Prospect of Blues on fire sends alarm bells ringing

SO much for the effects on Chelsea of their unscheduled alarm call in the early hours of Sunday morning; by half-five in the afternoon, their stamina and energy were in danger of making our puffing lads look as crimson and decrepit as our manager’s nose.

Once again, one was left wishing that life was a game of one half, not two. There’s Sunday, of course; then Celtic last week; plus the Champions League group we are in; and possibly, come May, the whole season . . . all front-loaded, quality-wise.

Fergie did talk about how unusual it was for United to have started the season so well and you do recall previous campaigns such as 1995, 1998 and 2002, when pre-Christmas magnificence soured by spring.

The glass-half-empty brigade will certainly glumly look upon the mere one point gained at home from the Arse and Chelsea clashes, then look ahead — as Jose cutely did — to away trips to those two plus Liverpool, and thereby fear the worst. Yet this is a tad too grim, even I would suggest: United’s new-found speed and agility in this post-Nistelrooy era are well-suited for the classic away-team counter-attack style.

Still, the moral victory was Chelsea’s on Sunday, no doubt about that. But this was no pass-or-fail acid test as we had all hoped; the sense of slight uncertainty as to our prospects will linger on awhile yet.

One nagging doubt remains, though; that we are playing at our maximum capacity at the moment whereas Chelsea, with a misfiring formation and out-of-sorts Ballack and Shevchenko, can clearly only get better.

Meanwhile, the defeat at Celtic and the second half on Sunday are quite easily explained; some Sahaian bad luck, yes, but mainly a whole heap of tactical miscalculations. 4-5-1 against a side as limited as Celtic was a joke that deserved to backfire and the sight of United’s management team doing nothing in response to Mourinho’s clever halftime switches was embarrassing. O’Pie waddling on as a sub near the death is no-one’s idea of a tactical masterclass.

Still, thank goodness for Rooney’s new deal, optimists among you might think, and it is certainly true that its signing is a testament to something I discussed here during Rooney’s so-called form crisis a few weeks ago, viz. the continuing ability of Fergie to click with and thereby motivate certain kinds of individuals.

His special bond with Cantona formed the backbone of the Nineties for us, and the Rooney relationship promises to be the same for the rest of the Noughties.

That said, as several cases have proved over recent years, contracts guarantee you nothing. Phil Neville was sold just after signing a new one — all they do these days is guarantee the vendor some fiscal leverage at sale time. Nonetheless, the whole episode has been a lesson in how to wrap these things up cleanly and non-controversially — are you watching, Rio?!

You need look no further than the ongoing Beckham contract circus at Madrid to see how badly these things can go. Red Issue fanzine broke a story over the weekend, followed up all over the UK ‘Mirror’, that posits Becks being lined up by the Glazers and the owners of LA Galaxy to become a spearhead for a kind of ‘Man USA’ franchise next season.

We knew the day would come when the United name would be tarted for hire around the world by them but it still shocks to think it might be coming so soon.

With such globally-dimensioned doings afoot, a mere PL trip to mundane Middlesbrough seems small beer this weekend but symbolic clashes now arrive — it was Boro who precipitated Keanegate last season, a key Noughties moment, and soon after we will face Benfica, opponents in our single most and least glorious European Cup matches ever. Fergie has seemed to come such a long way since last November’s abyss-edge teetering yet Benfica could yet hurl him right back to the brink.

These pesky Portuguese men o’war can sting you from every direction, at home or abroad, can’t they?

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