HAVE MAN UTD LOST IT?

BACK in August, it all seemed so simple. Sir Alex Ferguson suggested that his Manchester United team would appreciate a stronger challenge for their Premier League crown, while each of the pretenders vowed to push the champions far harder than in previous seasons. What has ensued is potentially the most fascinating and certainly the strangest title race in years, but one in which the presence of United, universally written off , suddenly looms large once more.
Did anyone seriously think United were out of it? Well, for 48 hours at least, it was hard to see a way back. Having fallen to their sixth defeat of the campaign at home to West Ham United on December 8, they were 11 points off the summit, having played a game more than Liverpool. Even Ferguson himself, it seemed, was not trying to lull his rival managers into a false sense of security when he ventured that his side would need a “miracle” to fight their way back into contention.
Amid the feeding frenzy of theorising about where it is all going wrong, two central points stand out. One is that United have suffered from the loss of Steve McClaren to Middlesbrough and the subsequent failure to replace him adequately. When Brian Kidd departed for Blackburn Rovers in 1998, the recruitment of McClaren quickly filled the breach. This time, Ferguson, knowing that it would be hard to attract a top-class coach from outside the club for a single season, settled for Jim Ryan, the reserve team manager, who had been passed over when Kidd left.
Where once Kidd or McLaren would rush down from the manager’s platform at Old Trafford to relay Ferguson’s instructions to the players during matches, now Ferguson stands there alone, surrounded by the bewildered faces of uncomprehending supporters, chewing gum furiously and desperately trying to retain the sense of authority that has underpinned his reign. He looks like a man who needs help, but none is at hand.
If Ferguson was always the man who dictated the tactics and gave the inspirational team talks, Kidd and McClaren made sure that the players retained their enthusiasm. They kept training fresh with a series of innovative routines that appealed to the players’ innate competitiveness. McClaren perfected one workout, in particular, that relied on the players’ responses to the coded commands that he gave. “Right” meant that they had to dart left, “left” meant they had to dart right.
The glue of those routines has dissolved now but the second point is that Ferguson has bought badly. Verón is looking more and more a luxury player, a man who may believe he has already achieved his dream in club football by winning the Serie A title with Lazio. That he is a gem of a midfield player is not in doubt, but not in the system that Ferguson is trying to fit him. His performances for United so far have made him look like a frippery, a present Ferguson gave to himself but now wishes he could give back. Laurent Blanc, the replacement for Jaap Stam, has been a disaster in central defence.
So now, the Rolls-Royce has lost most of what made it run so smoothly.
Dwight Yorke was one of the first to fall by the wayside, seduced by the bright lights. The eccentricities of Fabien Barthez have caught up with him, Blanc’s career is on its downward slope, Wes Brown is injured, Verón is a passenger, Roy Keane is overwhelmed and increasingly fractious, Ryan Giggs is frequently injured, Beckham is out of favour, Paul Scholes is confused and disorientated by his new role.
Much more and Ferguson will have to admit that the season that should have been his last hurrah has become a write-off. As the rubberneckers turn their heads to watch the wreck, Liverpool, the team United succeeded as the dominant force in English football, are keeping their eyes firmly on the road ahead and should be accelerating away into the distance.
Ferguson has ventured that “a miracle” is needed if he is to bow out at the end of the season with a fourth successive title, but the question now is whether life after Ferguson will begin with an unthinkable exile from the Champions League.
The financial implications of failure to achieve the requisite top-four finish, with a potential £28 million at stake, would be enormous. United earned £16.2 million in prize-money and commercial revenue from the competition last season, in addition to £11.7 million in gate receipts. Other clubs budget for European qualification; United, the biggest of them all, have a wage bill that can be financed only by playing in the Champions League, where they have become almost a permanent fixture since 1993.
By any reckoning, Ferguson has treated the Premiership too lightly this season, chopping and changing his team with reckless abandon. David Beckham, Juan Sebastián Verón and Ruud van Nistelrooy, £100 million worth of talent, were rested as United succumbed to a 1-0 home defeat at the hands of West Ham United. “The results have not gone the way that either we or the fans wanted them to, but we have to deal with it now because we’re in a situation where it’s reality,” the Holland forward said. “You don’t expect this when you sign here. We want to get into the top four. If we are there, then we can look upwards more. Each game we play now is like a final.”
Van Nistelrooy’s response was perhaps just the fighting talk that Ferguson was looking for, having earlier accused his players of lacking the hunger and passion that have proved the foundation for their unparalleled success over the past nine seasons. “We’ve had a horrendous season in the league,” Ferguson admitted in an unusually frank interview. “It has been very disappointing.
“We’re looking at one or two things that I was disappointed with. I feel that if we can get the fighting spirit back in the club for the remaining games of the season, then we can work from that. If we can get the team spirit right and keep it solid, then the supporters will acknowledge that the players are trying their best. If they don’t reach that level, then there will be question marks from the supporters about their ability and how good they really are.
“They’ve built up great reputations, but the club have a history of producing people who are not just great players but great fighters. We need to rediscover that. The recent run of 4 wins has been encouraging but needs to be kept in context although the game against Everton was a step in the right direction. “The 1994 team had great character, strong personalities, and that team evolved to a side that is perhaps technically more talented. But until the current team prove that they have the same fighting qualities and mental toughness, it’s very difficult to compare the two and judge which is better.”
The nucleus of the team, founded upon the home-grown talents of Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and the Neville brothers, has barely changed in recent years, but the introduction of Verón, for example, has unsettled the balance of the team, adversely affecting the form of Beckham and Scholes in particular. Beckham’s only top-level performance in recent months has come while he was wearing the white shirt of England. Since New Year’s Day, when he inspired a 3-1 victory over West Ham, he has failed to recapture his best form more than a handful of times at club level.
It is rare indeed for Ferguson to go public in an attempt to motivate his players, but never before has he needed to resort to such methods. Another psychological masterstroke or the last throw of the dice by a desperate man? Only time will tell.

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a neutral hoping that Newcastle or Leeds or Chelsea or Spurs win it - Man United have won it enough times