GOOD COACH

From today's Sunday Times:

Queiroz is back as Ferguson’s No 2 on a lucrative three-year contract, which begins on July 1. He has rationalised his descent from boss at the world’s most successful football club to somebody else’s bibs and cones man by claiming his new appointment makes him "favourite to be the next Manchester United manager."

If Queiroz really believes this it might be because Ferguson himself sees the Portuguese as a viable candidate, but it will not be Ferguson who chooses his successor. The decision will come down to the power brokers at Old Trafford, and while the Coolmore axis of John Magnier and JP McManus remain major shareholders, the favourite must be Martin O’Neill.

Militating against any move to hand Queiroz the United reins is the mixed record of the Portuguese as a No 1. After making a brilliant start to his coaching career while in charge of the Portuguese junior team which won the 1989 and 1991 World Youth Cups, three years as manager of the full national side ended in disaster when Portugal failed to reach the 1994 World Cup. A subsequent spell as boss of Sporting Lisbon yielded a Portuguese Cup but no League titles, and with New York/New Jersey MetroStars in the US, and Nagoya Grampus Eight in Japan, he won nothing.

"If you were promised a car with air conditioning, four wheels, leather seats and metallic paint and you were then given one without any of that, how would you feel?" said Queiroz of the way he felt he was misled by the Bernabeu board. "I made my biggest mistake in January. I should have left when we were leading the League and doing well in the Cup and Champions League."

What is not in doubt about Queiroz is his coaching talent and in re-appointing him as a number two, Ferguson has scored a coup. The Scot credited the Portuguese with playing a major part in United’s 2001-2 title triumph, notably in the pivotal 2-0 defeat of Arsenal in which Queiroz came up with the idea of playing Phil Neville as a holding midfielder.