EUROPEAN HEROES

The suspected weakness of the United squad is rapidly converted into a handsome advantage so long as they are in the Champions League. If the side are in a rut in domestic competition, their long experience has eased them into a groove where Europe's prime tournament is concerned.

There they commonly look as if they cannot help but thrive. Ruud van Nistelrooy's already brisk scoring rate becomes a goal-a-game frenzy, Juan Sebastian Veron performs with the eloquence of a man conversing in his mother tongue, and the defence has a forbidding manner. With triumph in the Champions League they would instantly make themselves Europe's dominant club, no matter what Arsenal happened to have achieved.

Considering this year's final is to be at Old Trafford, that may not be all that self-indulgent a reverie for Ferguson on those occasions when he needs to raise his own spirits. Yet it is unsettling to have to trust in a tournament where the danger is extreme once the knock-out phase begins.

Ferguson is too obsessive to disregard everything that has gone wrong so far, no matter how the season ends.The manager must have been shocked by Mikael Silvestre's lapse into old, erratic ways, uneasy about the post-operative style that prevents Roy Keane from bringing a maddened command to bear, worried by Liverpool's stifling of David Beckham and generally concerned about the waning impetus of a long-established group.

Ferguson has spoken of a possible need for radical changes to his squad. United could take the Champions League and still leave him planning to ditch some heroes and make a fresh start in the Premiership with a reconstructed side.