Fergie's tinkering exposes United's weakness up front..

For good reason Sir Alex Ferguson is known by some long standing reds as 'Tinkerbell' this is because of his tinkering with team selections, which in fairness he's got away with on many occasions during his time as United manager.

It used to be the case that Fergie would tinker against teams that on paper at least anyway would appear to offer less than the ultimate challenge over the course of 90 minutes, sometimes it worked, sometimes it backfired, and having tinkered again last night in Copenhagen, Ferguson and United suffered what can only be descrided as one of United's most embarrassing defeats in the history of the clubs European history, this result came on the same day that Fergie said United could win the trophy....

The man United missed most of all was Saha, he's supposedly 'injured', whether or not that is true - only those in the inner circle will know. Sure, we all agree that Ole et al have to get a game and we can see why Fergie made those changes, in fairness it wasn't a bad performance and yes as Fergie says we did create a few chances. The players who came in all did ok, but United lacked that cutting edge up front without Saha's pace and movement. Rooney and Ole are both second strikers. Last night it was blindingly obvious that United looked fairly weak up front, it's not unlike the Barca situation minus Eto'o, they too look toothless up front without their number one striker.

After the game Fergie described the performance as a 'throw away' and that he now realises that the team needs to have 'an edge' on such occasions, he is of course a master of stating the obvious and his press conferences are by and large a complete waste of time, last nights was no different.

The lesson that United really need to learn is that if you sell a top striker, then you need to replace him. Since Van Niselrooy left the club, there's been no serious talk of a replacement arriving, save for some unconfirmed tabloid rumours about Fernando Torres being a target.

Even with Saha in the side United's chances of lifting the CL this season are slim, without him and without serious competition for the number 9 shirt United's hopes are even slimmer.