Manchester United: Big Game Bottlers?
Around Christmas time last year the plaudits started coming thick and fast for the current Manchester United side. ‘Best squad ever’, ‘better than the 1999 side’ we were all told.
But if United proved anything at the Stadio Olimpico on Wednesday night it was that they don’t have the bottle for the big occasion.
Can you remember seeing ever such a lacklustre performance for an Alex Ferguson side in a major game?
And it’s not the first time this season that United have gone missing when the pressure has been on.
A loss in the Uefa Super Cup final against Zenit St Petersburg back in August didn’t get the alarm bells ringing but two months later they had only picked one point in three games against their Big Four rivals.
A series of narrow wins – 16 of their 28 Premiership victories were by a single goal – ensured that the defending Champions had made their way to summit by the end of January, but warning signs over their big-game temperament were there.
Four draws in the group stage of the Champions League was followed up by a non-appearance against a Spurs side, still trying to find their feet after their calamitous start to the season, in the Carling Cup final, where only Ben Foster’s iPod prevented Harry Redknapp’s unbalanced side of underachievers from winning at Wembley.
With everyone begin to talk quintuple United continued to stutter on the big stage, stuttering past Porto in Europe before losing to an injury-hit Everton side in the FA Cup.
Back in the Premier League Liverpool inflicted United’s worst home loss since 1992, winning 4-1 as they did the double over their bitter rivals and then needed a late goal from Italian teenager Federico Macheda to squeeze past an out-of-form Villa side.
Judging on Fergie’s recent signings it’s obvious he has an eye on the future, but big-money players such as Anderson, Carrick and Nani have all failed to deliver when the going has got tough this season, with only a single win this term against the Premiership’s Champions League sides.
With the likelihood of Ronaldo and Tevez both leaving the club this summer increasing by the day and the old heads of Giggs, Scholes, Van der Saar and Neville getting ready to call time on their careers is it squeaky bum time for the fans?
Throw in the Glazer’s mountain of debt and interest payments that are sucking away United’s profits each season and even one bad season could prove to be disastrous for the club, with their free-spending city neighbours and the likes of Aston Villa and Everton ready to grab any Champions League spot that comes up for grabs in the future.
Luckily for them Fergie appears to be more driven than the Terminator in his quest to overhaul Liverpool’s title record both domestically and in Europe, so you can count on him hanging around for a while yet.
Still, here at OTFD we’re looking forward to seeing how the Scot goes about United’s next few big games after the summer break, as a rejuvenated Chelsea, a Liverpool side with a new-found confidence and a more experienced Arsenal team will all believe they can prevent the title going to Old Trafford for a fourth consecutive time.
Nights such as the one witnessed in Rome this week may become all the more common for English football’s most spoilt set of fans.
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