Glenn Gibbons: Fergie’s men faltering, but don’t rule out a recovery

IN CONVERSATION with Sir Alex Ferguson one Friday afternoon a few years ago, he revealed that his Manchester United team for the visit to Sunderland the next day would feature the omission of a number of reliable, experienced regulars and the inclusion, in their places, of a group of fairly raw novices.

At the time, United were involved in a very close battle for the championship and I wondered if this was not unnecessarily risky, even if their opponents were struggling to avoid relegation. “Well,” he replied, “if these players aren’t good enough to beat Sunderland, maybe they shouldn’t be here. Tomorrow could tell us a lot.”

It was a typically audacious and searching strategy by Ferguson, the kind of exercise that few of his rivals would have the imagination to conceive or the nerve to execute. As it transpired, United not only won the match, but, ultimately, the league title.

A similar policy has been, at times, rather forced upon him by circumstances through much of this season and the result has been the exposure of serious flaws among too many of those young players who might have been regarded as successors to the old guard.

The recent Carling Cup defeat at home to Crystal Palace, allied to the 6-1 thrashing by their city neighbours and the poor Champions League group campaign that brought predictable elimination on Wednesday amounted to confirmation of a fatal lack of inventiveness and subtlety at a club renowned for flair and the deadly application of it.

With his 70th birthday just three weeks away, it seems almost unfair that Ferguson should suddenly be experiencing the shock of an architect watching his prize-winning building fall down. But, granted the financial licence by the club’s owners, it would make no sense to bet against a recovery.