Apart from unconventional music, there is nothing a professional footballer hates more than being told that he is part of a one-man team (unless he is the one man everybody is raving about, of course). The view of Cristiano Ronaldo’s input at Manchester United expressed by Fernando Torres, the Liverpool striker, is bound, therefore, to have gone down about as well at Old Trafford as the new one by The Ting Tings.

Perhaps anticipating a Champions League final date and getting his retaliation in early, Torres contrived to laud the present, and future, Footballer of the Year, while delivering a confidence-denting rebuke to his team-mates. “I watch Ronaldo every week and he is massively impressive,” he said. “He is so far ahead of every player in the world right now. He carries United on his back in some matches: if Barcelona keep the ball away from him, they will get to the final.”

Ouch, that has to hurt, as they like to say in those video clips in which people fall over at weddings a lot. Torres did not quite condemn United’s assault on the two biggest prizes this season as Ronaldo versus the rest, but did not stop far short. Great teams are not carried by any one player, and he will know that, so to suggest that United’s players have enjoyed a season-long piggy-back ride courtesy of a budding genius who has scored a remarkable 38 goals from midfield hits United in the sweet spot. Not least because many beyond Torres also suspect that there may be a teeny-weeny kernel of truth in it.

Five seasons ago, Arsenal’s Invincibles also had to live with the tag of being propelled by a single player when Thierry Henry scored 38 times. After that, whenever speculation took him to a rival team in Italy or Spain, his impending departure was treated as the end, not of an era, but a football club.

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Certainly, without Ronaldo, United are nowhere near as potent, but that could be said of any team shorn of their most influential player

Martin Samuel

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BACKGROUND

• Ronaldo: I'll take next penalty

• Ferguson gives Messi licence to thrill

• Ferguson to analyse lack of 'penetration’

• Barcelona off the hook as Ronaldo misses penalty

BACKGROUND

• Barcelona v Manchester United: how they rated

• United thankful for a second chance

• Chances sure to come at Old Trafford

• United left to rue Ronaldo penalty miss

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• Ronaldo: only titles prove greatness

Such hyperbole is a common diversion at Arsenal - remember the fortnight when everybody was convinced that they could not survive without David Dein, the vice-chairman - but for a player who was part of the only unbeaten team in the top division of English football since Preston North End in 1889 (when football was a different game, played without a crossbar or pitch markings beyond a centre line), this obsession with Henry must have grated.

Indeed, one might argue that Arsenal’s boosted start to this season was a direct result of a group of players wishing to prove that they could thrive with Henry at Barcelona and that, having made their point, the early vigour could not be sustained. Either way, to be branded a one-man team is a serious stigma in football and United’s players, not to mention Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager, will be unhappy to hear it now, before an important match. Collecting and assembling this group of players ranks as one of the greatest achievements of Ferguson’s career.

So, does Torres have a point? Certainly, without him United are nowhere near as potent, but that could be said of any team shorn of their most influential player. Liverpool without Torres or Steven Gerrard, Chelsea without Didier Drogba or Frank Lampard, Arsenal without Cesc Fàbregas or Emmanuel Adebayor. Yet if most clubs have two attack-minded players who are essential to victory, the feeling is that United have one. Although a great many wobbles have occurred without Wayne Rooney this season, on form Ronaldo and Carlos Tévez should do. Relegate Tévez, as Ferguson often does in Europe, and as long as Rooney and Ronaldo are together, United barely skip a beat. Torres is right, however, in that if Ronaldo tripped down the stairs on the way to the Nou Camp, many would consider the advantage to be with Barcelona.

This season Ronaldo has in effect performed as United’s striker both in the weight of goals he has scored and the frequency with which he has scored them. His longest barren run lasted three matches between January 30, when he scored twice against Portsmouth, and February 23, when he scored two in a 5-1 win over Newcastle United. Rooney went six matches without scoring (including one for England) between March 1 and March 29, drew five blanks between December 3 and December 26 and four between January 27 and February 16. His first goal of the season was on October 2.

