I think they are going down."Overwhelmed, I tried to give him some money but he waved me away. All he wanted to do was offer me some support in the darkest days of my winter of discontent. Homeless and destitute though he apparently was, at that moment he felt luckier than me. Football bloody football, as Sir Alex Ferguson once said in entirely different circumstances.I've come to see all life in football terms. On the morning of the first Premiership matches of the season I wrote a passionate piece here lamenting the return of football to my life after an all too short summer break. I'm nothing if not consistent, as I now find myself welcoming with all my heart the end of the football season and the coming of a beautiful football-free summer. The main thing is that I won't have to worry about West Bromwich Albion for a few glorious months.I knew things had gone too far back in January when a tramp approached me outside Leicester Square Tube station in central London.

My determination to keep Jose here is great."I have said many times that I do not buy a player of his age to sell him one year later. If Real Madrid wanted to buy him, they could have bought him a year ago They can forget it.". "Bryan knows our position with Liverpool playing Arsenal on Sunday and needing to win or they will not get fourth place. So we have to do our job," Ferguson said.Ferguson's counterpart at Arsenal, Ars? Wenger, was also busy warning off predators yesterday, telling Real Madrid to "forget" about trying to sign Jose Antonio Reyes this summer, insisting the Spaniard would be staying put.Reyes recently admitted his long-term aim of playing for Real Madrid after being caught out by a hoax radio interviewer. Since then, Real are reported to have increased their interest in the 21-year-old, who joined Arsenal from Seville 16 months ago.However, Wenger said: "I am not aware of Real Madrid getting in touch about Jose and I want to keep him here In my heart of hearts, I think he will be here next season.

He's done well, the lad."Any good player is going to be linked with Chelsea simply because of this pot of gold. But the thing is, they can't get everybody."We are negotiating with a lot of players and we want to tie down our young players to the club for a long time. And knowing he cannot match the ability of Mourinho to enhance his squad at will and in bulk, Ferguson is now anxious to secure the youthful core of his Old Trafford squad by agreeing new deals with the likes of Ronaldo, Darren Fletcher and Tim Howard this summer."He [Ronaldo] has three years left on his contract and we are only doing what we do in these situations," Ferguson said "He is happy here He has been fantastic. The courage he has to get the ball all the time, the confidence in his ability is terrific. But any such move is inevitably given added poignancy in a transfer market distorted by the presence of Roman Abramovich's millions, particularly when the Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, is an admirer of his young compatriot.The reaction to the meeting between Rio Ferdinand and the Chelsea chief executive, Peter Kenyon, however innocent the respective parties claim it to have been, served only as a reminder that, in monetary terms at least, there is no potential transfer beyond the reach of the Stamford Bridge club.

Sir Alex Ferguson yesterday dismissed suggestions that Cristiano Ronaldo is a summer target of Chelsea by revealing that the young winger is close to agreeing a new, long-term contract to stay at Manchester United and insisting the London club "can't get everybody". The 20-year-old polled 65 per cent of the votes ahead of Bolo Zenden and Franck Queudrue.. We have been slightly behind that but our club's new owner has moved us up to a new level."I'm very pleased for John and Eidur. I remember when we were all sat on the bench for the game against Prague [2003-04] and we were all pretty fearful for our future because the big Champions' League game had come and we were on the bench. But we have all established ourselves now."It is self-evident here that there are no favourites on the pitch. You have to keep doing your stuff and that's the pressure of being at Chelsea. I think my confidence has got to the stage where I don't worry about who the club buy and how much they spend.