PREMIERSHIP: Kevin McCarra feels the direction Manchester United are taking under an ageing Alex Ferguson is suspect.

Manchester United are on the verge of a piece of record-breaking that will look more like vandalism to their reputation. With a loss to Chelsea this afternoon or Aston Villa next weekend, the club will suffer their 10th league defeat of the season.

They have never been beaten so often in the Premiership. Alex Ferguson's capacity for launching United into another dynamic era is in question.

Although he has been making changes intended to return the club to old glories, the clock has gone back much too far, close to 1991.

It was in the old First Division 13 years ago that the team's defeats last ran into double figures. United finished sixth then, but the present situation is worse in some respects.

In 1990-91 Ryan Giggs made his debut and United, starting to get their bearings under Ferguson, won the Cup Winners' Cup when Mark Hughes's extraordinary finish broke Barcelona.

Beating Millwall in the FA Cup final will scarcely have the emotions in spate and if supporters dwell on this season at all it will only be to linger over the glee of knocking out Arsenal in that competition.

United ought to live for much more than that but, for a dynamic club, this has been a period of bumbling. No matter the result this afternoon, they are likely to finish third in the Premiership for the second time in three years. It is the measure of Ferguson's difficulties that this is a faithful reflection of their standing.

Arsenal, with their slender squad, and an unstable Chelsea may have weaknesses, but United cannot assume that they will soon overhaul either of them. The supporters, after a decade's worth of joy, will not round on Ferguson, but a 62-year-old manager must be particularly conscious that he has limited time to revive United. Despite last season's tenacious success in the Premiership, there has been no profound resurgence.

This is a club rooting around for a recovery programme. "We are preparing for next season just now," said the young midfielder Darren Fletcher last week. "There will be a lot of work put in over the summer with different styles of coaching and maybe styles of play to try and get our title back."

The proprietory reference originates in the years when the trophy room was a bank vault from which the Premiership silverware could never be burgled by a rival.

Several sides now have the combination to rob Old Trafford, and Chelsea could be the fourth winners there in the league this season. There is no great confidence that United will hold on to their belongings. Assurances that Ruud van Nistelrooy is not about to be transferred to Real Madrid may be reliable, but to worried fans they will still sound like comments made just before David Beckham's departure for the Bernabeu last summer.

That sale was a trauma for the crowd. Ferguson, resolved to press on in a new direction, cannot have appreciated the banned Rio Ferdinand breaking cover yesterday to comment that it would be "great" if United could buy Beckham back. The relationship between the England captain and his manager may have been worn out but Ferguson was also actively eager to set United on a new path.

As Fletcher's reference to developing "styles of play" implies, the pattern that Ferguson had in mind has never become clear. United have had a rotten season with injuries and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the prime candidate for the right flank, has mostly been unfit, but the manager could never blame the disappointments on bad luck.

United are at their most disjointed in midfield yet that is the area where the resources are deepest. Solskjaer, Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kleberson, Phil Neville, Fletcher, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Giggs belong in that department yet Ferguson has not come up with a unit. There are tough decisions to be taken. Keane can still have outstanding days, but age and that busted hip have slashed their number.

The recent signings provoke disquiet. Djemba-Djemba has done no more than ease himself in and Kleberson - injured, away with Brazil and lacking a specific job at Old Trafford - has hardly been noticed. It is the increasing dependence on the transfer market which has bedevilled Ferguson. This is ironic for a manager who spent so much of his Old Trafford career resenting the parsimony of the then chairman Martin Edwards.

In retrospect, the formula in which the golden generation of home-grown talent would be augmented by the odd judicious signing looks perfect. The youngsters may never come through in such freakish numbers again and Ferguson has had less success as he has been allowed more scope to buy players. It is not clear at the moment whether United are in a period of transition or of decline.

There has been encouragement and, in his sheer doggedness during the 4-1 defeat to Manchester City, Ronaldo vindicated the manager's faith in him more than he could have in any run-of-the-mill victory.

None the less, Ferguson still seems to be fumbling for an overall method. The organisation of the 1999 treble winners was simple and potent, but these days some fans are remembering why they used to call him Tinkerbell long before Claudio Ranieri's fame as the arch-meddler of the Premiership. They bemoan the fact, of late, that the occasional, generally unproductive use of Giggs through the middle means that Scholes's form suffers as he is shunted towards the wing. In the present climate scepticism grows. Supporters, for example, growl that Ferdinand's decision to start his suspension in January, foolishly hoping that his sentence would be reduced so that he could appear at Euro 2004, was putting England's interests ahead of his club's.

The intricacies of that subject matter less than the fact that argument and doubt are taking root at Old Trafford. Ferguson, having already toyed with retirement once, has to prove himself all over again at the very end of his career.