Sir Alex… Je T’Accuse …
United will start Sunday’s match against Wigan as the overwhelming favourites to win the Carling Cup.A commanding victory would serve only to recall the days when United’s contempt for the competition was such that it was deemed fit for assorted reserves, promising youth team players and David May.
Heaven forbid United should lose. The season would be over. The better players would take longer calls from agents representing ambitious clubs. Huge machetes would be taken once again to Sir Alex’s reputation as United’s manager. Ferguson’s fate and the judgement of history should not rest on the result against Wigan. It should have been sealed already by this season’s dismal European campaign, never mind the toothless cup defeat at Liverpool last weekend.
Failure to qualify from the weakest of Champion’s League groups is a sackable offence alone. Ottmar Hitzfeld, winner of European cups with two different clubs, paid with his job when Bayern slithered out of European competition before Christmas. Ferguson should do the same.
The European catastrophe was the result of three years of steady decline and in particular, a disastrous flirtation with a defensive formation and tactics. Ferguson, a man who understands United’s traditions better than anyone, betrayed himself by apeing a system clearly unsuited to the current staff at Old Trafford.
United are unconvincing when asked to play 4-3-3 or 4-5-1 because the team has neither the physical presence nor the cunning in midfield. What United do have is the best attacking partnership in Europe, cruelly let down by the club’s worst midfield for 20 years. A quick-witted player like Ruud Van Nistelrooy, needs a clever footballer alongside, a steady supply of crosses and a midfield capable of taking a lasting grip on a game. Ferguson brought in Rooney to the cheers of every fan but failed to deliver the rest.
Carlos Quieroz has taken the heat for a safety-first tactical plan which has the team boring and blundering in equal measure. But why? Sir Alex Ferguson is the manager. Surely he has the last word on team selection and tactics.The negative game plan simply covers gaps and weaknesses among the players, all of whom have been signed by Ferguson. The manager says the team is in transition. Surgery was needed after 2001 but it has taken too long,proved too costly and still looks three expensive signings away from completion.
Why were vast sums of money wasted on a string of goalkeepers who either lost form or lost their marbles? Ferguson’s current love affair with expensive defenders looks ever more bizarre when the world knows midfielders are the priority. The man who put red shirts on Roy Keane, Paul Ince and Andrei Kanchelskis, appears to have mislaid his gift for spotting gems and reverted to the oddball who asked fans to accept Ralph Milne.
The midfield debacle has been well-documented. That Darren Fletcher is the only recognised central midfielder available for Sunday’s match is conclusive proof of Ferguson’s waning judgement. Does the manager really look at Kieran Richardson and see a United fullback? When the team is struggling in the centre, why was David Jones recalled from Preston in December only to be farmed out abroad in January? The improving Bardsley got a few games in the first team and then a kick in the teeth when Patrice Evra was signed. At a time when United are strapped for cash, signing a player for five million pounds and then not playing him looks foolish.
Sir Alex has been cursed by injuries to key players and the unexpectedly rapid decline of kingpins like Paul Scholes. But let no-one forget the names that will forever damn the last years of his empire: Blanc, Silvestre, Kleberson, Djemba Djemba, Veron, Bellion and Miller.
The case against Ferguson grows by the week. There have been too many mistakes, too much bellyaching, too many squabbles and not enough evidence of improvement to save Ferguson from the inevitable. The penalty for bad team selections, clueless tactics and sub-standard recruits is well known.
Even the best parties have to end. Sunday, 26 February is your final hurrah Sir Alex. Get it right, get out and get on with your retirement. History will reward you kindly for your last great service to United. AU
© Copyright: Absolutely United 2006
