The Observer:
Sir Alex Ferguson has described himself as 'embarrassed' by stories that he might leave Manchester United to manage Rangers, and insisted he will still be in charge at Old Trafford next season.
'I'm not going anywhere else,' he said. 'When I'm finished here I'm finished, but I don't know when that will be. Retiring is not on my agenda at the moment, although what you don't know about when you make plans for the future is your health.
'Right now I feel great, terrific, but obviously I'm not going to be here in 10 years. I don't think I'll be here in four years, but I'm making plans for next season all right. We will probably just add a couple of players to bulk up the numbers in January, the one we really want to sign will only be available in the summer. He's cup-tied in the Champions League and his club wouldn't sell him before summer in any case.'
Ferguson is almost certainly talking about a defensive midfielder, a replacement for Roy Keane, and United have already been linked with Liverpool's Steven Gerrard, Milan's Reno Gattuso and Deportivo's Aldo Duscher, although the last may be available in January. For the moment the identity of the player is not as important as Ferguson's conviction that he will have both the funds and the freedom to make a major signing over the summer.
'I'm confident the club will back me in the summer,' he explained. 'Manchester United always have to buy the player they need. I'm still making long-term plans to try and produce another team. I can't look that far into the long-term any more, but we decided two or three years ago not to set a date for my leaving because it only becomes a problem. We won't be going down that road again.'
The Telegraph:
When Manchester United fans heard that Sir Alex Ferguson was opening an old people's home in Scotland last week, some of the more disgruntled ones must have hoped that he would become its first customer. But at 63, Ferguson remains defiant, insisting that he is in the process of constructing another great team at United that his job is safe; that, even if the club disastrously fail to make the Champions League knockout stages that he will spend big next summer.
He sounds increasingly like the captain of the Titanic, waving away all warnings of icebergs and ordering full speed ahead. But his team's Premier League ambitions already look to be holed below the waterline, despite that win over Chelsea, and after Tuesday's torpid display against Villarreal at Old Trafford, only victory against Benfica in Lisbon in a fortnight's time will ensure their safe passage through the group stages.
The brothers grim, owner Malcolm Glazer's sons Joel, Avram and Bryan, all non-executive directors, bore the demeanour of undertakers when they left the ground late on Tuesday, curiously by the same exit near the dressing-rooms used by the players. Yet Ferguson, irascible at the best of times, seems strangely relaxed. Part of that may be explained by finally removing that irritating stone in his shoe by sacking Roy Keane, yet it also suggests that his great club are now in that most dangerous of places. Transition.
Ferguson says: "The whole logic of the past couple of years has been building a new team. [Darren] Fletcher is 21, [Wayne] Rooney and [Cristiano] Ronaldo are 20, they will get better for sure. And [Gerard] Pique and [Giuseppe] Rossi will come through in the next wave. I'll be around next season and I've absolutely no idea when the end will come for me because I said to the club a couple of years ago, let's not talk about retirement because then it becomes a problem. It's not on the agenda."