No bouncing back for Manchester United

MARCH 21 — The fallout from last week’s 4-1 thrashing at home to archrivals Liverpool will see Manchester United desperate to show everyone that they are not affected whatsoever from the defeat and go all out to grab a win at Fulham today (11pm, StarSport).

Alex Ferguson will want his players to project the right image of a comeback from that devastating loss with a strong showing against Fulham and a convincing victory to reinforce the message.

In my opinion that would be unnecessary. If anything, the Red Devils could only end up exposing themselves even more at the back now that they are without Nemanja Vidic.

I totally agree with Rafa Benitez’s advice to teams which are going to play MU till the end of the season. Just take the game to them, force them to make errors and take the chances that come.

The fact that MU recorded seven 1-0 Premiership wins in the months of December, January and February — away to Stoke City, Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United and at home to Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Wigan Athletic and Everton — is testament to most of the opponents “parking the bus”, as Jose Mourinho called it, in front of their goalmouth, and not for lack of attacking effort from MU.

I’m not saying these much weaker opponents (other than Everton) didn’t create any attacking chances throughout the 90 minutes, but being fully focused on defence, they would have easily missed the opportunities like that which helped Liverpool to their first and fourth goals last week.

Honestly, nobody would blame MU if they were to play with a more defensive approach to cover for the loss of Vidic. They could even do so knowing they have the talent to snatch a winning goal with a touch of Tevez magic or from one of Ronaldo’s brilliant freekicks.

But alas, wounded pride will cause them to throw caution to the wind.

It has happened before whereby such a devastating blow can take their minds off the objective at hand and make the team over-compensate. Everyone will want to grab a piece of that glory of showing that “MU are back”, thus allowing for mistakes at the back.

Back in October and November of 1996, MU suffered a 5-0 mauling at the hands of Newcastle United at St James’ Park. They went on to lose 6-3 at Southampton and followed that with a 2-1 home loss to Chelsea. Of course, it didn’t matter at the end of that season as they retained the title they had won the year before.

I see Fulham, who only recorded their first away win of the season last weekend by winning 3-1 at Bolton, putting in the extra effort to get at least one point to take them further away from the threat of relegation. They are just eight points off the relegation zone now.

For MU, the wrong result against Fulham would show that they have been scarred by the 4-1 loss to Liverpool. If they fail to win at Fulham, will they have enough time to recover?

Unfortunately not, as the many international players at MU will be going on to join their respective national teams for two crucial World Cup qualifying matches on March 28 and April 1. Then, they play Aston Villa, who will not be letting up on their efforts to overtake Arsenal for that crucial fourth place.

This is followed by the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals on April 10/11.

Having churned out all those 1-0 wins during the “lighter” months, when there were no distractions from the Champions League and World Cup qualifiers, I wouldn’t be surprised to see MU dropping more than a few points by the end of April, as other teams raise their game and try to stave off relegation or challenge for UEFA Cup positions.

I take Fulham to win by a goal or earn a valuable draw for the benefit of MU’s title rivals.