Zinedine Zidane received a red card just before the break, when he picked up a second booking for a pointless foul on Djalminha, and Deportivo took advantage to secure the win with a thundering free-kick from Joan Capdevila after the break.”It is very unusual to have to play with 10 men for a third game in a row and especially difficult against a side of the quality of Deportivo,” said Queiroz, Alex Ferguson’s former assistant at Manchester United. Arsenal cannot afford him at the numbers we are hearing, that is for sure.”Beckham’s performances in the second half of the season have not matched his pre-Christmas form, and on Saturday night the Real coach Carlos Queiroz replaced him – to his apparent anger – on the hour with the Argentinian midfielder Santiago Solari in the 2-0 defeat by Deportivo La Coru?ueiroz attributed the defeat to having a player sent off for a third successive game, and a lack of fortune in front of goal. The Arsenal vice-chairman, David Dein, said the club could not afford Beckham, even if they wanted to sign him.”All this speculation is going around,” he said “Somebody ought to ask Real Madrid what they want to do. They hold his registration, they paid £25m a year ago for him Do they really want to sell him or not? They hold the key. Real told me they don’t want to sell him.”The situation remains the same because we always said we would review the situation after two years and he hasn’t even finished his first season He’s happy in Madrid and he’s staying. Obviously we have talked about what would happen if he came home but there are only a few clubs he could go to.

We will sit down with Real at the end of the season and discuss his future, but the bottom line is that David loves playing for Real Madrid.”Even if Beckham does return, his destination is unlikely to be Highbury. Real Madrid’s director of football, Jorge Valdano, said yesterday that he was confident that David Beckham will remain at the Bernabeu next season. The truth is, we don’t know where the stories about him leaving are coming from, but it’s not us. However, Valdano is reported to have met Beckham at a funeral last week and he said: “Nothing has changed.

I have spoken to him and he is calm.”That view is backed up by comments from Beckham’s personal assistant, Terry Byrne, who said: “Unless Real want to sell him, he’s staying. The News of the World says Queiroz is Tottenham’s main target and reports that O’Neill will not come because they cannot offer him European football.Chelsea are ready to offer Roma defender Walter Samuel £50,000-a-week after tax to beat off competition from Real Madrid, according to the News of the World. It says Tottenham, Real Madrid and Juventus have all made enquiries.The same paper says the Tottenham chairman, Daniel Levy, has added the Spanish coach Javier Clemente to his list of candidates for the White Hart Lane job, but the Mirror insists Martin O’Neill is first choice, predicting an official approach for the Ulsterman, who is preferred to Carlos Queiroz, of Real Madrid, and the Italy coach Giovanni Trapattoni. We just couldn’t cope.”But I’m sure the club will bounce back. It may not happen overnight and it’s not going to be easy, but it won’t be the end of the club We will survive.

We’ve a big fan base in a one-club city, and they’ll remain loyal. But it looks as if we’ll lose players and have to produce our own.”Asked about his own future, Gray said: “I’m not thinking about myself but about the club and which way it will go.” Tomorrow’s board meeting may be the last held by the Yorkshire consortium which bought control six weeks ago. A Leeds-based businessman, Steve Parkin, hopes to complete another take-over this week.Whoever holds the purse strings could do worse than study the way Bolton have adapted to football’s changing economic climate. While Ridsdale and O’Leary gambled money Leeds did not have on massive fees and wages, Sam Allardyce scoured the continent for free-transfers such as Okocha and Youri Djorkaeff and used what resources they had to pay them handsome salaries.Bolton, Carling Cup finalists in February, now lie seventh in the Premiership and are on course for their highest finish since 1962.