News: Manchester United's season is threatening to unravel because of their habit of treating the rule book as if choosing from an a la carte menu - "this, this, not sure about that one, this, this . . . "
Of all the things which Alex Ferguson had anticipated influencing their season, he could never have imagined that suspensions would play such a major part. Unless, of course, they involved Arsenal's players.
Ferguson, that famed disciplinarian, once fined a player for overtaking him on the way out of the training ground and prides himself on the sense of good order that has generally existed at Old Trafford compared to Highbury.
So he will be appalled that Roy Keane's sending-off in Wednesday's 2-1 defeat away to FC Porto, plus Rio Ferdinand's eight-month suspension and impending Paul Scholes and Gary Neville bans, are enticing the first comparisons with the ruinous effect Eric Cantona's enforced absence for attacking a Crystal Palace fan had on their 1994-1995 season.
UEFA's disciplinary committee will meet on Monday to decide whether to increase the automatic one-match ban that accompanied the 11th red card of Keane's tempestuous career.
In the meantime, the Football Association's video review panel is investigating provisional dates on which Scholes will probably be suspended for three matches for lashing out at Middlesbrough's Doriva.
Gary Neville will miss the next four domestic matches for butting Manchester City's Steve McManaman, and, lurking in the background, Ferdinand's team of lawyers are preparing for his appeal with an independent FA commission on March 18th and 19th.
Ferdinand leads a strange existence right now, training all week then watching silently from the stands as his team-mates struggle without him. Rightly or wrongly, he is more to blame than anyone for the defensive malaise that has persistently undermined United over the past month. Yet in wages and bonuses he will have collected around £2.4 million by the time his suspension ends.
Does he feel guilty? Well, he did not look too troubled when the Manchester Evening News pictured him on Wednesday night climbing into his new £110,000 silver Bentley GT Sports Coupé outside one of Manchester's most genteel eateries. The more United founder the more ridiculous it seems that nobody from the higher echelons of Old Trafford has even dared to criticise him for missing his now-infamous drugs test, never mind deem it a matter worthy of in-house discipline.
Keane will not be granted the same leniency and will remorsefully accept his fine of a week's wages, some £90,000. United's captain has spent so many years creating a monster out of himself that the man is often misjudged. He is never slow to speak out when he believes those around him have let themselves down but, as his own fiercest critic, he will be disgusted with himself for living up to his most popular caricature, that of the brilliant but unhinged midfielder with an addiction to controversy.
Beneath the febrile temper, the slightly threatening stare and the impenetrable aura, there is a sensitive side that only the few closest to him are allowed to see properly. He will be appalled, for instance, to learn that in the 11 years since he signed for England's biggest club his various suspensions now amounts to 30 matches - not far off a full Premiership season.
Nothing will hurt more, however, than the cold realisation that, by sinking his studs into Vitor Baia's midriff inside the Estadio do Dragao, the debilitating effect it will have on the return leg at Old Trafford on Tuesday week means a two- or three-match ban could now feasibly run into next season.
"For us it is so much better if Roy Keane is not going to be there," Benni McCarthy, the FC Porto striker whose two goals won the game, volunteered yesterday. "He is the most inspirational player they have. I don't think there is another player like him who talks as much and drives the team on to win and do their best. In terms of him being suspended, we have something extra positive on our side as well as leading 2-1."
Ferguson, though, was adamant that Keane's absence will not harm United's chances of progression to the last eight.
"It is not the type of thing Roy would do, but if you ask me the goalkeeper made a meal of it," he said.
"We have a lot of options in that respect, plenty of midfield options, that is not a problem for me."
Ferguson will be encouraged by news that Mikael Silvestre could be available but, for all the attacking flair of Porto, he is finding the authorities equally robust opponents. It is reaching that stage of the season when he traditionally aims a few barbs in the direction of Arsenal, only this time he will not be able to take the moral high ground.
