I’ve just read a yellowing copy of last season’s Premiership preview. You know, the one where some fool predicted Sir Alex Ferguson’s final season at Manchester United would end in tears.
Of course I was wrong. Fergie decided not to quit. He’s at Old Trafford for another three winters. And I think he’ll regain his supremacy this season. But boy did he mess up last time, just like I predicted!
Despite the signing of record buys Juan Veron (£28,1-million) and Ruud van Nistelrooy (£19-million), they just couldn’t keep pace with Arsenal, who signed cut-price players like Gio van Bronkhorst and Francis Jeffers. In the end, United finished third and were forced to endure a trophy-free year.
This season, Sir Alex has splashed out £30-million on Rio Ferdinand, his third British record-breaking signing in 13 months. Rio must shore up that leaky defence; England’s best World Cup defender will presumably be expected to plug the gap left by the departure of Jaap Stam; but has Fergie failed to address other pressing problems?
Roy Keane and Sebastian Veron don’t get on in the middle of midfield. French centre-half Laurent Blanc is past his best. Ruud van Nistelrooy can’t score the goals on his own, Paul Scholes doesn’t appear to thrive playing in his shadow. Goalkeeper Fabien Barthez is not as consistent as Peter Schmeichel. And to compound the problems, Fergie has allowed Dwight Yorke to join his old United striker partner Andy Cole for just £2-million at Blackburn Rovers and, in these recessionary times, he let the reliable Irish stopper Denis Irwin wander off to Wolves for free.
Strange days. But then this was a weird pre-season.
In Italy, clubs like Fiorentina have been relegated from Serie A to Serie C because of their financial problems. Lazio and Roma are both battling for survival. At Inter Milan, Ronaldo has been forced to take a pay cut despite his World Cup-winning heroics for Brazil during the summer.
All around Europe it’s the same. They’re calling it the Ball Street Crash. Television money is drying up, transfers are down, players are being released. Earlier this month in Italy, 68 unemployed players went in to a pre-season training camp, funded by their players’ association. I have compiled a fairly useful Premiership XI consisting entirely of players who are currently without a club.
The Professional Footballers’ Association and the League Managers’ Association (LMA) are complaining that their members are being asked to take voluntary pay cuts.
John Barnwell, chief executive of the LMA, says: ”Several managers have rung me to say their chairmen have indicated a wish to ‘renegotiate’ their contracts. They’re not going to renegotiate them upwards, are they? The danger signs are there.”
West Bromwich Albion, freshly promoted to the Premiership, have had to scrap their £15 000-a-win bonus scheme, leading to a player revolt. Arsenal have told their double-winning heroes from last season that win bonuses are unlikely to be paid.
Chelsea, Spurs and Sunderland have all announced they want to reschedule their incentive schemes — and, like Leeds, they have all indicated that every player has a price.
The get-rich-quick generation are finding themselves hamstrung for the first time since Jimmy Hill helped scrap the minimum wage back in the dark ages of the 1960s.
Which leaves us all wondering how anybody can possibly beat Manchester United this season. They appear alone unruffled by all the economic gloom-and-doom.
After Ferdinand, there are rumours of top Argentina fullback Juan Pablo Sorin (28) joining for £6-million from Lazio, to keep his former River Plate team-mate Veron happy.
No talk of pay cuts at Old Trafford. They remain the richest club in the world, happy to sign new deals with people like David Beckham that offer more money in a month than Prime Minister Tony Blair gets in a year. Becks is apparently on £100 000 a week. Princess Tony is on £167 000 a year.
So moneybags United, with failed South African boss Carlos Queiroz now helping lay down the law, will return to the top of the tree this season.
Arsenal, with Brazilian Gilberto Silva — who scored the only goal of the Community Shield last week — their main aquisition, will run them close. But with David Seaman approaching 40 and Tony Adams calling for the pipe and slippers, don’t expect more miracles from the Gunners.
Leeds, with Ferdinand sold and Lee Bowyer creating havoc with his various demands, will struggle under a distracted Terry Venables.
For me, Newcastle are the only side likely to push United. The evergreen Sir Bobby Robson, 70 this season, worked miracles for the Geordies last term. Portugal’s Hugo Viana is a good signing, Titus Bramble has arrived from Ipswich to add spine, while young Jermaine Jenas looks a good prospect. If Alan Shearer, Craig Bellamy and Kieron Dyer stay fit, the Magpies could even pinch the silverware.
And what of the Birmingham challenge? For the first time since the 1980s, all three sides from England’s second city are in the top flight. Birmingham City and West Brom join Aston Villa for a tilt at the Premiership but I can’t see a sustained challenge from any of them.
Chelsea have shot their bolt financially, Manchester City will need at least a season to settle and Liverpool are my shock tips for an awful season.
Down in the drop zone? Fulham may struggle with French coach Jean Tigana wondering why Italian maestro Franco Baresi has been employed by his megabucks chairperson Mohammed Al Fayed. On top of that, they’ve been forced to move to Queens Park Rangers’ Loftus Road and I can’t see Arsenal reject Junichi Inamoto dominating the Premiership despite his World Cup performances back home in Japan.
Keep an eye on Everton, Southampton, Sunderland and Middlesbrough too when the relegation axe begins to fall in the spring. Blackburn, with the old Yorke/Cole dynamic duo up front, may escape.
Charlton, with South Africans Mark Fish and Shaun Bartlett, won’t.