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Sir Alex Ferguson has decided to contest an FA charge of improper conduct relating to comments directed at referee Martin Atkinson following Manchester United’s defeat to Chelsea.

Although Ferguson had until Tuesday evening to respond, the 69-year-old has already decided he will challenge. A personal hearing will be scheduled at a date no later than Friday, March 25.

The United boss was left fuming at Atkinson’s failure to dismiss Chelsea goalscorer David Luiz during Tuesday night’s 2-1 defeat at Stamford Bridge for clear fouls on Javier Hernandez and Wayne Rooney after the Brazilian had already been booked.

To compound that frustration, Atkinson then awarded Chelsea what Ferguson considered a ”soft” penalty when Yuri Zhirkov fell under Chris Smalling’s challenge.

Although Ferguson’s comments to host broadcaster Sky Sports are not thought to have overstepped the mark, those to United’s in-house TV station MUTV have caused concern.

”You want a fair referee, or a strong referee anyway – and we didn’t get that,” said Ferguson. ”I must say, when I saw who the referee was I feared it. I feared the worst.”

The Football Association asked MUTV for footage of the interview to check the context in which Ferguson delivered the words. And, even though he immediately soften his stance, altering the word ‘fair’ to ‘strong’, disciplinary chiefs felt there was sufficient malice to warrant a charge.

Ferguson already has two matches of a four-game ban still hanging over him following his ill-advised comments about Alan Wiley last season, when he implied the official was not fit enough for his job.

Those games will be triggered if guilt is established, which – if a hearing was arranged before the end of next week – would condemn him to the stands for United’s FA Cup sixth-round tie with Arsenal at Old Trafford on March 12, plus the Premier League encounter with Bolton seven days later.

Punishment for his latest indiscretion would be added on, which means Ferguson could expect to spend a minimum of three games in the stand.

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Arsene Wenger insists Arsenal are still underdogs in the title race despite the fact their destiny now lies in their own hands following Manchester United’s loss to Chelsea.

If the Gunners win each of their remaining 11 Premier League games, starting with Sunderland at Emirates Stadium on Saturday, they will be crowned champions.

Arsenal trail United by four points with a game in hand and the May Day showdown in north London between the title rivals looks to be pivotal. But Wenger insists that as leaders, Sir Alex Ferguson’s men remain in the driving seat.

“No, it’s not ours to lose, it’s United’s to lose. If you look at the bookmakers, they favour United,” he said. “Mathematically it’s in our hands but that doesn’t mean that it’s our to lose because if you look at the fixtures, we have difficult games. And I would say exactly the reverse: it’s ours to win more than ours to lose, because they are in a leading position. So it’s down to us, to our good behaviour, to win it. I don’t count too much on United feeling the pressure. I count more on my team than on any weakness of them.”

Arsenal’s cause was given an enormous shot in the arm with United’s defeat by Chelsea in midweek.

“It was all United in the first half and all Chelsea in the second,” said Wenger. “When Chelsea stepped it up, you could see it coming, especially after Wayne Rooney missed the chance to make it 2-1. You cannot say United’s form has been poor – they have been dominant at home – and we should not expect any weakness from them.”

Aaron Ramsey is included in the squad for Saturday and could make his first Arsenal appearance since breaking his leg at Stoke in February last year. Wenger says Ramsey is showing no lingering after-effects from the injury and stresses his case is different to that of Eduardo.

“Eduardo had problems with the limitation of his ankle mobility when he came back – he was not able to bend his ankle completely when running at full speed,” he said. “He needed second surgery, but Aaron has no limitations in his movement. I don’t see any problems with Ramsey’s commitment in tackles.”

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Borussia Dortmund 1-0 FC Cologne

Borussia Dortmund added three more points to their all but insurmountable lead at the top of the Bundesliga with victory over Cologne on Friday night.

Robert Lewandowski scored the only goal of a game Dortmund dominated a minute before the break to take his side 15 points clear of Bayer Leverkusen.

That gap could well be back to 12 on Saturday evening, but with only nine games of the season left the title appears destined for the Westfalenstadion.

The hosts were on the front foot from the off, Neven Subotic testing Michael Rensing with a 10th-minute free-kick before Christian Eichner cleared Lucas Barrios’ shot off the line.

Rensing kept his side in the contest again just before the half-hour mark, brilliantly saving Felipe Santana’s header from a Nuri Sahin corner.

But the former Bayern Munich keeper was beaten in the 44th minute as Lewandowski took a pass from Sahin and sent a left-footed shot into the bottom corner from 12 yards.

Cologne had their first sight of goal in the 56th minute as Milivoje Novakovic fired wide of the post.

