From The Sunday Times:
Not all of the Manchester United players enjoyed the anonymity they experienced in the United States during the club’s summer tour. One England international was so unnerved that he took to wearing a club tracksuit by way of identifying himself when he went out in public.
But most of Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad loved the lack of fuss, and one player felt he had gone to heaven. Coming back through Manhattan after training one afternoon, he asked for the team bus to be stopped and he got off, even though the team hotel was several blocks away.
Paul Scholes just wanted to savour walking alone through the streets of a city without being approached by a single passer-by. At the very moment Scholes headed in Manchester United’s third, and his own second, goal at Old Trafford yesterday, you just knew the despair of Manchester City fans was matched only by that of staff at Sky Sports. Man of the match, and, crucially, the post-match player interview, would have to go to Scholes. It was never going to make required viewing, and it did not. "I’m just happy to be back and scoring" and "It’s nice to score goals against City" was the gist of it.
The highlight was Scholes’s revelation that being out for two months while recovering from a hernia operation (his third) had been "frustrating".
The interviewer tried to finish on a high by saying: "Paul, you can go out with your head held high tonight" as he handed Scholes the magnum of champagne. Something about Scholes’s expression confirmed that going out, head held high or otherwise, and actually drinking the champagne were about bottom on his list of things to do.