Manchester United were plunged into further disarray yesterday as their manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, announced that he would sever all ties with the club at the end of his contract next year and West Ham made a formal approach for his assistant, Steve McClaren.Ferguson stayed off the team flight to London for today's game against Tottenham in order to have talks with Peter Kenyon, the club's chief executive, about McClaren's position and his own future at Old Trafford.West Ham want McClaren to replace Harry Redknapp, who left Upton Park last week. Ferguson, who, as The Independent revealed yesterday, is furious at being told he has no more money to spend on players, is prepared to let McClaren leave because he believes the move would be in the coach's best interests.Ferguson's contract runs out at the end of next season and United's plc board is refusing to make more transfer funds available to him, on the grounds that any new coach would want to make his own signings. There had been talk of Ferguson staying at Old Trafford in an ambassadorial role beyond next year, but his anger is such that he said yesterday he would definitely leave next summer.In this mood Ferguson could be susceptible to an approach from another club. Barcelona's president, Joan Gaspart, would like to appoint him and the United manager has hinted that he could be open to offers "I do not know if I will manage another club," he said. "I will be leaving United at the end of the season and that is it Then I will have to decide what I want to do. There are some offers and options, so I will make a decisions over the next few months. I am in a healthy position because my own health is good and while you never know what you are going to do, the most important thing is to remain active."In these circumstances the United manager feels a responsibility to look out for his own staff.
With McClaren apparently no longer in the running to succeed him at Old Trafford, Ferguson would not stand in his way if his assistant wanted to go.Alan Curbishley, the Charlton manager, was West Ham's first choice to succeed Redknapp but is now apparently out of the reckoning after Terry Brown, the West Ham chairman, contacted Ferguson for permission to speak to McClaren, who also worked with England in the weeks after the appointment of Sven Goran Eriksson. Ferguson persuaded McClaren to leave a comfortable job on the coaching staff at Derby County to join him and feels a responsibility towards him. In the past he has helped several young managers to find work.. During their glory years, Liverpool could have been accused of many things. During their glory years, Liverpool could have been accused of many things killing off games at 1-0, enjoying the excessive benevolence of referees at Anfield, turning the League championship into a one-horse race but never could they have been mistaken for a team committed to gloriously, ridiculously entertaining football. Until Wednesday, when they could have been mistaken for precisely that. I speak through gritted teeth as a Scum fan, which is how Manchester United followers are known round these parts.
Not only have the Scouse gits won three trophies this year, but they achieved their treble by dint of the most absurdly quixotic game since West Germany and Italy went goal-crazy in their 1970 World Cup semi-final, converting 1-1 at 90 minutes into 4-3 at the end.That match was voted the best World Cup match of all time a few years ago, and for my money Liverpool's 5-4 win over Alaves on Wednesday is beaten in the European club entertainment stakes only by Milan's 4-0 demolition of Barcelona in the 1994 Champions' Cup final (I was still in nappies when Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 so I couldn't possibly comment on that apparently epic encounter)."I'm not qualified to analyse that," said the BBC's Alan Hansen at half-time on Wednesday a pundit whose entire media career has been based on his apoplexy at sloppy defending. "Well, we know that," fired back Gary Lineker ("A good Leicester comment, that," my Foxes-supporting friend observed.) It's a shame that the Saturday Match of the Day is disappearing just as Gary Lineker finally looks at ease as the reincarnation of Saint Des. "They're playing like a tapas bar team," he said of Alaves at half-time, while for his sign-off you could almost see one raised eyebrow, Lynam-style, as he remarked: "Trebles all round, then."It was gratifying as a Scum fan, incidentally, to see that neither of the two post-match interviews with jubilant Liverpool fans on the BBC News on Wednesday featured Scouse accents. The second fan was another species of Cockney Red, for God's sake. Are Liverpool the new Man U? Blimey, they'll be winning the League next, just as they used to all those years ago. When Liverpool Ruled The World (BBC1, Tuesday) told the story of what Bill Shankly referred to at the start as "a bastion of invincibility Napoleon had that idea."This is the kind of thing the BBC, on their day, do better than anyone else, and there was lots of atmospheric stuff (it was good to see, by the way, that Heysel was given the same treatment as their other European finals and not glossed over). There was even a flash of wit from Bob Paisley, who greeted Alan Kennedy after the woeful first half of his debut, with: "They shot the wrong Kennedy."Liverpool's other unsung heroes were also celebrated witness the banner at the 1977 European Cup final in Rome against Borussia M?engladbach: "Joey ate the frogs legs, made the Swiss roll, and now he's munching Gladbach." And there was a heartfelt lament for football's lost soul by the comedian Kevin Day.
