Portsmouth display just like watching classic side of 90’s

CHILDISH though it is to snigger over pre-match comments rendered ridiculous by subsequent on-pitch events, no column is complete without a dig at John O’Pie; so this was his warning before Saturday: “I don’t see why Bolton cannot stay the course this season. We are going to have a difficult test there on Saturday.”

Titter. !Bolton were made to look as ordinary as they truly are; the only ‘course’ they can hope to last is the one that produces a top ten finish.

There we go: I have got my usual snideries out of the way, so now we can all bask together in the glow of what Fergie called “the best 25 minutes we have produced in years.” And why did we produce that performance? Because we fans got everything we ever want or need from 21st century United, the things we and I ask for every week: 4-4-2, of course; attackers given selectorial preference over more defensive colleagues; players played in their correct positions; no tinkering; a proper “let’s ‘ave ‘em” attitude straight from kick-off; in short, proper, simple, brilliant United of the classic variety.

By ‘classic’ I mean, in the context of the mid-90s. It is no accident that many journalists harked back to the glory days of Eric, Andrei and Sparky when attempting to describe what that first-half was like.

They chased all trophies full-on and never needed resting or rotation.

Carlos Quieroz wouldn’t have got a job as a ball-washer with that squad.

Bolton, let us remind ourselves, were potential table-toppers until Saturday’s humiliation, and yet they are not in a false position. For this league, as I say every season, is largely poor and we ought to have no need to compromise in order to succeed in it.

One appreciates that Europe’s latter stages may require something more sophisticated but generally speaking it has always served us well to be so back-to-basics. One can only pray Fergie will remember Saturday for the rest of the season and that next time Carlos The Jackass is whispering in his ear Alex tells him where to stick his bottle of porto.

As for Rooney’s bottle of champagne, I trust he deservedly poured it straight down his throat to wash down his 21st birthday cake.

Without wishing to over-rub the noses of Alan Green, Eamon Dunphy et al in it, you can see why Louis Saha, for example, should still feel strongly enough about the last few weeks’ press coverage to shout “people who question Wayne do not know anything about football.” Clearly OTT, and untrue in the cases of Green and Dunphy, but still; it is troubling that so many have been so quick to lay into Rooney and to have done so with such relish.

Come on, lads: pick on someone your own size, eh? Onto one of life’s more deserving targets: Harry Redknapp, whose Portsmouth arrive this weekend. Quite the old pals week for Fergie, as he approaches his 20th O.T. anniversary: nice of the fixture list to provide him with some timely post-match claret-glugging chances.

I wonder if they will spend it bitching about the BBC’s persecution of them and their offspring/employees? It’ll be as good a test as any to see if Reebok truly marked a post-Jackassian watershed or was simply an aberration, given that Portsmouth are at the same level as Bolton in both stature and position.

A rather different, and more acidic test will then be only 22 days away…

*Richard Kurt, author of ‘The Red Army Years’