The Key To Man United's Season Is Not Ronaldo Staying But Queiroz Leaving

Today's game against Arsenal showed clearly the problem with Manchester United this season compared to last season. 

The problem is that no sooner had the door slammed firmly shut after Carlos Queiroz's amicable departure to manage his country, an appointment which Scolari helped choose, (conspiracy theory in the making there), then Ferguson and his new assistant fell back to the boring yet reliable formation 4-4-2.

In the last two years Manchester United profited from a progressive formation masterminded by Queiroz, which was both fluid, slick and hard to play against which utilised the best of all of their players, but this year Ferguson seems to have abandoned this formation to accomodate Berbatov. The beauty of the 4-6-0 in the last two years was United could transform defence into attack within seconds, no matter who were the duo or trio bombing forward at blistering pace.

Today it was clear who were the better team on the counter attack and it wasn't the team in blue from up north. Berbatov may be the new Cantona or just a sulkier version who remains anonymous for a majority of games and gets caught offside far too much. The thing that confuses most must be Ferguson must of known before Berbatov before splashing at £30m for him was that he does not have the pace or work ethic to intergrate into the formation which has yielded two league titles and the champions league.  

Instead of making Berbatov wait for his chance in the team and trying to intergrate the Bulgarian slowly, Ferguson has thrown him straight into the team and formed his team around him going to the 4-4-2 which Berbatov worked so well in at Spurs. The person who lost out most in this move was Carlos Tevez who was the only player giving his all against Zenit St Petersburg.

Today against Arsenal there was no interchanging of positions, which characterized the last two seasons, so everybody and anybody could get forward and score or assist and that's the problem Ferguson is wasting the versatility of all his players and it will be detrimental to his side's chances this season.

In short just because Queiroz is gone it should not mean that the formations and tactics, which he pioneered should go out the window unless Ferguson wants the season to end the same way his last without Queiroz- trophyless.