Local pride stirred as back street kid Welbeck fronts up

ONE of Sir Alex’s favourite deflection-mode gripes, which he tends to wheel out when we have just lost, is that the fixture list is somehow mysteriously nobbled against us every year.

He was at it again after the Emirates setback last week, and he succeeded in convincing just as many people with his argument as ever — zero.

Nevertheless, we enjoy these outbursts of unjustified paranoia all the same, as it proves there’s life left in the old dog yet. When he stops complaining, it’ll mean he’s stopped caring, and it’ll be time to cart him off to the retirement kennel. (Where, perhaps, fixture list complaints will be superseded by Grandpa Simpson-esque moans that ‘the nurses are doctoring my betting slips’ and so forth).