THE BRITISH THREAD II

atheists are hopeless company.

Francis, do you realise that you know more about the English language than most natives? And many Scots?

btw what is French for "pulling someone's leg"?

Tu fais un legs, pour que j'achète un pull?

Ferguson was incensed about the manner in which his team were removed from the competition, despite winning 3-2 on the night. The United manager reported that Rooney would miss Sunday's Premier League match at Blackburn Rovers after taking several kicks to his injured right ankle but most of his ire was reserved for the way the Bayern players had urged the Italian referee to show Rafael a second yellow card after his 50th-minute pull at Franck Ribéry's arm.

"They got him sent off," he said. "There's no doubt about that and they would have never won if we had 11 men. He [Rafael] is a young boy, inexperienced and there's a bit of immaturity about what happened but they got him sent off. Typical Germans.


"That sending off changed the game. I thought they were typical professionals in the way they saw the opportunity and forced the referee. It was only a slight tug at the boy and, Jesus, he was 35 yards from goal.

"He [Rafael] was having a marvellous game and it's a tragedy for him but the ref wasn't going to do anything until they forced him to get a card out. But we've seen that before from teams like that."

Rooney, who had been ruled out for up to three weeks in a classic piece of Ferguson misinformation last Friday, lasted only 55 minutes of a match in which Ferguson felt Bayern's players were deliberately targeting the England striker.

"I think that's obvious," he said. "I don't think there was anything serious, but there were a couple of challenges. We expected that, and the referee should have handled it." Ferguson went on to describe Bayern as "lucky", asserting that United had been the better team over the two legs.

"I don't think the best team got through," the manager said. "They got a deflected free-kick [in the first leg] and a goal in injury-time, so you have to say they carried their luck. We have had occasions when we have had luck and I think they have this time. It's hard to digest. In one way we could say we have thrown it away; in another we've been very unlucky."

I should have said of course, that Francis negotiates these threads with sang froid, panache and savoir faire.

Hey, McT, you should slow down with the insults!