Ferguson undaunted by neighbours

Sir Alex Ferguson brushed off the challenge posed by the newly-enriched Manchester City yesterday, insisting that he had encountered the threat offered by new money in the game before and that "it doesn't change anything."

While Liverpool's Rafael Benitez, also responding to this week's seismic developments in the British game, accepted that Abu Dhabi investment did make his life harder, Ferguson was characteristically unmoved and amused at talk from the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) that Cristiano Ronaldo may be on their radar.

"I can't be worried," said the United manager. "We have a good set-up ourselves. We have been working for years to build the team we have got. There's always challenges in football. Some years ago it was Chelsea, some years ago it was Arsenal. Wherever the challenges come you just have to accept it."

On the suggestion from Dr Sulaiman al-Fahim, the front man for Abu Dhabi's Al-Nahyan royal family, that Cristiano Ronaldo might be attainable for a price of £135m in January, Ferguson had a smile. "They can talk," he said.

Ferguson clearly does not envy Mark Hughes' position at City. "For a young manager it must be difficult," he said, after attending a Uefa-organised seminar in Nyon, Switzerland with Jose Mourinho and Arsène Wenger, among others. "You can't judge it from when I started, it is a completely different world now. I am at the tail-end of my career. I've been through all these change so it doesn't faze me."

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