Fergie sends foe Wenger a final farewell message...
ARSENE Wenger has revealed he has received a message from old foe Sir Alex Ferguson following the announcement he will leave Arsenal at the end of the season.
And former United striker Danny Welbeck, taken from Old Trafford to the Emirates by the Frenchman, has cheekily claimed he played a part in the thawing of the relationship between the two formerly fierce enemies.
Wenger made it public last week he will leave the London club after 22 years, in which time he won three Premier League titles and the FA Cup seven times.
For much of that period he had an intense - sometimes acrimonious - rivalry with the dominant then United boss Ferguson.
That became warmer once Sir Alex left United in 2013 and Wenger has now revealed the Scot had been in touch in the last few days.
“I will keep it private,” he said. “It was a text, I will have to call him back.”
Welbeck, who played under Ferguson at United before being sold to the Gunners by Louis van Gaal in 2014, added: “I’ve been fortunate enough to work under two giants of the game. I’m the mutual friend that put them in touch!”
Former Barcelona boss Luis Enrique is one of the favourites to succeed Wenger at the Emirates.
On the Spaniard, Wenger said: “I don’t want to influence the next manager, but of course I have a high opinion of Luis Enrique.
“Is there a perfect goodbye? I don’t know. I just want to do as well as I can.” UNITED fans might be starting to wonder whether Keylor Navas is remote controlled by Real Madrid president Florentino Perez.
The goalkeeper’s gaffes are happening in the wider exposure of the Champions League, and whenever Navas trends on Twitter United fans dread the words ‘David de Gea’ creeping up the list.
On Wednesday night, you could have driven a Humvee through the gap which developed between Navas and his near post as he conceded Joshua Kimmich’s crosscum-shot against Bayern Munich. Navas dropped a clanger to gift Blaise Matuidi Juventus’ aggregate leveller in the previous round, and the Spanish sports dailies do not do reprieves. Only Isco was rated worse than Navas in Munich.
“Fluffed his lines once again,” Marca’s player ratings spat. “As against Juve, Navas let a goal slip by him that shouldn’t have been.”
Spanish newspaper AS wrote a pre-match piece entitled ‘The last train for Keylor’ ahead of the Bayern tie and warned Navas ‘Your future depends on this tie.’
“Keylor has no more bullets left in the chamber,” journalist Carlos Forjanes fired. “He knows the club does not give up in its effort to change goalkeeper.”
De Gea is predictably namechecked, but the consolation for United supporters is he is mentioned in the pastand the ‘present’ is Roma’s Alisson Becker. Thibaut Courtois is also of interest to Real as he approaches the final year of his Chelsea contract and his children live in Madrid with his former partner.
The wry solution United supporters suggested is the club offers De Gea to Real on loan until the end of the season. The prospect of Liverpool lifting the European Cup is the very definition of an ‘emergency loan’ for Reds fans.
United are about to find themselves in the same situation they were in with De Gea when he entered the last two years of his first contract in 2014.
Amid the botched handover from Sir Alex Ferguson to David Moyes, nobody thought it prudent to offer De Gea, buoyant after collecting his first title winner’s medal, fresh terms. United’s pointless posturing in that summer of 2015 would have backfired but for a faulty fax machine on deadline day. It is a measure of how crazily transfer fees have inflated that three years ago United were only prepared to offload De Gea for a world record fee for a goalkeeper – £32.7m.
Ultimately, Louis van Gaal’s mismanagement (starting Sergio Romero cost United points at Swansea) put Real in the ascendant and United had little choice but to accept the inclusion of Navas in a player-plus-cash swap.
Romero may have stayed in goal ahead of the napping Navas.
A new world-record fee for a keeper was set by City with the £34m addition of Ederson in the summer and De Gea is comfortably worth in excess of £100m now.
Realistically, Real cannot justify an exorbitant fee for a goalkeeper when they covet a striker and a forward. De Gea agreed this is his Samuel Luckhurst