Sir Alex Ferguson's Media Handling: Mind Games or Hypocrisy?

After another long summer of incredibly vast amounts of money spent by clubs in the Premier League, it seems that the Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson believes the transfer fee of Robbie Keane from Spurs to Liverpool for twenty million pounds was his biggest surprise of all.

When asked whether he was impressed by any transfers during the transfer window, Ferguson replied, “The big surprise was Liverpool paying £20million for Keane.”

He seemingly failed to notice the surprising thirty two million pounds paid by their inner city rivals, Manchester City, on deadline day for a player who had been linked with Chelsea for the whole of the summer.

As well as a surprise for supporters at the amount of money City are now able to spend, it was a massive surprise transfer for the manager of City as well as for the player himself—both apparently did not know about the move until the last minute.

Another surprise of the transfer window Ferguson could have highlighted was the sale of his very own Mikel Silvestre to one of his biggest rivals for the Premiership title at Arsenal, despite refusing to allow Gabriel Heinze to join Liverpool recently.

Maybe he could have even commented on the surprise that a club had actually wanted AND paid money for El Hadji Diouf.

Mind Games or Hypocrisy?

Many reports of Ferguson's comments have labelled them as mind games before the big match against Liverpool.

What some fail to mention is the hypocrisy that once again Alex Ferguson seems to be involved with in his remarks of other teams and managers.

If twenty million is suggested to be such an overpayment for a player of Keane's proven ability, then the thirty million paid by Ferguson for Dimitar Berbatov should be highlighted as a massive overpayment on his part.

Robbie Keane is only six months older than his ex-Spurs teammate, with eight years of experience in the Premiership compared to Berbatov's two years.

Keane has also scored double figures for Spurs in the previous six seasons in the Premiership, with twenty two and twenty three respectively since Berbatov joined him at White Hart Lane in 2006.

Berbatov himself managed twenty three in each of his two seasons alongside Robbie Keane, and as well as near identical scoring records there are quite similar assist records for the two players.

The professionalism of Berbatov has been in question many times since his time in England, and reports of the player sulking on and off the pitch have followed him around for a while.

A big difference when compared to the amount of praise from many managers and team mates for Keane's great attitude and his ability to rally his fellow players on and off of the field.

Add to that, Liverpool have bought a boyhood supporter who can be seen to want to play for the club and give that extra little bit more commitment, it could suggest to some that maybe on the whole Robbie Keane is the better all round purchase.

Could the comments have been about something other than the fee?

Some might argue that the Manchester United manager was simply highlighting his surprise of Keane wanting to leave a club he had recently committed his future to, but then there would have been no great need for Ferguson to add the price tag of the transfer to his comments.

There is also the possible suggestion that with the amount of strikers already at Liverpool, the purchase of another could be seen as a waste of money from Ferguson's point of view.

But with the sale of Peter Crouch, there was definitely a hole left in the squad which needed to be filled by a player with the ability to contribute on a level closer to that of Fernando Torres, and provide a bit more versatility in position.

Its also quite surprising that Berbatov had spent some of his childhood idolising Alan Shearer and dreaming of playing for Newcastle United, but I'm sure that does not really matter to Ferguson when he is chasing the players he wants.