Storm clouds gather over Ferguson

Community Shield: The electrical storm that cancelled Manchester United's friendly with Urawa Red Diamonds on Thursday could have had those who hate the club's modern dominance dreaming of a world without them. Alex Ferguson's team will be back, beginning with tomorrow's Community Shield game against Arsenal in Cardiff, but rivals can still pray that the weather has changed for good.

That climate last season was adverse for United. Just as in 2002, the side came third in the Premiership and, in addition, failed to appear in the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time since 1996. They took the FA Cup but the sunshine of such summery pleasure does not warm the memory as it once did.

Fighting for survival is on virtually every manager's job description but it is not corny to claim that time is shrinking for Ferguson. While his health and stamina are generally good, regular work-outs in the gym do not trim anyone's age.

He turns 63 on December 31st and Ferguson has no right to complain if another indifferent season has the board pondering his retirement. After all, he thought of it first, before reversing his decision to stand down in 2002.

United's capacity to reclaim the title is open to serious doubt. When the possibility of beating Chelsea to the runners-up spot was ended by an unmerited 1-1 draw with the Stamford Bridge side in May the players dutifully marked the last home fixture by trotting round to salute the supporters. A great many of the fans, however, were turning their backs. It was not a protest, just a wish to be elsewhere.

Having been outscored by Chelsea as well as Arsenal in the Premiership, the side may revert to a traditional, barnstorming approach, even more so once Cristiano Ronaldo gets back from the Olympics.

He and Ryan Giggs will not only be acting as wingers but be doing so in the knowledge that there should be more strikers to play now that Alan Smith has been signed.

Even though a hernia problem will keep Ruud van Nistelrooy out for a month and Louis Saha has a minor achilles' tendon injury, the manager could still pair Diego Forlan with the new acquisition from Elland Road.

"The news about Van Nistelrooy highlights how good the signing of Smith has been already," said Lou Macari. The United attacker of the 1970s is a close observer of his old club and does not believe that, in general, Ferguson actually wants to play with a lone forward as often as he has done.

"Strikers are always going to get injured because they're up there taking the whacks," said Macari. "If you don't have others to come in you're leaving yourself wide open to having to shuffle the team round as the manager did last season when you had Paul Scholes pushed up and Ryan Giggs tucked in. Alex has reacted to that by bringing in Smith."

Ferguson has been trying to overhaul his squad, but, as the clock ticks down on his tenure, the effort to build the third great side of his career is more urgent and complicated.

The Aberdeen line-up that beat Real Madrid in the 1983 Cup Winners' Cup final and United's treble-winners of 1999 each had a substantial core of home-grown talent.

"It won't be so much building a team as buying one," said Macari. "That's the big change. But he knows how to do it. Players who have been at a club for a while do get towards the end of their time and Ferguson has the horrible job of pushing that along.

"You saw it with Nicky Butt. He's been a wonderful servant but the manager felt it was the time to move him on because he won't be happy without regular first-team football. Alex is trying to leave spaces for younger men to come through and that's happened with Tim Howard and Ronaldo."

Good as that pair were in their debut season, United are still incomplete and, for instance, one has to wonder how the ageing Roy Keane will bear up if he has to appear more regularly.

According to pensive fans, Scholes will need to extract every possibly benefit from his international retirement since he alone offers a creative spark in the middle of the pitch.

Chelsea under Mourinho will be an unknown quantity for a while and Macari still thinks that United, improved in attack, will be in much closer combat with an Arsenal team that may well lack Patrick Vieira and surely cannot have another season of Premiership impregnability.

For all that, United do not look to be masters of their own fate and Ferguson badly needs circumstances to come to his aid if there is not to be an inglorious end to his reign at Old Trafford.

Meanwhile, Wenger made a public attempt to persuade Vieira to reject a move to Real Madrid yesterday, telling the midfielder that he had at least as good a chance of winning trophies at Arsenal and calling on him to complete the "special" work he has been part of for eight years at Highbury.

Wenger remains confident Vieira will not go to Madrid - "I think he will stay, it's as simple as that" - and said a potential move for Michael Carrick would not hinge on Vieira's future. "He's always been a player I have loved," he said of the West Ham midfielder. "If we sign Carrick (it could be) even if Patrick stays, but nothing has been done on that front."

Arsenal face United tomorrow without not only Vieira but also Sol Campbell and probably Thierry Henry, both of whom have Achilles injuries. They will also be missing Edu.