Sir Alex Ferguson was noticeably downbeat as he left the Stade Louis II, and not only because of another disappointing performance from Wayne Rooney and further evidence of Paul Scholes's occasional impetuousness. Ferguson also has fresh concerns about the fitness of Owen Hargreaves and was conspicuously short of sympathy as he explained why the midfielder had ruled himself out of the Uefa Super Cup final at late notice.

Hargreaves' absence, after his long-standing problem with tendinitis flared up again, is bad news not only for Ferguson but for the England manager, Fabio Capello, who had travelled to Monaco to see whether the former Bayern Munich player was fit enough to fill in for Steven Gerrard in the forthcoming World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Croatia.

For Ferguson, however, the ramifications are even more serious, and the question has to be asked: will Hargreaves ever be free of a problem he has carried for the last 16 months? The expert opinion at Old Trafford is that he will not, and that may be more of a concern to Ferguson than his failure to become the first manager to win the Super Cup on three separate occasions.

"He [Hargreaves] trained on the night before the game with the rest of the team but when he came to us in the morning he said he was still feeling his knee," said Ferguson. "He felt that he wasn't fit enough to play, and after that there's nothing more you can do. If the player decides himself you have to accept it."

Ferguson was speaking in the same resigned fashion with which he used to address questions about Louis Saha's persistent injury problems. On the eve of the game he had spoken optimistically about Hargreaves having a long injury-free run. Yet Hargreaves has admitted being in constant discomfort and, having signed for £20m 13 months ago, he has barely been able to put together three successive games.

"We would like to have played him and got him back into things because he hasn't had enough football in the last year," Ferguson continued. "We need to get him back and we are disappointed. He's been training with the first team for 10 days and, as I say, there's nothing more we can do. We gave him the right preparation, his training programmes were at the right tempo, the right speed of training, everything was done in the right manner to get him back for this game, so that's the disappointment."

Ferguson's mood was not helped when a television reporter informed him that Paul Scholes's red card meant he would be suspended from United's opening Champions League tie against Villarreal. Until then Ferguson had not realised there would be a ban and his attempt to defend Scholes was noticeably half-hearted, making the peculiar observation that the midfielder's second yellow-card offence was an "instinctive thing".

Whether it should be instinctive for any footballer to punch the ball into the net is a matter for debate, but Ferguson did not prolong the argument. "The sending-off was unfortunate but the fact he had already been booked meant he had to go," he added.

United, he admitted, had been unusually lethargic, particularly in the first half when he "could not wait to get them in at the break". He added: "I can't deny that Zenit deserved to win. We played better when we were 2-0 down and we created quite a few chances to score but I have to say that Zenit shaded it."

Zenit's coach, Dick Advocaat, agreed. "The way we played tonight was superb and we definitely deserved the victory," he said. "In fact I am surprised we did not score more goals."