That was as close as they came, however, with Dortmund threatening to extend their lead in the closing stages.

Paraguay striker Barrios crashed a close-range shot off the bar in the 79th minute and, six minutes later, Sahin repeated the trick, this time with an excellent strike from distance.

But those near misses did not prove costly as Jurgen Klopp’s side took another step towards the league title.

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Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho has survived a knife attack in a Spanish airport which left his bodyguard with a 4cm stab wound.

Mourinho was moving through the La Coruna airport and signing autographs for Real fans last Friday when a man armed with a knife approached.

One of the Mourinho’s minders thought he had been punched by the attacker as they moved through the crowd before discovering a wound near his armpit when they boarded the team bus.

Mourinho was only told about the full extent of the incident on Friday, a week after it happened. Police are investigating the attack using security camera footage from the airport.

El Periodico reported: “Mourinho stopped to sign autographs in arrivals, where a large number of Madrid fans were waiting for the team. The bodyguard was near the manager and noticed he had been stabbed in the armpit. Mourinho was very worried by the incident.”

The club said it suspects the attack was intended for Mourinho. It will arrange increased security around its coach while police look into the matter.

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Harry Redknapp believes Tottenham and Manchester City are set for another duel for a Champions League berth – and that Kolo Toure’s absence could turn the race for fourth in his favour.

Spurs boss Redknapp is convinced Chelsea will push their way back into the Premier League top four, leaving Tottenham and City to compete for the fourth and final place in next season’s Champions League, just as they did last year.

Redknapp’s men narrowly won that race last season and he is more confident of repeating the feat now that key City defender Toure has been suspended following a failed drugs test, with Redknapp saying: “They’ll certainly miss him.”

“I don’t know what he’s supposed to have done,” he said. “I wouldn’t know one drug from another, to be honest with you, or what drugs he’s supposed to have taken. If this sort of thing happens at the club and it’s an important player, it can have an effect on the team, for sure. You don’t know how it’ll affect them but they’ll certainly miss him.”

Toure was suspended from playing on Thursday after testing positive for a “specified substance” – thought to be his wife’s slimming pills – in the A sample of a recent drugs test. Both Toure and City have maintained their silence on the matter but the Daily Mail quoted Toure’s minder Valer Gourizro as saying “‘he takes responsibility but believes he’s done nothing wrong”.

One option open to the centre-back is to request his B-sample, taken at the same time as the first one, to be tested too. Should that come back positive, Toure, 29, would then get the opportunity to go before a personal hearing. If past doping cases in English football are anything to go by, Toure may have to wait until at least the end of the season before the hearing takes place.

Roberto Mancini’s side once looked destined to fight for the title, but their recent poor form has left them two points ahead of Chelsea and three ahead of Redknapp’s team having played one more match than both. Redknapp is convinced that Carlo Ancelotti’s side are certain of a top-four position and thinks Tottenham and City are set to fight it out for fourth in a repeat of last year’s contest between the two, which Spurs won.

“I’ve got a feeling it’ll be between us and Man City,” Redknapp said. “I don’t see Chelsea not being in the top four. I felt before the Liverpool game, which they lost, that they could still win the league. If they had beaten Liverpool that day they would have been in a very strong position. They are a very strong outfit.”

Spurs were level on points with City at this time last year before they won eight of their remaining 11 matches – one of which came at Eastlands – to pip the north-west club to fourth. City have since spent around £150million on acquiring new players to beef up their squad for their domestic and Europa League campaigns.

Spurs have parted with a fraction of City’s expenditure but have still managed to make it into the last 16 of the Champions League and remain serious contenders for a top-four place. That, Redknapp believes, is proof his squad is good enough to cope with what could be a hectic run-in if they beat Milan next week to reach the quarter-finals.

He said: “For us to be where we are in the league and to have had such a great season in the Champions League is a fantastic achievement so it hasn’t affected us at all – we have managed to fight on both fronts and have done great.”

The Spurs boss also believes that after this year’s lavish expenditure, there is a lot more pressure on Mancini to claim fourth.

“If they don’t make top four it wouldn’t go down well I’m sure,” he said.

Spurs will leapfrog Chelsea back into fourth if they beat Wolves at Molineux on Sunday as the champions do not play their match against Blackpool until the following day. Rafael van der Vaart and Gareth Bale are both likely to miss Sunday’s match with their respective calf and back injuries, but Redknapp hopes to have the stars fit for Wednesday’s showdown.

“I’m hoping Gareth will be fit for Milan,” Redknapp said. “He feels okay. He has just got to push himself through it now. We’d love him back. We’ll wait and see. Rafa is the same. He will not be fit for Sunday, but there is a chance he will be fit for Milan.”

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