Sir Alex Ferguson has changed his tune on whether bitter rivals Manchester City are a top four candidate this season, but ruled out anything other than a two-horse race between his Manchester United team and Chelsea for the Premier League title.
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When City revealed a giant poster Manchester featuring former United striker Carlos Tevez in his new sky blue City strip in pre-season, Ferguson reacted angrily and was dimissive of the Eastlands outfit's chances of cracking the top four, let alone challenging the red half of Manchester.
Managers and players, including Chelsea's Frank Lampard, have since talked up City's top four prospects. While Ferguson holds firm that the status of title contenders is exclusively his and Chelsea's, he now also believes City stand as good a chance of any to steal a Champions League place that Liverpool increasingly look like vacating.
Ferguson said: "I could toss a coin and that could be my best chance of deciding who could break into the top four out of Tottenham, Aston Villa, Everton and Manchester City with all the money they have. That's a difficult competition in itself and any one of them is capable of doing that."
Despite the increased threat to the top of the league table, Ferguson insisted that Arsenal and every other team would drop off the pace of United and Chelsea in the early months of the new year.
"I had a feeling about there being a change last season. The top teams are losing games and more points than ever through the early part of the season," he said. "That gives rise to the hope that it could be a very competitive league. But my experience tells me that two teams break away towards the last part of the season.''
Ferguson was speaking at an inaugural dinner of the League Managers' Association Hall of Fame 1000 club, celebrating those who have managed more than 1,000 domestic league or cup matches. The English leagues have boasted 18 such managers, including the late Sir Matt Busby, Sir Bobby Robson, Brian Clough and Alec Stock.
Ten surviving members were present at the Hilton hotel in London and as well as Ferguson they comprised Dave Bassett, Steve Coppell, Brian Horton, Lennie Lawrence, Harry Redknapp, Denis Smith, Jim Smith, Graham Turner and Neil Warnock. Ferguson also admitted football had been taken over by a new breed of chairmen and owners with a hair-trigger for sacking managers.
He said: "It's a different world we're in. Managers were always sacked but in most cases there was a reasonable cause. A run of bad results. But I remember Peter Reid was sacked after five games at Manchester City at the start of the season. Ruud Gullit was sacked a few games into one of his seasons at Newcastle. There is an instant response from chairmen which has been unusual in recent years.
"We have a new breed of chairmen and new owners. It's not the establishment we've got now. We have new owners from Americans, Chinese, Russians. How they achieved their money is not what football is used to. The sudden wealth (has brought) the quick reaction of chairmen to what happens on the football field.''
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