SOCCER/ FA PREMIER LEAGUE:AT THE final whistle, Alex Ferguson took the chewing gum out of his mouth and tossed it to the floor in the manner of a man who was struggling to contain his frustration.
His face was hard, his cheeks flushed from an afternoon in the sun and as he made his way on to the pitch, in a beeline for the referee, Mike Riley, there was a moment when it looked as if Manchester United's manager was about to take the Football Association's Respect campaign and snap it like a dried twig.
In the end, a switch flicked in Ferguson's head and he restricted himself to ushering his players towards the tunnel and a little bit of eyeballing before making some withering remarks about Riley in his post-match interviews.
"The game is being screened worldwide," he grizzled about the seven yellow cards that had been brandished at his players, and the mandatory €32,000 fine it will invoke. "Everyone is watching it and that goes on. It was a competitive game but I did not think there was one bad tackle in it."
Blaming the referee is nearly always a cop-out, of course, but it is also Ferguson's way of letting off steam when the heat of his emotion is rising dangerously close to intolerable. And when you have come within 10 minutes of ending Chelsea's unbeaten home run in the league - a mighty record that now stretches back over 85 games and four full seasons - there were plenty of reasons why Ferguson's face was etched with disappointment.
Had United demonstrated that Stamford Bridge was not, in fact, impregnable the impact would have been twofold: first, it could have been the spur to kick-start United's season and answer some of the criticisms that have been attached to their performances over the last few weeks; second, it would have blown a gaping hole in Chelsea's own confidence. Instead, Salomon Kalou's header changes the entire dynamic. Once again, United's supporters are left to wonder why their team has lost the winning habit - and how long it will be before it comes back.
Perhaps, in hindsight, Ferguson will regret his decision not to change his team's formation midway through the second half. Until that moment, United had shaded the game and seemed almost certain to move within three points of Chelsea, with a game in reserve. But when Ferguson replaced the scorer, Park Ji-sung, and brought on the more defensive John O'Shea it sent out a peculiar message of conservatism. Wayne Rooney was shifted out to the right wing and Dimitar Berbatov was left as a solitary striker. The change was unnecessary and it was a perplexing move that the manager chose not to explain afterwards. Chelsea equalised within four minutes.
The upshot is that United have won only one of their opening four Premier League fixtures, taken only five points and scored only four goals. It is far from the start that anyone in the football world could have foreseen. But let's not exaggerate United's problems or dust off any of those cliches about a "crumbling empire." This is still the team that won the Champions League and Premier League last season and, for long spells yesterday, it felt faintly preposterous that anyone could genuinely have believed that a side of this talent could somehow be on the verge of surrendering the second of those titles when it is the fourth week of September.
Football has been getting increasingly knee-jerk for some time now but that does not make it right. The truth is football clubs do not lose the league when there are conkers lying on the roadside. This is far too early in the season for "must-win" fixtures and United, in brief spells, reminded us that they are still the most formidable team in English football.
The slick, one-touch, first-time football that preceded Park's goal was a demonstration of United reaching their most exhilarating peaks and, if there is anyone who still wants to question them, he or she should refer to the newly-released Manchester United: The Biographyand, in particular, its final chapter. It is a passage dedicated to Ferguson's competitive courage and it is called, quite simply, "Never, Ever Write Him Off".
• Guardian Service
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