Battle-lines drawn as the Germans are coming

ONE of my preferred Old Trafford pressmen is a Lancastrian working at the Daily Wail, who does a good line in world-weary ennui — which makes a nice counterpoint to that paper’s usual tone of quasi-fascist hysteria.

After our grinding defeat of Wolves last week, in front of 25,000 empty seats that conjured up memories of Wastelands before tea towel cover arrived, he wrote: “the early stages of the League Cup are becoming an imposition… like the unwanted relative who keeps turning at Christmas.” Arf! And suddenly a general consensus has emerged, as I anticipated here a couple of weeks ago, that the same now goes for the Champions League group stages, which come to OT tonight. So there we have it: voila the European Cup — basically the League Cup, but with flags.

Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. We have not quite descended to the level of fielding half our youth team in matches such as tonight’s, for example. Nor would we expect to see the lads running out to an ocean of red plastic as they did last Wednesday. But the time may yet come when we witness such phenomena even in this once-glorious competition if greedy clubs and administrators do not keep a firm grip.