Ferguson bids to pick up pieces of United challenge
Manchester United's players line up in front of their supporters for the minute's silence in memory of the victims of the Munich air crash
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WHEN he lost his first derby to Manchester City, a 5-1 defeat at Maine Road in 1989, Alex Ferguson drove straight home, went immediately to bed and placed a pillow over his head.
Ten years later, he still calls it "the most embarrassing defeat of my career'' and tells friends he felt like a criminal.
Sunday's defeat would have felt as bad.
The scoreline was more flattering, only 2-1, but he had become the first Manchester United manager since Tommy Docherty oversaw the club's relegation in 1974 to lose a derby at Old Trafford and the first since Wilf McGuinness in 1970 to see City do the double over their greatest rivals.
Pillows
Now there was no be no short drive from Old Trafford to his home in Cheshire but a 12-hour flight to Cape Town to publicise the club's summer tour. The pillows would have been complimentary in first class and there would have been plenty of time to think.
First, there would have been the hurt of having watched his players make a thorough-going mess of the Munich memorial game.
From their handling of the media, to the memorial service itself and their insistence on an impeccably observed minute's silence preceded by a lone piper, Manchester United had honoured the dead immaculately.
But not even Ferguson can organise a football result, especially against a team as well-managed and perfectly disciplined as Manchester City were at Old Trafford.
Perhaps the weight of history did overwhelm the men who played in replicas of the shirts that the Busby Babes wore in 1958.
Perhaps with Louis Saha interminably unreliable because of injury, Ferguson should have bought an out-and-out centre-forward in the January transfer window to support Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez -- just as bringing Henrik Larsson from Helsingborgs last year had refreshed Manchester United's forward line. What was most striking about the United bench on Sunday was the absence of attacking options.
But as Ryan Giggs, who fittingly captained Manchester United on such an emotive day and who was gracious in defeat, argued: `"There was enough motivation for us. It was a massive game for the club for lots of reasons.
It was also a derby and it represented an important three points.''
Even before he departed for the shores of the South Atlantic, Ferguson argued that Manchester United's games at home to Arsenal and away to Chelsea, the centrepieces of what looks a very awkward run-in, would decide whether they would retain their title. Now, it appears an even more acute observation.
Sven-Goran Eriksson thought that these April fixtures rather than a February derby would decide matters but the Manchester City manager agreed when it was put to him that he had delivered "a body blow'' to Ferguson.
``We cannot afford to drop any more points now,'' said Giggs. ``And we have to make sure we don't produce any more performances like that.
"It was the wrong time to start producing that kind of display. Defensively, we didn't play well and, attacking-wise, we didn't turn up. We are all very upset. It was not the way we wanted to mark the day.''
United have an opportunity to strike a psychological blow to Arsenal when they meet in the FA Cup fifth round at Old Trafford on Saturday evening, but already minds are drifting to the final weeks of the season, when United face Arsenal on home territory on April 12 and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge two weeks later.
"There's no doubt about it, the games against Arsenal and Chelsea will be decisive," Ferguson said in the match programme on Sunday.
"The fact that the league is so close makes a big difference. All the top sides have dropped points. Teams are taking points off the top sides more than ever. It looks likely that our home game against Arsenal and the match at Chelsea could make a huge difference."
Momemtum
United -- and indeed Chelsea -- must hope that this is the case, but it will not be unless they can win their remaining games and Arsenal lose a little of their recent momentum.
Contrary to Ferguson's assertion that the top teams have been dropping more points than ever before, Arsenal's record of 60 points from 25 matches before last night's victory over Blackburn Rovers was the same as United's at the corresponding stage of last season. United ended that season with 89 points, six clear of Chelsea; after a fourth defeat of the campaign on Sunday, they are on course to finish with 85 this term. (© Daily Telegraph, London
- Tim Rich
