Cracks showing as Rafa has Fergie on the ropes

Matthew Norman
23 Mar 2009

With Brian Clough posthumously restored to our thoughts by The Damned United, this seems a useful moment to recall the tightest bunch finish to a title race English football has known.

In May 1972, a few years before his marathon 44-day stint at Elland Road, his Derby were one of four clubs in with a chance of becoming champions when the final games began.

Cloughie was on holiday in the Scilly Isles with his family, Derby having already completed their schedule, when he learned he had pipped the Leeds of Don Revie he so violently hated, Liverpool and Manchester City by a point.

In the intervening years, there have been all too few photo finishes. In 1976, Queens Park Rangers were 12 minutes from the title when Liverpool reclaimed it with a trio of late goals at Wolves, and on the last day of the 1985-6, season Liverpool had to win at Chelsea to edge out Everton and West Ham.

Three years later came the ultimate melodrama when Michael Thomas's last-minute goal at Anfield saw Arsenal pip their hosts by the narrowest and cruellest criterion of more goals scored. Since the inception of the Premier League there have been a couple of final-day thrillers, but those are the four that linger in my addled memory.

The common thread that binds them is Liverpool, of course, and after a lively weekend who would bet against the Scousers taking it to the wire again? For in a bizarre volte face, it is Rafael Benitez who carries the air of quiet confidence while Sir Alex Ferguson looks alarmed to the point of derangement.

This is a diametric reversal of their roles back in January when Benitez launched the verbal assault interpreted by many as a definitive "mind games" victory for the Glaswegian.

Only nine days ago, the championship appeared a foregone conclusion. Then came Liverpool's 4-1 demolition job at Old Trafford and, after this weekend, it is - as Brian Moore put it 20 years ago - up for grabs now.

But for Spurs' impertinence in beating Chelsea on Saturday, indeed, we'd be salivating at the prospect of a three-horse race.

Gratifying as it was to see Tottenham outplay Guus Hiddink's strangely anaemic team for the first 75 minutes, this was also the height of poor form. For Spurs the three points mean little other than bragging rights and maintaining the slightly outlandish ambition of a UEFA Cup-qualifying finish.

The neutral would have preferred a Chelsea win to ratchet up the pressure on Fergie, it being far harder to hold off two fast-finishing rivals down the straight than a lone challenger, but realistically Hiddink must now forget the title and worry only about negotiating that hideous Champions League draw.

If Liverpool maintain their current brilliance, he will need oodles of luck in the quarter-final. Benitez's side were superb in pulverising Aston Villa yesterday. I can barely recall a more imperious Liverpool display against strong opposition since they dismantled Cloughie's Nottingham Forest, then their closest League rivals, by the same 5-0 scoreline in 1988.

Even I lack the requisite idiocy to write United off, but their unwontedly chaotic, ill-disciplined effort at Craven Cottage leaves no doubt that they are on the wrong end of a potentially terminal momentum shift. Fulham match day host 'Diddy' David Hamilton has announced countless goals during his long reign as the Premier League's finest match day host, but few with the ecstasy lavished on the brace that drove Sir Alex to precisely where he belongs. Which is, of course, on the verge of apoplexy.

No one is confusing Ronaldo with the best player in the world (Lionel Messi) right now, while Wayne Rooney's red card-worthy petulance put the seal on a pitiful display. United are on the ropes, looking decidedly punchy and thankful for the recovery time granted by the forthcoming internationals.

Still narrowly ahead on points, still odds-on favourites, they may well emerge for the next round reinvigorated by the smelling salts as filtered through the hair dryer.

United are by no means damned yet. Even so, squeaky-bum time has returned with enough of a vengeance to make Old Trafford seem less like the HQ of our grandest club than a shrine to CJ's office chairs in Reggie Perrin.

Sir Alex didn't get where he is today by describing himself as the best manager in the business, to borrow from Cloughie, but he has for a long time been in the top one.

That supremacy is now threatened by Benitez, as it was before by Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho, and it will be fascinating to observe whether the gruesome old goat, pushing 70, retains the nerve, energy and imagination to see off the challenge once again.