True dilemma for Ferguson is the dying of Keane's light

Now that the emotion and the spectacle is over, Sir Alex Ferguson faces a reality as cold as the wind he used to know in the streets of his native Govan.

It is that, among all their other achievements of grace and cobra-like finishing as they moved towards still another European Cup final, Real Madrid gave him the brutal message that he has to start again.

After Wednesday night's dramatic but ultimately futile 4-3 second-leg victory by United, he knows he has to change the make-up of his team quite profoundly, and if Real are indeed willing to spend £38m on David Beckham he will take their hands off at the shoulders.

His troubled affair with Beckham, always touched by ambivalence, is dead beyond revival after the player's exclusion from the starting line-up of three of the last four vital matches. There are no grounds for compromise or reassessment after such a withering statement, and if Real do provide the settlement money Ferguson will immediately apply some of it to his short-term priority of replacing the fast diminishing authority of his goalkeeper Fabien Barthez.

Barthez's decline, reflected again in his poor response to Ronaldo's opening, and devastating, goal, was painfully underlined on Wednesday night by the stature of Real's youthful virtuoso Iker Casillas. But it was far from the only point at which Ferguson was required to accept that his team is simply no longer good enough to meet ultimate standards in European competition, which at this stage of his career are the only ones by which he is prepared to judge his players.

Apart from dealing with the Barthez problem, the Old Trafford manager also has to consider carefully the future value to United of Ryan Giggs, Rio Ferdinand and, most painfully of all, Roy Keane.

Ferguson has accepted that mere adjustments to a couple of key positions is no longer guaranteed to maintain United's status as a serious force in European competition and nothing has convinced him of this more than the loss of the all-pervading spirit – and conscience – of his team. These were the gifts of Keane – and on Wednesday Ferguson could see, along with the rest of the world, that they are just about used up.

Forget Beckham's latest flourish – his two-goal substitution stint on Wednesday night – when you try to assess the agonising of British football's most successful manager. Keane is unquestionably the cause of his manager's most serious heartache.

As far as Ferguson is concerned, the book on Beckham is closed. He can stay or go without touching a central issue. Of course, Beckham sent in a superb free-kick, which he always will, and scampered to help over the line a goal-bound shot from United's one giant of the evening, Ruud Van Nistelrooy – before rushing to exchange shirts with Zinedine Zidane. Later, you could see a television shot of Nicky Butt, looking for someone to share the pain of defeat, watching the collision of superstars. No, as Ferguson sees it, Beckham's value is no longer integral to the mood of his team; it is a matter for the corporate men who count up the player's commercial importance across the football world. Selling merchandise and celebrity is someone else's business. For Ferguson, it is a consideration dwarfed by the dwindling of Keane.

Poignantly, you could draw a line on that on Wednesday night when you thought back to what happened in Turin four years ago, when Juventus appeared to be coasting into the European Cup final. It was something that must still be counted as possibly the greatest single demonstration of will and character by anyone representing an English club in Europe, Keane transformed the game. His commitment and his influence was breath-taking. On Wednesday night he was merely competent and steady. He looked like a good professional – not a life force.

Indeed, the influence of such functional performers as Real's Claude Makelele and Guti was at least the equal of the once overwhelming Irishman. That was the extent of the vacuum for United in the place where games, whatever the vagaries of Beckham's form, used to be shaped. It means that when Ferguson looks at his squad his sense of well-being is inevitably diminished.

Ferdinand continues to be dismayingly irresolute against forwards of the highest class. The revival of Giggs has not been reflected in European action. Juan Sebastian Veron has been erratic and excessively uneconomic when he hasn't been injured. But these were handicaps United could ride before Keane was forced, by injuries and, perhaps, a general exhaustion, to come down from 10 years of extraordinary dominance.

Eric Cantona regularly wins the fan vote as the great catalyst of the Nineties. But Ferguson knows better than anybody that it was Keane who made his team, who set levels which burned away all domestic opposition and set up the great triumph in Europe.

Where does Ferguson look now for such certainty? To the superbly combative Van Nistelrooy to supply some sustained pressure. And to the young hope, John O'Shea, a thoroughbred of class and thrilling potential.

Elsewhere the questions run deeply. Beckham was at the heart of the debate yesterday, but that was almost everywhere except in the thinking of the man who finally decided he had had enough of the longest running celebrity show in English football. Beckham, you have to believe, is about to become United history... and the down payment on a new team.