Fergie "SEEMS TO"loses astute touch in market as "ECONOMISTY"

Manchester United's signing of Michael Carrick shows the days of Sir Alex Ferguson snapping up bargain buys are long gone.

There is not a match goes by at Old Trafford without the fans paying tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson's most astute piece of transfer business.

'Ooh aah Cantona,' goes the chant and has done since Ferguson wrenched the Frenchman from Leeds on November 27, 1992, for £1.2million.

No matter that Cantona has been retired almost nine years now.

The supporters recognise the value of the man whose talent delivered United's first Premiership title in 1993 and was instrumental in supplying the creativity on which a dynasty was built.

I know you don't get much for your money these days, not in a week Rolling Stone Keith Richards paid £60,000 for a Sussex beach hut in which he could barely store, let alone swing, a guitar.

I know football inflation makes even less sense.

And I know Ferguson has bought some turkeys in his time, not least Eric Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson and most expensively Juan Sebastian Veron.

But even so, as Michael Carrick was paraded before the press and the United faithful got used to the idea that a player who joined Tottenham for £2.75m two years ago was suddenly costing them £18.6m, it did make you wonder whether Ferguson's eye for a bargain is quite what it was.

It is not to say that Carrick is not a fine footballer. He is. He played a useful part in restoring the fortunes of Spurs. He exercised the mind of Sven-Goran Eriksson as a holding midfielder for England even if the Swede could not quite make up his mind between him and Jamie Carragher and Owen Hargreaves.

Indeed, if you listen to one man who knows Carrick well, former England captain and ex-under-21 manager David Platt, you might be convinced Ferguson has done good business.

David Platt says: "I have never seen him struggle in a game of football.

"Carrick never has a bad game. He has everything. He can be a world-class player. He can be a stopper but in possession he has the passing ability of David Beckham.

"My criticism is that he has not stood up to the plate and shown people what an exceptional player he is."

And there is the rub. Carrick is no Cantona. He is no Roy Keane.

He will bring a certain stability but he is not the type of player around whom you can mould a team. He does not possess the personality to inspire others. Too often he appears afraid to demonstrate the full range of his talent.

That is not what United need. Not when Chelsea have landed an ego the size of the Dome in Michael Ballack and a goalscorer of world renown in Andriy Shevchenko.

Somehow I don't think Carrick is going to send a shiver of anxiety through Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho as he ponders his route to what looks likely to be a third successive Premiership title.

The £18.6m, however, is cause for alarm for English football.

The inflated fee simply confirms Roman Abramovich's strangling effect on a league in which Mourinho gets first choice of the cream, pays wages others cannot countenance, while the rest are forced to fork out daft prices for the scraps left over.

It conforms to the aggressive disciplines of supply and demand in the capitalist market place.

It just does not take into account the fact that sport is about hopes and dreams as much as money.

Unpredictability is the lifeblood of sport and while there has been a certain intrigue about Mourinho's work so far, another season of relentless triumph could be a Stamford Bridge too far for the Premiership.

Yes, I know that man Cantona set United off on a run in which they won eight Premiership titles in a decade of domination.

The difference is that these days Ferguson has to fork out 18 times what the Frenchman cost on a player in Carrick most people would not wager a pound on influencing the title race.