FOR weeks Manchester United have been portraying the championship run-in as a test of nerve. So it is, but it is also a test of judgement.
Both Kevin Keegan and Alex Ferguson have proved, over the last few years, to be exceptionally good judges - their respective clubs would not be first and second if they were not. They rarely get the big decisions, the trading of players, the selection of teams, wrong.
Tonight both managers' judgement is on the line. Send the wrong XI out of the dressing-room and the title could be gone.
Keegan has already shown his astuteness in dealing himself an extra card to play. It emerged yesterday that David Batty is available after all. It was thought that Batty was suspended but Newcastle have now been assured that his suspension has been served.
The big decision for Keegan now is whether to play his latest recruit. He already has to find room for Rob Lee, who has recovered from injury. With Roy Keane and Nicky Butt in rampaging form the midfield is a key area, but Batty is hardly match-fit having been frozen out at Blackburn since January.
Batty may thus start on the bench, reducing Keegan's dilemmas to two. Who to drop for Rob Lee, and how many defenders to play? If he reverts to a flat back four Lee is likely to come in for Philippe Albert, scorer of two goals and creator of the other at Maine Road last week. If he plays five, Lee would step in for Lee Clark and play a holding role. Though Lee does it well, it is not his natural game.
Andy Cole will be playing his first match at St James Park since his transfer. While he scored at Bolton last week his goal, blazed in off the underside of the bar, was in marked contrast to the cool way Paul Scholes took his brace. Scholes remains United's top scorer, despite hardly playing since September. Does Ferguson ever lie awake in the small hours wondering, if he had dropped Cole for Scholes, if his United would now be top, not Newcastle's? Dropping Cole would be an admission of an almighty mistake, and it certainly will not happen tonight.
