Soccer: Man U pay dearly for Rooney's injury

Manchester United certainly know how to lose titles the hard way. They had held on to the Premier League crown for 1097 days before Chelsea wrenched it back yesterday.

And to go with the memory of Jose Mourinho leaping up to shake the hands of the United bench at Stamford Bridge before the final whistle had been blown four years ago, came the indignity yesterday of Stoke City fans chanting "John Terry is lifting the cup", which followed every blow struck down at Chelsea. Someone hoisted up a plastic palm tree because they hadn't thought to pack an inflatable trophy but the message was clear.

Stoke's fans also played their part in drowning out Sir Alex Ferguson's now traditional centre circle address. Last year, Ferguson was deafened by his own fans' demands to sign Carlos Tevez. Yesterday, it was United chants of "Glazers Out" and a Stoke riposte of "USA". A surreal occasion indeed.

All hope had gone after half an hour, Ferguson revealed last night, though there was also a wretched significance about the way the goals went in at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge - Chelsea marginally edged United to the first and second and matched United's third within seconds, before streaking off to an annihilation.

The statistic which tells the story this morning is not Didier Drogba's place at the top of the goalscoring charts but Frank Lampard's fifth position.

He is just four goals behind Man U striker Wayne Rooney, an extraordinary achievement for a midfielder - which is precisely what the soccer world was saying about Cristiano Ronaldo before he drove his Bentley into the sunset last summer.

Ferguson could not resist ruminating again last night over the free kick awarded to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on November 9, from which Didier Drogba scored the goal that was arguably offside.

But in the end, it all came down to no one being around to fill the boots of Rooney. When the TV cameras panned to the striker on 53 minutes, wincing under a recurrence of his groin strain and signalling an urgent need to leave the field, it somehow summed up the wretched two-week period at the start of last month which put United out of Europe and brought the most decisive result of the Premier League season - the 2-1 home defeat to Chelsea.

Ferguson had his gracious words ready: "I congratulate Carlo because it's a wonderful achievement. He's a good manager and a good guy" - not the kind of tribute he would ever have offered Mourinho.

But his programme notes provided the impression of a man who is going through some dark moments of self doubt.

"Naturally I look into my own management and the rest of the staff. Did I always make the right team selections with the appropriate tactics? Do we have a strong enough squad?"

The manager did not answer either of his own questions, but there is a growing sense that the answer to the second is "no". Ferguson also believes there is "a harder competitive edge in the Premier League these days; it's a tough old league, very unforgiving, and a lot of the teams at the top have lost games they expected to win."

The club is so evidently in need of someone to shape the midfield and drive the side on.

At least the brilliance of United's play on a sun-dappled pitch in the first half gave the manager reason to feel there are more fine days ahead, with the prime force again being Luis Nani, who has shown enough in the past month to suggest that he could become one of the outstanding forces of the next Premier League campaign.

"Next season we will go again and hopefully we will go again and bring back the title to the best place in the world. That's what Manchester United do," Ferguson said. But his club is in flux.

This will be a hard summer.

- INDEPENDENT