NEWS ROUND-UP:JUST HOW good are Manchester United? There have been times this season when that sentence might have ended instead with an adulatory exclamation mark.

The 2-1 victory over Arsenal did, however, raise it as a genuine question. It took grit for United to recover from a goal behind but their opponents were accomplices in the comeback. The handball offence for the equalising goal from a penalty was a screwball moment from William Gallas.

Every advantage lay with a well-rested United, who had fine-tuned themselves by letting a diluted line-up get on with the chore of knocking Roma out of the Champions League the previous Wednesday. In consequence there was no excuse for shedding possession so often against Arsenal as the visitors, in spells, left United wheezing. Had Emmanuel Adebayor been as good at finding the net with his feet as he was, unintentionally, with his arm, the situation could have been beyond recovery.

The resilience and quality of United over the campaign is to be admired and their goal difference is comfortably the best of the 92 senior clubs in England. There is no disputing the temperament of the players either, not when Owen Hargreaves can settle the match against Arsenal with a feathery touch from a free-kick when sheer tension could have made him clumsy. It would be thrawn, as well, to query Cristiano Ronaldo while his goal hoard makes him so influential, even if the going for the winger never looks so smooth against, say, Arsenal or Chelsea.

As it faltered, though, Arsene Wenger's side still highlighted the mortality of the supposed demi-gods of Old Trafford. Though the large squad has been a critical advantage for United over Arsenal, the visitors destroyed any notion Ferguson's line-up is impregnable. There is strength in numbers but that does not make a side utterly unassailable.

Though Ferguson added Hargreaves, Carlos Tevez, Anderson and Nani last summer, that does not mean he has a complete set of answers. Team selection turns into a treacherous task when options proliferate and the manager did not quite get it right on Sunday. With the movement so fast and elusive from Arsenal, the contest was beyond the reach of the 33-year-old Paul Scholes. Elsewhere the industrious Park Ji-sung seemed short of the necessary accomplishment for this game. He and Scholes were both substituted.

The jubilation at the close was all the more intense because United had reached their target on a wing and a prayer. Victory was cobbled together. Ferguson will rather like that but it ought to deter the rest of us from assuming they are really above the fray. Where might they be now if their squad had been as racked by injury as Chelsea's? The mere lack of Nemanja Vidic for two or three weeks suffices to make United queasy.

Despite the investment United will have to take nine points from the four remaining league games to equal last season's total. Football is a knotty business and not all problems are unpicked even by the affluent clubs. There are always idiosyncrasies. Wayne Rooney, for instance, has evolved into a more mature footballer of steadier temperament, yet his conversion of straightforward chances is less steady than it was when he was a hot-headed youth at Everton. That can hurt United when he is the lone striker.

It takes so little to foil grand aspirations. A year ago United were chastened when their injuries and Milan's capacity to rise to the occasion brought defeat in the Champions League. Ferguson realises his team's record in that competition is out of kilter with the club's gilded image. The rest of us may view Barcelona as hapless bunglers under the control of a manager, Frank Rijkaard, who no longer has the ear of his own players. At Old Trafford, though, Ferguson will fret that the opposition might be inspired at Camp Nou next week by a Champions League semi-final with such a ring to it.

So far as the Premier League goes, United have the edge over Chelsea but the hazards are significant. At a deeper level all this should be to Ferguson's liking. Despite the advantage of being able to afford a profusion of accomplished footballers, doubts are never eradicated entirely. United have been outstanding since they started to warm to their task in the autumn but that does not make them a side of a wholly different order from all others.

The thrill for the world at large and, perhaps, for the players themselves, lies in the fact desolation is almost as close as glory itself.

Guardian Service