Set the Giddy-o-Meter to ‘eleven’; in the Van Persie deal, United have found the means to attract, sign, and then pay, a genuinely top class, peak-of-career player, for the first time in years.

JUST as I’m getting back into the swing of things, we’re lumbered with another international interruption.

THE words Phil Neville and ‘hero’ — that most overused journalistic noun — cannot have often occupied the same sentence.

SUPERSUB Diego Forlan is now providing Manchester United with the sweetest of dreams — for Chelsea the South American is a recurring nightmare.