Manchester United: A Team with Fear

Many Manchester United fans felt that their luck had run out even during the first leg of the Champions League tie against Bayern Munich when Ribery's free-kick was wickedly deflected past Edwin Van Der Sar.  However, few could have expected what was to come over the next two games and beyond.

The mistake that led to Munich's winner at the Alianz arena really typifies the start of the implosion that has left the players visibly low in confidence and ideas. Defensive frailties have been bubbling under the surface throughout the season, especially during big games. One only needs to look at goals scored by Torres, Arshavin, and more recently Cole to see examples of lazy and ball watching defending.

To then see arguably United's strongest defender, Patrice Evra, losing the ball and Ferdinand and Vidic watching as Munich's version of Dirk Kuyt, Ivica Olic, skipped through the 18-yard box to slot home a game-changing goal that left many of the players feeling defeated only halfway through the tie, and to then look back towards the centre circle and see Wayne Rooney banging his foot against the floor in pain is enough to bring any team down.

To then have to pick confidence levels up for a title deciding game against Chelsea is a job for only Sir Alex Ferguson, and at times United looked exciting and threatening. However, these spells were too few and far between.

I refuse to blame this on Wayne Rooney.

Granted, he is massive for any team, but this is no excuse for a poor performance. It is only an excuse for missing out on the goals and the movement he provides, and this was not the only thing wrong against Chelsea.

There seems to be a new sense of stubbornness around Old Trafford at the moment. A stubbornness to change when coming up against a different team, a stubbornness to make bold investments on players, and a stubbornness to step out of Wayne Rooney's shadow.

The second leg against Munich is one of the strangest games of football a United fan is likely to see as, usually, a United team at Old Trafford who is 3-1 up at half time would play without fear or inhibition in a display of counter attacking football which comes from stretching the opponent. However, this never materialized, and the Rafael sending off only sent the team running further back to hide behind the fortress of the 18-yard box.

This mentality is something that has not been seen in a long time.  Since the increased use of the 4-3-3 formation, it has become more difficult to pack men behind the ball and more fluent to attack from the wingers and involve the centre midfielders at a later stage, which makes the return leg against Munich even stranger. There was a fear about the Mighty Reds.

The confidence that was sapped from the team over the 270 minutes of football took its toll during the Blackburn game, an encounter that looked like neither team had anything to play for. But it is the displays against difficult teams that are worrying—a lack of fight shown, other than by a petulant 19-year-old right back, a lack of ideas, other than by a bull dog of a centre forward, and a lack of inspiration, especially from a captaincy which has been passed around more than the DVD of the '99 Champions League Final.

This is a grim assessment of a season which should not be viewed as this, but the tail end of the '09/'10 season, usually United's strongest time, has been riddled by mistakes and bad form. I only hope they prove me wrong by derby day.