WORST START EVER

Alan Hansen in the Telegraph.

When the players of Manchester United look back this week on defeats to Bolton and Leeds, they will recognise that although you cannot win the Premiership by November, you can certainly lose it by then. Their manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, will recognise this difficult start to the season for what it is: the greatest challenge of his career.

On the pitch the problems are self-evident. David Beckham should have been sent off for his elbow in the face of Lee Bowyer on Saturday, but there is an interesting element to the physical side of United these days. Those teams of the Nineties with Mark Hughes, Bryan Robson and Paul Ince were more than capable of looking after themselves, as well as being superb footballers. Now that seems to have changed.

Against Sunderland two weeks ago for 50 minutes United were awesome. Once the home team started to get in among the United players, the direction of the game changed. We saw the same thing happen against Leeds. This United team physically lack the toughness that some of Ferguson's other great sides had in abundance.

This is a club in transition, but it is one that needs to find the solidarity that has served it so well over the years. United have had bad patches in the past when they were condemned too quickly. In Oct 1996 they lost 5-0 to Newcastle and then went down to Southampton, Fenerbahce and Chelsea. In those days the Premiership was a less unforgiving place. They recovered to win the title.

I always used to say that with a fit first XI, Arsenal were as good as United. It was the weight of United's squad that tipped the balance in their favour. In the last two years Arsenal have overtaken their rivals. Now it will come down to whether Ferguson's team still have a few more titles in them. There is certainly no doubting their manager's appetite for the battle.