United stars ‘playing for futures’

MANCHESTER UNITED captain Roy Keane believes the club’s underachieving stars are now playing for their futures as they try to rescue a disappointing campaign.

The Red Devils were eliminated from the Champions League last week by Porto and slipped 12 points behind Premiership leaders Arsenal on Sunday with a 4-1 defeat to rivals Manchester City.

Keane has been an outspoken critic of his own team after past Champions League failures and now has taken issue with the current squad.

He is refusing to look any further ahead than the club's next match at home to Tottenham on Saturday as the beginning of the salvage operation despite a double-header against Arsenal in the league and FA Cup after that.

"I'm not looking to those matches against Arsenal. I don't think with the way we've been playing that we can be looking beyond next Saturday," said Keane.

"The players need to go out on Saturday and put on a performance for the fans. It won't take away the hurt from the defeat against City or to Porto but it's important to get a good win in front of our own fans.

"The players know we've got a lot to play for, we're playing for our futures I think."

Keane insisted there could be no excuses for United's recent slump and he shot down the various theories which have linked United's demise with, among others, the sale of David Beckham and the long-term suspension of Rio Ferdinand.

"When things aren't going well you have to face up to it," Keane said.

"All the players are disappointed. We can point to a lot of reasons and have a lot of excuses but the fact is we're not doing the business and we're taking a lot of criticism.

"But when you play for a club like Manchester United and you're not doing the business you're going to get criticised. But hopefully we can snap out of it and get a win on Saturday.

"The lads put in a really good effort against Porto, it just wasn't to be. I think the 4-1 defeat against City was probably an unfair scoreline but that's football," he said.

Bobby Charlton also said United are hurting after the devastating month.

United legend Charlton, a club director, revealed the pain he and the red half of Manchester have felt.

Charlton said "It would appear there is a crisis at Manchester United. We've lost a couple of important games and it does hurt.

"You can't help hurting if you're a fan, whether you're like me, or if you work at Manchester Airport or on a conveyor belt in a factory.

"It's your passion so if your team suffers really seriously and we've had two big hits in the last week it hurts.

"You've just got to take it on the chin when things go against you. Everybody says it's good for English football to have competition with Arsenal but I disagree. I'm greedy and I want United to win all the time."

Unfortunately for Charlton, who scored 245 goals in 751 games for the Old Trafford giants, Arsenal are not so much competing with United as disappearing over the horizon in the title race. Ferguson has made no secret of where he feels the problem in his side lies, slamming his defence which has kept just one clean sheet in 10 games since Rio Ferdinand began his eight-month ban for his missed drugs test.

The £29.3million England centre- back's appeal against his suspension will be heard by the Football Association from Thursday. Charlton conceded United have failed to cope without Ferdinand.

"Rio's a worldclass player who has been taken out of our team and we have had difficulty filling that gap," he said.

"We've been leaking goals. It would be very nice to get him back early but I'm not going to preordain the appeal.

Asked if United considered buying a new defender to plug the hole left by Ferdinand, Charlton added: "It was on the agenda but not discussed very much."