Cross the Manchester United manager and he can set a player on the road to untold riches and a much more luxuriant lifestyle
Back in the 50s the Spurs manager Arthur Rowe grew frustrated with the increasingly fanciful jargon of the game. When it was put to him that a player needed peripheral vision, he scornfully responded: "Peripheral vision? You know what that means? That means seeing out of your arse."
Dimitar Berbatov is a player often credited with having great vision, though some have wondered if his ability to see out of his arse may be impaired by the fact his head is too firmly wedged up it. This is unnecessarily cruel, not least because these days the Bulgarian striker's appearance gives cause for alarm.
The man has the dark rings around his eyes of a father of colic triplets and skin the colour of institutional mashed potato. It was bad enough when he had slicked-back lustrous locks ? that at least gave him the comic-villainous tinge of The Count from Sesame Street ? but now he's got that six-year-old-gives-Barbie-a-haircut barnet, the fellow is positively haunting. He looks like a cast member from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Perhaps the languid striker has fallen foul of Sir Alex Ferguson, a man we are often invited to see as the Nurse Mildred Ratched of Old Trafford. (Incidentally, people who know Nurse Ratched well assure me that in private she is a charming woman with an abiding passion for esoteric French cheeses and playing jazz tuba.) If this is the case then perhaps we can expect some colour to return to the Bulgar's melancholic chops over the next little while as the Manchester United manager turns his venomous attention to Wayne Rooney instead.
News that the diminutive Croxteth Desperate Dan has been in hot water with his boss has been greeted with a trumpeting glee that is typical of that feeling the Germans might call celebenfreude if they weren't way too busy being good at stuff to bother.
Yes, everybody likes to see a rich and famous young whippersnapper getting a well-deserved shellacking, and who better to administer one than the notoriously ferocious Glaswegian? This, after all, is a bloke whose verbal assaults on players have been likened ? by those who have suffered them ? to coming under attack from that most terrifying of all weapons: the hairdryer. Brutal, I know. But then, I don't suppose the Scot reaches for that fearsome implement straight away. He's not a monster. The man likely attempts to get his point across first using the temper-tantrum equivalent of Carmen rollers and some sculpting mousse.
When Rooney's misdemeanours emerged, many were moved to recount the fate of other players who had fallen out with the United tyrant in the past, the listing of which inevitably concluded with the words, delivered in the tone of delighted relish reserved for summarising the actions of a successful autocrat: "We've seen it before. And now we'll see it again. This is how Sir Alex deals with those who cross him."
In truth, however, the punishment meted out to those players Sir Alex has lost patience with is ? dare one say it ? not actually all that bad. I'd go so far as to say that if Ferguson is one of the Premier League's fiercest disciplinarians, then frankly there is no wonder the players behave so badly (note that it is always the teacup that an angry British boss throws in the dressing room after a poor performance rather than the more sturdy and dangerous mug. Indeed the fact that the players have cups and saucers at all suggests a world that is far more genteel than Sam Allardyce and Tony Pulis would have us believe).
The Israelites were said to beat their children with feathers. Sir Alex is plainly of the same mind. Take, for example, what he did with Jaap Stam. When the Dutch centre-back annoyed his manager with a whiny autobiography and inconsistent displays on the field, he received a summary punishment ? sold to Lazio.
Or to put it another way, given several million pounds and sent to live in Rome. The unfortunate Paul Ince, on the other hand, was sentenced to a suitcase full of cash and two years in a Milanese palazzo (though in fairness his former boss was a wee bit rude about "Big Time Charlie" in a TV documentary a few years later), while David Beckham was banished to the living hell men call the Bernab�u with nothing more than the clothes several hundred men could stand up in and a refuse sack filled with euros. Boy, that must really smart, mustn't it?
I can't help thinking that if this is indeed how Fergie deals with those who cross him, there will soon be a queue of players outside Old Trafford confessing to crimes against United in the hope of being punished with three months' full board at the Montego Bay Intercontinetal, ownership of a small island in the Indian Ocean, or a week on a waterbed with Beyonc�. Indeed the only reason I am engaging in a bit of schoolboy sarcasm at the United manager's expense right now is in the hope of a fortnight's skiing in the Italian Tyrol.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/jan/12/sir-alex-ferguson-hairdryer-manchester-united
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