Sir Alex Ferguson is left with three options - is resignation the worst of them?

There is a strange mood at Old Trafford at the moment. The champions of the last three seasons went top with a 4-0 win on Saturday but the only real subject worth singing about was the owners. Which may seem odd but as it also dominated the manager's thoughts ahead of the game it is clearly newsworthy.

At the last home game a 'Love United Hate Glazer' banner was quickly confiscated with the fans holding it ejected from the ground. Yesterday 'We want Glazer out' was hung for 15 minutes without the stewards moving in - perhaps even the stadium management has realised that this is not a little local difficulty when tens of thousands of fans starting calling for the owners head.

On that point an attendance of under 74,000 for a 3pm Saturday leaue match is the lowest for some years and there are still tickets available for the League Cup semi-final on Wednesday - a situation that would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago. There is real disillusionment in the air.

The manager's programme notes open up without mention of the game today:

"One for all, and all for one… it’s a terrible cliché but nevertheless it does sum up one of the essentials for success in team sport. The family of Manchester United is under pressure as a result of all the issues and controversies surrounding the ownership and financial situation of our club that have been stirred up in the media."

I guess the important part of that statement was the 'stirred up in the media' phrase because there is little other support for the owners in these opening comments and none later on. Sir Alex Ferguson has put a lot of personal faith in the owners and perhaps his enthusiasm for the regime is finally on the wane.

His later comments:

We must remain loyal to the cause of Manchester United. The staff and players should be quite one-eyed about that and stay true to the history of the club and all the work done by Sir Matt Busby and the other managers who have contributed to creating the great club we have at Old Trafford today.

... make no reference to the positive impacts of the current owners. Perhaps Ferguson is simply sick of the situation. Despite his claims that he has £80m to spend but there is no value to be had - with the recession on there is a lot better value available out there that when, say, Berbatov was bought for £30m. Ferguson is not spending money because there is no money - its that simple. And with the x-factor that was Cristiano Ronaldo long gone United are left with a workmanlike side that is only brightened by the world class Wayne Rooney.

If Ferguson now sees that this is not a piece of financial brilliance that the Glazers have engineered - just another example of leveraged asset stripping then perhaps he will consider his options at the end of the season. With regards to the asset stripping it is largely down to the tremendous support down the years that United have Carrington and Old Trafford - facilities that the Glazers now seem keen to sell off and pocket the proceeds. Morally it must be time for the government to step in and stop the kind of leveraged nonsense that has caused so much strife at Man United, Leeds, Portsmouth, Liverpool, Southampton and the rest.

Ferguson may well have come to the conclusion that he has three options:

Firstly he could resign, which is not as laughable as it sounds and is being suggested by a fair number of fans.

Secondly he could preside over a slow decline of a club that will not be able to compete with many top in the transfer market.

Thirdly he could turn the clock back to the early 1990s and believe that he can transplant half the first team with youth players and still turn them seemlessly into champions. The third option could be similar to the way that Arsene Wenger has accepted five years without a trophy to give a young and cheaply compiled team time to build into a title challenging team. But to be fair Ferguson is 68 now and may, quite rightly, not relish a few years in the wilderness whilst a young team grows. To be even fairer, the terms of the £500m bond will probably not be satisfied by such a policy.

Which could mean that Ferguson resigns or faces his legacy being tainted by decline in the final years.

There is of course a fourth option, that involves believing that interest on the £720m of debt loaded onto the club currently running at £68.5m per year (and rising) can continue to be met without affecting the ability to attract and retain top players. This option could also be labelled 'please let this be a dream that I'll wake up from and it won't be true'.

Owners come and go, as do managers and players. The only constant at a football club is the supporters - who sacrifice more than managers will ever know. But Sir Alex Ferguson is the only manager many United fans have known and all will be sad if the best manager of his generation is driven out just when he is on the verge of making United England's most successful domestic club simply because of the financial mess delivered by the owners.