SIR ALEX FERGUSON SMILED complacently last week as he contemplated the end of the eight-month suspension of Rio Ferdinand, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the return of the centre half is a double-edged sword that could eventually break his increasingly tenuous grip on the levers of power at Manchester United.
Ferdinand, you see, is the lightning rod that Ferguson has used to deflect personal criticism during the catastrophic decline in his club fortunes. He was at it again on Friday, pointing to the fact that United were on top of the Premiership when Ferdinand began his suspension in January for missing a drugs test and yet are well adrift of Arsenal in this season’s race. And you thought that politicians were disingenuous in their use of statistics.
As everyone except Ferguson seems to recognise, the problem for United is not statistical but empirical. The damning evidence is right out there on the pitch, week after calamitous week. To any dispassionate observer, his is a team that comes out unfavourably in comparison with Arsenal in every department, not just in defence.
But the ageing Ferguson just does not see it. “When Ferdinand was in the team, we had the best defensive record in the country, we were four points clear of Arsenal,” he said last week. “If he had stayed in that team, would it have changed? I’m bloody certain it wouldn’t have.”
Hang on a minute, Sir Alex. What about the fact that your midfield is a shadow of what it once was, despite extravagant investment? What about Roy Keane’s observation in the latest edition of the fanzine United We Stand that there has been a loss of hunger among the players (a familiar enough symptom when managers have gone past their sell-by date)? All Rio’s fault, eh?
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What about your decision to ditch David Beckham because you could not take having a bigger star in the club than yourself? What about your foolish attempt to take on two leading shareholders for the stud rights to a race horse in a misguided trial of strength that distracted your players? How about your increasingly erratic dealings with your staff? Ferdinand must be some player for his absence to be deemed responsible for all that.
But Ferguson’s delusions run far wider. Last Tuesday he ventured the comical assertion that his team is stronger now than when it captured the European Cup in 1999. You what? The reality is that the 62-year-old has spent £190 million on transfers since that night in Barcelona, bringing in 27 players of 15 nationalities, while simultaneously managing to remove United from the top tier of the Premiership when it had previously been the sole occupant.
Ferdinand’s comments last week were rather more credible, even if he seemed oblivious to the comic contrast with his manager. “It was a mistake I made and one that proved very costly, but at a club like United we are expected to cope with anyone missing from the team,” he said. “Other people were injured and suspended, so to put it down to me is the easy way out.”
Ferguson is damned either way. Even if Ferdinand’s absence is responsible for all that Ferguson claims (which it is not), the manager must still take ultimate responsibility for failing to create a culture of respect for the doping authorities that would have prevented that absence.
Even on those increasingly rare occasions when Ferguson gets it right in his transfer dealings, he spoils it with his selections. Cristiano Ronaldo inexplicably started both matches on the bench when United were defeated by FC Porto in the Champions League last season while, last Wednesday in Lyons, he left out Alan Smith, the man in form, instead of pairing him with Ruud Van Nistelrooy.
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All of which confirms that one of Britain’s greatest managers has lost the plot. It happens to Prime Ministers too — that human desire to go on and on. Ferdinand’s absence is a fig leaf that has been used in an attempt to conceal a Grand Canyon of managerial failings. His probable return against Liverpool this evening will bolster an erratic defence but it will simultaneously leave a dangerously out-of-touch manager all out of excuses.