Ferguson's taste of failure

United's newest face (l) - and he will not be the last

BBC Sport Online chief football writer Phil McNulty examines the dilemma facing Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson as he comes to terms with Champions League failure.

Sir Alex Ferguson delivered a dire warning before Manchester United faced Bayern Munich - and some may now pay a heavy price for their failure to heed his words.

The £19m arrival of brilliant Dutchman Ruud van Nistelrooy from PSV Eindhoven is likely to be the start of a mini-revolution at United.

Ferguson, perhaps sensing the newly-crowned Premiership champions needed a fresh injection of adrenalin, made the time-honoured threat about men playing for their Old Trafford futures.

It did not work. In fact it failed miserably.

Manchester United's team photo was invaded by a hoaxer before kick-off in Munich - and the audacious impostor may not be the only face completely out of the picture by the time next season starts.

Manchester United were a sad spectacle as they slipped quietly out of Champions League contention - stale, a team almost too familiar with itself.

And as a clearly distraught Ferguson attempted to drag some semblance of analysis into his post-match inquest, his stone face betrayed the real truth.

Ferguson had given the current United side a final test, one last opportunity to recapture their verve.

And the brutal truth is they failed to pass the examination.

Ferguson - time for change

He warned before kick-off: "How we do in Munich will make our mind up about a few things."

Ferguson's mind will now be made up - changes are necessary to Britain's outstanding team of the past decade.

United can hardly be criticised for their achievements this season.

They have rendered the Premiership race an irrelevant formality, reduced it to little more than a wait for their coronation.

Ferguson's team have proved themselves head and shoulders above every other team in the Premiership over a long season.

But this is not how Manchester United judge themselves. It is not how Ferguson will judge his team when he puts his plans for the summer into action.

Manchester United regard themselves as the biggest club in the world - a status which, at the very least, demands domination in Europe as its starting point.

In Munich, United lacked the spark that has enabled them to get out of tight spots in the past, the flash of genius and daring that fashioned the 1999 Champions League win and other triumphs.

United looked a team running on empty until it was too late - and more significantly a team that was highly vulnerable.

Silvestre - uncertain

Ferguson has never been a defensive manager. He shapes his team in the Manchester United style.

He operates by the simple equation that United will always score more goals than the opposition.

And yet they have looked second rate defensively on several occasions in Europe this season. The imperious swagger that sees them through at home is not present on foreign soil.

United still have a host of world class players, and Roy Keane's emotions can invariably be used as a measure of how his mentor and kindred spirit Ferguson is feeling.

It could almost have been Ferguson speaking when Keane effectively read the obituary for the current United line-up.

Ferguson clearly has a problem at left back, where Mikael Silvestre occasionally shows signs of coming to terms with his task, and is then found wanting.

And the strike partnership of Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke, so fruitful in past years, does not look as potent as before.

Yorke has made more headlines for association with the surgically-enhanced model Jordan than his football this season.

And he looks the prime contender to be replaced after the Britidh record sigjning of van Nistelrooy.

Yorke (r) has been below par

Jaap Stam and Wes Brown will form the basis of United's central defence, but there appears little cover beyond the excellent but injury-cursed Ronny Johnsen and veteran David May.

Will Ferguson be tempted to revive an interest in Sol Campbell if he leaves Spurs?

Even David Beckham has not been indispensable this season, and United may decide his future lies in a more central and pivotal role - or perhaps even more dramatically, at another club.

Talk of Rivaldo arriving at Old Trafford has been played down, but what a showpiece statement of intent it would be if Ferguson pulled off a transfer coup of such magnitude.

The problem for Ferguson's rivals is that what is wonderful for them is average for United.

He will not accept second best. Not at home. Not abroad. Not anywhere.

This is why Ferguson made his pre-match threat - and why he will carry it out in the summer.