HE MAY END UP A POSTMAN YET

Scholes contradicts himself time and again in 442 on the Rio strike affair. Now we know why he rarely talks:

"In our minds, there has never been any question as to whether we would play in this game.”

But at one and the same time:

"The threat not to play in the game was real - we really thought about it.

"Rio was treated badly, and we still think that now. Whether we would have gone through with the boycott, I don't really know. The thought of being chucked out of Euro 2004 was the main factor in pulling back.

"Of course, the whole thing was blown out of proportion. It was on Sky News every two minutes. It was just nice seeing the press get in such state about it.

"The papers got carried away with it, but we were just sticking up for one of our team-mates. I am sure people do that in their workplace all the time - like the postmen recently. We thought Rio was being treated unfairly, so we supported him.

"Rio was treated in a terrible way. The FA banned him for no reason. His hearing wasn't until after the game anyway, so it didn't even need to come out in the papers. It shouldn't have affected Rio's position for that game."