Good article on F365
IF ManYoo fans were in need of any evidence of the precarious nature of their Premiership title challenge, they need only acknowledge the fact that they still need a result against Benfica in the final Champions League group match, despite three victories in the opening three games of the campaign.
Defeat to Celtic was an anomaly - there is no doubt that United were the better team, they just had an attack of the Arsenals and failed to turn almost total domination into goals. Nobody should lose any sleep over that, apart from The Neviller, who really should have taken the ball off the shaking Louis Saha and given it to Wayne Rooney or Ronaldo.
At times during that first half, United were playing sumptuous football. But just like the Arsenal of the last two seasons, all that pace and power and precision did not lead to real clear-cut chances thanks to a combination of poor final balls, stout Celtic defending and an atmosphere so intense that even a multi-million pound footballer could be forgiven for feeling a little tense.
The most worrying aspect of the evening for a United fan must have been a plaintive look towards the bench to see who could possibly create that elusive goal. There they would have found Kieran Richardson, Darren Fletcher and John O'Shea - a salient reminder of the depth of Sir Alex Ferguson's squad (think the shallow end of a paddling pool).
Ferguson played his best XI (I'll leave the left-back question for real Reds to discuss at a later, duller date) and they played - up until the final third - some remarkable football. But despite a lack of a tangible injury list, the options beyond that XI were woeful for a club with European and Premiership silverware ambitions.
It is the lack of options beyond that first-choice XI that has done the real damage to this Champions League campaign. In Copenhagen, Ferguson decided to rest the old soldiers of this squad and found that it is the old soldiers that are central to his plans of winning a second European trophy and ending Chelsea's domestic dominance.
The team he sent to Denmark featured Wes Brown instead of The Neviller, Fletcher instead of Ryan Giggs and O'Shea instead of Paul Scholes. He opted for younger legs for a game sandwiched between two Premiership matches, but found that the feet attached to those younger legs were incapable of reaching the footballing heights needed to beat a below-average Copenhagen side.
Then we all know what happened at Roots Hall when again ManYoo showed us the depth of their squad by capitulating against a side destined for League One. Some United-supporting F365ers wrote of their lack of faith in a Premiership campaign being waged by such a paper-thin squad, and some nodded in agreement despite the usual protestations from the 'Fergie knows best' camp.
Ferguson talks of the challenge of creating a third great United team, but the problem is that the remnants of the second great United team are so central to that new side. Without them, United struggle, and they are increasingly having to make do without one, two or all three of them. And the replacements are not really fit to lace their boots - decent players they might be, but stalwarts of a title-winning side? Not a chance.
United have undoubtedly played the best football of any Premiership side this season, but sustaining this form for another six months means somehow keeping that first XI fit. Actually, never mind six months, somehow Scholes, Giggs and Neville must rouse themselves again on Sunday against Chelsea despite having played 90 minutes against Celtic on Tuesday night.
This is realistically the last season in which that triumvirate are going to be central to Ferguson's plans. But is their last hurrah coming in a squad that cannot cope with their absence? If they have any sway at all with their manager, they should be pointing him towards the sales racks in January.
