Manchester United: Wesley Sneijder Key to Alex Ferguson's Champions League Dream

Barcelona have three players who can be rated as members of an ultra-exclusive club: Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta are all amongst the top ten in the world and the Argentinian is the best of the best.

Manchester United has one member of that global set. And Wayne Rooney, for all his heart, for all his breast-beating, just can’t do it alone.

Unless Wesley Sneijder joins him, then what is beginning to look like an obsession will remain only that for Sir Alex Ferguson and maybe not that magnificent.

The Old Trafford boss may continue to believe that he can make Manchester United the greatest side in Europe, but without Sneijder, or possibly Luka Modric, it just can't happen.

Which is why, despite his claims to the contrary, he is as keen as ever on signing the Dutchman from Inter Milan, the cost almost secondary to the ambition.

Ferguson, even after two Champions League victories, meaning United have now won Europe’s premier club prize three times, has always insisted that a club like his should have conquered the continent on many more occasions.

That is why he remains as manager. He promised, two and a half years ago now, that he would not stay on into his 70s. Well, he leaves his 60s this New Year’s Eve, or Hogmany, as any Glaswegians would prefer to call Dec. 31, and there is still no sign that he is going to retire.

Nor will there be, until either his health gives out or he has at least equaled Liverpool’s record of five victories in the Champions League/European Cup, having now surpassed the old Anfield enemy in domestic title triumphs.

Equaling, or even surpassing what Liverpool did in Europe, is what drives him on still, and it is why he has already spent around £50M on three new players this summer, why he is prepared to countenance a new club-record buy of £35M for Sneijder, why even the Inter player’s salary of almost £200,000 per week is not a deal-breaker.

What is happening right now is negotiation. Of course, Ferguson wants the big figures to be slightly less big. It would be better if there could be some give and not just take from Sneijder’s people, especially as the midfielder will have virtually no sell-on fee once a five-year deal is agreed, which is what they want.

United will, however, still keep talking in the hope that a compromise can yet be reached.

For ultimately, Ferguson knows that Barca have just too much intellect, too much sophistication, for his team. He has seen the proof of that twice now, not just once. Indeed the Champions League final in May was a tad more embarrassing for him than in Rome two years earlier.

The song remains the same and he is sick of it. Something Has To Be Done, and that Something is Sneijder.

Sneijder, it has been said, could become a very expensive complication, just as Juan Sebastian Veron once was at Old Trafford.

The difference between the two is that the Argentinian was a deep-lying player who was forced to play out of position because Roy Keane still had lead vocals at the Theatre of Dreams.

Now there is no megastar of central midfield, for Paul Scholes has not only retired, but for at least the three previous years before he hung up his boots had not been able to live up to the billing. No disrespect intended.

Sneijder, as low to the ground, and perhaps equally as inventive, stylish and intelligent as the Ginger Prince, would not have to battle for the best lines. They would become his by right.

Rooney may have to play further forward (well, he’s not bad as a centre forward, is he?) and Dimitar Berbatov would become a non person– Javier Hernandez might have to be part of the  choir at times and perhaps Sneijder himself might not always enjoy the lung-busting intensity of the Premier League, in which art for art’s sake is not exactly a prerequisite.

But in Europe, at the pinnacle of the game, when it comes to piercing a defence with one pass, and in that rarefied atmosphere, sometimes one pass is all it takes, Sneijder would feel encouraged to play at his peak, and his peak may not yet have been reached.

It is at the level that Ferguson wants Sneijder to operate. The mundane can be left to others.

If he gets him, Ferguson can plan for a future that may well involve one more, perhaps two or three more, triumphs in the Champions League.

If he doesn’t get him, there’s always another Premier title. Ho-hum that may not be for Ferguson. But humdrum? Maybe just a bit….