Soccer: Goals cannot mask Diego's deficiencies

I’M sure the doctors treating Sir Alex Ferguson’s heart condition will have warned him to avoid too much stress and excitement, so how delightful that his next opponents were those masters of boredom, Aston Villa.

The only electric zapping one needed on Saturday was to help stay awake in between goals.

Ten years ago, when the marvellous Ron Atkinson ruled Birmingham, I used to look forward to United-Villa matches almost as much as I did the derbies.

The classic 2-1 win at Villa Park in the autumn of 1993 could well rank as the best Premiership match I've ever seen. Now look at the poor wretches: Our first team gets a harder workout in training when playing our reserves than they did on Saturday.

Only Dion Dublin a much-loved ex-Red looked like he was trying.

Sorry to diss a respected son of your island but I must say it gave me immense pleasure to see David O'Leary looking like death at the whistle, in comparison to Fergie's glowing picture of health.

O'Leary is one of my least favourite characters in the game that faux-humility, the smarminess, the studied self-aggrandisement in the mediaugh!

We have to go and play at Villa Park in the FA Cup next month which will at least give us another opportunity to knock a nail in his coffin. Mind you, I do admit that Villa's august home is still a venue I enjoy visiting.

We have tremendous recent cup memories of it too: the semi-final in '99, of course but also the 3-2 comeback a couple of years ago which featured Ruud van Nistelrooy at his most devastating.

Ah, Ruud: our match winner again! on Saturday and yet supposedly the player without whom Fergie reckons he could still win the title. Ahem. I think we ought to put that bizarre quote from Friday's press interviews down to the possible after-effects of his electro-zapping.

Ruud's swivelling second goal had unmistakable echoes of Gerd Muller about it, the finest comparison one can make when it comes to natural goal scoring. And, of course, his all round game is vastly superior to the old Bomber's.

I reckon a good 15,000 had already left the ground when Forlan performed his injury-time cameo double, goals which undeservedly enlivened a quite dreadful second-half. Superb though his first was, I suspect Diego's time is still up.

Roy Keane's blunt demand earlier in the week that we must buy another striker seemed to signify definitively that Forlan's future if any will be as a squad player.

To be fair to the lad, he does seem to do better when he comes on, all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, as a late substitute preferably when the game is all but won. But then again, who wouldn't relish that situation?

As much as I appreciated the beauty of Diego's strike, I will equally remember the sight of a furious Keano repeatedly berating him throughout the previous 15 minutes for incompetence.

Bet I know which bit Roy will be reminding Fergie of during their next future-planning chat too.

Meanwhile, Nistelrooy continues to entrance all Europe, the Spanish press in particular. Unfortunately, Ruud has never made a secret of his interest in the Primera Liga nor of his fascination for Spanish culture he is currently said to be learning the language, for example.

His agent, in an indiscreet moment last year, also let slip that he would be keen to help Ruud head for Catalonia. It's another reminder that one-club-men heroes are rarer than ever.

Look at Nicky Butt, who back in 1999 looked an obvious cert for an OT life-term. Now he is painfully on the way out. Last week Manchester was full of rumours emanating from both his family and the dressing room that he has reached a Beckham-like point of no return in his relationship with the Boss.

A relative of his thinks he will be sold to Newcastle; Manchester City insiders have leaked that they are determined to get him over to Eastlands.

I am reminded sadly of the comment made about him by Fergie back in 1995 when Nicky was the manager's blue-eyed boy: "Butty will be the new Paul Ince." Well, he never quite made it to that level, did he?

Yet the end-result is the same a fall from grace, and unwillingly onto the ship-out list. Paul Scholes will not see out his career at OT either but for quite different reasons: his love of Oldham Athletic guarantees he will allow himself one final season in blue.

Forget Forlan's goal: the truly significant highlight of Saturday's second-half was to see Scholesy come onto the pitch, warming our hearts with the knowledge that he will thus be available for next Saturday's noon showdown.

Yes, ignore whatever happened in last night's sideshow; unusually, for the second time in a month, a European midweeker is thoroughly overshadowed by the domestic weekend clash to come.

City travel over from what Fergie wittily calls their Temple of Doom to our Theatre of Dreams, a venue which is long-overdue the sight of a thorough derby-day thrashing.

THE prospect of Keegan 'doing a Newcastle' afterwards leaves us licking our lips greedily. I can certainly see Kleberson our current fave doing untold damage to City's static back half if he roams about as dangerously as did against Villa.

Incidentally, Saturday ought to be the day after the plc board meeting finally signs off on Fergie's new contract. It'll thus be lovely timing for a re-coronation celebration, and for the start of a funeral for the blues. And the infamous Stretford End banner will soon be able to tick over to '28 years'."

Richard Kurt is deputy editor of Red Issue magazine