You heard it here first: the rumour mill churns

COME on, let’s drag out the old cliche now, upfront: “You can only beat what’s put in front of you.”

Fulham were utterly useless on Sunday, bereft of the only players who’ve ever caused us problems: we bought one — Saha — and the other, Malbranque, is in the wilderness, having dared to commit the apparently cardinal sin of refusing sale to some other Premier League no-hoper.

Invited to plunder, we accepted gracefully, and the battering we gave the opposition in that first 20 minutes conjured up lovely memories of the match against Southampton in 1994-5, when a young Ryan Giggs ran riot straight from the traps to scintillating effect.

Before kickoff, some of us let our minds wander back to another season-opener against Fulham in August 2001; we soon realised that was a pivotal match in modern United history; Ruud van Nistelrooy made his debut and scored twice and Sunday, of course, was our first top-class match without him as the Number 10. (Moreover, Jaap Stam was accused of declining performance in that match and was sold within days; the result of Fergie’s disputed observation was, some would argue, a weakened defence that has never quite recovered.)

The five-goal haul on Sunday has prompted many to spout ‘Ruud who?’ and, as I sorrowfully suggested last week, the loss of a great scoring hero may nonetheless benefit our overall play. So, as we sit on top of the table for the first time in three years, perhaps we might one day look back on Sunday as another pivotal Fulham opener: the day we showed life could be better without Ruud.

Incidentally, the game didn’t quite sell out on Sunday, which must be the first curtain-raiser in memory to do so, though I doubt the Glazers will be losing sleep over a 900-or-so shortfall; as they’ve loudly trumpeted all summer, the Grimms have allegedly sold 64,000 season tickets as part of the new drive to get as many guaranteed bums-on-seats as possible.

In the old days, the PLC resisted the temptation to season-ticket the entire stadium and instead left huge chunks open to day tickets for members; this was a canny philosophy at the time: the PLC knew it could sell the tickets no matter what, so by spreading the Old Trafford experience as widely as possible, it boosted merchandise sales (season ticket-holders buy little) and offered the chance for many more punters to catch the Red virus.

As we all know, it can take just one trip to Old Trafford to convert a punter into a ticket-grasping addict; then again, maybe that isn’t so much the case anymore, as the over-familiarisation of the stadium thanks to TV has likely dulled the first-time impact. Are the Glazers smart enough to grasp this? Perhaps; however, they certainly will grasp that merchandise sales no longer matter so much thanks to the Nike deal, so the incentive to get new day ticket members into the stadium has all but gone. Moreover, there’s one other massively important driver to get the stadium pre-sold: it provides secure income to keep their precarious financing afloat. (In a couple of weeks, I expect more news on this front, especially about the future ownership of Old Trafford — the upshot is that the army of 64,000 season ticket-holders isn’t necessarily something to be celebrated just yet.) Still, I suppose it could be argued these new stadium mechanics ought to mean more confidence in financial planning and that this means good news for the transfer budget.

Writing this on a Sunday night, I’m surrounded by transfer gossip and conspiracy theories. Most alarmingly, I caught sight of the first newspaper reports — only whispered, not headlined, thankfully — that Ashley Cole, successor to Rio Ferdinand as Britain’s most loathed footballer, had been ‘offered’ to United as well as to Newcastle; you might recall I flagged this last week as a story that might emerge soon. Ugh.

Rather more welcome are hints that someone out there is attempting to muscle in and resurrect the Torres deal. Accountants amongst you will have worked out that, in theory, United still have shed-loads of money they could blow (if, that is, you believe the spin that the basic budget allowance hasn’t changed since the PLC days), and the sharp-eyed will also point out United haven’t allocated the Number 10 shirt to anyone else yet. Three weeks ago, I can reveal, the infamous Paul Stretford got briefly involved in the Torres situation, and now we hear some other European agents are having a crack too.

Meanwhile, Hargreaves is on his knees begging to join and, despite Bayern’s resilience, it’d be a dreadful shock and/or cock-up if we failed to get him in now, after all that’s been said and tried.

However, deadline day now approaches fast and the intensity of speculation will be quite unbearable by next week; one must admit a sense of gratitude that these windows even exist, and that we might be spared this punting for a few months to come. If you’re a manic gossip who’ll suffer withdrawal symptoms in the break, here’s one rumour to start it all for the next window: Alan Smith, left, to be offloaded.

You heard it here first; umm, unless it doesn’t happen …

Richard Kurt, author of The Red Army Years.