From The Daily Telegraph:
'This week summed Manchester United's season in the course of two games. Tuesday night: beaten in Milan to end a Champions League campaign in which again they have made relatively little impact. Saturday evening: beating Southampton easily away from home to make the semi-finals of the FA Cup.
The Champions League is what matters at Old Trafford and although they have almost always progressed easily through the group stages, it is the knock-out game that again proved their undoing. To succeed in Europe you have to be strong in every department, and I am convinced that unless you are the Brazilians of 1970 you are in trouble in high-quality knock-out football if you cannot defend properly.
The best attacking team in Europe is Barcelona and the reason they did not make even the quarter-finals of the European Cup is that their defence always gives you a chance. Some of their defending against Chelsea was laughable. When Damien Duff scored at Stamford Bridge, the Barcelona full-back, Juliano Belletti, was in the worst position I have seen a defender take up in a major game. AC Milan were the opposite. Paolo Maldini and Jaap Stam's positioning were exceptional; they kept the ball and controlled the game even though they did not carry much threat up front.
If Ferguson looked depressed after the game in Milan, it would have been because he must have known that had United come back to win in the San Siro they would have had an excellent chance of winning the competition. At 63, he will still have the appetite to turn it around; big managers always look at the positives and what will frustrate him is that United are not far away. Had they taken chances at Old Trafford matters might have been different.
He will want to spend money in the summer, not just on a new keeper, but on a centre-back to play alongside Rio Ferdinand. United are secure at left-back, Gabriel Heinze has made an incredible impact but Mikael Silvestre is like Carroll; he's good but he's not exceptional.
The trigger for United domestically was Ferdinand coming back from suspension in October. The years seemed to roll off Roy Keane and Paul Scholes who put in performances that were out of this world, but, in the 18 months left on his contract, Roy is not going to get better or younger and neither is Scholes or Ryan Giggs.'