Fergie labels modern-day footie players ‘babies’

LONDON - Manchester United coach Sir Alex Ferguson has labelled modern day players ‘babies’.

He was speaking before preparing for his team’s Champions League trip to Bursaspor.

He was reacting to comments from Fulham’s Danny Murphy about players being over-physical.

The Sun quoted Fergie, as saying: “The players are babies now. In my day you had to hit someone with a hatchet before a referee booked you.”

A couple of days ago, Ferguson had ruled out any transfer activity for the club in January.

“We won’t be buying in January, definitely not. You are limited because there are hundreds of players cup-tied for European football,” the Daily Mail quoted Ferguson, as saying.

“There will be five months of the season left and we will be getting a new player back in February with Antonio Valencia returning from injury, and maybe another in Owen Hargreaves. With the squad I’ve got, I don’t see any reason for us to buy anyone,” he added.

The manager further reiterated that the club has money to spend, but will only indulge in buying spree if necessary.

“We know what we need. There is always this issue if Van der Sar, Scholes, Giggs or Neville were to retire, but we’ve been aware of that for two or three years and we are well ahead of that,” Ferguson said.

“We know exactly what we have to do,” he added.

Earlier, it was reported that United’s American owners had reportedly pledged to give 100 million pounds to Ferguson to buy new players.

The 100 million pounds assurance comes despite the revelations that the debts of United’s parent company, the Red Football Joint Venture Ltd, had swollen from 699 million pounds to 716.5 million pounds. (ANI)