Earlier this week, Manchester City ambassador, Patrick Vieira, claimed that Manchester United showed “weakness” in bringing 37-year-old Paul Scholes out of retirement.

In just the few months he’s been playing, Scholes has already scored more than he did all of last season and has been an important player in every game he has featured.

Sir Alex Ferguson has today responded to Vieira’s criticism by claiming City are the desperate ones, given they have now welcomed Carlos Tevez back with open arms after falling 2nd in the table, despite him refusing to play for them for six months and Roberto Mancini claiming he would never play for City again.

“If it’s desperation bringing the best midfielder in Britain back for the last 20 years then I think we can accept that,” said Ferguson. “I think he was programmed for that. Roberto had a wee dig a couple of weeks back. We’re all going to play our hand that way. There will be plenty of ammunition for that. If you talk about desperation, they played a player the other night (Tevez) who refused to go on the pitch, the manager said he’d never play again and he takes a five-month holiday in Argentina. What is that? Could that come under the description of desperation?”

After Tevez refused to come off the bench to play for City in the Champions League game against Bayern Munich, Mancini said: “For me, if a player plays for Manchester City in the Champions League and earns a lot of money and does this, then he can never play for me again. I can’t accept this from him. For me, he’s finished. I cannot go on with him. If I decide these things then he’s finished. At Bayern Munich, do you think this would happen? Would it happen at Milan or United? I am the manager. I make the decisions and in my opinion he can’t play for me again.”