Fergie fears this will be Liverpool's year

So now we know who Fergie thinks will be Man Ure’s biggest threat this coming season: Liverpool. After 20 years of the infantile Scotsman’s pathetic antics, we’ve learned that the team he fears the most is the one whose manager he targets to goad and attempts to engage in petty mind-games. Two weeks before the new season and he has already begun getting his digs in at Rafa.

"Liverpool had probably their best season for 20 years and still finished four points adrift," he told a tabloid rag whose name is muck on Merseyside.

"It will be hard for them to match last season, let alone improve on it. Other teams will know more about them, so it has to be Chelsea as the main threat."

Of course, the other thing we know about Fergie’s mind games is that if he doesn’t consider you a threat, he can be quite complimentary. Notice how well he gets on with Arsene Wenger these days?

By buttering up Chelsea and their new manager Ancelotti, he is revealing that he does not expect their ageing squad to improve on last season’s mixed campaign under Scholari and later Guus Hiddink – and why would they without serious investment in players?

It will be hard for Liverpool to match their League performance of last season but given that performance was achieved with Torres and Gerrard starting only a third of the games together, if that pair can play more games together this season, there is every chance we can match or exceed it this time around. Meanwhile, Fergie’s men will also find it hard to match their achievement last season (although no doubt referees will be queuing up to help them again) having lost their two main match-winners during the summer. I feel much more confident about taking on a Man Ure side containing Antonio Valencia and Michael Shit Head than one containing Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez. Meanwhile, Giggs, Scholes and Edwin van der Sar are yet another year closer to playing ‘Legends’ exhibition matches while Gary Neville has been nothing more than the club mascot for the last three seasons (I used to think only the French had a cock for a mascot!).

Not content with just the one dig at Rafa, the Man Ure manager continued: "Ancelotti will play the Milan way... It brought him two European Cups - it should have been three because they should never have lost to Liverpool, so why should he change?"

I would agree that Milan should never have lost to Liverpool in Istanbul after being 3-0 up at half-time to a team containing Djimi Traore, Milan Baros, Vladimir Smicer, Jerzy Dudek and later Djibril Cisse. However, the fact is (I’m starting to sound like Rafa) they did lose and for their carelessness and lack of professionalism in doing so, you could argue they got exactly what they deserved. They were also extremely fortunate to have even been in the final after PSV battered them in the semi-final. Meanwhile, find me anyone who can honestly say Carragher didn’t deserve a winner’s medal for his Herculean efforts that night.

I’ll counter Fergie’s claim that Milan should have won 3 European Cups however, by pointing out that Liverpool never should have lost to Milan in Athens. Liverpool were far the better team in the first half but fell behind right before half time to a Milan goal scored against the run of play with Inzaghi’s hand. The goal never should have stood and had it been correctly ruled out, there is every chance Liverpool would have ground Milan down and taken home a 6th European Cup.

The other European Cup win by Ancelotti’s Milan was the penalty-shoot out win against Juventus in one of the most boring European Cup Finals of all time. It can hardly be argued that Milan were worthy winners on a night when the only post-match talking point was how far off the line Dida had strayed to save Juve's penalties.

And if Fergie wants to talk about teams that should never have lost European Cup Finals, what about Bayern Munich in 1999, who dominated the final and should have had more than their 1-0 lead before conceding two jammy, scrappy goals in the final minutes, or Chelsea in 2007 who were one penalty kick away from victory only for their captain to slip on his run up and slice his shot wide?

Having been totally outclassed and deservedly beaten by Barcelona in last years final, the reality is that Fergie's team should not have won any of their three Champions League Finals but in football, the prizes rarely go to the team that deserves it most (e.g. last season's Premiership title).

It bodes well for Liverpool that we have Fergie so worried that he hasn’t even waited for a ball to be kicked before starting his evil gamesmanship. Hopefully Rafa will deliver the perfect response – not a list of ‘facts’ this time but a 19th League Title for Liverpool Football Club.