Tévez has also endured two six-match goalless spells. These were the times when Ronaldo’s back must have really ached. Rooney has scored 17 times this season and Tévez 18, which is no poor return but pales significantly against Torres’s total of 30 and Adebayor’s 27 for Arsenal.

It is a hard set of figures to quantify, however, because United are set up in a different way from their rivals and play, in essence, with forwards but without a conventional striker. Rooney, on occasions, will be required to lead the line, as Torres does for Liverpool, but frequently drops off, allowing Ronaldo to get beyond him. When Tévez, Rooney and Ronaldo are in action, their movement has even greater fluidity. To judge Rooney on his goals as one might Adebayor, Torres or Drogba, therefore, is unfair. He is, however, the most erratic in front of goal of this quartet and Ronaldo is covering exceptionally well for his teammates by ensuring that this weakness does not show.

The bill for the work Ronaldo has done on Rooney’s behalf may not be settled by Ferguson and United but by Fabio Capello, the England manager, anyway. He has persisted in using Rooney as his striker based on his performances at club level, yet has no midfield player in Ronaldo’s class as a goalscorer, not even Lampard, who has scored 18 goals for Chelsea this season, or Gerrard, who has scored 21 for Liverpool.

Together the pair have scored one more than Ronaldo at club level and, given that they have not recently had the same goalscoring impact for England, the problem with Rooney is exacerbated. It is not so much that Ronaldo carries Rooney for United, as Torres appears to imply, rather that he creates a false impression of his potential as an attacking spearhead. He may one day perform that role brilliantly, but he needs time and Capello is increasingly vexed by the position because he would like to play the modern way, with Rooney alone, but fears that the player lacks the clinical instincts to win a match when given one chance.

As delighted as he was with Rooney’s display against Arsenal in the FA Cup in February, when Alan Shearer described his performance as a masterclass in playing the lone-striker role, he was appalled by his wastefulness in a Champions League match against Lyons.

Capello wants to see more of Peter Crouch, not least in a Liverpool shirt, Gabriel Agbonlahor, of Aston Villa, and will give a debut to Dean Ashton, of West Ham United, soon. Ultimately, however, he may be forced to return, like every England manager for a decade, to Michael Owen, particularly now that he is flourishing in a new position under Kevin Keegan at Newcastle United.

Keegan deserves credit for doing what many considered impossible with Owen: teaching an old dog new tricks. The process may have begun under Steve McClaren when he was England head coach - Owen dropped deep to set up a goal for Rooney in Russia last season, although this fluency was very much a work in progress - but it is Keegan who has had the wit to use him as the most withdrawn of three strikers in recent matches and has reaped the benefit with a fine scoring run that has transformed his Newcastle tenure.

This could be the way forward for Capello, too. Owen may have leant on his team-mates in other ways in the past, but he has never needed one like Ronaldo to make up a shortfall in front of goal. If English football does not possess a Ronaldo equivalent - and it does not, and will not for the foreseeable future - Owen remains Capello’s best option.

His exclusion during recent friendly matches may also have been misinterpreted. Capello surely knows what Owen brings to the team, knows how England play when set up in a familiar 4-4-2 formation, but is mindful that this method and this configuration did not bring European Championship qualification.

In the circumstances it makes sense to study alternatives. One school of thought is that if Capello had walked into a qualifying campaign rather than a phoney war, he would have gone with safety first and picked Owen, the striker who had scored 40 international goals in 89 appearances. Rooney has 14 in 42.

But are United a one-man team? The answer must be no. They are a beautifully constructed group of footballers who complement each other perfectly and should, according to form, eliminate Barcelona from the Champions League. They do, however, possess shortcomings for which the presence of Ronaldo, the best footballer in the world, amply compensates. That is not the same as being a beast of burden for a group that should conquer Europe.

Capello would love to have a one-man team like United. Deep down, so would every manager, including the gentleman who signed Fernando Torres for Liverpool.

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