After slagging off Alan Wiley over his fitness and having already apologized for said criticism, Sir Alex Ferguson is set to pull a Larry David and apologize for his apology.
No stranger to getting all up in there and leaving Snickers wrappers in people’s asses, SAF is making a second go at it in hopes of avoiding a misconduct charge from the FA. I would expect it to be somewhere between ‘begrudging’ and ‘sincere’… but much closer to ‘begrudging’. Because, honestly, do you think there’s any chance the crusty old Scot really thinks twice about Alan Wiley’s feelings?
The ref’s union had themselves a Sammy Lee-sized temper-tantrum over SAF’s initial ‘apology’, but probably went a bit too far in defending the men in black (or yellow… or pink):
He clearly hasn’t retracted the statement about Alan being unfit so it’s not an apology for the main offence caused, and then he widens it to question the fitness of other referees, so he seems to be opening another can of worms which I don’t think is very helpful at all.
Referees are very fit. They have sports scientists who test them regularly throughout the season. They don’t just pass a fitness test at the start of the season. Their body fats and BMI are regularly monitored, there are get-togethers every two or three weeks where they are put through extensive training and testing.
Perhaps they should dial down the rhetoric? These guys may not be slovenly baseball umpires, but they’re certainly not Six Million Dollar Men. Charles Barkley could likely beat a few of them in a foot race.
I can’t help but wonder, will this dust-up with the officials will affect all that lovely extra time United always seem to enjoy at Old Trafford?
I guessing he cares just enough to get a call. Therein lies the problem with this particular mind game: in order to deflect attention from United’s first half, he chose to get stuck into Wiley. I think he’ll do what he can to get back into some form of good graces with Wiley because he won’t want Wiley pissed at him in late April.
The bigger issue here, though, is Foster. Had Foster not used up all his “Fergie Protection” chits, Fergie would have defended Foster on the second goal, i.e., Jones’ attempted tracheotomy of Foster using only his elbow. The the furor would have been on whether Jones’ goal should have counted, etc. However, since Foster was due for a hairdryer of his own, Fergie had to turn his attention to another target. All very logical, see.
That was a perfectly clean goal.
Georger – I wasn’t really debating the goal – it was a little old school and I have seen stuff like that called back, but my point was more that Fergie would have thought of something else.
Maybe SAF should just say he thought Mr Wiley may have limes disease
Wiley’s not a skinhead; he just has cancer!
SAF: “Whaaaat? No good?”
Sports Scientists! English have a great way of phrasing stuff. Sounds so incontestable when it’s tested by scientists.
and it’s not recent but … “Do you s**t standing up?”
So referee’s have get togethers? That would be fantastic to attend, they have to give each other a ton of stick right? Everyone waving their watches at Atkinson, throwing cupcakes at Wiley and so on.