United strengthen title claim

MANCHESTER's tram system is about to be augmented by a streetcar named Desire. It will run from Old Trafford to next season's European Champions League. All that remains to be decided is the route.

Manchester United can get there by winning this season's Champions League, and the prospect of that happening will be a little clearer after they have met Porto on Wednesday in the home leg of their quarter-final.

The most reliable alternative lies in them winning the Premiership for the fourth time in five seasons, and the least attractive option would be to finish second and go into the Champions League qualifying round.

Whatever happens, Alex Ferguson's team are virtually certain of being there or thereabouts when the draw for the expanded European tournament is made this summer. For while Manchester United's position at the top of the Premier League is hardly unassailable with 10 games still to go, only Liverpool stand a realistic chance of being able to live with the pace the leaders are setting.

Saturday's 3-1 victory over Coventry City completed their three-month period of concentration on domestic affairs which began once United had beaten Rapid Vienna 2-0 on a bitterly cold evening in the Ernst Happel Stadium to assure themselves of a place in the last eight of the Champions League, despite losing at home to Fenerbahce and Juventus.

At that stage Manchester United had taken 26 points from 15 matches and had barely recovered their form following the successive league defeats by Newcastle (5-0), Southampton (6-3) and Chelsea (2-1) which, for a few onlookers, signalled an irreversible decline in Old Trafford's fortunes.

Some decline. During the intervening period, United have dropped only eight points out of a possible 39 by winning nine Premiership fixtures out of 13 and drawing the other four. As a result, they will resume their pursuit of honours abroad comforted by the knowledge that they are beyond their rivals' immediate reach at home. Ferguson would always have settled for that.

Now, even if Porto do reawaken doubts about Manchester United's true standing in Europe, Ferguson's players should be able to take it in a stride which is likely to lengthen as the Premier League approaches its climax.

United's remaining fixtures are what they might have chosen for themselves: Sheffield Wednesday, Derby, Newcastle, Middlesbrough and West Ham at home, Sunderland, Everton, Blackburn, Liverpool and Leicester away. By the time they visit Anfield on the morning of April 19th, the winning post may already be in sight.

After Saturday's victory, Ferguson, noting Newcastle's home defeat by Southampton and remembering Arsene Wenger's withdrawal from the race, following Manchester United's recent victory at Arsenal, agreed that the championship had, once more, become a two-horse affair.

"I think it's going to be hard for anyone chasing ourselves and Liverpool," he said.

True, United have been overtaken by the Devon Loch syndrome before now, but the strength of Ferguson's options and the skill with which he has employed them in a season that continues to find burgeoning young players like Butt plagued by injury does not suggest they will slip up this time.

On Saturday, moreover, the return of Eric Cantona from suspension offered further evidence that while the Frenchman remains an important part of Manchester United's progress, he is no longer fundamental to their success. The reins have passed to David Beckham, from whom the most crucial passes in a movement are apt to flow.

Even if Ferguson had been able to select United's opponents four days before a Champions League quarter-final, he could hardly have done better than pick a Coventry side which as good as threw itself into the Manchester Ship Canal before the latecomers had taken their seats.

In the fourth minute, Gary Breen's routine back pass caught Steve Ogrizovic unawares and gave United an own goal. Fifty-one seconds later, Andy Cole's shot spun into the Coventry net off Eoin Jess and for the next half-hour Coventry, in the words of their manager, Gordon Strachan, were badly shaken.

That Manchester United did not score half-a-dozen by half-time was largely due to the profligacy of Cantona, who in one delicious reversal of roles, managed to waste an opportunity skilfully created for him by Cole, normally the object of many a scornful Gallic glare. Undaunted, Cole provided the final pass which led to Karel Poborsky increasing United's lead in the second minute of the second half.

Denis Irwin, Beckham and Ryan Giggs then retired to rest their legs for the Porto game, Keane's sore ankle not having been risked at all.

The busy Darren Huckerby scored for Coventry with six minutes remaining, but by then, Strachan must have been thinking about tonight's encounter with Wimbledon, a match his team must win to ease renewed relegation fears at Highfield Road.