united's biggest problem is fergie believing the hype

on saturday, two results blew the title race apart just as everyone had convinced themselves that manchester united would simply shrug off their dismal defeat to liverpool by winning all of their games. instead, the first game since their old trafford debacle saw united fall to defeat at craven cottage, whilst liverpool simply destroyed an overmatched aston villa side. 1 point the gap, and even with that game in hand united are suddenly looking over their shoulder.

the fact is that, as football365 pointed out this morning, the rot at old trafford had set in before most people were willing to admit; rather than look at that shock defeat at the hands of rafa benitez's men, the focus needs to be on those poor wins against blackburn and newcastle and that poor second leg performance against inter. in none of those games were united good, and whilst it is easy to look at those signs through the time-honoured nonsense of "the sign of champions", winning whilst playing well, a line can be traced from those games right through to craven cottage on saturday.

but to work out why united have failed, one must look to why they succeeded in the first place. back in january, they disposed of an awful chelsea side with consumate ease; a side containing the previously unheralded park ji sung and darren fletcher, squad players and nothing else, brushed aside the once fearsome chelsea, and commentators rose as one to proclaim the triumph of squad rotation and the genius of ferguson in mastering that previously untameable beast. and as united ran through teams at will during that remarkable unbeaten phase, journalists heralded the best squad of all time.

and, to a point, they were right. three good goalkeepers - even if their current positions in the squad are in reverse order to their abilities. three excellent centre backs, with a fourth - wes brown - a long term injury victim. two potentially great young full backs, the da silva twins, of which one had excelled whenever called upon. a veteran leader easing himself back to form in gary neville, potentially the best left back in the world in patrice evra, and mr do it all himself, john o shea, rounding out the defence. in attack you had wayne rooney, a devasting player when his attitude is right, cristiano ronaldo, who might be the best natural goalscorer in the world, perpetual motion machine carlos tevez and elegant, but lazy, dimitar berbatov. oh, and the midfield! never before had the premier league seen such midfield depth.

but how wrong they were.

with the submission of owen hargreaves to his long-standing knee problem, united were in trouble earlier this season. their central midfield was suddenly composed of the outstanding but languid michael carrick, the fading talents of paul scholes, the callow anderson, the then-unearthed revival of ryan giggs, and energetic but presumed limited darren fletcher. the squad began to rotate, united began to win games, no one kept complaining about the disappearance of everyone's favourite english-welsh canadian. 

the odd malfunction gave away united's obvious flaw however - no one to press and tackle. defeat came against liverpool in september, a game in which mascherano took full control; defeat came against arsenal in november, a match notable for the fact it could've easily ended up with a double digit goal tally. in neither game were united able to really establish dominance in midfield, and whilst in the latter arsenal's own cavalier approach resulted in a display of carelessness on either side, the liverpool game was much more of a struggle. 

in the second leg against inter milan it was a similar struggle, with the italians matching a united midfield they were so inferior to in the first leg. or against liverpool in the rematch. or against fulham on saturday. even blackburn, even in defeat, were worringly effective. and why?

because alex ferguson refuses to recognise he has certain players that he cannot afford to rest. 

simply put, the two key midfielders for united now are michael carrick and darren fletcher. carrick sets the tempo, he is the deep playmaker who receives the ball from vidic and ferdinand and starts the united attacks, the player who was so conspicuous by his absence against fulham as the west londoners dropped their strikers deep and allowed defenders to have the ball. 

(as an aside, paul scholes simply cannot play this role anymore - he has neither the mobility nor the passing to properly function. and if you think i am crazy to doubt the passing of paul scholes, watch the first half of the second leg against inter. paul scholes is no longer the player he once was.)

fletcher is a man who has been consistently excellent for united this season. phenomenal against chelsea in january and similarly effective in the first game against inter at the san siro, fletcher has becoming increasingly essential to united, allying his well established ability to harrass with a new found sense of positional nous, as well as improving his movement and passing. he is the best compliment to the stately carrick as united possess, willing to put in the hard yards as carrick is content to sit back. he is now non-negotiable.

what this means is that you find a common thread in manchester united games - united generally struggle more when they find themselves with scholes or anderson (or both) and no fletcher. and why wouldn't they? with the gradual withdrawal of carlos tevez from the starting line-up, united now have a worrying amount of either lazy or immobile players: ronaldo won't run and neither will berbatov, whilst nani will do the least amount possible, scholes is too slow and carrick to reluctant. now michael carrick might still be positionally sound, and a vastly underrated defender, but this isn't exactly a sustainable ploy. united profited last season because ronaldo's laziness was covered up by the indefatigable running of rooney and tevez, but as berbatov became a regular the balance slipped. united need darren fletcher in every game for the rest of the season, just as they need frequent appearances from park ji-sung; players like these are a necessity when you carry a few passengers.

