Hold the back page: Tevez and Rooney click into gear

SO much for the post-international break hangover we were all dreading, eh? Mind you, Rio Ferdinand was still crying about yet another aborted Russian invasion by occidentals before kickoff on Saturday: “I couldn’t contemplate watching the European Championship finals without England in it, that is unthinkable.”

Unthinkable?!

I think not. And also, might I add, utterly desirable too.

Why? Well, one grey cloud on the horizon for 2008 I hadn’t mentioned before — I was keeping it in reserve for later, in case I ran out of causes for pessimism herein — was Euro 2008.

Specifically, that come March and squeaky-bum time, certain players might start under-performing, with one eye on Ingerlund; pulling out of tackles, only running at 90% etc, etc. If the land of Israel produces yet another miracle next time out, England will indeed be sat at home watching on telly come June, all round Rio’s house with a box of tissues and a barrel-load of whinges. Hurrah!

Of course I am tempting fate somewhat here, taking the mick for an English failure in the old Soviet Bloc, given the Mancunian regiment was in another outpost of it last night. But of course, such has been our start, even a defeat last night will likely not amount to much come December, so it is with insouciance that I can look forward to us giving Middlesborough a hiding on Saturday already.

See? — you can tell what the last couple of games has done to our confidence. Suddenly we are approaching prospective opponents not thinking “if we win...” but with the real anticipation of thumping displays. Such as Saturday’s, which came replete with the kind of goal-rush we used to enjoy in the early Noughties.

Three-in-eight-minutes takes you to a pitch you rarely reach as a fan in the stands; the mounting incredulity of it makes gurning grinning loons of you all. Three-in-eight defies football’s natural build-then-release rhythms and norms; if I may dare to faintly outline the obvious analogy, for a chap it is like, umm, miraculously ‘finishing’ twice after a bout of hows-yer-fathers.

One paper noted on Sunday that “Carlos Tevez played perhaps his best game for United, linking effectively with Rooney” which made me chuckle, given the same paper — like almost all the others — had only three weeks ago been berating Fergie for persevering with the duo whilst omitting Saha. Not a mistake made here, you will recall. And as I wrote, they were likely to be guilty of gross short-termism, that bane of journalism: ‘what happened yesterday is the fait accompli forever’, so many football hacks seem to think.

What is worse, a group-think psychosis is then paired with that mentality; the hacks all talk to each other week-by-week in the press box and pub, thereby via some sort of evil osmosis creating together, and then parroting the same conventional wisdom. So in August it was “Rooney is never going to be that good”, in September it became “Rooney and Tevez are incompatible” and doubtless someone else will soon will be in the target zone for more premature and witless guff.

These are the people who told us the sales of Becks and Ruud would destroy us, remember. Sigh. Opinion is all well and good — how could I, of all people, say otherwise? — but it would be simply lovely if, from time to time, hacks would just say “let’s wait and see” before coming to a judgement, or even try an original, deviating line that cuts across the cozy consensus.

Saturday is not, admittedly, an opportune occasion for that deviance.

Boro are fairly rubbish, horrible to watch and smelly — no, really; you should visit Teeside, it absolutely stinks — and, notwithstanding past upsets against us, if we don’t give them a good cracking we will deserve a proper caning in Sunday’s papers. On that, there can be a healthy consensus...

* Richard Kurt’s ‘Red Army Years’ is only available via [e-mail]