Perhaps the greatest news of the day was the silence from Old Trafford on Ruud van Nistelrooy‘s fate. A decision on RVN’s fate was supposed to be taken within 48 hours of the Sunday match (before which, according to recent reports, RVN was asked to leave instead of leaving himself) and it was expected that Man Utd would make some sort of announcement today.
However, in a touch of class (the man has class, even if he makes huge errors from time to time), Ferguson chose to keep the spotlight focused on Keano’s testimonial, and perhaps in another tactical ploy to win the public, refused to talk about the situation on a day when the media began to question the wisdom of pushing RVN out of OT.
In my last post I said that Ronaldo, despite make more mistakes and showing less heart than RVN was being favored at OT, and today there have been rumors of a training ground bustup between Ruud and Ronaldo, possibly about the management’s supposed favoritism of Ronaldo.
Let’s face it – if RVN had been disloyal to Utd, he would have gone out of the club last year or the year before, when he could have easily commanded 20 mil+ in transfer fees, not to mention record wages. A side like Liverpool would die to have him, if only because he is a proven goal-scorer. His dependence on midfield providers has been criticised, but no one has matched the speed with which he scored his ‘century’ of goals for OT in less than 3 years – not even Henry at his pomp can be expected to manage that (with all due respect).
Ferguson has played favorites with Rooney and Ronaldo quite a lot this season (there were several times towards the end of the season that Rooney should have been benched, but he wasnt – and Ronaldo despite his mistakes has usually been praised), so maybe there’s a lot of truth in the ‘training ground’ incidents. But then again, RVN has valid concerns – he was benched for no reason, for far too long.
In other news, Arsene Wenger is reported to be interested in Thuram of Juve (unlikely), and Gallas is tipped to move to Milan to shore up their ageing defence (unlikely).
This is less a rumor than a completed move – Tim Howard (he of European blunders and fantastic penalty saves) has been loaned out to Everton for the next season, with Ben Foster taking the second keeper’s place. Maybe Howard will come back in a year and take his no. 1 spot again? Maybe.
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