To Rooney’s critics I have three words: ‘told you so’

GREETINGS from Lyon where, as I write on a Tuesday morning, the Rhone is sparkling in warm spring sunshine, the first aperitif of the day is agreeably enlivening, and we are still chuckling over the spiking of the Gunners on Saturday.

Not that we should necessarily read too much into that, perhaps, given that if Arsenal were a horse, Wenger could arguably have been fined for running a non-trier. Within minutes of kick-off it was embarrassingly obvious from the first few bottled challenges that Arsenal would simply not be at the races, and that United would be producing the commitment required to answer the derby day defeat critics.

By the way, I wrote last week that “thankfully no-one has yet blamed any emotional impact of Munich’s 50th for the Man City failure” but, almost predictably, Fergie charged into that bear trap in his pre-match comments, compounding the grisliness by suggesting the Arsenal match would be “a test” akin to that faced by the 1958 players when they returned to action post-crash.