Those of us who reckoned that this year’s Premiership would be about as genuinely competitive as a WWF bout have had our predictions utterly confounded by the sight of Man United attempting to retain their championship without recourse to the use of a conventional back four, or indeed a defence of any kind.

The charitable, and obvious, interpretation is that United are only doing this in order to give the others a chance. Certainly, I can’t come up with any other explanation as to what in the name of Jaysus they thought they were doing against Blackburn and, particularly, Fulham.

If you saw virtually any other team farting around like that at the back, you would advise them to be thinking not in terms of winning the Champions League, but qualifying for it.

As such, it may only be the end of August, but already the ominous signs are that Fergie’s inability to pick up a world-class defender during the summer will prevent him from getting anywhere near Hampden Park on May 25th next, unless he attends as a guest of his good buddy Ottmar Hitzfeld.

It is, perversely enough, the signing of Juan Verón that has cost Fergie the chance to spend any more money on a top-notch centre-back. For what it is worth, I personally would have left the midfield as it was, except perhaps for the acquisition of another right-sided wide player to prevent Beckham from getting too complacent.

The midfield did not need Verón half as much as the defence needed, for example, Lilian Thuram or Fabio Cannavaro. But now, with virtually all the transfer money gone, United would be doing well even to snap up a semi-competent youngster like Gareth Barry, let alone a proper international-class defender.

It is as well for United that the other teams in their Champions League group are not exactly bristling with firepower. Deportivo La Coruna, good as they are, are aesthetically considered to be box-office poison next to Real Madrid and Barcelona; Lille were playing in the French second division 15 months ago; and Olympiakos looked sadder than sad against Liverpool in last season’s UEFA Cup.

When United enter the second group stage, though, and come up against the big guns like Bayern, Real Madrid, Roma or (haha) Celtic, they won’t be able to get away with the sort of frankly insulting arrogance that they have displayed in recent league games.

It is understandable that United feel they can let the likes of Fulham score a couple, secure in the knowledge that they can slot home three or four at the other end. At the sharp end of European competition, however, where it is virtually a different sport, Fergie will have to come up with something a bit more imaginative than merely tinkering around with the endless permutations of the Stam/Neville/Brown/Johnsen axis in central defence.

Playing Gary Neville at centre-half is the footballing equivalent of speeding up the Long Mile Road at 75mph while yapping animatedly into your mobile phone. You can only get away with it for so long, and when it does rebound on you, the result is one hell of an unholy mess.

However, with Jaap Stam still currently in the doghouse after his less than well thought out comments in his autobiography, and Wes Brown essaying a passable impersonation of Tom Boyd on a bad night, the only alternative right now seems to be Ronny Johnsen, who has hardly played a meaningful match since the win over Bayern in the Nou Camp in 1999.

Johnsen is a class player and one of Fergie’s best ever signings, but it hardly behoves United to be going into Europe relying on a man who seemingly can’t play four games of football in a row without fucking up his Achilles tendon.

The good news is that Ruud van Nistelrooy already looks like the sharpest and most dangerous striker to arrive at Old Trafford since Ole Gunnar Solskjær was shipped in from the wastes of northern Norway five years ago.

Foul Play first clapped eyes on van Nistelrooy in the autumn of 1998, when I saw him lashing in a glorious hat-trick for PSV Eindhoven against HJK Helsinki in a Champions League game on Dutch television (long story).

Even allowing for the doubtful quality of the opposition, there was a rare conviction and sureness about the way he converted all three chances. He looked like a class act even then, and the same traits were in evidence in both the Charity Shield and the Fulham game, where he emerged with three goals from, at best, five decent chances.

In short, van Nistelrooy looks rather more likely to nick one in the dying minutes against Bayern Munich than Andy Cole, and unless his knee explodes again, by the season’s end he will have surely usurped Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink as the Premiership’s best forward. I wonder what he’s like at the back?