United magic has gone

ALEX FERGUSON sat with arms folded in the dugout, a look of utter bemusement on his face.

It was the look of a man who knew the game was up. Of course, he would never admit it. He is a street-fighter, a man whose Govan genes decree you never admit weakness and always get your retaliation in first.

Hence, after a defeat by Benfica which saw United miss out on the Champions League knock-out phase, he trotted out familiar managerial platitudes.

“You recover from this and regroup and start again,” said Ferguson. “This club has always risen from difficult situations.”

So it has, but this is a “difficult situation” of Ferguson’s own making and these are uncertain times at a club that has taken on huge debts.

The Glazer family’s business plan did not allow for losing shirt sponsors Vodafone and a potential £15million from European revenue.

The plan did not foresee United exiting Europe before teams like Bolton and Middlesbrough and coming bottom of a Champions League group that appeared the second easiest in the competition.

The plan did not expect mediocrity. Whichever way you wrap it up, for a club of United’s stature, that is what Ferguson has delivered these past two years.

It gives no pleasure to suggest that, after 19 years, Ferguson has taken United as far as he can.

By rights, when he goes he should be carried around Old Trafford on a shield of honour with 67,000 fans bowing in acclaim, cheering the greatest football manager Britain has ever seen. Some would say he has earned the right to choose the manner and time of that departure.

It is a quaint notion, but football does not work like that. There is no room for nostalgia, no place for men who can’t see the decay setting in around them.

Brian Clough went on two, maybe three years too long at Nottingham Forest, tainting his reputation and leaving the club in terminal decline.

United are not in such dire straits but, like Clough, Ferguson no longer appears to be able to anticipate what might happen next. He fails to recognise Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes are in the twilight of their days. He appears to believe players of world-class standing such as Roy Keane can be replaced from within the ranks.

He pins his hopes on youth and there is no doubt Cristiano Ronaldo can juggle a football as well as the next performing seal, but where is the end product? Where are the goals and the endless assists once supplied by the most famous wearers of United’s number seven shirt - namely George Best and David Beckham?

Where is the playmaker? Where is the organisation and concentration in defence? Where is the high-tempo, gung-ho United we all used to know and, if not love, at least admire?

Wayne Rooney must be asking the same questions. Undoubtedly, he is the finest British talent since Best, but he would have been unplayable in United’s treble-winning side of 1999.

Now he must look around the United changing room and wonder quite how he has ended up playing in a side in that has pressed an ordinary striker, Alan Smith, into midfield and asked him to supply the creative ammunition, and in which hunger and passion - if the performance at Benfica’s Stadium of Light is anything to go by - is in short supply.

Surely, having borrowed £540million to buy the club, the new owners will soon ask the same question.

Then they will remember the criticisms of Keane, the inadequate signings, the tinkering with tactics and the disruptive dispute with former shareholders over a racehorse. They might well agree that Ferguson has been a fantastic servant for Manchester United. How could they not?

But they might also conclude that the magic is missing and that Ferguson should step aside. It would be difficult to disagree.