the pre-match handshake when they come face to face for the first time since the Football Association found the Liverpool striker guilty of racially abusing the Manchester United player and banned him for eight matches.

Ferguson intends to leave the decision to Evra when the two teams meet at Old Trafford next weekend but believes the Frenchman should not prolong the argument. “He should be applauded for what he did [reporting Suárez], standing up to it,” Ferguson said. “There is no shame for him. The matter is over. He can rise above that [ignoring the handshake].”

Evra was booed and subjected to chants branding him a liar when he played at Anfield last weekend and one supporter was arrested afterwards for allegedly making monkey gestures. “Patrice handled it OK,” Ferguson continued. “I don’t think he enjoyed it but he handled it OK. Patrice has already shown the courage to fight it, so he has nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t think it’s a problem shaking hands.”

John Terry’s absence with a knee injury means Ferguson will not have to speak to Rio Ferdinand to ascertain whether he is planning to shun the Chelsea captain in the pre-match handshakes at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Ferdinand had told friends he did not want to accept Terry’s hand but Ferguson planned to advise him to go through with it. He said: “Rio has been fighting the racism issue for years. I’ve seen that in all the time I’ve known the lad. But there is a moment when he maybe has to rise above that.”

United’s injury concerns are easing, with Wayne Rooney, Ashley Young, Nani and Tom Cleverley all in the squad, while David de Gea should return in goal after missing the midweek win over Stoke City. Anders Lindegaard has an ankle injury that will rule him out for up to six weeks, meaning Ferguson will persist with a 21-year-old who has looked worryingly vulnerable at times this season. “The boy has got a great talent,” Ferguson said of De Gea. “He has made two or three mistakes but in two or three years we won’t be discussing that at all because he will have matured.

“At the moment he has found it difficult coming into the English game. It is highlighted when you make a mistake at United. It can be exaggerated. But there are mistakes and he wants to address it himself. He will do, through maturity and the understanding of the English game. It is hard when you are replacing someone like Edwin van der Sar and Peter Schmeichel because they are probably two of the greatest goalkeepers in European football over the last 40 years.”

Ferguson was less charitable when it came to Alan Hansen’s recent criticisms of United on Match of the Day, once again turning on the former Liverpool player. “He has tried to change it by saying he was talking about our away form but I have read his transcript and he said we were woeful for the last year and a half. He didn’t mention away games. So he’s dug himself into a grave really.

“He’s in a responsible position and it’s obvious to me he has said it the week before we played Liverpool. I can understand it because he’s a former Liverpool player and Kenny [Dalglish] is his pal, so he’s maybe tried to jack it up a little bit but he should be more responsible.

“When you think about it, we’ve played in a European Cup final, the semi-final of the FA Cup and won the league by nine points, so we couldn’t have been that woeful. Jesus Christ! Maybe he’s not got very good grammar.”

Manchester UnitedLuis SuárezLiverpoolAlex FergusonDaniel Taylor
guardian.co.uk

• Head of Fare warns against damage to club’s reputation
• Liverpool have until 13 January to respond to FA’s decision

Liverpool have been urged to abandon any thoughts of appealing against the eight-match ban and £40,000 fine that Luis Suárez received for racially abusing Manchester United’s Patrice Evra, with a leading anti-racism campaigner warning the club that their vehement support of the Uruguayan is damaging their reputation.

Piara Powar, the executive director of Football Against Racism in Europe, believes the club should respect the verdict that was reached by a Football Association independent commission last month and has since been outlined in a 115-page report. The commission’s findings have since been made public in a document that was published on Saturday night, providing a detailed and thorough account of the process from start to finish, including all the evidence that was presented to the three-man panel chaired by Paul Goulding QC.

Suárez was found to have called Evra “negro” seven times during the game at Anfield on 15 October and the evidence that the Liverpool player gave in relation to the confrontation with the Frenchman, which occurred during the second half of the 1-1 draw, was described as “inconsistent” and “unreliable”. The commission also revealed that, when weighing up the punishment, it considered giving Suárez a longer suspension before deciding that eight-matches was appropriate.

Liverpool received the commission’s report on Friday night, when they played Newcastle at home, and have said that they will “take the necessary amount of time to read, digest and properly consider the contents” before making further comment and deciding whether to appeal. They have until 13 January to decide, although Powar believes the time has come for Liverpool and Suárez to change their stance and accept the commission’s decision.

