'Roy Keane may be having nine toilets installed in his new £3 million mansion, but only a one-eyed optimist could pretend that anyone else at Manchester United is likely to be flushed with success this season. The dearth of goals and utter lack of imagination is blighting the club’s efforts to mount anything resembling a title challenge. Even Sir Alex Ferguson came close to conceding the championship by the end of this stalemate.
In recent times United’s problems have encompassed everything from the love life of a racehorse to the unwelcome attentions of an American football fan, but the real concern is on the pitch, where the kids once damned as being too young to win anything are growing old together. It is scarcely pipe-and-slippers time for Keane, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, but they are not the dominant tyros of old.
That United have scored so few goals this season, while being able to field a £20 million strike force and leave Wayne Rooney to click his heels on the bench for the first half, shows the real problem lies deeper. Keane may be a mouthpiece for United’s ills, but it is the ailing supply line that is undermining their toils in games such as this in which they are dominant.
The lack of ideas was endemic. Dunne and Sylvain Distin had huge games but were aided by United playing to their aerial strengths. City also rode their luck, notably in having Graham Poll opt for a policy of leniency. Ferguson rightly lamented the plethora of penalty appeals that were turned down and two of them looked clear-cut.
United have lost only two league games all season, which is scarcely a crisis, but their profligacy in front of goal suggests the season is rapidly going down the pan.'