Man United are crumbling!!!

The HuddFather wrote:I think Fergie needs to realise that he's not dealing with an emotional guy like Keegan, or an extra sensisitive brat like Wenger. Mourinho took the mind games to another level, whilst Benitez doesn't get flustered in truth, he's a nerd with a laptop who does things robotically - even "Rafa's Rant" should be noted for it's lack of emotive energy.

I genuinely think Liverpool's time is next year

Manchester United can still ruin Rafa Benitez's wonderland

In six days one distant October Manchester United lost successive away games to Newcastle United and Southampton, conceding 11 goals to boot. A repellent grey kit was blamed for the half-dozen shipped at The Dell. The players couldn't see each other, apparently.

By Kevin Garside
Last Updated: 7:59AM GMT 24 Mar 2009

Manchester United can still rewrite Rafa Benitez's fairytale
Winning culture: Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson knows what it takes to overcome adversity and triumph in the Premier league Photo: PA

Back in familiar red visibility did not improve. United lost their next two matches at home to Fenerbahce in the Champions League and Chelsea in the Premiership, and closed out November with a 2-0 defeat at Leicester City. The year was 1996. Ten years after arriving at Old Trafford, three years after ending the 26-year championship famine Sir Alex Ferguson had run his course; his team were spent.

For those in Liverpool and beyond whose long-term memory extends no further than the last 10 days oblivion proved illusory. United won the title the following May. The apocalyptic vision presently playing out on Merseyside is understandable, but like the testimony of children, unreliable for its dependence on fantasy rather than Rafa Benitez's facts.

Within the past month, either side of the away victory at Real Madrid, Liverpool drew at home to Manchester City and lost at Middlesbrough. Commentators could not heap enough derision on Benitez and his team. The home rout of Madrid in the Champions League was filed in the unexplained category, a matter for Arthur C Clarke.

The subsequent goal deluge against United and Aston Villa has swept away the evidence of the preceding weeks. Liverpool are no longer the same side that defaulted dismally at February's close but a European powerhouse with whom only Barcelona, who ran in another six against Malaga on Sunday, stand comparison.

Setting aside the high standards in La Liga, the more sensible comparison is between United and Barcelona.

United's defeat to Liverpool ended a run of 11 consecutive Premier League wins stretching back to December. Over a not dissimilar period Barcelona posted 10 victories on the spin in La Liga, a run brought to an end with a 2-2 draw at Betis. Successive defeats followed, one at home to bottom side Espanyol.

Catalonia was on the verge of ruin according to accounts in Madrid. Real's pillage of Betis contributed to the narrowing to four points of an advantage that had stood at 12. The Bernabeu was in a lather, the intoxication heightened by a visceral revulsion of their great rivals.

The same impulse rages at Anfield. The T-shirts commemorating the 4-1 coruscation are funny and myriad. Manchester City memorabilia features a similar line, only theirs boasts a five from the 5-1 humdinger at Maine Road in 1989. Both these great footballing institutions have become defined by reference to United, by their shared loathing.

Like all irrational states it is an emotion that warps their thinking and blinds them to alternative truths. Thus successive defeats are seen not as an irregular episode but a definitive and irreversible momentum swing.

Triumphalism is a dangerous indulgence in March. United have faltered. There was a relative decline in the second leg of the Champions League tie against Inter Milan.

United were imperious at the San Siro without Wayne Rooney. At Old Trafford against opponents they had embarrassed in the first half a fortnight earlier United lost their rhythm stick after an early goal. Who can say by what rule celestial tempo shifts are governed?

The night before Liverpool skewered football's premier brand, the royal house of Madrid sacked like never before. This is Anfield. It was in the middle of this particular football mood swing that United and Liverpool came together; United's blood sugars in retreat, suddenly flat and peculiarly uninspired, Liverpool's rampant.

And now we pore over the divergent results against Fulham and Villa that in Merseyside are seen as epiphanous, representing an essential shift in the order of things. United's appalling disciplinary record, among the worst in the Premier League with five red cards and 54 bookings, is offered as further evidence that the champions are falling apart.

Liverpool are the only club not to have had a player sent off, another statistic gaining in significance in the light of last weekend.

When United return against Villa on Sunday week they may well have been replaced at the top of the Premier League by Liverpool, who need only a point at Fulham the evening before to twist the knife.

You can imagine the headlines a Liverpool win would provoke as Fergie prepares to send out his team, minus Saturday's miscreants Rooney and Paul Scholes and last week's villain Nemanja Vidic. Martin O'Neill must be frothing at the 'no better time' opportunity that providence has dropped in his lap.

The international hiatus breaks the spell. When the players return Fergie will have only 10 years' title-winning experience to call upon plus, barring injury, Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez, Ryan Giggs, Michael Carrick, Nani, Anderson, Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Edwin van der Sar and possibly Dimitar Berbatov available to salvage the season for United.

Liverpool can win their remaining nine fixtures and still fall short, not that many in Rafa's wonderland are giving that notion much thought.