Champions League: It must have been referee boredom. Only glazed eyes could have failed to register the offence that should have invited Manchester United to add to their 1-0 lead over Rangers with a stoppage-time penalty.

The weary veteran Henning Berg had given the ball away with a twitchy pass before tripping Paul Scholes. Anders Frisk failed to react.

The Swede seemed only to want to use his whistle to bring proceedings to a neat close. The weeks of hullabaloo had promised a Champions League occasion to remember, but the game itself proved forgettable.

United, in defiance of the club's exotic traditions, often seem wedded to unobtrusiveness these days. Their season is still in the making and they may, just possibly, be saving their devastating boldness for the latter stages.

Alex Ferguson put the conservatism at Ibrox down to the distorting effect of Phil Neville's fifth-minute goal.

"We tended to sit back a little after that in the first half and our decision-making when we got into forward areas wasn't very good," said the United manager.

Ferguson, however, was being slightly disingenuous. Once again, he had used a cordon of three midfield holding players to keep the crowds of eager opponents away from his defence.

United are not about to apply for membership of stuffy Serie A, but the daredevil tendencies are under strict control for the time being.

Ferguson has never forgotten that quarter-final with Real Madrid last season. He genuinely celebrates its panoply of uninhibited football, but he is also under a professional obligation to prevent it from ever happening again.

United scored five goals over the two legs, but were never ahead in the tie.

That experience would be enough to scour the romanticism from any manager's soul.

Rather than striving to be the roaring lord of the Champions League jungle, the Old Trafford club now seeks to teach itself how to play cat-and-mouse football.

A careful if off-form display served its purpose and the win at Ibrox went far towards securing their progress from Group E.

The aspirations are greater than that, but United, in the middle of some sort of transition, are most peculiar considering that wealth ought to give them the power to do as they please.

This is an unbalanced squad. With Nicky Butt and Eric Djemba-Djemba as substitutes in Glasgow, Ferguson, who will also have to find a seat for Kleberson once he is fit again, has a glut of midfielders.

There seems, in fact, to be little room in the dressing-room for any other variety of footballer.

While Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is injured, the sole replacement for Ruud van Nistelrooy in attack is Diego Forlan, a forward of uncertain reputation.

At United, such a state of affairs looks like an aberration. This, after all, is the gung-ho club who could start the 1999 Champions League final with Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke before winning it with goals from the substitutes Teddy Sheringham and Solskjaer.

Parting with David Beckham and then failing to sign the effervescent Ronaldinho may have left United more orthodox than Ferguson had planned.

Yet the current resources are also meagre in defence. Should Rio Ferdinand, who excelled at Ibrox, suffer a suspension of significant duration for missing a drugs test United will struggle to cope without him.

However, the Football Association yesterday revealed they were continuing to sift through documents before deciding what charge to bring against him.

John O'Shea, judging by his efforts in Ireland's recent defeat to Switzerland, is not ready to step into the centre-back position, and it will be a little longer before Wes Brown is back from knee surgery.

A well-staffed midfield has its attractions, but United cannot be too smug about their ability to control the course of a match from that area.

For almost an hour in Stuttgart they believed themselves to be in command, only for the Bundesliga side to score twice and win.

At Ibrox, United again put themselves at risk and had to count on weaknesses in Rangers in attack. Peter Lovenkrands is as excitable as he is exciting and his pulse fluttered when a collected finish would have brought an equaliser.

The visitors also depended on Tim Howard. He is the 10th goalkeeper to turn out for United since Peter Schmeichel left in 1999 and he may, at last, be the man with the muscle and agility to become the rightful inheritor of the Dane's role.

Nonetheless, the frequency of his involvement against Rangers was proof that his team are still in the development phase as they seek to perfect the cautious approach.

Meanwhile, Olympique Marseille are hoping to persuade FIFA to allow the loan of Fabien Barthez from United.

The France goalkeeper was presented to the press yesterday and has already trained with the Marseille reserves, but he requires FIFA permission to move to Marseille outside the transfer window, which reopens in January.