United's hopes hang in balance

SOCCER/Uefa Champions League, Group D/Manchester Utd - 0 Villareal - 0: Manchester United are among the most celebrated thrill-makers and thrill-seekers of the football world, but they will hardly delight in the pulse-racing evening that awaits them in Lisbon.

Unless they win at Benfica on December 7th the 1999 European Cup winners cannot be sure of survival in the competition.

If they succeed in Portugal it will be their first away victory in this tournament for over two years. The ramifications of failure for the balance sheet of the new regime, to say nothing of the players and the manager Alex Ferguson, are profound. United, after some indications of revival, suffered a relapse here. Once more, they could not sustain the pressure that might have brought just their second win in the group.

There was the atmosphere of a great occasion at the start but the significance welled up from a poisoned source. While there was no way to qualify from Group D last night, the possibility existed that the exit sign from the tournament could be illuminated for United. That fact, in addition to some recent signs of possible revival, made for an animated start.

Some of the former swagger was there when Wayne Rooney tamed a Cristiano Ronaldo cross impeccably and turned before finding that the goalkeeper Mariano Barbosa was close enough to block his finish in the third minute. The verve was not sustained for long, though, and a record of five points from the previous four fixtures in the Champions League looked highly explicable then.

They realised that a defeat here, coupled with a loss for Benfica to Lille in Paris, would end a sequence of appearances in the knockout phase that stretched back to the 1996-97 season.

Heritage, of course, is a sensitive topic at present. A banner was hung at the east end of the ground that read "Keane 1993-2005 Red Legend." It could have passed for a gravestone inscription, but this is the liveliest of issues. The departure of the captain Roy Keane by "mutual consent" last week is broadly resented by the crowd. Those footballers who remain have to show that he is not the sole fount of determination in the squad.

Everything seems to hang in the balance at United and the situation is enigmatic. The visceral resentment for the new owners is well known but it has to be noted that last night some fans were seeking the autographs of the visiting members of the Glazer family. They definitely should not assume that acceptance is on the horizon, but better results might see the antagonism shelved for a while.

While purists regretted the absence through injury of the Spanish club's playmaker Juan Roman Riquelme, the main consequence was to make the visitors a little more cautious in their layered, five-man midfield. United did not often unpeel it in a display that lurched worryingly towards the insipid as the first-half progressed. Paul Scholes had recovered a trace of his old daring in the win over Chelsea and there were flashback moments here as well. When he darted at the defence and then got a return pass from the current captain Ruud van Nistelrooy in the 33rd minute Villarreal were thankful to hack the ball away for a corner.

All the same, the opposition seldom panicked. The alarms rang instead for United when Mikael Silvstre checked Figueroa, at the expense of a booking five minutes later. The free-kick was on the verge of the area but the wall blocked Pablo Sorin's effort.

United were mostly on the attack but too many moves were smothered in inconsequentiality. Ferguson knew it was essential to have more adventure in the ranks and, after 53 minutes, the muted Darren Fletcher was understandably replaced by the winger Park Ji-sung.

The Korean soon hoped to capitalise when Rooney worked space for himself on the right but Park was too tightly marked to test Barbosa. The goalkeeper still had far too little to concern himself even as United started to acquire a frantic air.

Ronaldo did head wide in the 68th minute and the fact that the cross had come from the overlapping full back Wes Brown showed that United wanted to commit themselves.

The crowd was heartened too when Gary Neville, injured since August, came on to take over from Brown.

Guardian Service

MAN UTD: Van der Sar, Brown (Neville 73), Ferdinand, Silvestre, O'Shea, Fletcher (Park 53), Smith (Saha 81), Scholes, Ronaldo, Rooney, van Nistelrooy. Subs Not Used: Howard, Richardson, Pique, Rossi. Booked: Silvestre, Scholes, van Nistelrooy.

VILLARREAL: Barbosa, Javi Venta, Rodriguez, Pena, Arruabarrena, Roger (Hector Font 65), Tacchinardi (Josico 77), Senna, Sorin, Figueroa (Xisco Nadal 86), Jose Mari. Subs Not Used: Viera, Arzo, Kromkamp, Santi Cazorla. Booked: Senna, Josico.

Referee: Massimo De Santis (Italy).