The Champions League failure against Porto made it feel as if the lights had been dimmed on Manchester United’s season, yet the result also casts a pall over the past. Once the piercing regret has eased, the disappointment will invigorate arguments over the policies that have been pursued in recent years.
Sir Alex Ferguson wanted to ward off that morbid introspection on Tuesday night and there was a case for presenting United as victims of happenstance. Why, he implied, should anyone despair when a team are strafed by semi-random events in the last minute of a game which had until then gone satisfactorily?
Phil Neville need not have committed a foul, Tim Howard would usually have done better than to paw Benni McCarthy’s free-kick down into the goalmouth, and the ball fell with uncommon convenience into the path of Costinha. Riveting as that scene was, however, the gaze has to be torn away from it.
United, by Ferguson’s account, had been very fortunate to lose only 2-1 in the first leg, so there is no overall injustice to the outcome. It emphasised that, since the 1999 success in the Champions League, the team have become high-class drudges. There have been only three honours for them.
Almost any other club would be delighted by three Premiership titles in that period, but United had set themselves for an assault on greatness. It was Ferguson himself who insisted that a single Champions League trophy in one period does not embed a team in the history of the game.
Five years on from that night in the Nou Camp against Bayern Munich, the record books still depict United as a noteworthy and consistent side who cannot, however, stand comparison with the likes of Milan, let alone Real Madrid. Ferguson is a man thwarted and the supporters will be slightly disappointed with him.
Since the 1999 season, United’s money has gushed into the transfer market as never before, but the standards of a team who are lagging in the Premiership at present have dipped as the influence of the homegrown element becomes less pronounced.
Although every leading chairman now shudders at the potential impact of Chelsea’s means, Ferguson has not been at a disadvantage so far.
He shrugged upon losing out to the Stamford Bridge club for the signature of Arjen Robben, hinting that it was folly to spend £13,5-million on the PSV youngster. Ferguson, all the same, has come up with similarly Abramovichian sums for both Louis Saha and Cristiano Ronaldo this season, with far greater outlay previously on Juan Sebastian Veron and Rio Ferdinand.
So far, of the recent headline acquisitions, Ruud van Nistelrooy is alone in showing himself to be worthy of his fee. The United manager is trying to implant a youthful vibrancy in the line-up, by plucking fresh faces out of the reserves or, more commonly, the transfer market.
Ferguson would appreciate patience, but the daily pressures hustle the club. Though the dynamic fightback that took United to the league championship a year ago merited profound respect, it is significant that Arsenal, United’s opponents in next month’s FA Cup semifinal, remained a far more popular side with neutral observers.
People detected, and were transfixed by, the obvious potential of Arsène Wenger’s team, which is now being realised in an enthralling manner. Only once, in the 6-2 thrashing of Newcastle at St James’ Park last season, have United generated a comparable awe.
The comfort for Ferguson lies in the fact that David Beckham was not in action that day, demonstrating that the player who was then sold to Real Madrid was never the single guarantor of brilliance. The difficulty does not arise from losing him so much as from the shaky effort to reshape United without him.
The manager has brought in commonplace midfielders such as Kleberson and Eric Djemba-Djemba — who have the small total of 14 Premiership starts between them in their first year of adaptation to England — and gambled on the promise of youth. Ferguson has looked less shrewd than Wenger.
The Frenchman’s miniature budget stimulated his ingenuity and when there was an influx of money he got the player he wanted most, José Antonio Reyes, despite rival interest from Chelsea.
At Old Trafford, they are left to wonder what might have been had the flabbergasting collapse of the Ronaldinho deal been prevented.
As Barcelona gradually recover, the worth of the mercurial Brazilian is being illustrated. His showmanship and flair might well have restored the sheen to United’s build-up.
Ferguson’s dispute, now settled, with John Magnier was a distraction and he could be faulted for not bringing in a mature defender such as Gareth Southgate in the transfer window, but the frustrations go deeper.
The past five years have not turned out as Ferguson dreamed. There is no present threat to his position, and the board, even as they winced at the legal action against Magnier, handed him a new, rolling contract.
If the post were advertised tomorrow he would still be the best candidate to fill it, but he is indubitably ageing.
Another blank season to follow the one they endured as recently as 2002 will make it easier for the directors to envisage United without Ferguson. —