Football: Cantona rewarding Ferguson's audacity

Manchester United. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Sheffield United. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

THE difficulty with Eric Cantona, as Howard Wilkinson would no doubt confirm, is that in order to accommodate him you have to lose either a midfielder or a flank player. Wilkinson opted to move Gary Speed into midfield and won the championship. Alex Ferguson, to adopt the vernacular, has taken up the cry 'de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace' and is playing seven forwards.

So that when a team such as the Blades arrive, who might have been wearing balaclavas and carrying sawn-off shotguns so apparent were their intentions (five at the back, two destroyers in midfield) things can go dreadfully wrong, as they did for Manchester in the first half. McClair, Sharpe and Giggs can revolve into the midfield as often as they like but not one of them is a Steve McMahon and United's current success owes too much to the consistently brilliant form of Paul Ince.

Cantona, too, had a fairly distant 45 minutes, when his thoughts appeared to be elsewhere, not altogether surprising if the dressing room had had inflicted upon it the dreary, derivative pastiche that passes for the latest Manchester vocal offering. 'Glory, glory' was crass when Spurs' supporters first sang it and as a football song, even updated, it has not improved in 25 years; as for United's new centenary away strip of yellow and green halves, its reappearance demonstrates how shrewd the Newton Heath club were to discard it 100 years ago.

Commercial trivia apart, Manchester's football in the second half was good enough to evoke a few memories and comparisons on the 35th anniversary of the Munich crash, an occasion marked with dignity by Sheffield supporters. Of Manchester United's four great teams - 1908, 1948, 1956 and 1968 - the Babes were undoubtedly the best, yet in terms of individual quality Alex Ferguson's side of 1993 is pushing for recognition. Schmeichel, Parker, Pallister, Robson and McClair are already candidates for a best-ever XI, with Ince and Giggs close behind.

And what about l'enfant terrible? He has now scored five times in nine games. He made the equalising goal for McClair, scored the winner and would have scored in the first half but for a superb save from Alan Kelly. Eric might prefer Rimbaud and Piaf but, glory, glory, if he shoots United to the championship he has one foot on the Old Trafford pantheon.

Dave Bassett rightly looked a little stretched afterwards. He was without four senior players because of injury, then lost Chris Kamara; he had seen Franz Carr's opportunistic goal give the Blades a fleeting glimpse of three precious points, saw two golden chances missed in the last minutes and in the end found only dust and ashes and the very bottom of the Premier League table.

Even an FA Cup win against Manchester United, at Bramall Lane next Sunday, would be only transitional euphoria; relegation, and the savage loss of income it would bring, is a very serious threat.

Goals: Carr (7) 0-1; McClair (65) 1-1; Cantona (83) 2-1.

Manchester United: Schmeichel; Parker, Irwin, Bruce, Sharpe, Pallister, Cantona, Ince, McClair, Hughes, Giggs (Kanchelskis, 70). Substitutes not used: Phelan, Sealey (gk).

Sheffield United: Kelly; Ward, Cowan, Hoyland, Gayle, Beesley, Carr, Kamara (Bradshaw, 68), Bryson (Cork, 74), Deane. Hartfield. Substitute not used: Kite (gk).

Referee: M J Bodenham (East Looe).