Sir Alex Ferguson believes the winner of the Champions League quarter-final tie between Liverpool and Chelsea will be the team to challenge Manchester United for the Premier League title this season.
His pronouncement brought a sharp intake of breath in the press room. Ooh, mind games. Everything Ferguson says these days is interpreted as psychological warfare. If he states that Liverpool have a good team he is luring them into the trap of complacency, raising expectations to heap pressure on them. If he says he still thinks Chelsea are the biggest threat, he is attempting to undermine Liverpool’s confidence, while flattering Chelsea to make them lose focus, yada, yada, yada.
Maybe there is a less Machiavellian interpretation of all this. Maybe Ferguson occasionally gets asked a question and just says what he thinks. Maybe having won the Premier League title 10 times he feels he has earned the right.
Predicting that the winner of the tie between Liverpool and Chelsea will receive a fillip that could knock on to increased confidence in league games is hardly an opinion from left-field, anyway.
The meeting of these teams has usurped Arsenal and Manchester United as the great grudge match in recent years (although we’ll see about that if they meet in the Champions League semi-final). There is enormous pride at stake, huge empowerment for the winner, a shattering of morale for the loser. The defeat to Liverpool at Stamford Bridge was a hammer blow from which Luis Felipe Scolari’s regime did not recover.
Privately, if Ferguson is setting such store by the result of the tie, he must be hoping for a Chelsea victory, as Guus Hiddink’s side has slightly more ground to make up on Manchester United. Certainly, he is not lending much credence to the idea that a Champions League run will be a distraction to the winners, particularly Liverpool, who have enjoyed such an affinity with the competition under Rafael Benitez.
Ferguson will know that Liverpool’s magnificent display at Old Trafford last month was to a large extent inspired by their demolition of Real Madrid less than five days before.
Big teams feed off big results. Last season, having knocked Liverpool out of the Champions League for the first time, Chelsea came devilishly close to winning the Premier League and were the better team in open play in the Champions League final, before Manchester United won on penalties.
On the back of the Liverpool win, Avram Grant, previously considered a lame duck and the stooge of owner Roman Abramovich, enjoyed a fleeting dalliance with credibility. He had achieved something that was beyond Jose Mourinho.
Hiddink does not need to put a marker down to earn respect but, if he defeats Liverpool, the clamour for him to remain manager beyond the end of this season will increase. And, yes, Ferguson is right, it could propel Chelsea back into the frame of what is currently seen as a two-horse title race.
Abramovich will watch on a big screen while on holiday in Eilat and while nothing can be decided in the first leg this week, when the smoke finally clears on April 14, whoever is left standing will be the team United have to beat to equal Liverpool’s record of league title wins. That isn’t mind games; that’s the way football works.
Martin Samuel is the chief sports writer of the Daily Mail, where his column appears on Monday and Wednesday