What if It Is Mrs. Vidic Who Wears the Trousers?

(Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Poor, confused, oh-so-human Nemanja Vidic was plainly unsettled by his wife's failure to adapt to the Cheshire drizzle, Eccles cakes and milky tea.

As every married person knows, an unhappy spouse is a time bomb of despair, primed to explode sooner rather than later.

The story could have been spun as a young couple's very modern dilemma. Does the woman who stands by her man have a say in where his career takes them? If Vidic sides with his club, he gets it in the neck from an unhappy spouse. If he sides with his wife, all hell breaks loose in the manager's office.

Problems, problems!

Vidic's domestic pain , played out in public, would have earned him the sympathy of every married man and seen him hailed as feminist icon. The manager would have been compelled to lighten his defender's turmoil with a substantial increase to the Vidic household's purchasing power.

'Send her off shopping,' would have been the man's man advice to keep the Serb's wife in mink and the defender in Manchester.

If that didn't placate la Vidic, a transfer away would become inevitable but it would be without the rancour, jeering and slow handclaps reserved for a United liar or quitter! The centre-half and his Mr. 15 percent would cash in on the player's sky-high reputation with one last mega payday.

Silvano Martina's denial and his insistence that the story was a media fabrication was designed to reassure. Instead, Martina's intervention resolved nothing. Further clarification is necessary, especially given the agent's deliberate muddying of the water with the worst of football teases.

"In football you never know what can happen," Martina said.

Oh come on! Vidic is under contract until 2012. United don't want to sell him. Can't you be more convincing!

"I believe he will remain at Manchester United, one of the strongest clubs in the world," Martina added.

You believe it if you want to Martina but let the more sceptical of minds reserve judgement until Vidic gives up his three month media silence and kills the story stone dead.

Then, we'll all know who wears the trousers in Vidic's household.

And we'll know if a debt-ridden United could see £30 million on the table for a defender  nearly 28 years old who seems horribly exposed when up against pacy front men and look the other way?

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