Ferguson drags his stars off the beach, The Times

By Oliver Kay
SIR Alex Ferguson declared yesterday that Manchester United?s players will be hit where it hurts ? in the pocket ? after a campaign of underachievement at Old Trafford, but Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney et al will be more horrified by the revelation that pre-season training will start in late June, when they might have expected to be topping up their tans in Dubai.
Under normal circumstances United do not return to training until the second week of July, but Ferguson has ordered his players back on June 27 ? almost seven weeks before the expected start of the 2005-06 Premiership campaign on August 13 ? as they prepare for a rigorous pre-season schedule that will include a four-game tour of the Far East as well as the likelihood of a Champions League qualifying tie and, he hopes, an appearance in the Community Shield as FA Cup holders.
Allowances will be made for those players on international duty in June, but the United manager is determined to crack the whip in a bid to avoid a repeat of their sluggish start to this season, when they won only one of their first five Barclays Premiership matches.
?We will be planning it differently,? Ferguson said yesterday after admitting that Arsenal seem certain to claim the second automatic Champions League place. ?We will be back in training earlier, much earlier. The players have been made aware of that.?
Ferguson added that the players ?have a bonus structure that applies for second place as opposed to third spot?, but the sums they will miss out on are thought to be little more than ?25,000 per man. Compared with the interruption to their holidays ? and indeed to the ?5 million in guaranteed revenue that the club will miss out on by finishing third rather than second ? that pales into insignificance.