• Werder Bremen midfielder may be available for
£13.5m
• Alex Ferguson singles out Dimitar Berbatov after Wembley goal
Manchester United
are considering turning their interest in Mesut Ozil into a
formal offer providing Sir Alex
Ferguson can convince the club's owners
that the Germany international represents a bargain, available from
Werder Bremen for as little as £13.5m.
Ferguson tonight responded to questions about Ozil after the 3-1
defeat of Chelsea in the Community Shield by repeating that he was
happy with his current squad and "did not need to add to it".
However, the United manager, who was at Craven Cottage on
Saturday to see Ozil's team play Fulham in a pre-season friendly,
was particularly ambiguous when he was asked directly, on four
occasions, whether it was true the deposed Premier League champions
were after the man who helped to eliminate England from the World
Cup.
Ferguson deflected the questions with his first response that "a
lot of clubs are interested in Ozil". He said he was "happy with
the squad" and pointed out United play Fulham in 13 days. Yet it is
rare these days for Ferguson to watch United's opponents – he
usually leaves it to his scouts to compile reports for him – and
when he was asked to clarify if the club would make a bid, there
was another oblique answer. "I didn't say that," was his first
response, followed by: "I don't know."
United's information is that Chelsea, Real Madrid and Barcelona
have all approached Bremen, though Ozil's representatives are said
not to have been overly impressed during talks with the two Spanish
clubs. Ferguson is more concerned about Chelsea, with their
superior finances, hijacking the deal, which might explain his
reluctance to be drawn further on the issue.
Ozil, one of the outstanding performers in the World Cup, is
available for a fraction of his true valuation because he is in the
last year of his contract with Bremen and the Bundesliga club risk
losing him on a free transfer next summer.
However, the matter is complicated because Werder Bremen have
been handed a difficult tie, against Sampdoria, in the Champions
League qualifiers and the German club are deliberating whether it
would be better to keep Ozil for those games because of the vast
sums they stood to lose if they were knocked out. Even though the
21-year-old is available on the cheap, Ferguson would also have to
convince the Glazer family of the player's worth at a time when
United are beset by financial issues.
Ferguson was otherwise effusive in his praise for his players
after a victory against a Chelsea side who have lost four
successive fixtures and whose manager, Carlo Ancelotti, conceded it
had "not been a good pre-season".
Antonio Valencia opened the scoring, the new signing Javier
Hernández scored an unorthodox second and Dimitar Berbatov ensured
the win in stoppage-time after Salomon Kalou's 82nd-minute strike
for Chelsea.
There was also an impressive 45-minute performance from Wayne
Rooney, including a brilliant assist for Valencia's goal. Rooney's
poor performances in the World Cup led to him being barracked by
the Chelsea fans and Ferguson said: "All good players get
booed these days, but it was a fantastic goal – the making
of it was superb, and Antonio really couldn't miss."
Ferguson also identified Paul Scholes, the man of the match, for
special acclaim, but Berbatov was the first player he embraced
after the final whistle.
"He needed it [a goal] given the adverse publicity he had last
season. It's an old problem when we pay big money for someone and
they are not scoring three goals a game and making 50 passes, they
get slaughtered. But there's no disputing his talent; he can be a
genius. He had a mixed season by his standards but maybe this will
be his season."
With his squad for England's friendly against Hungary at Wembley
on Wednesday in mind, Capello did manage to express his surprise to
Michael Carrick that he had been involved only 48 hours after the
Unitedmanager ruled the midfielder out for a fortnight.
"I can only apologise," Ferguson said later. "On Friday I
was certain he was out for two weeks."
