SOCCER UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: IN A different stage of the Manchester United story this would usually be the point of the season when Alex Ferguson's players would brace themselves for the annual Roy Keane rant about plummeting standards, team-mates not pulling their weight and everything else that had inflamed his temper.

The modern breed of footballer at Old Trafford is a less outspoken type but there were still some harsh words from two of the defenders whose sudden loss of form symbolises the team’s slump.

Nemanja Vidic, whose credentials as a player-of-the-season candidate are diminishing all the time, was one of the few members of Ferguson’s squad who was willing to speak in the aftermath of the 2-2 draw against Porto on Tuesday and what he had to say tallied with the manager’s suspicions that some of the players have allowed the good publicity from earlier in the season to go to their heads.

Vidic talked of United paying the price for “easing off” and being “too relaxed” after winning two trophies already this season and opening a seven-point lead at the top of the Premier League, an advantage that has subsequently been cut to one.

“It’s been our own fault,” Jonny Evans, his central defensive partner against Porto, volunteered. “Maybe we’ve become a bit complacent. We haven’t been defending for our lives as we should have been.”

That could be gauged by Porto’s tally of 17 attempts at goal in the course of elevating themselves to a position of strength going into the return leg in Oporto next Wednesday.

“No English team has won there before, so it’s going to be a big challenge to break that record,” Vidic said. “We’ve definitely had a bad period, we haven’t done well and we’ve conceded too many goals. I don’t think we’re short of confidence. We’ve scored goals, made chances but we are having a bad time.”

Having kept 14 successive clean sheets in the league from early-November to late-February, United have now conceded 10 goals in four games. The issue, according to Vidic, could be one of over-confidence – a legacy, perhaps, of all the talk about their chances of an unprecedented clean sweep of trophies.

“After we lost 4-1 to Liverpool, that first bad game, we needed to fix it. But we didn’t,” said Vidic. “To be honest, maybe we have been guilty of easing off. Against Liverpool, maybe you could say we took it easier than we normally would have done because we had a game in hand and there was a big gap in points. We didn’t think we were too relaxed at the time but maybe we were.”

It is understandable that Vidic should trace the problem back to that Liverpool defeat, a game in which he was sent off and Fernando Torres gave him more problems than any other striker has done at Old Trafford.

Ferguson, however, believes the problem goes even further back, to the 2-1 defeat of Blackburn Rovers on February 21st, when the record run of clean sheets was brought to an end.

“We were doing very well when we weren’t conceding any goals because there was a record to defend,” recalled Ferguson.

“Once we lost that first goal against Blackburn, the battle to try to keep the record had gone. Since then we have lost really bad goals.

“We are suffering,” he added. “Park Ji-sung is the one player who never misses a beat in terms of his movement and endurance work in a game. He has such natural stamina. He was well off the pace last night and looked tired.”

Park’s World Cup commitment to South Korea could not have helped, one of the reasons Ferguson felt he was placed in an unfair position last weekend when he was forced to choose between facing Villa on Saturday lunchtime with no preparation, or Sunday afternoon knowing aching limbs could drain his team against Porto.

“There’s no doubt that we haven’t been defending as well as we have done,” Evans said.

“You can have stages like that. It would be very tough to go through the whole season having clean sheets. But it’s something we have got to address.

“Everyone’s disappointed. I think we’ve gone into games in a really confident mood but, as you saw against Porto, we’re making mistakes.

“I should have done better for the first goal. It was a bad clearance when I should have stuck it out. I just have to try to put it out of my system. I’ve made mistakes before.”

Evans suffered a groin injury and is unlikely to be involved in the return leg. Wayne Rooney is also undergoing tests to ascertain the seriousness of the bruising to his ribs he suffered when the ball was struck directly into his chest, but Ferguson’s main concern will be reorganising a defence that badly needs Rio Ferdinand back from his groin problem.

“I don’t think it’s a problem with confidence,” said Vidic. “We have had many games this year – Wednesday then Saturday then Wednesday, that type of thing – and we’ve had a lot of players injured, and then players coming back from injury.

“It’s difficult. We definitely need Rio back. Rio and all the injured players – Anderson, Berbatov and all the rest.

“We need fresh bodies because a lot of the players are playing so much at the moment. We’ve had players away on international duty last week, then playing Sunday and Tuesday so it’s hard.”

Guardian Service