Day to forget as Trotters make us eat humble pie

POOR PIQUE. Last week he enthused: “You know if you make a mistake you have these great players around you. Rio Ferdinand talks a lot to you on the pitch and helps you out...” Mmm. Well, there’s an easy dig to be had at my least favourite player there but I should be better than that.

Meanwhile, Anelka’s message in scoring from Gerry’s error couldn’t have been clearer — “buy me, oh God please buy me, these pie-eaters are driving me nuts” — but our attention should be focussed at the other end. We lost up front, not at the back.

Indeed, it was a bit of a throwback afternoon — and I’m not just talking about the baying neanderthals in the home stands. We were reminded, as often last season, how barren we can be without Rooney and Ronaldo. We need one or the other. Especially if Tevez decides to throw back to his September form, when he was missing sitters like that late blaster every 10 minutes.

Alex was compos mentis enough to remember not to use the old international tiredness excuse, given so few of our 11 had much exertion this past week, and instead blamed the ref, the last resort of the red-faced. And, if I may tweak the red nose too, you do wonder if it’s getting so red we shouldn’t let Alex out in the wild these days, no matter how hard Lady Cathy might be pushing from the hallway.

Consider: he goes to London and gets his knackers knockered; goes back again and embarrasses himself at the Emirates with his “dodgy dossier” talk; gets sent off at the Reebok, of course; and even when he slips out for a luxury lunch at the Midland Hotel, he has to leg home early after his best player gets crocked whilst the boss’s eye is off the ball.

He couldn’t even intervene in the McClaren debate last week without scoring an own goal. He claimed he said at the time of the chump’s appointment that ChocoDrop was “too young” but a database search reveals he said no such thing publicly — quite the opposite, in fact. Classic wise-after-the-eventery. With dicey away trips to Roma and Liverpool up, let’s hope he gets over this travelling hoodoo pronto lest he end up offering out Ultras or whizzing on the Shankly Gates.

Am I being too lighthearted, given we lost? Nah. As Fergie rightly said: “It’s just another day in the history of our club.”

Nothing disturbing about our underlying reality was revealed, and on another day we’d have won easily. That didn’t stop several papers having a pop at the alleged thinness of our squad, a criticism I really don’t think is much justified at the moment. Especially not as we are still seeking to reinforce: Anelka, Berbatov and Veloso are all being closely targeted now as the window’s opening approaches, although I am told Veloso would definitely not join until next summer. There are still whispers about Steven Taylor, the England U-21 captain, too and a whole host of various Euro wunderkinder, most of which I have never heard.

To be frank, I am more preoccupied by Man City and the upcoming D-Day of the Thai elections, and the closely-related issue of whether Sven will thereafter have €20 or €220 million to spend (take your pick from various papers’ City-spun guesses). The Bitters are still, doggedly, in the top four and a mere point adrift of us and the joke is wearing a tad thin now. With all due respect to Fergie’s cosmic-domination comments the other week, just remaining the best team in Manchester will make me quite happy enough, ta very much...

Fulham, Derby and Roma are up now, all of which should be mere training sessions for the looming biggie at Liverpool, who will surely have a new manager by then. Ha: yet another LFC boss to fail to win the League — just how many will Fergie see off before he retires, hey?! Keep ‘em coming, la’...

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