Rock Of Gibraltar won by a short head for Alex Ferguson at Newmarket on Saturday. Tonight his Manchester United team surely need to take a tip from their manager's horse and stop performing with feet of clay.
As if to emphasise the point, Ferguson was in Aberdeen yesterday. Private business may have taken him to the granite city but he will still require an equally unyielding outlook from his defence in a Champions League encounter with Olympiakos Piraeus which United have to win to assure themselves of uncomplicated progress to the second round.
"If we don't win it's no longer in our hands," admitted Jim Ryan, Ferguson's assistant, yesterday. "We'd have to rely on a combination of results elsewhere."
Deportivo La Coruna's 3-2 victory at Old Trafford last Wednesday, which was largely down to two goalkeeping blunders by Fabien Barthez, and the 2-1 home defeat Ferguson's second string sufffered against Bolton on Saturday further exacerbated misgivings about a defence that have persisted ever since Jaap Stam was sold to Lazio and replaced by the 35-year-old Laurent Blanc.
"It's not a group defensive problem," Ryan insisted, "it's more about individual errors made by different players in each game. Generally, our defensive play in the Champions League has been good."
Then he elaborated a little. "In most cases where we've conceded goals needlessly we could have done other things with the ball. Look at Bolton's second goal on Saturday. Wes Brown could have headed the ball clear but tried to play it.
"We believe in playing all the way from the back to the front. We're not content just to kick the ball out of play but sometimes that's the safest."
Olympiakos are unlikely to dominate United tonight in the manner of Deportivo last week or Greece against England on the same ground earlier this month. They were eventually well beaten 2-0 by United in Piraeus a fortnight ago, although slack defending at free kicks might have led to the diminutive Stylianos Giannakopoulos scoring twice before half-time.
Giannakopoulos is an injury worry and with Giovanni, their Brazilian striker, suspended the chances of Olympiakos winning an away fixture in the Champions League for the first time appear slim. Yet the 2-2 draw they forced in Coruna should warn United against the consequences of more unforced errors.
Ferguson has lost Ronny Johnsen for a month with a torn hamstring and Roy Keane is doubtful with an injured knee. This will mean Brown staying at centre-back alongside Blanc with Nicky Butt keeping his place in midfield if Keane is not fit, and no doubt allotted the task of tracking Predrag Djordevic, Olympiakos' Yugoslav playmaker.
Paul Scholes will resume playing off Ruud Van Nistelrooy up front, a role that so far he has not appeared to relish.
MANCHESTER UNITED (probable): Barthez; G Neville, Blanc, Brown, Irwin; Beckham, Keane (or Butt), Veron, Giggs; Scholes; Van Nistelrooy.
OLYMPIAKOS: Eleftheropoulos (or Georgiou); Mavrogenidis, Amanatidis, Anatolakis, Kontis; Giannakopoulos, Karembeu, Patsatzoglou, Djordjevic; Ofori Quaye; Alexandris.
Referee: V Melo Pereira (Portugal).
