United still suffering Liverpool hangover

WHERE has it all gone wrong for Manchester United?

Considering that they lead the Premier League, are in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and the semi-finals of the FA Cup and already have the Carling Cup and that other slightly less prestigious gong, the World Club Championship, in the bag this season, the question might seem to have inescapable echoes of that hoary old yarn about a similarly agonised query being posed by the hotel room service guy who discovers George Best in bed with Miss World, swigging champagne and scattering banknotes all over the duvet.

But then Manchester United, like their greatest player, are judged by different, more exacting standards — essentially the ones they have set for themselves.

And judged against those heady peaks, Alex Ferguson’s men are clearly in the throes of a crisis.

Fatigue is one factor as they cram in the fixtures in pursuit of the quintuple. Injuries and suspension robbing them of key personnel is another, especially the untimely break-up of the Rio Ferdinand-Nemanja Vidic central defensive axis which, with Edwin Van Der Sar behind it intent on keeping more clean sheets than a laundry, was in record-breaking form just a couple of months ago.

But such prosaic problems are not enough to explain the shocking slump in form of a team which has always been famed for its strength in depth — indeed, even in one of their most recent hours of need, against Aston Villa, Alex Ferguson was able to spring an unknown kid from the bench to save the day with one of the goals of the season.

But it says a lot about United’s current problems that the manager was forced to gamble in such a bold fashion. And to find the root cause of the malaise, you only have to track their rollercoaster form in March.

Early in the month, their 4-0 thumping of Fulham in the cup had the purists purring. But a few days later, United made heavy weather of disposing of Inter Milan in the Champions League at Old Trafford, the 2-0 scoreline disguising the reality of a match in which some uncharacteristic sloppiness from the home side allowed Jose Mourinho’s team to make it a distinctly uncomfortable night for a muted Stretford End.

BY CONTRAST, Anfield had been ablaze 24 hours earlier as Liverpool put four past Real Madrid and it was in just such scintillating mood that they arrived at Old Trafford on March 14 to inflict similar spectacular punishment on a visibly shaken home side.

In terms of United’s decline since then, that was the day the real damage was done, the 2-0 loss to Fulham a week later just an embarrassing aftershock.

To lose at home to their arch-rivals would be bad enough at the best of times, but to be wiped out by the team which had seemed virtually eliminated from the title race, did as much to supercharge Liverpool’s confidence as it shattered Man U’s.

This gets to the heart of United’s crisis which seems to be primarily psychological. Self-doubt has replaced self-belief and if some of the players — Ronaldo chief amongst them — had felt they were invincible, they know different now.

United have often complained in the past about sides coming to their place with no greater ambition than to simply shut up shop but, on Tuesday night, Porto took a leaf out of Liverpool’s book, driving at the home side in a manner which, prior to that monstering by the visitors from Anfield, would have been almost unthinkable at Old Trafford. Suddenly, the fear on show in the Theatre of Dreams is almost all emanating from the men in red.

The result is that potentially the greatest season in the club’s history now seems balanced on a knife-edge. It could all still end in glory, of course, but for United to finish the season on an unprecedented high, Ferguson is going to have to convince his world and European champions that reputations count for nought and it’s time to battle like underdogs.