FERGIE AND UNITED QUESTIONED

Niall Quinn's column in the Guardian on the pressure on both the club and manager when United travel to Portugal.

It is not something you expect to find yourself saying but being at Manchester United just now must feel like being on the ropes waiting for the next punch to come. The combination of Roy Keane, Villarreal and Vodafone have left United looking wounded and vulnerable, but I can bring some relief to their situation. I watched Benfica against Lille in Paris on Tuesday and I think United can go to Lisbon in a fortnight and win.

Benfica are the only club in the group to have been beaten by United so far. It has proved to be a mundane group indeed, but the drama is about to get very tense and December 7 could be explosive in terms of the club's and Sir Alex Ferguson's future.

Uncertainty has crept into Old Trafford for the first time in years and it will take repeated victories for that to be erased. The team have shown they are capable of responding - the win against Chelsea was vintage Ferguson and he will have thought a sense of order was partially restored at Charlton. But a triumph in Lisbon would have the added value of bringing Ferguson time to review what has happened so far in a tumultuous season.

It would be like the sound of a bell but until it comes all we have is what has gone before and the anticipation of what might be at Benfica. This is not a strong group compared with others - Juventus and Bayern Munich are together in Group A, Lyon and Real Madrid in Group F - so the possibility of United finishing bottom of Group D, their fate if they lose, will be humiliating in terms of their European stature and will be heightened by the standard of the opposition. United will not even be in the Uefa Cup.

The preamble will involve lots of nostalgia, I'm sure, with images aplenty of Eusebio and the never-to-be-forgotten George Best. Lisbon is not a city I know inside out but I have fond, if nagging, memories of being shown around it a decade ago by a certain Carlos Queiroz.

I was coming to the end at Manchester City and Queiroz was coach of Sporting Lisbon then. He impressed me, as a man and as a potential manager, he had done very well with Portugal's Under-21s and was building a reputation. I had passed my medical and was about to sign on the dotted line for four years when the deal collapsed.

But Carlos gave me a flavour of football and the city. He had just had to sell Luis Figo to Barcelona and speaking to him and the directors there was no hiding the feeling in the place for the game.

Lisbon should think itself lucky then.