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- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 11 November 2001 03.58 GMT
Manchester United cost me a pint last weekend.
It would be remiss to dwell too long on personal misfortune while there are others with vastly more at risk on the suddenly choppy waters of the Premiership forecast, but the point remains. Wobbles are one thing, new formations another, but when United go to Anfield and fail to get into the game it is time for anyone with money on them to start worrying.
Last Sunday, so the pub reasoning went, was surely the occasion for the real Manchester United to stand up. Having been beaten twice by Liverpool last season, and with just one point in the bag from recent home games against Bolton and Leeds, here was the opportunity for Sir Alex Ferguson to name his strongest side and make a statement of intent. That was certainly what Phil Thompson was expecting.
Before the game Liverpool's caretaker manager had sounded slightly desperate when suggesting the only way to win was for his team to work harder than Ferguson's acknowledged masters of desire, and even with a 2-0 half-time lead Thompson was frantically reminding his players of the fate that befell Tottenham Hotspur earlier in the season. What happened? David Beckham's goal was all United managed by way of a comeback, and practically all they managed all day. Paul Scholes was left on the bench for 76 minutes, at which point he was brought on for Beckham at wide right. Ferguson ripped into his players afterwards for not showing enough hunger, which is not something anyone would have predicted at the start of the season.
Ferguson's teams have seen Trebles come and go without even hinting at taking their foot off the pedal, and the unanimous feeling three months ago was that United would try even harder this time. So much so that United were not merely a sensible title bet, they had been that for years. They were the only bet. Arsenal were going backwards, and while Liverpool and Leeds were moving upwards, only their staunchest fans would have risked much on their chances of ruining Fergie's final season. The possibility no one foresaw was United imploding from within, and simply not figuring in the race.
It is still too early in the season to write off a fourth successive title, but when the saintly Scholes is being disciplined for refusing to play, it is fair to say United are imploding. Ferguson was said to be furious at his midfielder's attitude. It was news to the rest of us that the ginger lad owned an attitude. It shouldn't have been. At any other club the disruption to a key member of the team caused by the arrival of two expensive overseas signings would have led to transfer talk months ago. People have become so conditioned to Ferguson knowing best that everyone expected Scholes to keep his head down and keep trying until his manager was proved right.
But maybe he won't be. And maybe he was wrong about Jaap Stam and Fabien Barthez too. Not to mention Juan Sebastian Veron. Veron? Hang on a minute. It might be true that losing three games before Bonfire Night is no way to win the Premiership (it took United until 31 March last season to record a third defeat).
Statistics also show that the defence that took until the same date to concede 20 league goals last season has reached that milestone in 11 games, thanks in no small part to a goalkeeper who makes more expensive mistakes than Mark Bosnich and Massimo Taibi put together. But where does the £28m record signing come in? That is precisely the question United should have been asking themselves in the summer.
Ruud van Nistelrooy, who would have arrived earlier but for injury, was signed as a more effective striking alternative than Dwight Yorke or Andy Cole. Veron was more complicated, since Ferguson was attempting to fix something that was not broken. As long as United play with Beckham on one wing and Ryan Giggs on the other, ie for the foreseeable future, they have only two genuine midfield positions.
One has traditionally been filled by Roy Keane, the other by Scholes. So which one of those did Ferguson intend to replace when he bought Veron? It would have made sense, financially as well as logically, to sell Keane when Veron arrived. The disruption would have been minimal, but as Keane is the heartbeat of the United side the actual improvement may have been minimal too.
Scholes is arguably more dispensable, though Ferguson fudged the issue somewhat by shoving him further forward into the attack, claiming he needed to change to a split-striker system to progress in the Champions League. The big question, and one that may never be satisfactorily answered until Ferguson writes his memoirs, is whether he purposely bought Veron to facilitate such a switch, or whether he simply snapped up one of the best players in the world because he was available and then came up with the new formation to fit him in. If it was the former a) he did not sell it to Scholes very well, and b) it does not seem to be working.
Scholes has scored just once all season. The suspicion is the latter, for despite problems with the new system United have not found it easy to revert to the security of their old one. To do that would involve leaving out Veron, Keane or Scholes.
Choose Scholes and you lose a link with attack, and are left with two midfielders covering much of the same ground. Veron can hardly be faulted this season, but he could end up sharing an unwanted distinction with Rodney Marsh, the last luxury purchase to have a destabilising effect on a Manchester team that looked a shoo-in for the title.
United will need all their famous powers of recovery if Ferguson is to refute the charge that when he finally persuaded the plc to spend big, he did not use the money effectively. It is beginning to look as if running tightly-disciplined teams on strictly limited budgets might have been what suited Ferguson best. How ironic it would be were the plc to be proved right all along.