“The Football Association’s published judgment from the Suárez-Evra incident is welcome,” said Powar, a former director of the anti-racism organisation Kick It Out. “It appears the FA have taken their time to initiate a process that was both fair in its implementation of football rules and in accordance with the principles of British justice. As an international non-governmental organisation we [Fare] think the investigation and judgment sets the bar for governing bodies globally.

“Racial abuse between players on the field of play has been an unspoken taboo for too long, an area that has been unsatisfactorily dealt with by English football despite many cases over the past 10 years. Luis Suárez and Liverpool FC have the right to appeal, however we would call on the club to think again about their public campaign to dispute the charges and contest the principles involved in the case. As a club with a good international standing the vehemence of their campaign is unquestionably causing them reputational harm.”

Luis SuárezLiverpoolStuart Jamesguardian.co.uk

Today’s Rumour Mill is going to call Steve Bruce to say ‘I love you’

Bernard Cribbins is not a happy bunny. The low-talking Sunderland manager is stomping about Wearside shouting “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me” as Anton Ferdinand looks on encouragingly and advises “You go, girl”. He stops after doing Aretha Franklin’s dance off the Blues Brothers and bellows in the general direction of the West Midlands: “Are you disrepecting me?”

Meanwhile at Bodymoor Heath Ged Houllier is perplexed by the accusation of tapping up Darren Bent that Steve Bruce has hurled in his general direction. Ian Holloway jumps on the bandwagon, saying Villa’s pursuit of Blackpool’s Charlie Adam is “unsettling and probably deliberate”. But response came there none from the Frenchman, other than the enigmatic: “Tay, tay, tay, tay, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta, tay, tay, take or leave us, only please believe us, we ain’t ever gonna be respectable.”

Across to the East Midlands where career opportunities are knocking at Stoke City. Tony Pulis has hijacked John Carew’s transfer from Aston Villa to West Bromwich Albion, by offering the Norwegian £52,000 a week. Surprisingly, he’s lapped it up. Pulis is also after Hoffenheim’s Prince Tagoe but will get rid of Ricardo Fuller, who’s off to Sunderland for £3m, Eidur Gudjohnsen, heading to Ajax for bus fare, and Tuncay, off to Birmingham City to preserve his sanity.

Fulham are the morning’s other big movers and shakers, lining up a return for Paul Konchesky which allows Liverpool to kill the fatted calf for Stephen Warnock from Villa. Mark Hughes also fancies nipping in for Leeds United’s Bradley Johnson, Manchester City’s Shaun Wright-Phillips and is keen to take Henri Lansbury on loan from Arsenal and Gaël Kakuta from Chelsea.

Sunderland will use some of the Bent booty, as we’re officially expected to call it, on Wigan Athletic’s Charles N’Zogbia. Dave Whelan is holding out for £12m for the winger and Steve Bruce has thought, sod it I’ll pay it. With a slice of that money Roberto Martínez will splash £2m on Ipswich Town’s Grant Leadbitter.

The third merry-go-round club, according to the Mail, is yer actual West Ham United who will snap up Robbie Keane, “cheekily”, on loan, Hoffenheim’s Demba Ba “pointlessly” also on loan and Blackburn Rovers’s El Hadji Diouf “shamelessly” on a free transfer. Two of those descriptions may be the Mill’s own interpretation.

Get Blackburn, the cocks of the north. Having failed to woo Ronaldinho they have set their eyes on Juan Román Riquelme, the 32-year-old Boca Juniors silky-skilled tortoise. This is getting like Piers Morgan forcing himself into photos with Brother Beyond and Tight Fit all those years ago, a sense of panic from the victim and the unasked question written puzzlingly across cowering eyes: “Who exactly are you?”

Everton want Burnley’s Chris Eagles. Burnley want Everton’s James Vaughan. There may be some swap shop action going on there with Cheggers insisting Vaughan also takes some used roller skates to Turf Moor to even up the transaction.

And finally Manchester United have been told £20m won’t buy Borussia Dortmund’s Shinji Kagawa. So that’s that, then. Are you going to take that United? Would Ged?

Blackburn RoversTransfer windowSunderlandAston VillaLiverpoolFulhamRob Bagchiguardian.co.uk