The League of Ireland faithful might not care to dwell on the fact but there will be huge numbers of Irish football fans feeling they have real skin in the game when Liverpool host Manchester United at Anfield on Sunday.

They should have played a rousing version of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ as Arsenal beat Manchester United at the Emirates because that’s all it has taken for new manager Mikel Arteta to get supporters in north London eating out of his hands.

Congratulations, then, to Everton on their magnificent 1-1 victory at Old Trafford. I say ‘victory’ facetiously because, judging from Duncan Ferguson’s full-time shenanigans, they had clearly won some sort of trophy, right?

Whisper it quietly, Manchester United supporters, but, perhaps, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has rediscovered the Midas touch that catapulted him to the permanent manager’s post, on a wave of free-flowing football and mass popularity, earlier this year.

Marcus Rashford produced a moment of individual brilliance to secure Manchester United’s place in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals following a third successive away victory that manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will believe is a further sign things are finally going his side’s way after a period in which his own future had been questioned.

Ultimately, the HarryMaguire sideshow was decided by Marcus Rashford scoring an early penalty for his new employers Manchester United but, beneath the sheer relief of a sorely-needed victory for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side, a few painful home truths were all too apparent.

It must be halfway through Full Metal Jacket when Lt Lockhart, editor of the US military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper, briefs his men in the wake of the surprise attack by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong that would go down in history as the Tet Offensive.

Never mind the pointless abomination that was United versus Cardiff. The final whistle has just gone at Brighton versus City, and I find myself yelping a cheer for the triumphant Blues.

Ger McCarthy looks at the three things we learned as Man City beat Man United 2-0.

Here’s a bout of possible déjà vu for you.

Is it wrong to be top of the league and still be dispirited? Join the lengthy queue to tell me it is. Not that I’ll be listening.

Manchester United dumped holders Chelsea out of the FA Cup with a 2-0 fifth-round win at Stamford Bridge to leave Maurizio Sarri's position as Blues head coach ever more precarious.

Ashley Young, already on a yellow card for a foul on Kylian Mbappe, sent former Man United man Angel Di Maria crashing into the stands with a hefty shoulder.

Manchester United could be facing disciplinary action after a bottle was thrown at Angel Di Maria at Old Trafford last night.

If a week is a long time in politics, then eight weeks is an eternity in football.

Alexis Sanchez returns to the Emirates with Manchester United today recovered from injury and in happier mood since the departure of Jose Mourinho, but still with an awful lot to do if he wants to persuade critics his career is not in terminal decline.

Here’s a sign of how well Ole has got his feet under the table, and how quickly we’re getting used to the pleasure of having him — we’re already becoming blasé. The Reds I know were confidently expecting an entertaining game on Saturday, and also expecting to win.

And then there were four. Four points between Liverpool and Manchester City at the top of a Premier League title race that was gifted new life at the start of a new year, with a victory last night that may one day look like the most significant of Pep Guardiola’s English career.

Nemanja Matic, the Manchester United midfielder, tried to swerve questions about Jose Mourinho.

The last line of our old Ole song from the 90s is “please don’t take/my Solskjaer / away”.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has moved quickly to deal with one of the biggest problems of the Jose Mourinho era at Manchester United — the club’s record signing Paul Pogba.

The boy in second class was collected by his dad on Tuesday, as usual, and they began the walk home. Two or three steps along, the news was broken and the boy wheeled back towards his friends with a tremendous urgency, screaming the bulletin to nobody and everybody.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer swept into Old Trafford like a breath of fresh air yesterday with a thinly-veiled warning for his beloved club’s temperamental players.

With questions over his future at Tottenham continuing top the agenda, manager Mauricio Pochettino said yesterday he believes the Londoners are still battling against a negative external perception.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is only being loaned to Manchester United, according to Molde FK CEO Oystein Neerland.

Paris St Germain coach Thomas Tuchel is ready for the “great test” of facing Manchester United in the last 16 of the Champions League.

Roy Keane feels his former club Manchester United ‘don’t have a chance’ of securing Champions League football next season.

Xherdan Shaqiri scored twice to help Liverpool beat Manchester United 3-1.

Jose Mourinho’s agent Jorge Mendes insists his client is “fully committed” to Manchester United and has no intention of leaving Old Trafford any time soon.

The criticism of Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United mounts by the week — lots of it from the manager himself — but as Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard came up with crucial equalisers last night, a t least his players at least showed there can be no questioning their durability.

Great football between great teams can be enthralling. Football between one great team and one poor team can be enjoyable too, although usually provokes interest rather than intrigue. Football between two poor teams is often hugely entertaining, although not always aesthetically. But for the perfect football recipe, you need good players doing things badly, writes Daniel Storey.

Once again, I found my mind idly wondering, and wandering, while watching United on Saturday afternoon, writes Richard Kurt.

This season is exploding many myths about Manchester United and Jose Mourinho, but as his side ground out another narrow and unsatisfactory Old Trafford victory, the status of the famous old stadium as the home of gold-plated guaranteed entertainment has, surely, been consigned to the history books.

West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini endured a miserable afternoon as former club Manchester City scored three times in the first 34 minutes of a 4-0 win at the London Stadium.

Simon Peach Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has refused to “play the game” and expand on comments made in a recent interview where he appeared to suggest some of his players lacked character.

There's nothing like the restorative powers of an international break - niggling injuries that kept players immobile for a fortnight miraculously disappear as a new round of league fixtures approach.

For about 20 minutes during the second half at Wastelands, you could sense United fans excitedly muttering to themselves all over the world: “Surely we’re not going to get away with this yet again?!”

Hallowe’en didn’t have much impact on Fantasy Premier League managers this week - we had enough scares already in GW10.

Those of us who had been wondering all season just how good United really are may feel this past week has summed it up. Good enough to squeeze past mundane Premier League sides like Everton at home; bad enough to be totally schooled by any classy European side that may come along.

So how was your Gameweek 9? If your honest answer is 'Meh', you've done exceptionally well.

For the past few weeks, millions of Fantasy Premier League managers have been quietly wishing ill fortune on their own teams - a kind of "self-schadenfreude", if you will.

Manchester United still dominate the money leagues though Europe’s giant clubs are rising, writes Pádraig Hoare.

"Sometimes things are not just in the manager’s hands..."

It has been a landmark week for the Big Man, ushered in from the cold as Gaelic football’s saviour.

Winning in Fantasy Premier League all about bringing in players who are performing well and getting rid of the ones who aren't - it's as simple as that. Except when it isn't.

Football has a way of making co-incidences seem eerily like fate, whether that is strikers scoring vital goals against their former club, big-name transfers facing their ex-teammates on their debut or bitter rivals drawn together in the cup.

Paul Scholes may have been premature last night when he suggested that Jose Mourinho’s services should have been dispensed with at the weekend but, after the boos that greeted this insipid and wholly uninspiring goalless Champions League draw with mid-table Spanish opposition, it is hard to see any other fate befalling the Manchester United manager, sooner rather than later.

In the climate of melodrama and hyperbole, it’s nice to take a more measured approach to appraising high-profile players. But at what point do we start to label Alexis Sanchez as a Manchester United flop?

How ironically apt that on the day Alex Ferguson showed us all the extent of his recovery, Mourinho’s United decided to have a relapse.