Rest a blessing as Fergie facing into testing times

YET another wretched international break with its enforced trips to Tesco with the wife — although one is disturbed to note that, for the second successive such hiatus, Reds might be grateful for the pause in play.

The team has, for some time, appeared in need of a half-time orange, as it were. Indeed, whilst enjoying the new Daniel Taylor account of the last two seasons (“This Is the One” — Arum Press) I realised that it could easily be argued United haven’t been much cop since the night we beat Roma in April. Lord forbid that should end up marking the beginning of a decline one day, rather than what we took it for at the time, namely a harbinger of a New Age.

I daresay next week will offer the best chance to test this gloomy hypothesis containing as it does (post Man City), the first real examinations of the season, via Chelsea and Lisbon. Yes, yes, I should snap out of it: champions plus four new signings should surely never be a recipe for grumpiness. But this week off has had its flashbacks to the darker moments, circa 2005.

Firstly, less seriously came the leaks in the press from Ferguson’s latest after-dinner rant, which slightly depressingly seemed to illustrate an old man being continually eaten up by ancient grudges and controversies, rather than the rejuvenated champion we thought he’d become this summer.

Of rather more importance — and plunging us back into the racking doubts of the Glazer Wars — was the big spread in the News of the World featuring the alarming results of the latest Supporters’ Trust research into our debt.

Amidst the horrendous number-crunching and shocking bottom lines, there was at least one positive thought to be plucked; that if things are truly this dismal; it adds greatly to the chances of any possible new bidder finding an open door at Tampa Mansions.

In the meantime, we continue to cast a beady eye over ongoing developments at the Emirates, pausing only to marvel at the continuing absurdity that 21st century football fans so often have to turn to the Business Section with which we once lined our cat trays.

I must admit that I was impressed. Arsene Wenger took one look at the ongoing maelstorm in the boardroom and responded by committing himself to a new contract, where most bosses would have stayed impaled upon the fence until the smoke cleared (like our own did in 2005).

You will probably have noticed a historic soft spot for the nerdy whinger in this column, and I would have paid to see Fergie’s face when he digested the unexpected news that Wenger will now almost certainly outlast him in the PL. Indeed, he will become the managers’ senior godfather in succession to Alex. You can’t help wondering whether Fergie is now inspecting the small print in his pacemaker’s warranty to see if he could last ‘til 75...

Personality-based flippancies aside, it is surely a matter for all of us to regret that Arsenal FC, the bastion of old English tradition, with it’s double-barreled directors and bluebloods, might fall to the foreign nouveaux riches hordes. All of the Big Four will then be run by Xeno-capital, all will have teams dominated by non-locals; all will be chasing the foreign supporter’ buck, as a matter of absolute strategic priority. You begin to look at the Premier League and ask yourself: in what sense is this really the English league anymore? I suppose we should be grateful that they still deign to play the actual matches on our soil, although the visionaries tell us not to expect that to last forever either.

Chelsea and Liverpool circa April 2010 in Beijing Stadium perhaps! And to think I used to wax lyrical about the United exceptionalism as regards what was our unusually-globalised, international and cosmopolitan “ideology” — now it’s all common as muck, and thus degraded, leaving the likes of me tempted even more by the appeals of protectionism.

I’ve depressed even myself now. Thanks be for the “delights” of Goodison on Saturday and a dose of old school. Aggro, complaining Scousers, malevolent police, tasteless songs...enjoy it while we can.

Richard Kurt, whose ‘Red Army Years’ is available via [e-mail] * With apologies to the Molesworthian Ronald Searle.