It seems Fergie told his players to show no pain
As you may have spotted, last weekend was one of those weekends where a lot of over acting happened in the Premier League. Okay, some would argue that this sort of stuff happens every weekend but the incidents involving Jan Vertonghen, James Tomkins and Stevan Jovetic last week showcased some of the worst examples of recent years.
This has prompted Paul Scholes to address the subject of ‘play acting’ in his Evening Standard column, published last night.
In it, Scholes reveals that under Alex Ferguson, players were instructed to show no sign of pain in front of the oppostion.
‘The rule at United was that you just needed to get to the dressing room and if you were still in pain you could do as much whinging and complaining as you liked. But don’t do it in front of the opposition. We liked tackling and getting stuck in ourselves, and we gave no quarter and asked none either.’
We can see a certain Corkman approving of this message.
But the most interesting bit of the column was when Scholes turned to former team-mates who had a reputation for going over easily. Firstly he addressed Cristiano Ronaldo: ‘At times at United, we had players who went down too easily, like Cristiano Ronaldo when he first came to the club. But Cristiano changed over time and there was no one who got kicked as much as him.’
And then it was Ashley Young’s turn: ‘For Ashley Young it became a problem at times. Ashley went over too easily and you can see that in some players it is simply part of what they do. It is hard for them to change.’
Scholes goes on to say that United players would see other clubs winning penalties or getting players sent off dishonestly and they would view it as an ’embarrassment’.
