United knocked out of Europe

In the space of nine days, Manchester United’s season has lurched dramatically towards disintegration. But none of the usual complaints at this time of year — fatigue, loss of nerve, bad luck, refereeing decisions — can explain the way they went from bust to boom and back again after Sir Alex Ferguson gambled all on the number ten, only to see his winnings disappear over the course of a maddening evening.

At 8.26pm United were coasting into the Champions League semi-finals for the fourth consecutive season and, even if Wayne Rooney’s ankle had begun to trouble him, Ferguson’s great gamble, which extended to a cavalier team selection in which experience gave way to innocence, seemed to have paid off. But a gamble is only successful if you walk away from the table in credit. Many a mug punter will have recognised the way in which United’s night unravelled in front of them.

It was all going so well. United had led 3-0 after 41 minutes, with a goal by Darron Gibson and two by Nani turning a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 aggregate advantage, but the complexion of the tie changed when Ivica Olic scored the softest of goals two minutes later.

Then, early in the second half, the inexperience of Rafael Da Silva brought a red card and United were left hanging on with ten men until Arjen Robben plunged a Chelsea dagger through their hearts and earned Bayern Munich revenge, of sorts, for the pain suffered in the Nou Camp back in 1999.

By then Rooney was watching grim-faced from the bench — having aggravated the ankle injury that was supposed to have kept him out of this game — where Dimitar Berbatov, in a vote of no confidence from Ferguson, was kept for all but the final ten minutes.

With the benefit of hindsight we can say that the Rooney gamble backfired spectacularly — he now looks certain to miss the Premier League match away to Blackburn Rovers on Sunday, when United will look to steer their campaign away from the rocks — but, as with the selection of Rafael, Gibson and Nani in place of Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, it seemed, for a time, to have been wholly vindicated.

The regret for Ferguson — and it is one that will haunt him for a long time to come, just like those defeats at the semi-final stage by Borussia Dortmund in 1997 and Bayer Leverkusen in 2002 — is that, ultimately, United’s inexperience told. It was the same youthful verve that had inspired them to overwhelm Bayern early on with a high-tempo pressing game, but there was a naivety about the way Rafael earned his two yellow cards, first for a trip on Mark van Bommel and then for a tug on Franck Ribéry.

Ferguson has no peers in the managerial game, but, if Arsène Wenger, Carlo Ancelotti and Rafael Benítez have respectively been accused of inflexibility, inertia and eccentricity over the course of a profoundly disappointing Champions League campaign for the Premier League clubs, the Scot cannot expect to escape scrutiny after a tie in which United led 1-0, 3-2 and 4-2 and yet somehow contrived to lose on away goals. No matter that his instinct is to blame referees or opposition players, something has gone seriously awry for United in recent matches.

The curious thing is that Ferguson’s team selection had seemed to have been vindicated so quickly and so spectacularly. Within three minutes, Rafael picked out Rooney, whose layoff sent Gibson hurtling into the final third of the pitch. Bayern are unlikely to have known much about the Northern Ireland midfield player, but he possesses a thunderbolt of a shot, something he illustrated to devastating effect as he struck the ball early to beat Hans-Jörg Butt from 25 yards.

Four minutes later it was 2-0. Not for the first time or the last time, the dreadful Holger Badstuber was the weak link in the Bayern defence, as he allowed Antonio Valencia too much space to cross from the right-hand side, prompting Nani to step in from the far post and produce the kind of deft flick with which Joe Cole scored on this ground for Chelsea on Saturday.

Rafael picked up his first yellow card in the eighteenth minute, for a petulant trip on Van Bommel, yet he contributed to United’s forward momentum. He almost scored a wonder goal on the half-hour — in truth he would have been better advised to pass to Rooney — but his profligacy did not seem to matter after his quick throw-in four minutes before half-time released Valencia, whose cross was again converted by the excellent Nani, this time with a side-foot shot into the roof of the net.

Old Trafford was buzzing, but that atmosphere changed two minutes later when Thomas Müller beat Rio Ferdinand to a high ball, leaving Michael Carrick to track Olic’s run into the penalty area. Nemanja Vidic was nowhere to be seen and Carrick, covering, dealt with the ball appallingly, leaving Olic to squeeze a shot past Edwin van der Sar from a tight angle.