Hansen hits back in spat with Sir Alex

YESTERDAY we told you about Sir Alex Ferguson having a go at Match of the Day’s Alan Hansen in his programme notes before Tuesday’s game with Stoke.

You won’t be surprised to learn that today we’re telling you about how Hansen has hit back.

Fergie claimed before the Stoke game that Hansen had said United had not played well for 18 months and would end up with egg on his face, just as he did when the former Liverpool skipper famously declared: “You never win anything with kids” on his first viewing of the team containing Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and David Beckham But Hansen has denied he said what Ferguson accused him of. “I really don’t know where that has come from,” he said on Tuesday night’s programme. “I never said that at any stage.

“What I said was that, over a period of 18 months, they haven’t been as good as they have been in the past. I have also said that, if you take the three teams at the top, Manchester United have consistently played worse than Tottenham and Manchester City. But it is to their credit that they are where they are. In 1995 I said you can’t win anything with kids. In 2012, I never said you can’t win anything if you are hopeless.”