frankly, ferguson needs to wake up. now is not the time for nostalgia, insisting that a player who was finished in the second half of last season - paul scholes - can still do it now, or future gazing, giving valuable appearances to a youngster - anderson - who has clearly slumped. fletcher & carrick: this is the choice that needs to be made. the squad isn't as deep as it looked, and fergie cannot risk trying to prove otherwise. the season depends on it.

more euro reaction, part deux: real madrid are even worse

back in 2008, your correspondent wrote 

liverpool will no doubt feat on (real madrid's) inability to play fluent football, using alonso and mascherano to dominate the midfield and thereby allowing gerrard and torres to attack a shaky defence. my guess is that liverpool win very convincingly

and whilst that obviously indicated confidence, i'm not sure i was quite expecting that. liverpool were absolutely fearsome last night, tearing into real madrid with a verve that is too often missing at anfield, but exhibiting the control and precision that constitute the usual benitez hallmarks. in short, this was terrific, potentially the best all around performance from liverpool under the spaniard. but real madrid were complicit in this shellacking; the self-proclaimed "greatest club in the world" were an absolute embarrassment.

and let us count the ways. raul is a walking testimonial to the decline of the club, the same mediocre player he has been for at least 5 years - for all the talk of a revival, he remains a husk of the player he was in his early 20s, boosting his goal tallies with tap ins and short range simplicity in a team that often overpowers inferior competition in la liga - and didn't mesh well with gonzalo higuain, who still flatters to deceive. however, even if the argentine doesn't totally convince, you can at least point to his attitude and the inescapable reality of having to partner raul as excuses.

at a more fundamental level, madrid are staffed with the lacklustre, the overhyped and the lazy. arjen robben looked like a man who would quite willingly concede the game if offered the chance, whilst wesley sneijder appeared to be suffering from a rather noxious combination of reading his own euro 2008 reviews a little too hard and positional discomfort. at the back, gabriel heinze is at best half the player he once was; fabio cannavaro is utterly cooked, existing on a shadowy collection of defensive tricks - if you could put his head on pepe's body you'd probably been able to create one good defender. 

as such, its impossible to single out any one player as being particularly responsible for this colossal failure than another. but if there is one player in the madrid line-up that says everything you need to know about the state of the club at the moment, it is fernando gago. having watched quite a lot of real across the last two seasons, in both la liga and the champions league, it is truly difficult to discern what it is the argentine does; he isn't particularly good defensively, lacking the snarling magnificence of his compatriot javier mascherano or the calm sturdiness of someone like claude makelele, but isn't good offensively either, without the vision to penetrate good teams with his passing or the physical talent to overwhelm them. if madrid envision him as some sort of xabi alonso clone, dictating the pace of the game with his passing, they are sorely mistaken: gago has one setting, and that is slow. 

given this, it is no surprise that one is left feeling rather sympathetic towards the magnificent iker casillas. the goalkeeper has probably spent more time than any other in his position screaming at his defenders since bursting into the first team as a teenager, first through the helter-skelter galactico era and then through the subsequent "rubbish but somehow maintaining domestic success" era that has followed. and again last night, casillas was tremendous - keeping out torres after about 5 minutes with his legs before turning away attempts by mascherano,  skrtel & gerrard as liverpool ran riot. 

beyond him, there were no bright sparks. across the two legs even sergio ramos has looked a shadow of himself, whilst lassana diarra flickered but failed to generate any momentum against the superior tandem of alonso and mascherano. this was the story all across the pitch, as every battle was lost by the team in white, liverpool's dominance sprawling ostentatiously across the arena. 

finally, any appraisal of this contest would be incomplete without the proper glorification of those that manufactured such a victory. fernando torres seemed completly re-energised, the bile of all those madridistas and all of those madrid derbies  thrown back at them with every surge and every touch, destroying the reputations of one ageing legend and one hitherto promising player as he went. steven gerrard excelled yet again, springing from midfield whenever he could, his increasingly deadly movement allowing him to attack weakspots in the madrid defence, whilst the triangle he formed with alonso and mascherano was so effective that carragher and skrtel were reduced to a perfunctory guard duty. mascherano was quiet in the first leg of this tie but phenomenal in this, his gritty dynamism proving an insurmountable barrier for the flawed attack of the men in white, grinding down their spirit with every tackle. meanwhile, arbeloa had a quite brilliant game at right back, shutting out arjen robben, and ryan babel had one of those games that remind you just how good he could be. 

it was a fantastic spectacle, a crumbling edifice laid bare for the world to see. madrid need drastic action, and much depends on the forthcoming presidential elections - this isn't a team, or a situation, that will be remedied with one €40m signing; it is a squad that needs comprehensive redrawing. for liverpool, it was a tantalising evening, demonstrating the great potential of the side when it contains a fit and healthy fernando torres. benitez will still need a further 4 or 5 players in the summer to make them proper contenders for the premier league, but they are ever more daunting in knockout football. how the rest of the quarter finalists will dread a trip to anfield.