The Madness of Sir Alex

Alex Ferguson has recently dropped Ruud van Nistelrooy for reportedly not chasing down a long ball. This sort of decision seems more likely to have come from Sam Allardyce than one of the elite mangers. Leaving out your top-scorer, who is also one of only two World-Class players at the club (Gabriel Heinze is the second) is the sort of move that can only backfire. This is exactly what has happened with successive European teams being linked with his signature for next season.

This decision is made even stranger by the fact that Man Utd have been linked with Juan Roman Riquelme also this past week. Riquelme is the sort of player who does no running off the ball, a sort of Romario of the modern era. Indeed Riquelme was marginalised by Barcelona a couple of years ago for this very reason.

By antagonising Ruud to the point he had to phone van Basten to be assured of his world cup place is surely the strangest decision even Ferguson has made in recent years. If Ruud was ever to decide that Man Utd was not the right place for him to win trophies and leave, Ferguson's dreams of a second European Cup would surely leave with him.