FERGIE ON SQUAD SIZE, TEVEZ, HARGREAVES AND THE STATE OF THE TRANSFER MARKET

Last updated : 10 July 2007 By editor

On the amount of transfer activity this summer:

"I thought there would be more spending. There is a lot of money in the Premier League because of the television so I probably expected more to be spent. The thing about doing the business with two young players like Nani and Anderson is great timing for us. They won't play every game next season, but they will play a lot of games and it gives us a future."

On our squad for next season:

"In the 90s we rotated our squad very well. Last season we were involved in the three tournaments - the final of the FA Cup, the semi-final of the European Cup as well as the league. We had a great opportunity [to win the treble] but we just didn't have enough bodies to stretch our squad out and save legs where we could have saved legs. In that situation I sort of regretted allowing the young players to stay out on loan.

"If I had been selfish and kept them we would have had a far better chance of getting to the final of the European Cup and a good chance of winning the FA Cup. No one will play all the games next year and hopefully they accept that and move on to the business of trying to achieve success for us.

"Players understand today that in order to challenge for major trophies, you need a strong squad. I don't expect anybody to leave but it may happen because some players will view the situation and think maybe they won't get enough games to satisfy them, but there are no decisions made at the moment.

"When it came to the latter part of last season, we just did not have a squad strong enough to handle all the competitions we were in. The evidence of last season tells you we need a very strong squad and I feel we have that now. Yes, it is going to take management."

More on Tevez:

"We followed that procedure set by Liverpool, but I thought it would have all been sorted by the weekend just gone. It must be the Premier League that is holding it up. I don't know the intricacies about it, I've left that to Maurice Watkins, the club solicitor. He's dealing with that, but I'm sure that the outcome will be that we will be taking him with complete transparency in the deal, with no suspicions and nothing dodgy about it.

"There is no way that we can be involved in anything underhand at all and Maurice has been working on it for a month, maybe more, to make sure the deal is perfectly clear as far as we are concerned and that we take him with no side issues to it."

On Hargreaves:

"Owen brings a lot of speed to the midfield and a good energy. He also has a lot of European experience, which not many players have. His time in the Bundesliga brings us something different, which will help us as the season goes on."