Gap between top and bottom is exposed by struggling Uniteds

Sir Alex Ferguson is facing a rare crisis at Manchester United. With EIGHT potential first team defenders missing through injury and illness the manager is having to field a strange looking line-up.

Missing

Going in to yesterday’s Premier League game at West Ham, United had six defenders missing and fielded an unusual looking back four of Darren Fletcher, Gary Neville, Wes Brown and Patrice Evra. OK, Fletcher isn’t a right back and Gary Neville is no longer the player he once was, particularly at centre-back, but it just about passes as a proper back four.

However, during the game both Wes Brown and Gary Neville limped off and joined the injured list. With no defenders available to sit on the bench the United back four ended up as Darren Fletcher, Michael Carrick, Patrice Evra and Ryan Giggs.

Natural

I’m sure you’ll agree that they are four fine footballers, but Evra is the only defender amongst them and he hasn’t ever been a centre-half! The manager agreed that Evra is not a natural choice for that position,

“Evra must be the smallest centre half in the world, but he’s a good reader of the game. He’s quick and determined.”

For their Champions League game against Wolfsburg on Tuesday evening Fergie will probably have Nemanja Vidic back from a bout of flu and he will come straight back into the side and Sir Alex says will be likely to partner Michael Carrick,

“Probably Nemanja Vidic will be back from flu and I’ll probably play Carrick alongside him. Carrick’s got the composure and the pace and it was a good performance in the second half. We used our experience.”

Of course, United have already qualified for the knockout stages but they will be keen to top their group by getting a result at the German champions this week. A draw would be enough but United’s usual European tactic of defending strongly and hitting the home side on the break may be a risky business with the back four they are likely to select.

Huge

It is remarkable that in these days of multi-millions and ridiculously huge first-team squads, a team such as the United could be left with only one fit defender being available. The chances of eight defenders all being unavailable at the same time must be almost non-existent yet Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, Jonny Evans, John O’Shea, Brown, Neville, Rafael and Fabio all find themselves out of contention.

So after all that, what a great time it must be to be playing at home to the Champions. You can surely really get at them and put them under pressure. Well, yesterday United had this strange looking side and for most of the ninety minutes they didn’t play very well at all. West Ham will never have a better chance of beating them.

Gap

As we know, the final score was 4-0 to United and that says an awful lot about the gap between the top few sides in the Premier League and the bottom few sides in the Premier League. The difference in class is massive and seems to be getting more massive as each season passes.

West Ham really miss the threat posed by Carlton Cole who may have enjoyed having a physical and aerial battle with Patrice Evra. Without him in their forward line they looked toothless causing Gianfranco Zola to joke after the game that he might have to put his boots on again! They could do worse!