IT WAS UNITED'S IDEA FOR A 3PM KICK OFF NEXT WEEK

Last updated : 04 September 2005 By Ed

From the Sunday Mirror:

United were last week given permission by the Premier League to put the kick-off time of the City game back by two hours to 3pm.

The original kick-off was scheduled on initial police advice, but United successfully argued that there has been no recent history of crowd trouble between the two sets of fans and City were happy to support their request.

United insist that their plea was based on staging the game at the traditional time on Saturday - and not to give Keane and the rest of the players away on international duty a couple of extra hours of recovery time.