Benitez in no mood to praise Sir Alex

RAFAEL BENITEZ declined to congratulate Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson for his side’s title triumph as the pair’s simmering feud continued.

Benitez had seen his side beat West Brom 2-0, and send them back to the Coca-Cola Championship, but was twice given the opportunity at the post-match press conference to congratulate Ferguson on winning the title.

Each time he made it clear that he was only prepared to congratulate the Old Trafford club as a whole.

United won their 18th crown, equalling Liverpool’s record, and 24 hours later the Anfield men all but secured runners-up spot at The Hawthorns.

And not only did Benitez have to contend with questioning about his feelings towards Ferguson, he also had to comment on an amazing on-field bust up between Jamie Carragher and Alvaro Arbeloa.

The pair exchanged views and pushes until they were pulled apart by colleagues and then given a dressing down by referee Martin Atkinson before a handshake.

But it was Benitez’s attitude to Ferguson that surprised many.

During the season Benitez and Ferguson have traded barbed comments at regular intervals.

And the Spaniard said: ‘‘I will say congratulations to Manchester United. They have done well, but I do not want to say too much.

‘‘I prefer just to say well done to the club, a big club, a good club.

‘‘Normally you have to be polite and respect the other manager. During the season we have seen a lot of things that I didn’t like, so that’s it.

‘‘I say congratulations to United because they have won. And that’s it.’’ Benitez then admitted that he did not like to see two of his own players behaving like Carragher and Arbeloa did.

He said: ‘‘The disagreement between my two players was because we wanted another clean sheet, we wanted 21.

‘‘I don’t like what I saw, but I am trying to see the positive side of things.

‘‘We were looking to hit targets, a record points tally for the club of 83 and we achieved that. We wanted 13 away league wins which is also a record.

‘‘And we wanted another clean sheet and runners-up position. You could see why Jamie Carragher was like he was with Alvaro Arbeloa.

‘‘For me that is a positive message about the mentality of the team. We wanted to show character and a desire to win and be second, and stay as close as we could to Manchester United.

‘‘Arbeloa was going forward and we had some problems in defence, so we wanted to protect Jose Reina better, he has 20 clean sheets and (Edwin) Van der Saar has 21. That was important.’’ Before the match Albion had suspended striker Roman Bednar after a newspaper alleged the Czech international had bought illegal drugs.

Manager Tony Mowbray said: ‘‘What happened did not upset our preparation.

‘‘I had a word with him before the match, but there will be no further comment until we have had the chance to investigate what has happened and find out all the facts.

‘‘We will then take action when we have got to the bottom of it and discover the details.’’ Albion ended the day relegated from the top flight for the third time in seven seasons.

And Mowbray said: ‘‘Obviously I an so disappointed, particularly for the fans who have been magnificent all season.

‘‘But the way we gave away that first goal, a big mistake to let Steven Gerrard in, just epitomises our whole season.

‘‘I am frustrated. We had a lot of good attacking play but then gave the opposition a goal they did not have to work for. That’s us.

‘‘But we are now a better team than we have been for a lot of seasons, the team have grown into the Premier League and learned a lot of lessons along the way.

‘‘Hopefully we can use those lessons next season.”

Steven Gerrard, meanwhile, has the taste for winning the Premier League title – and believes Liverpool now have the necessary experience to claim top spot.

He said: ‘‘The couple of signings the manager will make this summer are really key to us getting over that final hurdle, because we know that maybe with a couple of per cent more we could have won it this time. This is the first time I’ve been involved in a title race that has lasted the distance and the buzz of running United really close has been so enjoyable.”