Bored United fans won't be gagged

ALEX FERGUSON can gag captain Roy Keane. He can stop his players answering questions in press conferences as he did in Paris with a sharp dig in the ribs of defender John O'Shea.

He might even be able to fool himself into believing United's form is just a passing blip which will be rectified when those injured and suspended return.

But it's no good. The secret is out. Manchester United are no longer Manchester United.

Not the United, at any rate, that fans have loved and the rest of the nation have loved to hate, yet always admired, for the best part of half a century.

That is the inevitable conclusion from United's latest Champions League defeat against Lille, a loss not so much significant for the result but for the abject drudgery of the performance.

Don't listen to Ferguson, who mumbled on about a "poor pitch" and "injuries" and not being in "the best of form." Listen to a respected football man without agenda. "Passing poor, no movement, resorted to hoofing the ball. That's not Manchester United," was the verdict of former United captain Ray Wilkins.

And listen most of all to the fans. "We are boring, so negative, it's just not the United way," said one caller to a post-match phone-in.

Of course, the phone-in is not always a stage for reasoned analysis, but that call neatly summed up the extent of the crisis facing Ferguson.

Why? Because even in the brief periods when United have not carried all before them in Ferguson's 19-year Old Trafford reign, they have always attempted to keep faith with their swashbuckling history.

They have always tried to attack. Always played with an urgent rhythm and at high tempo. Always been the D'Artagnan rising above the more mediocre musketeers of English football.

To go to Old Trafford was to be guaranteed red-blooded action and football with a flourish. We're talking Best, Law and Charlton. Cantona, Hughes and Robson. Beckham, Scholes and Giggs.

As long as the Irwell flows through the rainy city, United will not be about Richardson, Fletcher and Smith.

Ferguson can get away with just about anything at a club to which he has delivered 27 major trophies but not even Fergie will last much longer if painting the garden fence becomes preferable to watching United.

The 43,673 who watched United against Barnet in the Carling Cup recently formed the lowest Old Trafford attendance for six years. The 60,626 for the home tie against Lille was the lowest crowd since the stadium was expanded in 2000.

Admittedly, crowds other clubs would die for but the trend is ominous, especially for the Glazer family owners who have sunk £790 million (€1.17bn) into the Old Trafford brand.

It is why Champions League football is fundamental to the business plan. And here is the irony.

It was specifically because Ferguson believed he could not win the Champions League for a second time playing the 4-4-2 format of old that three years ago he changed tactics and formation to a more continental style of play with Ruud van Nistelrooy as a lone striker.

The pursuit of another Champions League trophy which Ferguson believes he requires to go down in history as one of football's managerial greats became his Holy Grail.

It could become the millstone which sinks the entire empire.

There were those, remember, who believed Liverpool's great dynasty of the 1970s and 1980s, when they won 11 league titles and four European Cups, would never end.

But they failed to heed the warning signs, masked as they were by their last league title win in 1989-90. Their subsequent fall was swift and enduring.

United's present crisis, in many respects, mirrors the Liverpool slide. A change from tried and tested ways, ageing players not replaced, too many players not steeped in the traditions of a great club while lacking the quality to do justice to the famous red shirts.

The rot probably began for Ferguson when he bought Juan Sebastian Veron for £29m (€43m), with the precise aim of delivering the Champions League trophy, and found he had bought a man who could not adapt to the Premiership.

It reached its nadir in Paris on Wednesday with men such as Darren Fletcher, Kieran Richardson, Alan Smith and Rio Ferdinand staggering around the Stade de France with the demeanour of road crash victims. Nerves too frayed to win. Confidence too shot to bits to entertain.

So they succumbed meekly, some would say shamefully. So much so that many would contend they were not really Manchester United at all.