Scholes Set For 600 Club

Sir Alex Ferguson spoke about mercurial midfielder Paul Scholes in Monday's press conference - here are the journalists' questions and the manager's answers.

Scholes is on 599 appearances for United. Are you surprised by his longevity?
It's fantastic, considering Scholesy’s probably had three or four longish term injuries during his career. He had the eye problem, he’s had two knee operations that kept him out for three months at a time, so he’s probably missed over a year of football in that time. He would probably be closer to 700 now had he not had those injuries.

Last summer Scholes said he would play for another two years and then call it a day. Do you see him sticking to that or carrying on?
Paul usually says what he means, there’s no question about that. He means what he says. He’s an amazing man.

He's said he likes playing football but hates being a footballer because of the attention that comes with it...
Absolutely, it's agony trying to get him to the press conferences for UEFA matches!

Is he a one-off in that respect?
No, quite a few players don’t enjoy the press. Some do it grudgingly and can cope with it. Others enjoy it, of course, and some are very professional, particularly European players - it’s like a duck to water for them, they are quite accessible that way. But I don’t think Scholesy's so different from everyone, I think there are quite a few who don’t enjoy that part of it. They see themselves as footballers and like to go home when they finish training.

Could you perhaps persuade him one day to be captain, just for one game?
He’s been captain. He didn’t like it and I think we lost actually.

Where will he stand in the list of all-time United legends when he does retire?
If you go back to the Bests, Edwards, Charltons and Laws, then you’re talking about quite a wide panorama of players. But in my time, he’d been in the top six or seven players, without question, for his contribution and his quality, and some of the fantastic goals he’s scored. Even on Sunday, the first touch he took was better than anyone else’s had been in the whole of the previous hour. He’s got that wonderful velvet touch on the ball, it goes stone dead when he gets it. In the midst of all the mayhem that can happen in football matches, it’s wonderful to see that.

Presumably there have been a number of enquiries from all the big clubs across Europe for Paul at some stage?
Funnily enough we’ve never had one enquiry for Paul Scholes. You know why? Because they all know he would never leave.