NUFC survival could rest in Manchester United's hands

May 21 2009 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

A legal challenge from North East clubs of Manchester United’s right to field a weakened team would never succeed – even if it was being considered. Mark Douglas reports

WHICHEVER combination of the North East’s three footballing superpowers is shoved into the Championship this weekend, Sir Alex Ferguson must be held accountable for his role in their demise.

Out of Manchester United’s six meetings with Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Newcastle this season, Sir Alex’s team have wrestled 16 of the 18 available points. That is the fact that should be occupying fretting supporters in the run-up to the Premier League’s weekend of reckoning – not which of the precocious colts Sir Alex decides to unleash against Phil Brown’s endangered Tigers.

Some critics would have it that Manchester United are about to deal a potentially terminal blow to the integrity of the Premier League by sending out a fringe side at the KC Stadium, plunging the region’s haunted ‘big three’ into even deeper trouble in the process.

Neil Warnock used to be one. But he took to the airwaves yesterday to insist Ferguson should not be punished if he chooses to rest players – effectively burying his three-year old grievance with the footballing knight.

Warnock’s tune has changed somewhat from three years ago, when he said that glancing at Manchester United’s starting line-up sapped belief from his Sheffield United team and re-energised West Ham – the nightmare scenario that the North East will be dreading this weekend.

It was a nifty way of shifting the blame for a relegation that still pains him and the bitter Blades, but Newcastle and Sunderland would do well to stick to their current approach of embracing their own culpability for the mess they find themselves in.

The idea that Manchester United could be hauled over the coals – or even sued, as one national newspaper reported yesterday morning – for playing a weakened team is fanciful.

The claim was quickly dismissed by all three clubs, and Ricky Sbragia chuckled at the prospect of taking his former mentor to court yesterday.

Iain Dowie, speaking on behalf of Alan Shearer, said the same, while Gareth Southgate has already declared that he has no problem with whatever players make up Manchester United’s starting XI.

They probably know there is little point in raising the issue with the Premier League, who will be loath to butt heads with the manager of their most high-profile club. Their unwillingness to tackle Ferguson’s refusal to fulfil his contracted media duties illustrates that.

Even if the North East bosses did privately hold reservations about United’s approach to their final game of the season, they will recognise that there is no basis for a legal challenge. Paragraph E20 of the Premier League enshrines in law that clubs must play their “strongest” team, but how would that rule be enforced? Liverpool fielded players who have not played regularly when they travelled to Middlesbrough and got beaten – are they subject to sanctions as well?