Birmingham - 0 Manchester Utd - 0: Sooner or later, it is assumed, Manchester United will get their act together, but on the evidence of Saturday's scrappy scoreless draw with Birmingham City this will happen later rather than sooner.
At the moment, in the Premiership, United do not have much of an act. All they came up with at St Andrews were some half-hearted turns which did little to suggest that Arsenal's 49-match unbeaten league record will be in jeopardy at Old Trafford next Sunday.
That didn't stop United manager Alex Ferguson from cranking up the atmosphere by raking over the coals of last season's bust-up with Arsenal.
"They got off scot-free. They got off with murder really last year," Ferguson said of the fines and suspensions (£275,000 and four players banned) handed out to Arsenal after last season's so-called 'Battle of Old Trafford'. "The disciplinary treatment was ridiculous when you think Eric Cantona got nine months for attacking a fan.
"All right, that was a serious offence with Cantona and no one would disagree that something had to be done," he said. "But United took their own action in suspending him for four months. I don't think Arsenal would suspend one of their own players for four months no matter what he had done.
"The FA said what Eric did set a terrible example to young people. Given that he did it in a night match that wasn't on television, while United v Arsenal kicked off at lunchtime with probably about 10 million kids watching live on TV, I wonder what was really the worst example.
"What Arsenal players did that day was the worst thing I've seen in this sport."
Given the paucity of threat shown by his side yesterday, however. Ferguson's mind games looked pretty mindless. Even more so when, with only nine games played, you are 11 points behind the leaders.
Of course Ferguson's team could suddenly click and sweep Arsenal from the field; they have the players to do it. Yet if this failure to beat a weakened, limited Birmingham team is any guide, Arsenal's present level of performance will have to drop alarmingly if they are to be denied an unbeaten half-century.
Before this draw Birmingham had not taken a point off United in the Premiership but with sharper finishing from Emile Heskey they might have beaten them.
The longer the match wore on the more the United manager shuffled and reshuffled his team. United went into the game with five changes and though there were only two substitutions Ferguson's frequent positional switches added to the confusion.
To emphasise the importance to the side of Ryan Giggs, missing with a virus infection, Louis Saha, Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes were all employed on the left flank at one time or other without much success. Alan Smith flitted around busily but Ruud van Nistelrooy still lacked support up front.
Another reason why United never really got going was the parity achieved in central midfield by Robbie Savage and Damien Johnson. Roy Keane prowled, an Irish wolfhound whose wolf-hunting days are numbered. Kleberson just kept losing possession.
Yet having built themselves a platform from which to attack United, Birmingham were too pedestrian to cause the opposing centre-backs, Rio Ferdinand and Wes Brown, serious problems.
Roy Carroll was seldom summoned into action, the exceptions being the saves the United goalkeeper made from Heskey after first Kleberson and later Quinton Fortune gave the ball away.
Maik Taylor was equally underemployed in Birmingham's goal although he did make the save that shaped the outcome of the match, blocking a point-blank shot from van Nistelrooy late in the first half after the Dutchman had made a typically well-timed run to the far post to meet Fortune's precise, low centre.
"We are capable of winning the league," said Ferguson, "but we need to show the form which is capable of doing that and we are not doing so at the moment."
