Tom Lappin - Troubled Grant faces Champions League task with hands tied

TRULY it is a strange state of affairs when the only happy manager in the Champions League semi-finals is Sir Alex Ferguson. While Fergie beams from ear to ear in a week when he has signed away vast hangars full of the Glazers' hard-borrowed cash to his players in contract extensions, his counterparts, Avram Grant, Frank Rijkaard and Rafael Benitez are competing with each other to be the most lugubrious, while plucking assorted knives out from between their shoulder-blades.

Grant and Rijkaard are odds-on to be out of their jobs come the summer, although Rijkaard is a strong favourite to be in Grant's. Benitez's leaving of Liverpool may depend on what is on offer in Spain. It's not inconceivable that he may h...