The following news article was added to www.red11.org/news on Fri Feb 21 @ 11:44:37 GMT
ERIKSSON SHOOK HANDS ON UNITED DEAL - FERGUSON LONDON (Reuters) - Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson says he believes the premier league club planned last season to replace him with England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, a man Ferguson said "doesn't change anything". Ferguson, 61, who changed his mind about retiring to sign a new three-year contract in February 2002, said he believed the Swede had early last year shaken hands on a deal to replace him at Old Trafford after the World Cup finals. "I think they'd done the deal all right," Ferguson said in an interview for Saturday's Times magazine, excerpts of which were published in Friday's Times newspaper. "I don't know for certain but I'm sure it was Eriksson. "I think they'd shaken hands. They couldn't put anything on paper because he was still England manager." Eriksson took over from Kevin Keegan in January 2001 and guided England to the World Cup finals after winning their qualifying group. He would have been barely a year into his five-year contract with the FA, when Ferguson believes he shook hands on a United deal. Football Association spokesman Paul Newman said the FA would be making no comment about the claim. Manchester United were unavailable for comment. IN CHARGE - Ferguson, in charge at United since 1986, was unflattering about England's first foreign coach and those running United. "I think Eriksson would have been a nice easy choice for them in terms of nothing really happens, does it?" Ferguson said. "He doesn't change anything. "He sails along, nobody falls out with him. I think he'd have been all right for United, you know what I mean? The acceptable face." Ferguson said his view is backed up by United's Portuguese assistant coach Carlos Queiroz, who knew Eriksson from when he was working in Portugal. "Carlos knows him because he was with Benfica and Carlos is from Lisbon," said Ferguson. "Carlos says what he did was he never fell out with anyone, best pal with the president, the press liked him. I think he does this a bit. "The press made a suggestion about something, he seems to follow it a bit. Making David Beckham captain for instance. In fairness, there weren't many options." ENGLAND SLUMP - The comments come at a difficult time for Eriksson whose England side have been criticised for their slump in form since reaching the quarter-finals of last year's World Cup in South Korea and Japan, where they went out to eventual winners Brazil. After struggling to beat Slovakia in their first Euro 2004 qualifier in October, England were then held 2-2 at home to lowly Macedonia and in a friendly international last week they were defeated 3-1 at home by Australia. The Swede has also been criticised for making deals with premier league managers, in not allowing top players to participate for more than 45 minutes of international friendlies. England are second in Group Seven of the Euro 2004 qualifiers with four points after two matches and travel to Liechtenstein for their next qualifier on March 29 before hosting leaders Turkey -- World Cup semi-finalists -- in their biggest test yet on April 2. Ferguson hit the headlines earlier this week when he admitted injuring United midfielder and England captain David Beckham in an incident following his side's 2-0 FA Cup defeat to Arsenal. In what he called "a freak act of nature", the United manager kicked a boot which hit Beckham above his left eye in the dressing room after the match. www.reuters.com http://www.red11.org/news Subscription info WWW http://red11.org/list Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] = subscribe to the list. [EMAIL PROTECTED] = unsubscribe from the list. Post message [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
