ON any given day, Manchester United can do this to you.

There’s not necessarily any disgrace per se in being picked apart by a team stuffed full of top-notch quality.

But that’s no excuse for certain aspects of another Old Trafford defeat – Blues’ tenth straight there – and the heaviest loss of Alex McLeish’s reign all told.

There seemed a nagging sense watching what unfolded that Blues expected what they got.

You don’t normally associate them with a roll over and tickle my tummy mentality. But there were too many signs that suggested there was an inferiority complex.

Blues were passive, timid and got off to yet another awful start.

They could have been a goal down in 34 seconds at home to Villa, and in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final at West Ham United they were similarly uncertain and inhibited.

The return leg is on Wednesday and it’s such a massive match. It’s difficult to overstate how much it would mean to supporters for Blues to reach a major Wembley final after 55 years of failure trying.

And then there’s the subsequent impact on the manager and team: the easing of pressure and up-lift the required result would bring.

It would be inconceivable to think that Blues don’t start with nothing but bristling aggression, that they don’t attempt to seize the initiative and not just let things happen around them.

And coming after a tumultuous week or so that has been marked by hostility and back-biting, transfer strife and financial concern, criticism of the board from the outside and McLeish from the outside and within – plus that lot over the road whacking out £18 million – goodness knows some kind of feelgood factor needs to return to St Andrew’s.

Blues paved the way for their own skewering on Saturday by an inability to defend a corner after 90 seconds.

Keith Fahey got too late to John O’Shea, who flicked on, and Dimitar Berbatov drifted off marker David Murphy to nod in.

Blues had their best spell of possession up to United’s second goal but, for all the ordered, neat passing, they didn’t hurt the opposition. They can circulate the ball all day, but if there’s no real thrust and nothing at the finish, what’s the point?

McLeish opted for Matt Derbyshire up front and Alexsandr Hleb and David Bentley wide in a five-man midfield. It was not a defensive formation as such, he didn’t want to simply block it up, but it didn’t work.