United are close to securing a £3.5 million deal to sign Kuszczak, the young Poland goalkeeper, from West Bromwich Albion — who have lined up a deal to sign Pascal Zuberbühler from FC Basle as his replacement — and also expect to agree a fee in the region of £14 million with Tottenham Hotspur for Carrick when negotiations resume next week. But neither is the A-list signing that supporters had expected with their chief domestic rivals having already made significant reinforcements.

The failure to add to the squad has fuelled disquiet among United fans, who have long been sceptical about the club’s prospects of flourishing under the ownership of the Glazer family. The party line is that unlimited funds are available to Ferguson to ensure that United can challenge Chelsea for supremacy in the Barclays Premiership, but for all the club’s interest in players such as Mahamadou Diarra and Fernando Torres, few of the arrivals since last summer — Edwin van der Sar, Park Ji Sung, Ben Foster, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra — have stirred Old Trafford passions.

A sense of anxiety has not been helped by revelations, made in The Times last month, that the Glazers are looking for ways to ease interest bills by refinancing the £540 million debt taken on when they bought the club last year. There are funds in place for Ferguson to add to the squad but not enough, it seems, for him to challenge at the top end of the market.

A proposed bid to sign Torres from Atlético Madrid cannot progress until Ruud van Nistelrooy has been sold — and even then there are concerns that the Spain forward may prove out of United’s range — while hopes of signing Diarra, of Lyons, or Javier Mascherano, of Corinthians, to play alongside Carrick have been put on hold indefinitely as the midfield players join the throng waiting for offers from Real Madrid.

Other candidates have included Marcos Senna, of Villarreal, and Jean Makoun, of Lille, but Ferguson is unsure of their quality. There was an inquiry about Didier Zokora, who played for Ivory Coast in the World Cup finals, but that came too late to stop him joining Tottenham from St-Etienne.

The transfer market across Europe has been affected by the situation at Real after the club’s recent change of president, and above all in Italy, where the fate of several clubs is in the balance as the verdict from the match-fixing trial is awaited. However, United’s difficulties appear to run deeper as Ferguson flies out to South Africa for his team’s pre-season tour today, with his squad — minus those players involved in the World Cup — scheduled to follow tomorrow.

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