THERE WAS much discussion on Saturday afternoon of the woman who phoned David Mellor on BBC Radio Five to complain that she had not bought an Old Trafford season ticket in order to watch Manchester United lose. To judge by the performance of the home crowd as they watched their team lose 2-1 to Chelsea, she represents the majority.

From start to finish of United's third Premiership defeat in a row, their apprehensive 50,000 followers were out shouted and out sung by 3,000 Chelsea fans still riding on the wave of emotion created by the untimely death of their benefactor, Matthew Harding. The home fans were clearly bemused by the inability of their team to rediscover the identity that has carried them to so many trophies during the second half of which Ferguson's tenure as manager, enters its 11th year this week.

Ferguson claimed on Saturday night to recognise the thread linking the four defeats in their last five matches although he would not publicly identify it. Now he has a fortnight's grace in which take remedial action before his team entertain Arsenal, the leaders, on November 16th, followed by the visit of Juventus four days later.

When a football team is doing well, it is a clearly recognisable mechanism in which individual components can be replaced without affecting the outline of the whole. When it is doing badly, not only does it lose its overall shape but the individuals go fuzzy around the edges. And while United appeared to have lost touch with themselves, Chelsea were very plainly the team who had beaten Tottenham so spectacularly a week earlier.

"There are a lot of teams changing things now," Ferguson observed thoughtfully afterwards. "It's not your four four two status quo, humdrum football. You're getting a lot of imagination at the moment." Chelsea were a lesson in that respect, combining patience and directness, functioning so well in every department that Ruud Gullit was happy to remain on the bench and admire the success of his design.

The key to their success was the readiness of the midfield trio of Dennis Wise, Craig Burley and the impressive Roberto Di Matteo to sustain long periods of interpassing until the opportunity for an incursion presented itself. Up front the veterans Mark Hughes and Gianluca Vialli used their strength and experience to put consistent pressure on United's rearranged defence.

Ferguson's decision to drop Gary Neville, switch Denis Irwin to the right flank and reintroduce Philip Neville in Irwin's regular berth on the left did nothing to improve stability at the back, where the absence of an organiser in the mould of Steve Bruce or Martin Buchan grows more evident. By defending deep they extended the lines of communication to their own forwards, and their lack of midfield authority handed Chelsea the initiative as well as the room in which to use it.

In a reminder of Gullit's influence on Arrigo Sacchi's Milan, Chelsea's defenders pressed up hard on the United attack, not just unsettling Ole Solskjaer and Paul Scholes hut encouraging David Beckham to hit diagonal balls over the top of the defence, invariably finding only the hands of the alert Kevin Hitchcock.

Peter Schmeichel, by contrast, is having a difficult time. Nobody tried to lob him on Saturday, but the opening goal provided another example of his current vulnerability when Michael Duberry met Wise's corner kick on the half hour with a downward header which found its way under the goalkeeper's dive. It was less surprising, a quarter of an hour into the second half, that Schmeichel could not prevent Vialli, sent through by Frank Leboeuf's early ball, from slipping the ball under his body. As for United's goal eight minutes from time, Hitchcock seemed to have Poborsky's long range volley covered until it was redirected by David May's head.

And what of Eric Cantona? The Frenchman started the match lurking behind Scholes and Solskjaer, but his passes drew a poor response and his own runs were abruptly halted by Leboeuf's composed tackles. The 11th minute air shot as he ran on to Beckham's accurate pull back inside the Chelsea penalty area was a moment of genuine surrealism.

Cantona definitely misses the straightforward options once provided on the flanks by Kanchelskis and Giggs. According to Ferguson, Giggs may be fit in time for the Arsenal match. But the return of one player is unlikely to solve a problem which will test Ferguson's ingenuity and, as he himself implied, his ability to cope with the demands of a more progressive era.