Ledley must be getting some stick for landing the rest of them in it.

Just need the dentist chair goal celebration ala Gazza in Euro 96

The media take one thing and turn it in to a huge pile of gossip, Leders gets drunk and hits someone, next min the whole club are piss heads.

I do not believe it for one minute but Ledders has got to realise that this is the concequence of his actions and he, as club captain especially, has a responcability to promote the club as whiter than lilly white.

I truely hope Ledders has learned from his actions and for his sake and the clubs he stops it now and mends his life rather than hides it behind a beer.

I believe JD is tea total, he is very very religious too.

Woodgate had this problem (and has often looked like he found it hard to concentrate this season), Bentley was reported several times being in the bar with several drinks on his table, Hutton was reported and photographed rather drunk, Bale has been a regular on the night out circuit, King we know all about now...

All of that could of course be exagerrated out of proportion, but there does seem to be too much of a smoke to be just bullshit.

Bollocks. If he was very very religious as you say his love life wouldn't have been all over the papers several times, unless his "religion" includes cheating, lying and pre-marital sex??

Next they'll be saying Gazza used to drink!!

Unfortunately, these reports have been circulating in the last 2-3 seasons, not over a long number of years. It is one of the main reasons why it is so difficult to keep the predominantly British squad disciplined enough throughout the season and season after season, ie not to let them hamper their fitness and performance levels by drinking in between training and matches. Ferguson has achieved this with an iron fist policy for the young stars he developed and then using success of his team to threaten anyone who does not fall into line.

Other, not so successful managers, have struggled and will struggle in these circumstances.

Manyoo players, barring true pros like Giggsy and Scholes and Park, are some of the worst when it comes to drinking, prozzies, nightclubs, orgies etc. Macheda has been photographed numerous times at nightclubs already.

Meanwhile Fat Sam is one of the biggest fanatics when it comes to sports science and fitness, but I'd never call him a good manager.

I don't think we're one of the poorer teams when it comes to drinking, as you can read those rumors about every team, it's just that we pay more attention to our own players. However, I do think fitness could be an issue esp as Ramos noted how unfit we were under Jol. I'm not convinced it's a British problem, since Villa and Everton don't seem to have problems with drinking (again, I don't pay attention to them and I'm sure their own fans know more) but I do think fitness is something our coaching staff has to be pay particular attention to and I'm sure they know more than we do.