Dear Eric Cantona

Rumour has it the Milanese piranhas have sensed your blood after the Pearch attack, and are coming to snap you up. As another semi-hinged magician once said, "you cannot be serious". Inter Milan of tangentopoli fame? Didn't you have enough of gangsters at Marseilles?

Let me appeal to your Bonapartist sense of honour and tradition. Could you really swap the Red of United, symbol of glory, flair and self-expression, for the dull stripes of Inter, the club that gave us the ultra-defensive catenaccio, Euro Cup bungs and a succession of psychotic international fullbacks? And what of your burning ambition to be crowned king of the European Champions? Inter are the Manchester City of Italian football. They will never be the best team in their city, let alone country or continent.

You have spoken of your mission to lead us back to the Elysian fields on which we last gambolled in 1968. Abandon this Herculean task now and you will forever regret it.

Still unconvinced? Then be threatened by brutal honesty.You are one of the great egoists of the age, on a par with Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger, radiating the arrogance of one who has much to be arrogant about. You hog centre stage and hug the limelight, revelling in your supremacy over the mere mortals of opposition. How will such a Lion King fare in Italy's Serie A though? Clogging donkey-like centre halves are in short supply there, where you will discover the No 5 and 6 six shirts conceal the lithe torsos of deadly assassins. The space and freedom you exploit here will be replaced by confinements and the oppression of man-marking. Series A's clubs are full of luminous talents, players who are the best their countries have produced : no longer will you be the pole star in the constellation.

Forget the individualist liberty you exalt in at old Trafford - in Italy, as far as football is concerned, the collective is all. You will be forced to join the rest of the of the libero-spirited, languishing in Serie A reserve teams. Besides, the Italians cannot stand to be out-poseured, especially by the French. You are a challenge to their preening sense of virility, un vrai homme in a nation of mamma's boys. Just ask Dennis Bergkamp.

Above all, in true Geminian fashion, you need to be loved. Could anyone adore you like we do?We wear your name with pride wherever we go, we champion your cause at every opportunity, we bow to your picture that has replaced the Pope's by our bedside every night. The No 7 shirts we wear bear the simple legend "Dieu". You once called United "your perfect wife" - what grounds have we given for divorce? These little local difficulties will pass and the 40 weeks in the wilderness will soon be over. Return to the bosom of your family at Old Trafford and let us bellow "Eric the King" for you once more.