http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/04/15/united_are_all_the_more_exciti.html
We will never know how Manchester United would have
coped this season with the same number of injuries as Chelsea but
Arsenal made them look mortal at Old Trafford
Just how good are Manchester United? There have been times this
season when that sentence might have ended instead with an
adulatory exclamation mark. The 2-1 victory over Arsenal did,
however, raise it as a genuine question. It took grit for United to
recover from a goal behind but their opponents were accomplices in
the comeback. The handball offence for the equalising goal from the
penalty spot was a screwball moment from William Gallas.
Every advantage lay with a well-rested United, who had
fine-tuned themselves by letting a diluted line-up get on with the
chore of knocking Roma out of the Champions League the previous
Wednesday. In consequence there was no excuse for shedding
possession so often against Arsenal as the visitors, in spells,
left United wheezing. Had Emmanuel Adebayor been as good at finding
the net with his feet as he was, unintentionally, with his arm, the
situation could have been beyond recovery.
The resilience and quality of United over the entire campaign
is, of course, to be admired and their goal difference is
comfortably the best of the 92 senior clubs in England. There is no
disputing the temperament of the players either, not when Owen
Hargreaves can settle the match against Arsenal with a feathery
touch from a free-kick when sheer tension could have made him
clumsy. It would be thrawn, as well, to query Cristiano Ronaldo
while his goal hoard makes him so influential, even if the going
for the winger never looks so smooth against, say, Arsenal or
Chelsea.
As it faltered, though, Arsène Wenger's side still highlighted
the mortality of the supposed demi-gods of Old Trafford. Though the
large squad has been a critical advantage for United over Arsenal,
the visitors destroyed any notion that Ferguson's line-up is
impregnable. There is strength in numbers but that does not make a
side utterly unassailable.
Though Ferguson added Hargreaves, Carlos Tevez, Anderson and
Nani last summer, that does not mean he has a complete set of
answers. Team selection turns into a treacherous task when options
proliferate and the manager did not quite get it right on Sunday.
With the movement so fast and elusive from Arsenal, the contest was
beyond the reach of the 33-year-old Paul Scholes. Elsewhere the
industrious Park Ji-sung seemed short of the necessary
accomplishment for this game. He and Scholes were both
substituted.
The jubilation at the close was all the more intense because
United had reached their target on a wing and a prayer, rather than
through effortless excellence. Victory was cobbled together.
Ferguson will rather like that but it ought to deter the rest of us
from assuming that they are really above the fray. Where might they
be now if their squad had been as racked by injury as Chelsea's?
The mere lack of Nemanja Vidic for two or three weeks suffices to
make United queasy.
Despite the investment United will have to take nine points from
the four remaining League games simply to equal last season's
total. Football is a knotty business and not all problems are
unpicked even by the affluent clubs. There are always
idiosyncrasies. Wayne Rooney, for instance, has evolved into a more
mature footballer of steadier temperament, yet his conversion of
straightforward chances is less steady than it was when he was a
hot-headed youth at Everton. That can hurt United when he is the
lone striker.
It takes so little to foil grand aspirations. A year ago United
were chastened when their injuries and Milan's capacity to rise to
the occasion brought defeat in the Champions League. Ferguson
realises that his team's record in that competition is out of
kilter with the club's gilded image. The rest of us may view
Barcelona as hapless bunglers under the control of a manager, Frank
Rijkaard, who no longer has the ear of his own players. At Old
Trafford, though, Ferguson will fret that the opposition might be
inspired at Camp Nou next week by a Champions League semi-final
with such a ring to it.
So far as the Premier League goes, United have the edge over
Chelsea but the hazards continue to be significant. At a deeper
level all this should be to Ferguson's liking. Despite the real
advantage of being able to afford a profusion of accomplished
footballers, doubts are never eradicated entirely.
United have been outstanding since they started to warm to their
task in the autumn but that does not make them a side of a wholly
different order from all others. Infallible line-ups are a figment
of the imagination.
The thrill for the world at large and, perhaps, for the players
themselves, lies in the fact that desolation is almost as close as
glory itself.
