FERGIE IN THE DAM

About Ruud:

"The big difference with modern-day football is that now we have squads of players. It makes it difficult for a manager because every time you come to pick a team for a major game there are two or three players you are hesitant about telling they are out of the team either because they are great players, they have been great players in the past or you have a certain relationship with them. All you can do is hope they will agree with the reasoning behind your decision. Of course, sometimes a player doesn't agree. I am happy with that. But it what happens after that, how they adapt to it is different with every player. Ruud was different in that way. That is exactly what happened."

The squad:

"I have a good squad of players, for the young players it's excellent, for the established players I'm looking for a lot from them because we are two weeks from the start of the season. For players like Rooney and Carrick in particular, it's an important occasion for him [Carrick], he's just joined the club. Players like Scholes and Giggs, we will rely on their experience at the start of the season because they have been training perfectly from the start of pre-season training so we are in good shape."

About the tournament:

"It's the type of tournament that at this stage for us is ideal, I'm only two weeks away from the start of the season and we have to get some sort of semblance about how we're are going to approach the season. Yes we don't bring a few players because of the World Cup. As we know the World Cup presents us with some problems every time it comes around, either that or the European Championships. This particular year we had three players who played in the last two days of the competition so they only started training on Monday, which really means it's impossible to play in such a tournament. And like so many times after the World Cup and European Championship we have some players coming back with residual injuries. Gary Neville I think played with an injury in the final game against Portugal and is still feeling that. Gaby Heinze recovered fantastic to play for Argentina but he has come back with a small problem in terms of the strength of his knee, and of course Nemanja Vidic got injured during the World Cup so these players obviously can't come."