Miguel Veloso may have been publicly begging for Sir Alex to make him the latest Portugese wonderkid at Old Trafford, but it turns out that the affection isn’t quite mutual.
Responding to a little row between Sportingo Lisbon’s president and Carlos Queiroz over ‘tapping up’ the holding midfielder, Fergie said,
“It is unfortunate the president has said this and it is more unfortunate that he has chosen Carlos as his target,”
“Carlos is not in the field of doing these things. His behaviour is impeccable and I feel the president should retract his comments.
“We have a good relationship with Sporting, which we have had for five years. We signed Ronaldo and Nani with no problems so why should we start to tap up a player when we have a good relationship with them.
“We are not interested in him and never have been.”
It’s rare to see United making their transfer intentions quite so public – the signings of Nani and Anderson coming out of nowhere this summer – but clearly Sir Alex isn’t mucking about when it comes to defending his assistant’s honour.
With Carrick, Hargreaves, Scholes and a fast-settling Anderson there wasn’t much room for Veloso in United’s engine room anyway. But it may well put other clubs on alert, with Tottenham one of the clubs with the money and need for a quality holder.