Sir Alex refutes Scolari claims

17/11/2006 13:33, Report by Ben Hibbs


Sir Alex Ferguson says Portugal's Luiz Felipe Scolari criticism of United during the week was unjust.

The Reds boss took exception to two claims made by Scolari. Firstly, that United's assistant manager Carlos Queiroz was attending Portugal Under-21 games in order to boost his profile as a potential future national coach. And, secondly, that the club had given mixed messages over Cristiano Ronaldo's fitness.

"The comment Scolari made about Carlos hanging about the Portugal games looking for a job was a crazy thing to say," he said at his pre-match press conference.

"I am sure Scolari goes to watch Porto and Benfica at some point. Is he after the guy's job? I had three of my coaches and all my scouts out at games in Europe this week. I am sure they are all still working for me."

Scolari also inferred that Carlos had privately informed him that Ronaldo was fit enough to play, but to the press said that he was still suffering from an ankle injury in order to placate United fans concerned that the 21-year-old winger would return from international duty injured.

"Carlos never spoke to Scolari at all,” said Sir Alex. "It confuses me that Scolari inferred Carlos spoke to him and marked his card that Ronaldo was all right but we were giving a different story to the press to keep Manchester United's fans happy.

"By the time I got back into the dressing room last week, Cristiano had gone to catch a plane," said Ferguson. “I didn't know what condition he was in.
"Normally, when you get taken off with a knock like the one he had, you will give the boy a scan the following day to see if there is a problem. There was a bit of swelling but there was no way we could assess it.

"What we said was it would be up to the Portugal medical staff to do that. It was an important qualifying game for them and if Cristiano was fit, we were happy for him to play."