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Mistake who may come to haunt United

6/ 8/2003

Ultimately, Juan Sebastian Veron will be remembered as a £28.1m white elephant. In which case it seems strange that so many Manchester United supporters are dismayed by his imminent departure. "Please, let this not be true," was a typical message posted on a fans' website last night.

Such backing might seem incongruous when the case for the prosecution is presented and Veron, once the most expensive player in England and paid rich sums to bring the European Cup to Old Trafford, stands accused of failing to take United beyond the flawed ranks of nearly men in which they have existed for the last few years.

Yet, in the innermost pocket of every United statistician's anorak there is also a crumpled sheet of paper that will tell you Uefa's number-crunchers made Veron the most effective player in the Champions League group stages last season.

There are, of course, misgivings about his occasional vanishing acts, or that he has not reached his most exhilarating heights in the games that really count, but most United fans will recognise that, with David Beckham already gone, the club are now ushering their most imaginative midfield player towards the exit.

Ferguson is not bluffing when he describes Veron as the best passer of the ball he has ever worked with. And he was not putting on a show for the watching journalists a couple of weeks ago when, on the training pitches at Nike's headquarters in Portland, Oregon, he broke into spontaneous applause as Veron, 20 yards from goal, controlled an awkward cross on his chest and tried an audacious shot from behind his standing leg. The ball flew into the top corner like a dart into the triple 20 for what Ferguson later described as "the best goal I've ever seen".

Nevertheless, the United manager is entitled to have legitimate concerns about Veron's contribution in some of the club's more galling defeats of the past two years.

One of the least endearing memories of the Champions League semi-final defeat to Bayer Leverkusen was Veron pulling his foot out of a tackle in the final minutes. And he may never have played a worse game than the 3-1 defeat to Manchester City at Maine Road last season.

These are the sort of things that Ferguson is neither willing to forgive or forget although it still seems odd that, even in a depressed market, United should sell a key player for half his original price and to one of the club's major domestic rivals.

The men in power at Old Trafford may welcome the £15m fee but neither of Ferguson's new midfield recruits, Kleberson or Eric Djemba-Djemba, can boast the same range of passing as Veron and, with the exception of Paul Scholes, there is now a distinct lack of creativity in the centre of the team.

Anyone with a habit of getting to Old Trafford early over the past two seasons cannot have failed to be enamoured by the training routine of Veron and Beckham, how they used to stand on opposite sides of the pitch and effortlessly ping crossfield passes to one another as though they could land the ball in a waste-paper basket from 60 yards - without touching the sides.

Most United fans, therefore, seemed willing to give Veron the benefit of the doubt. They will have been encouraged, too, by his performances in the club's pre-season tour of the United States during which he has seemed to use the perceived slight on his ability as the motivation to prove his worth to Ferguson.

"He is playing better than I have ever seen him," Ruud van Nistelrooy said after Veron had dictated the 4-1 defeat of Juventus in the Giants Stadium. "He is playing as though he has a point to prove."

Opinion will remain divided. At times, he has been beguiling; in other moments he has been bewildering. Ferguson, that fierce protector of his own, infamously had one of his more volcanic moments when asked about Veron's form at the end of his first season and few reporters have dared broach the subject since. But at various stages the player himself has admitted being frustrated by his inconsistent performances, particularly towards the end of his first year when United surrendered the Premiership trophy to Arsenal.

Most people will think of him as a failure but at the same time he brought some Argentinian flair to the United team, with none of the usual South American histrionics.

The fairest reflection on how a player is regarded at a club usually comes when they return with a different team and, even if there is little affection between United and Chelsea, it is doubtful Veron will be jeered when he returns to Old Trafford for their penultimate league game on May 8 wearing a blue shirt.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003