The Mirror:
East End boys both, they were born just a couple of miles apart, but there any similarity between Glenn Victor Roeder, raised in Woodford, and David Robert Beckham, son of Leytonstone, ceases.
There is something curiously old-fashioned about the former, which even that leather coat can't dispel, as the somewhat introverted character stands, hands plunged into pockets, and trousers crumpled over shoes. The latter, sporting a shaggy blond hairstyle with a mane which gives him a passing resemblance to the Lion King, is, of course, standard-bearer of the modern man and the flamboyant talisman of a team fully restored to their magisterial normality.
While Beckham revelled in appearing in his Manchester United No 7 shirt once again – albeit as a second-half substitute after making a comeback against Deportivo La Coruña on Wednesday – Roeder could only succumb to further pain.
Yesterday, on a raw afternoon at Old Trafford, their eyes met fleetingly when Roeder strode to the touch-line to encourage his players as Beckham, alongside Diego Forlan, went through his warm-up routine. In recent weeks the West Ham manager has cut a forlorn-enough figure, but at that moment his sense of foreboding can only have increased.
While Roeder's counterpart, Sir Alex Ferguson, was able to call on the England midfielder or the Uruguay forward to reinvigorate his team, the West Ham manager had the following outfield players on the bench: Gary Breen, John Moncur, Titi Camara and as the team-sheet informed us "A Ferdinand". Well, not just Any Ferdinand, as it transpired. This was 17-year-old Anton, brother of Manchester United's Rio, who again failed to make the squad because of injury. Anyway, neither A Ferdinand, untried at this level, nor the others represented an equality of reserve resources compared with what their hosts could offer. As Roeder observed later: "The size of our task was shown by the fact that the England captain was sitting on the bench, fully fit."