SEVERAL days into Malcolm Glazer’s takeover and still no word from Palm Beach, Florida, about his intentions. But Old Trafford has not been rebranded as the Nike MetroDome, Roy Keane has not been asked to play quarterback and Joel Glazer has not insisted on lining up alongside Wayne Rooney. Not yet, at least.

Instead there is a growing expectation that David Gill will stay on as chief executive and that Sir Alex Ferguson will continue as manager, which must be confusing the balaclava-clad members of the Manchester Education Committee (MEC) as they plot how to disrupt the FA Cup Final on Saturday and set fire to Glazer (effigy or otherwise).

The story goes that 30 of them turned up at Rio Ferdinand’s house last week as an angry mob and ended up asking the centre half for his autograph. With hardline militants such as that to contend with, no wonder Glazer is so confident that he can double the price of the tickets, pies and prawn sandwiches and get away with it.

The latest call to arms has been the instruction to march on Cardiff wearing funereal black. How long before the bright sparks realise that the point will be lost on Glazer, and everyone else, given that the players will be wearing their black change strip?

So hysterical have been some of the protests that you sense there will be disappointment if Gill and Ferguson do stay. It will cloud the picture for those who want to portray Glazer as the rapacious devil and Roman Abramovich as a white knight, even though the Russian billionaire is not running a charity. Chelsea will put up their season-ticket prices by 7 per cent on average this summer. One group of fans has been informed that the price has tripled to almost £6,000 a seat.

They are the sort of sums that will have Glazer salivating, but while United supporters are legitimately concerned that Glazer has nothing to give to English football (apart from a lesson in fleecing punters) but intends to take plenty out, the possibility of Gill surviving is the best indication yet that the new owner may have a better understanding of his freshly- acquired business than many credit him with.

Gill is a United fan, and not in the same way that Peter Kenyon, originally a Manchester City supporter from Stalybridge and now the Chelsea chief executive, claimed to be during his tenure at Old Trafford. He is also one of the Barclays Premiership’s most able administrators, which is why Glazer should be pleading with him to stay at a time when the club requires stability.

His continued involvement would appease the staff, who, in the absence of Roy Gardner, the anonymous chairman of the plc board, were grateful for Gill’s address to them on Friday. He reminded them that the club had been a listed company for only 14 of its 127-year existence and that the institution had known greater leaps into the unknown than this.

Retaining Gill would allay the doubts of other clubs who have read that Glazer somehow intends to rip up the FA Premier League’s collective bargaining agreement. Gill has been a strong supporter of the collective deal. It should also appease supporters and, given that they are the paying customers, even a man with Glazer’s refusal to engage in public relations will need to win them over sooner or later, although he may as well give up (as we all should) with the MEC.

This is the group that stated that “any board member who may be coveting a place in the management structure of a Glazer regime is advised immediately to abandon such hopes. Collaborators will be treated as such.” Anyone who thinks that it would be best for United for Gill to resign needs their balaclava removing and their head examining.

• Steve Gibson, the Middlesbrough chairman, believes that Sven-Göran Eriksson “says too much too often”. For spouting such nonsense, he should be forced to sit in every press conference from the England head coach between now and the 2006 World Cup finals. He will be begging for mercy within weeks.

Is the Cole ‘tapping-up’ case really a crime?

THE FA Premier League commission meets today to discuss the Ashley Cole “tapping-up” saga. It will be asked by the player to believe that he was amazed when a private meeting was “invaded” by Peter Kenyon, the Chelsea chief executive, and José Mourinho, the manager. It will be asked to accept Chelsea’s version that they had no intention of luring the Arsenal full back but simply popped along out of courtesy.

Whoever the commission decides to believe — probably neither — the likely punishment of small fines all round will reflect that this is one of football’s least serious crimes. Even Arsenal thought twice about putting Chelsea in the dock and would probably not have done but for incessant newspaper stories.

No crown for Liverpool

IT WILL be an extraordinary achievement for Rafael Benítez’s Liverpool team if they beat AC Milan in Istanbul next week, but there should be a ban on calling them “kings of Europe”. Thirty points behind Arsenal last season, they have finished 37 points adrift of Chelsea, the champions this time.

Should they win, the term “Champions League” will never have looked more nonsensical.

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