Manchester United: Are They Missing the 'Cristiano Ronaldo Factor'?

There lies a growing discomfort for many fans of Manchester United.

An uneasy feeling that a European revolution has taken place in the heart of Spain and we've missed out.

That Barcelona and Real Madrid have changed the very nature of the game whilst Manchester United have simply hopped up and down and called it progress.

To pinpoint a starting date for this transition would be easy—too easy really.

June 26, 2009. Or 1,016 days ago.

An £80 million transfer that sold the club's, and the Premier League's, most prized asset in the shape of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Since then, United have won 73 of 106 league games, scored 238 goals at an average of 3.13 a game and reached two Champions League finals—hardly statistics to justify complaint.

But is the current, perfunctory style of football enough?

Our early demise in Europe has been written off as an anomaly, an unfortunate blip during a "transitional period" for the club (a term used far too frequently in this writer's opinion).

But where is the free-flowing, attacking, fearless football we’re supposedly known for?

Was the 8-2 thrashing of Arsenal a false dawn?

Tom Cleverley's swift ascendancy raised hopes that the United style of old had returned—the perfect creative midfielder to play in the hole, dictating the flow of the game in the manner of a young Paul Scholes.

It need be remembered that United played in the victorious European final in Moscow with a 4-3-2-1 pyramid formation with Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo cycling attacking duties, and Hargreaves playing the holding role at the midfield's spine.

In a recent 5-0 win at Wolves, Ferguson employed this same formation with Welbeck, Hernandez and Carrick respectively replacing the dear departed—hardly replacements to inspire fear in opponents.

Granted, after Ronaldo left for Los Blancos, the use of Nani and Valencia (and now Ashley Young added to the mix) has seen an attempted return to the wide play the team was well known for in the late '90s.

But essentially, Ferguson has found it necessary to try a wide variety of formations, even dropping Rooney into the hole for a brief period in his attempts to improve form.

It is instead the X-factor that United lack—the fear factor.

The "Cristiano factor," if you will.

The transcendence of a man feared for being capable of everything and anything—a footballing anomaly.

In his place, United have instead turned to the profession of "winning." There have certainly been moments of true beauty (see 8-2) interspersed with the regular, perfunctory victories, but these moments have been few and far between.

United will never be a team capable of playing "Barcelona football." This is hard to admit for the loyal, but an indisputable truth nonetheless.

English football has fallen too far behind to catch up with the Catalan model. Therefore, the logical example to follow is that of Real Madrid, the team with the former United man at its apex and "he who must not be named" at the helm, regularly dispatching teams 5-1 or 6-0.

But as the season draws to its climax, Manchester United continues to be as ruthless and routine as we’ve come to expect.

We will most likely win the league at the season’s end and probably do the same next year too.

So why complain? Surely winning game after game should be enough.

Or do we, as fans, long for a style of football more akin to the glory days of United?

Or are these the glory days that fans in three years’ time will look back at longingly as David Moyes leads us to a third-place finish?