AT last, someone has stood up to Ayatollah Hogmanay. Even Jose Mourinho thought better of it.
For years, football’s unwritten rule was you didn’t mess with Alex Ferguson.
Or if you did — like Kevin ‘I’d just love it, love it’ Keegan or regular Fergie punchbag Arsene Wenger — you normally ended on your backside.
United fans will sneer at Rafa Benitez as yet another rising to the bait.
Benitez went well armed to yesterday’s Press conference with a crib sheet — or, rather, a crime sheet.
He even managed to get in some gags about Chelsea man-marking the United bench at Old Trafford tomorrow so they don’t get at the match official.
And how one way round the current fixture controversy was for the United boss to ‘organise the fixtures in his own office and send them on to us.’
The last Liverpool boss to call Ferguson’s bluff was Kenny Dalglish — also their last to win a title.
The United manager was in full flow, moaning to a TV station about a refereeing decision that had gone against his side (again) when King Kenny walked past with one of his young children in his arms.
Dalglish looked at the interviewer and said: “You’d get more sense out of this wee bairn.”
A few seasons later Dalglish was guiding Blackburn to the title when Fergie, in one of his mind games, asserted Rovers would “blow up like Devon Loch.”
“Devon Loch?” asked canny Kenny. “Is that a place in Scotland?”
Irrespective of whether it works, Rafa is to be congratulated for taking the fight to he who must be obeyed.The Sun