Angry Sir Alex

If Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott wanted to get together to discuss what is one of the greatest un-shot scenes of our modern world, what would they come out with? Some distant sea creature gobbling away its victim in the deep? Bin Laden hiding in a mountain somewhere? George W Bush chairing an executive meeting of US politicians?

Well, I’d like to suggest another one. What about filming Sir Alex Ferguson last week as Real Madrid kept peddling away their interest in the superstar winger, Christiano Ronaldo. The short-tempered Scot was said to be seething – and testament to his state of mind he started blabbering about the evils of Francoism in Spain, in a rather poor attempt to wind up the Spaniards in return.

Tapping up is a new concept in football, and as Real Madrid are showing, a rather elegant art. You state your interest in a player by dropping hints and mentioning how unpredictable the weather is in Manchester and how wonderful the girls look in Madrid when the sun pops out. Then you get a newspaper (in this case Marca) to roll out some of the best propaganda since Joseph Goebbels and his wife went up in flames.

The wonderfully skilful Ronaldo’s head seems to be swinging around in all directions and he’s obviously musing heavily on wandering evenings around the Castellana and how exactly he would be able to spend half a million euros each week. Meanwhile back in Cheshire, Ferguson is spitting flames and dreaming of ringing Real’s President Ramon Calderon by the neck.

In fact it seems that the Spanish seem quite adept at this game of ‘tapping up’. Down on the Mersey, Rafa Benitez has spent the past month muttering about the captain of Aston Villa, Gareth Barry. Needless to say, Villain’s boss Martin O’Neill reacted as if an elephant had stood on his toe – and vented his fury in public.

‘Rafa said he was going to respect my wishes. I am not sure he respects anything,’ O’Neill lamented angrily.

Barry, Villa’s best player and recently the wearer of the England captain’s armband looks to have been swung by the prospect of playing with mate Steven Gerrard and in all likelihood will be joining Liverpool within the next few days. But was he tapped up? What should the repercussions be?

These questions linger, but is it fair for bigger clubs to bully others? You’ve got to feel sorry for Aston Villa who look like they are going to going to lose a fine player, but do you feel sorry for United? I’m not quite so sure that many people will do.

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