Is Sir Alex Ferguson Joking or Playing Mind Games With Chelsea?

Mind games?

Just as we had expected from the veteran manager to react to Chelsea’s recent capture of Eden Hazard right from the hands of the Manchester neighbours, Sir Alex Ferguson has rightly done so after their poor friendly match performance against Ajax Cape Town of South Africa where his new signing Shinji Kagawa failed to shine. According to Ferguson, Chelsea paid beyond the value of Hazard (34 million pounds) and went on to reveal that we paid a lot of money (6million pounds) to the agent of Hazard. But what will prompt Ferguson to come out with such statements?

First of all, I know Fergie was frustrated at the performance of his team who nearly lost embarrassingly to the South African team had it not being the last gasp equalizer by Bebe, one of the overrated and flopped signings of Ferguson. And I believe he was not impressed at the performance of Kagawa whom he bought to be his own poor version of Hazard. This had also coincided with a sterling performance by the two times French footballer of the year for Chelsea against Seattle Sounders where the media had began comparing the Belgian prodigy to Lionel Messi. 

Fergie also exposed his frustration about the inability of United to match Chelsea and City in the transfer market by comparing Hazard capture by Chelsea to that of Samir Nasri by City. To this effect, he cleverly sought to point out that Chelsea outbid them with money but was it the case? If that was the case why didn’t Manchester United pull out of the deal just like City had done but remained in the run for Hazard until the last day Hazard made his decision? Fergie sarcastically backed the Glazer family who own United and said that they have never prevented him from making his signings. Well, Fergie can only say this while he remains on the pay roll of his employers and could not have said anything different could he?  

After spending over 32 million pounds on 28-year old Berbatov who could not even be on the bench for united when they met Barcelona at Wembley, Sir Alex has the moral high ground to talk about overpriced players? Maybe Fergie due to old age had forgotten about the money he spent on Rio Ferdinand and Anderson junior. Is it not Ferguson who is believed to be splashing around 30 million pounds on a 19 year old Brazilian, Lucas Moura? Ferguson and United fans have no right to complain about money being spent by rivals because he has been a constant and long term benefactor of the same accusation. It was money which brought United up; it was money which kept Liverpool from contention for United  to break their League title record. It is was also money United sought to use to capture Nasri from Arsenal after Arsenal had failed to meet the wage demands of Nasri. Today Fergie has openly admitted his interest in taking Van Persie from Assenal again and I don’t know if Persie will sign for free for United. Therefore United and Alex Ferguson g have also got no case with money being spent by rivals clubs.

However, the only case one could make for Fergie with his criticism of Hazard’s price and value is that the ‘old fox’ is at his usual wit end with his mind games. Mind games have proved to be part of today’s game. The nature of man due to our heart is made up of emotions. To this end, people are tend to react to situations that affect them. It is called psychological warfare and according to Jose Mourinho a clever and widely known user of mind games, football match begins from the press room. His ability to create a ‘siege mentality’ in Chelsea for the players, which meant, “Chelsea against everybody” when he took over at Chelsea and had to suffer criticisms due to our style of play and spending power by many people.

This psyche helped the team to amass the highest points in the history of the Premier League.  Sir Alex is yet another person who knows how to use this psychological tricks but his resort to this tricks on Chelsea and Hazard exposes how wary he is of us and Hazard whom he flew to France to watch him several times. The Sun newspaper conducted an interview with Hazard and has sought to compare him to Messi but I see that the attempt by The Sun to quickly compare him to Messi fall part of the scheme to raise the expectations of the fans and put Hazard under the spotlight of the media and fans. 

However I have watched Hazard dozens of times in the French League and he is among the few players who thrive under pressure. He is not scared of the media attention and he has admitted the challenge that to be compared to Messi is interesting and will rather inspire him to do great with Chelsea. I know RDM is a man of actions and few words and that will be one of his strength but he is also a fantastic player of mind games after successfully psyching our boys to conquer Europe. If Ferguson wants to encounter him with his mind games then he should BRING IT ON!!!

#Seth

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