Sir Alex Ferguson yesterday dismissed claims he is prevented from dipping into the transfer market to strengthen his squad because of the financial pressure generated by Manchester United’s huge debts.
United’s American owners, the Glazer family, are attempting to restructure debts which stand in the region of £700 million (US$1.1 billion), leading to an assumption that their manager would be prevented from strengthening his squad this month.
The £80 million banked from the summer sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid remains largely untouched but, while Ferguson is adamant he will not be spending any of that sum this month, he insists that is only because he cannot see the quality — or value for money — available in the current market.
“We have got the money. There is no doubt about that, no question,” Ferguson told reporters. “I just don’t see that player who can make a difference for us in terms of value and availability.”
“It is still the case that I won’t be buying. I can never see any real diamonds in January, only now and again,” he said.
“We struck lucky with [Nemanja] Vidic and [Patrice] Evra, although it took them time to adjust. We bought [Louis] Saha in the window, who was a marvellous player but had a lot of injuries. And we bought Andy Cole in the window, who was fantastic,” the Scot said.
“So those have been success stories for us but you can’t guarantee that in January. You’re looking for players to possibly play in Europe and that’s limited because of other teams’ involvement in Europe. It’s never a certain success route,” he said.
Rather than activity in the transfer window, Ferguson has maintained his bigger concern is the fitness of his central defenders and the United manager is hopeful that Rio Ferdinand will be back in full training within two weeks.
However, Nemanja Vidic, who declared himself injured while warming up for last weekend’s surprise home FA Cup defeat to League One Leeds, will be out for ten days.
Ferguson had said after the match he did not know why Vidic had pulled out of the match, a comment which fuelled speculation of a behind-the-scenes rift and further encouraged rumors the Serbia international is keen on a move to either Barcelona or Real Madrid.
Ferguson however moved to clarify the situation yesterday, saying Vidic had damaged a nerve.
“Vidic felt a bit of a problem with the nerve going down the right side of his leg, it has been a problem recently for him,” Ferguson said. “He didn’t feel confident about playing the game. I understand that because it was quite painful.”
Vidic will miss today’s Premier League match at Birmingham and next weekend’s home clash with Burnley.
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