With only four days until Manchester United kick-off their season with the Charity Shield, the misdemeanours of two of his players will be cause of both frustration and anger for Sir Alex Ferguson. Anderson can count himself lucky that the car crash he was involved in didn’t cause himself further harm; being dragged from a car that then burst into flames is not how you recover from injury. The fact that he was in a two-seater car, with two other people, at 7:30am on his way home from a club will surely get Fergie warming up his hairdryer. Rooney on the other hand, kept things closer to home, being photographed leaving a Manchester club, smoking, appearing to urinate in the street, dancing down the road and singing football chants at 5:30 on Sunday morning. All not great preparation for a title push.
If football players are going to have a night out, and a chance to put their rigorous training to one side, then the summer break is surely the time to do it, but one would think a little earlier in the holiday period might suit all concerned a bit better, not when pre-season is underway. Hardly Ferguson’s favourite player, Anderson was fined £80,000 for returning to Brazil last January without Sir Alex’s permission, and this latest incident will be a real test of his patience with the midfielder. Considering the amount of games that United play, and the competitions that they compete in, Anderson has the potential to play a key role in this season’s campaign, and Ferguson will need to call on the depth of his squad to challenge for trophies. Maybe now is the time for Anderson to start appreciating the position he is in, the club he plays for and the opportunity he has been given. Anderson is a good player, but Ferguson will have no qualms about moving him on and giving his place at United to someone with greater displays of commitment should he continue to frustrate.
For Rooney, considering his almost unparalleled high-profile, incidents such as this have been at a premium – a night with a grandma seems to have taught him a lesson – so there is a chance that Fergie may go easy on him. The World Cup was the first moment in the 24-year-old’s career that he seemed fazed, and that he could be the victim of pressure, although it was pressure of a weight and burden that few will ever experience. Rooney’s performances were of a freakishly high-standard last season, and he will need to go close to replicating that if he is left to compensate for his strike partners in the same way; United fans will hope that Javier Hernandez can help solve this problem.
At the end of last season, Sir Alex Ferguson said that his side would have won the league had it not been for the injuries that they suffered, so there must be a large part of him that thinks the group of players he has are enough to win this year, especially considering the lack of transfer activity his rivals have been involved in (Man City excluded). For this to happen, these incidents cannot. With the money, time and effort invested in these players, the least Ferguson can expect in return is a modicum of restraint and self-control. The problem will probably be a bigger one for Anderson than Rooney. The latter is likely to have another good season, and is clearly a more important player to United’s cause than Anderson, although that is not to say Anderson does not have the potential to show his worth. Anderson’s due date for a return is around late September, and nine months without competitive football will take some hard work and discipline to overcome, not what he has shown this week. Sir Alex Ferguson will do everything within (and slightly beyond) his power to succeed this season, he is right to expect that his players do the same.
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