Reds for Red Square, but Bolton come first

SO much for the predicted stroll in the Pride Park. Saturday was much hairier than desired and constituted another wayward performance to add to the growing list of such underwhelming shows since Christmas.

Still, let’s happily trot out the old cliché about championships being won on such discoloured days. And we were certainly further cheered up when we watched the match at the Emirates in the pub afterwards.

What is it with Europe’s so-called elite this past couple of weeks? Arsenal and us flop over finishing lines at the ninety like exhausted nags who’ve only just managed to give the glue-truck the slip; Real Madrid lost wretchedly again at the weekend, to continue their pas-de-deux of near-weekly cock-ups alongside Barcelona; Bayern were well-beaten at relegation-bound Cottbus; both Milan teams have been stumbling around chaotically like their compatriots circa 1943.

Indeed the only so-called top team to be in any kind of decent form are — gulp — AS Roma. Whom, of course, we have just drawn in Europe: the worst possible outcome. No-one does vengeance like the home boys of the vendetta, and I wouldn’t allow the glorious memory of the 7-1 one-off to obliterate the lesson of the first leg, in which they gave us the right run-around in the Olympico.

Moreover, few Reds are happy that we currently have at least a 75% chance of domestic opposition should we somehow make the final. I doubt the Moscow police and UEFA are too thrilled at that prospect either, and both will doubtless be praying Totti rises to the occasion against us.

A friend of mine who was chatting to William Gaillard of UEFA recently confirmed the sense of dread they have in their Swiss bunker concerning the most nightmarish of all the possible scenarios: United v Liverpool in the final, with Stretford End and Kop veterans happily running riot across a bloody Red Square.

I should add that there’s clearly one other top team steamed-up still, despite cup setbacks — Chelsea, who have snuck up so stealthily on the league rails that 95% of the media still seem obsessed with penning putative death warrants for their hangdog boss instead of considering that he might be on for a double of English and European titles.

The resilience of Chelsea, given the trauma they underwent in the autumn, should surely be the story of the season so far, yet we all seem to prefer to bury our collective heads in the sand and pretend it isn’t happening, like children who think shielding their eyes from something scary makes themselves invisible to it.

This is understandable, such is the nationwide loathing of the Blues and their grisly manager, memorably described last week as “looking like a muppet with his fur stripped off”. He’s also recently been likened to a gravedigger but I guess the joke is that he could well be preparing the interment of all those pundits who’ve been confidently decrying him ever since he defenestrated their beloved quote-factory Mourninho.

Nevertheless, the drama queen in me welcomes the possibility of a three-way fight to the wire. I vividly recall the climaxes of 1976 and 1977, which involved United and City respectively, and had all us Mancs tapping furiously away on primitive Casios, perming the endless three-ply calculations. The daddy of ‘em, though, remains 1972’s championship, when one point separated the final top three, and which was eventually won by a holidaying Brian Clough’s Derby. Ha! Small-town Derby as champions: that was a different footballing universe.

Another bunch of small-towners whose glory days are forever gone arrive tonight in the shape of Bolton, when one would expect the rested from Saturday to return and post three points without too much sweaty effort, thus ensuring a sufficient for the weekend’s confrontation with the old enemy. Fergie was talking about the players atoning for the Man City disaster the other week: well, here’s the golden opportunity to do that. I just hope Fergie doesn’t have to do some atoning of his own for his myopic summer rejection of the supposedly ‘insufficiently productive’ Torres after the weekend…”

* By Richard Kurt, whose classic ‘Red Army Years’ is now re-issued, only via [e-mail]