Fergie writes off Man City’s title ambition
MANCHESTER UNITED manager Sir Alex Ferguson has written off big-spending Manchester City’s hopes of mounting a serious Premier League title challenge.
City have put champions United in the shade with an £80m summer spree on established stars Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor, Roque Santa Cruz and Gareth Barry.
But Ferguson insists his local rivals will struggle to retain the limelight amid competition from United, Liverpool and Chelsea.
“We are being challenged for the back pages,” said Ferguson. “But I cannot look at Manchester City as our main competitors. Liverpool and Chelsea are our main competitors. There is no doubt about that.
“It won’t be easy for City to win anything, even with all the players they have bought. They have 10 strikers – that is a hell of a lot. How does manager Mark Hughes pick a team? How do you tell players they are not even going to be travelling to London? We’re all interested.”
Ferguson, speaking after yesterday’s 2-0 win over a Malaysian XI in Kuala Lumpur, also dismissed Arsenal as a major rival, but admitted Arsene Wenger could yet surprise him.
“I see Chelsea and Liverpool as the main threats but I can’t make up my mind who is the better team,” he added. “Arsenal have the biggest job – they’ve sold Adebayor and don’t seem to have the money the rest have. How Arsene develops his team will be his biggest test. They could easily re-establish themselves and challenge again.”
City boss Hughes, meanwhile, yesterday hit back at Chelsea, insisting they had no grounds to accuse him of an illegal approach to their captain John Terry. “It wasn’t ourselves that published that we had made a bid for John Terry, it was Chelsea,” he said.
“Since then I’ve just been answering questions about John Terry. I don’t think that’s any basis to report either myself or Manchester City.”