Football news: Paul Scholes wants to win every game
Despite the added strain it puts on players, Paul Scholes has given the Carling cup an unqualified thumbs-up.
It was generally acknowledged that sheer strain of matches was the prime reason after Fabio Cappello’s team put in abject performances in South Africa.
This also backs up Michel Platini’s belief that England’s best players turn from lions in the autumn, to lambs in the spring.
Even though most of Europe are using this week to play matches, either for a league fixture that will allow a gap to be created later in the season, or for cup competitions they tend not to give very much importance to.
This marks the first step to the Wembley finals for England on February 27th, and gives Manchester United the chance to collect the trophy for the third year in a row.
At this stage, Sir Alex Ferguson prefers to use it to get valuable game time into his senior players, with the likes of Michael Owen among those expected to get selected for today’s trip to Scunthrope.
However, no one needs to be reminded of the two big nights of United’s entire season last year, the two-legged semi-final with Manchester city.
It is the prospect of playing in such fixtures, which will determine whether Scholes takes a keen interest in the future.
Scholes says that he would prefer to play mega-games than to sit at home and watch them. He concludes that maybe one can get high intensity in the Carling cup, and maybe the other countries cup competitions are not as important. It is actually an important
need in the nature of every player to want to win EVERY game.
He says that winning a trophy is probably just a way of getting to new stages of competitions, and having big games at the end of them. He wants to win this tournament just as much as he wants to win any other game he enters.
Owen could be the most high-profile player involved on United’s first visit to Glanford Park, as Rio Ferdinand’s participation depends on him getting over a virus that kept him out of Sunday’s victory over Liverpool.
Bebe, who is pencilled in for some involvement after missing the reserve team encounter at Bury the night previous, is expected to be surrounded by most interest.
The 20-year-old arrived at Old Trafford via an unconventional route, with eyebrows being raised at how a player who arrived at Vitoria Guimaraes on a free transfer after Portuguese third tier outfit Estrela da Amadora failed to pay his wages, should suddenly
be worth in excess of 7 million pounds, even though he never played a competitive game.
Ferguson also claimed that the wide-man’s fitness levels were not very perfect on his arrival at Old Trafford, having admitted he took a punt on Bebe without even seeing him play.
The problem seems to be rectified, so Bebe is set to be exposed to the pressure of being a United player today in a game that Scholes does not expect to be easy.
According to Scholes, Scunthrope is a very good team at home. Anything can be expected in such situations, and all he wishes is that his team would be able to get through to the next round.
In all probability, Scholes will join the like of Ryan Giggs, Edwin Van der Sar, Wayne Rooney and Sunday’s hat-trick hero Dimitar Berbatov in getting the night off. Anderson is fit to start for the first time since rupturing cruciate knee ligaments last
February. Van der Sar will be replaced by Tomasz Kuszczak.
Chris Smalling and Javier Hernandez can look forward to an appearance. Owen’s last competitive start was in the final of his competition last season, when he scored United’s equalizer against Aston Villa at Wembley, before his hamstring injury that bought
the season to an end.
The former Liverpool man is said to be concerned at his limited appearances so far this season. Though with games now piling up, Scholes accepts the part of the campaign when he could expect to be involved every week is over. He said that his players were
not worried about the squad rotation anymore. When you have 25-26 players training every day, one must be ready all the time. He also said that he knows for sure that he may not be able to play every game but he wants to be there and be ready whenever he is
needed.
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