Ranting is part of the game

FIVE days to the start of the Premiership season and already the mud is flying like a muck-spreader on overtime.

Arsene Wenger accuses Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard of a ‘‘reckless and dangerous’’ challenge on Patrick Vieira in the Community Shield.

Brian Clough surfaces, amid revelations that another drink would have killed him, to have a go at Arsenal for their disciplinary record.

And Roy Keane begins the new campaign as he ended the old one, slagging off his Manchester United team-mates just days before they begin their Champions League campaign.

Welcome back the feistiest, most hotly debated, most emotionally-charged sport of all. Nothing wrong with that. Football’s appeal lies in its ability to arouse the passions and stir the blood in players and spectators alike. It feeds on extremes of opinion, revels in allegation and accusation.

And there is no doubt truth in part in the words of Keane, who accuses his Manchester United team of wallowing in their material wealth.

“Rolex watches, garages full of cars, mansions, set up for life,” is how in his autobiography he describes team-mates who surrendered their Premiership crown last season.

“Then forgot about the game and lost the hunger that got you the Rolex, the cars and the mansion. That’s where we were. Yesterday’s heroes.”

The timing might be unfortunate, the message not dissimilar from the rants of Keane following United’s European exit last season, but it is not difficult to recognise such a description when United fork out £30million for Rio Ferdinand and pay wages of £100,000-a-week, including image rights, to David Beckham, and not far short to the rest of their squad.

The Old Trafford car park resembles a Ferrari showroom. A decade of domestic domination has made a conveyor belt of stars rich beyond reason.

Perhaps there was a slackening of resolve from men who had feasted so well and so long at the Premiership top table. They would barely be human if there was not.

Much more likely, however, was that United’s slip from the Premiership pinnacle could be traced to the prevarication, not to mention tactical tinkering, of Alex Ferguson, whose early call to retire at the end of last season was followed by a dramatic U-turn and a new three-year contract.

Keane somewhat conveniently skates over the effect of the manager’s indecision on morale and efficiency, merely expressing relief that Ferguson decided to stay.

In his obsessive honesty, however, Keane does a disservice to a long line of model professionals at Old Trafford. Men such as Gary Neville and Nicky Butt, who would no more shirk a tackle than Keane, would have dinner with Irish boss Mick McCarthy.

Men such as Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer whose dedication, industry and loyalty has been a feature of United’s success.

And Beckham too, whose club form of late may not have matched some of his superlative pre-World Cup performances at national level, but whose talent invariably comes laced with buckets of honest sweat.

It is too facile to equate the size of a pay packet and the acquisition of cars and jewels with lack of effort or desire even if Ferguson will not be unhappy at Keane’s attempt to stoke Old Trafford ambitions to greater heights, especially as the Irishman’s comments conveniently hide the manager’s own shortcomings. In the mad, manic world of modern football, all Premiership players are millionaires. Yet any league which includes within its leadership the fire of Ferguson, the intelligence of Wenger and Liverpool’s Gerard Houllier plus five former England managers in Bobby Robson, Graham Taylor, Terry Venables, Glenn Hoddle and Kevin Keegan cannot be said to lack drive and determination.

Can you imagine Robson pampering chancers in his Geordie heartland? Or Keegan indulging players whose hearts are in their wallets rather than on their sleeves? Not likely.

If anything, Houllier struck the most forceful blow for years against the football mercenaries when he sent Lee Bowyer scuttling out of Anfield transfer talks and back over the Pennines to Leeds with the message that no one who puts loot above the love of Liverpool will pull on the famous red shirt.

Confirmation came only on Sunday from Wenger that the majority of footballers, including the increasing influx of foreign talent who make England’s Premiership the most intriguing and exciting league in the world, feed on success.

‘‘We got a lot of belief from last season and it’s good to see how hungry these players are,’’ said Wenger after Arsenal had beaten Liverpool in a Community Shield at Cardiff which demonstrated the double-winning Gunners will once again be the side to beat this season.

‘‘They want to improve and win more. This is not like ’99 when we failed to build on winning the double the season before. This time I have a team who want more and will not relax.’’

It was entirely the opposite of what Keane was peddling at Old Trafford.

But that’s why all the talk of Olympic bids, drugs suspicions and cricket triumphs seem to pale into insignificance this week.

Because, for better, for worse, football’s back. And love it or hate it, you just can’t ignore it.