CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL:IT'S NOT often Alex Ferguson walks into a post match press conference and simply holds his hands up. Late on Saturday night, however, deep in the bowels of the new Wembley Stadium, the 69-year-old Scot had no other choice. After all, that had been pretty much what his players had done an hour or so earlier, out on the pitch.

The press corps with which the Manchester United boss has such a fractious relationship might have liked to say they had, in effect, told him so in the many pieces over recent weeks and months in which it had been suggested his team, despite its latest Premier League success, really wasn’t all that great.

Publicly, he took exception although privately he must have known they had a point. And any doubts were comprehensively dispelled over the course of a one-sided final on Saturday night.

Though their midfield again did their best to steal the show, Barcelona’s frontline of Pedro, Lionel Messi and David Villa all scored, with Wayne Rooney giving the English champions a glimmer of hope.

The rest of the night’s statistics were more damning than the headline figures, though: United had just 37 per cent of the possession, only one shot as against 13 of Barcelona’s on target, no corners to the Catalans’ six, and United had a near monopoly of the 21 fouls committed. It would, in truth, be difficult to remember Ferguson’s men outplayed on anything like this scale were it not for the two sides’ last meeting in Rome.

“In my time as a manager it is the best team we have faced,” he conceded afterwards. “I think everyone acknowledges that. I accept that. It’s not easy when you have been well beaten like that to think any other way.

“No one has given us a hiding like that,” he continued, looking more than a little despondent. “It’s a great moment for them. They deserve it because they play the right way and they enjoy their football. They mesmerise you with their passing and we never really controlled Messi. When we got the lifeline of Wayne Rooney I expected us to do better in the second half but it wasn’t to be.”

United supporters had been hoping Ferguson would somehow have gleaned, from analysing the 2009 defeat and Barcelona’s various performances this year, some formula for upsetting them. His selection was fairly uncontroversial and while some may argue omitting Darren Fletcher was a mistake, it seems fanciful to suggest the midfielder, or anything that Ferguson might have done, would have made any significant difference.

The simple fact was a team, good enough to make their closest English rivals, Chelsea, look a distant second best in both league and Champions League, was thoroughly outclassed here.

“We tried to play the way we normally play,” said the manager. “It’s alien to us to man-mark players but it wasn’t good enough on the night. We understand that and we acknowledge it so we can step forward from here.

“Great teams go in cycles and they, at the moment, are the best in Europe, there’s no question of that. How long it lasts, whether they can replace that team at another point we’ll have to see. They certainly have the philosophy but can you find players like Xavi and Iniesta and Messi all the time? Probably not. But they are enjoying the moment that they have just now.”

Ferguson has a few players to find himself by the looks of things. Atletico’s fine goalkeeping prospect David de Gea is set to replace the retiring Edwin Van der Sar, who bowed out on a disappointing note here but several of Ferguson’s best players in the Premier League this year struggled against a Barca side superior in every department.

Younger players like Javier Hernandez and Fabio should benefit from the experience but Ryan Giggs and, later Paul Scholes, looked off the pace.

Ferguson tried to improve things by shuffling his pack when Fabio limped off just short of 70 minutes in but neither Giggs nor Ji-Sung Park were any more impressive after swapping places, while Antonio Valencia failed to improve things defensively dropping back to right back and substitute Nani was anonymous.

More money will have to be spent, it seems then, if United are to fend off the challenge of their rivals at home and mount a more serious one themselves to the supremacy of Barcelona in Europe.