Andrei Kanchelskis Called Sir Alex Ferguson A ‘Scottish B*****d’ After Teammates Stitched Him Up In First Week

A red-faced Andrei Kanchelskis was tricked into calling Sir Alex Ferguson a "Scottish b*****d' to his face when he first arrived at Manchester United.

The now-retired winger, who spent four years with the Reds after joining from Shakhtar Donetsk in a £650k deal, lifted two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and a European Super Cup during a successful stint with the Reds.

But his start to life at Old Trafford could have gone a lot smoother than it did.

Image credit: Alamy

Firstly, Kanchelskis' agent told him was going to Manchester in 1991 but didn't mention the club he would play for.

"I didn't know which Manchester club I was joining," he revealed in a chat with FourFourTwo. "When I flew to England in 1991, no one told me which club I was going to.

"I asked my agent and he just said, "To Manchester". I asked, "Which club?" and he replied, "I don't know". When we landed, we were driven to Old Trafford. It was only then that I realised it was United."

After a fairly confusing trip to Manchester, the former Dynamo Kyiv winger then forgot to bring a pair of boots to his first training session at United - and had to buy some new ones that didn't even fit.

"When I first met Alex Ferguson he said, 'Tomorrow, you're training'," he said. "Nobody told me that I'd be training. I hadn't bought my boots. I went to buy some, but they were terrible. They didn't really fit properly.

"I played really badly in a friendly, but fortunately they still gave me a contract."

Image credit: Alamy

Things didn't much better in the first week and he couldn't speak a word of English - a fact that his new teammates quickly exploited.

"Whenever a foreign footballer comes into a dressing room, he will be taught how to swear," Kanchelskis said in his autobiography Russian Winters.

"I've seen exactly the same thing with Brazilian players when I have been managing in Russia. They also taught me the correct way to address the manager of Manchester United.

"Almost the first time I came across Alex Ferguson in the corridors of the Cliff, he said to me, 'All right Andrei, how's it going?

"I smiled at him and replied, 'F*** off, Scottish b******'.

"Ferguson stopped dead in his tracks and then began to smile as he heard laughter echoing down the corridor, while I stood there bewildered."

So what did Ferguson say to the former Russia international after calling him a 'Scottish b******'?

According to Kanchelskis, he said: "Next time, 'not like this, don't speak like this.'"

Topics: Manchester United, Andrei Kanchelskis, Sir Alex Ferguson, Premier League