United win again inspite of Fergie's tactics: 433 isn't working

Sooner or later Ferguson is going to realise that 433 simply isn't working. It didn't work against Arsenal and it didn't work last night in Istanbul where United just about managed to see off the dispirited challenge of Besiktas thanks to a late, but very welcome Paul Scholes header.

One wonders if the United manager had paid any attention at all to his spying reports on the Turks because four words could sum up Besiktas "there for the taking". Whatever the contents of the dossier on last night's Champions League opponents, Ferguson approached the game with caution and started with 433; the very same formation that saw United create only one genuine goal-scoring opportunity against Arsenal recently and that was only after Berbatov had been introduced in the 85th minute, from that point on the champions belatedly had two strikers on the pitch and seven minutes later the Bulgarian fluffed United's only genuine chance to score from open play.

It was more or less the same story last night in Istanbul; United huffed and puffed throughout the game with Rooney being deployed as the lone striker. Valencia had a decent game on the right, he had the beating of his man but his final ball all too often left a lot to be desired.

Former United star and now occasional studio pundit Gordon Strachan made the point that the champions will look more and more to the right flank, just as they did when Beckham donned the famous red shirt. However, Valencia has much work to do on his crossing, which was very poor against Besiktas and comparisons with Beckham are totally ridiculous at this point in his very short United career.

Michael Carrick was restored to midfield and apart from a speculative long-range first-half effort he had another game to forget. At one point he tried to dummy the opposition but he only succeeded in fooling himself as he lost the ball inside his own half, which happened more than once.

Carrick looks shot to pieces confidence wise, so much so that on the evidence of what we have seen this season Paul Scholes is once again United's most influential user of the ball. Scholes was the man of the match, it wasn't just the fact that he scored, because throughout the game he used the ball well. It doesn't alter the fact that United are over-reliant on veterans like Scholes, Giggs and to a lesser extent Gary Neville, it is a problem that doesn't look like it will be solved any time soon.

For their part Besiktas were awful and it came to something when they sent on Yusuf in a bid to win the game. Yusuf had the look (and no doubt lack of pace) of Frank Lampard (senior) - the Turks were frankly appalling. If the Turks were bad, United weren't much better and once again they didn't create a single-goal scoring opportunity while the formation was 433. Even after the introduction of Owen and Berbatov, the champions created just one genuine chance to score which was thankfully taken by Scholes.

Much is being made of Rooney having a strop following the manager's decision to take him off; just perhaps he was as frustrated as the fans who could see that 433 wasn't working. Even Andy Gray and Martin Tyler could see it for heaven's sake.

So was there any mitigating reason to be so cautious on the night? Well United were playing away from home and in a cauldron of noise, but the best way to silence the home crowd is to score an early goal. The impressive home crowd was indeed silenced once Scholes had finally scored - such a pity that it didn't happen sooner.

Strachan was later asked why United didn't perform in the Champions League final. On the very same day when Ferguson had been talking about the possibility that the team hotel was wrong (among many other things) but without actually offering any sort of tangible explanation for his team's catastrophic failure in the final, or come to that accepting any personal blame, the former Celtic manager hit the nail on the head. Strachan says that Barcelona are the best in the world where the 433 formation is concerned, he went on to say rather than trying to match-up against Barca with the same system, Fergie should have gone with 442 which would have given them something to think about. Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing, but it should be blindingly obvious that 433 isn't working this season sans Ronaldo.