national press:
Manchester United's increasingly fraught relationship with Arsenal has come
under renewed strain after it emerged yesterday that Sir Alex Ferguson holds
the London club responsible for leaking the news about his dressing-room
clash with Beckham.
Ferguson believes it was a sly and deliberate attempt to undermine him, and
United's directors are so angry that they intend to raise the matter with their
Highbury counterparts.
It was said that a mole-hunt inside Old Trafford had uncovered solid evidence
that there was no betrayal from within the club. Instead Ferguson, along with
United's chief executive Peter Kenyon, is known to be furious after hearing
whispers that one of the most embarrassing episodes of his 16-year tenure at
the club hit the headlines because of a phone call to the Sun on Sunday night
from a member of Arsène Wenger's backroom staff who had access to the
corridors outside the home dressing room.
"You can imagine our sense of displeasure," said a United source. "It seems
like a deliberate act of mischief on their part and at our expense."
Ferguson's anger about Arsenal's apparent role in the leak was also evident.
"First and foremost, I have to stress, as I have in all my 29 years as a coach,
that whatever happens in the dressing room should be sacrosanct," he said.
However Paddy Harverson has played down the reports:
"It's just silly speculation"
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