Things on the pitch aren’t all that bad

WE have certainly seen the mob instinct in operation this past 10 days – or, if you prefer, a stunning exhibition of group think psychosis. I don’t think there’s a single journo or fan left who hasn’t delivered his own version, in print or online, of “Fergie and United are doomed.”

You’d think we were second bottom, not second from the top. But such is life when the standards have been set so high.

There is an easy antidote to this flood of poison that you can take, if you are so inclined: that is to mutter “2005” to yourself at regular intervals, in between deep breathing. That winter, we truly did seem to be looking into the abyss.

I vividly recall an eyewitness account of Fergie at a private journalists’ dinner that Christmas, being quizzed about United’s plight, and the consensus was that the “light had gone out of his eyes,” to quote one seasoned observer.

Well, we all know how that story ended – three successive titles, two European cup finals, and grovelling apologies from his critics. That is not to minimise the problems we are undoubtedly facing but it does seem odd that some fans are calling Fergie every name under the sun all over the internet and pub vaults, and that even columnists like Patrick Collins of the Mail on Sunday are suggesting it is time for Alex to retire this summer. It may yet well prove to be – but surely mid-season is not the time to be coming to any conclusions.

Indeed, if we are looking for true disasters, it’d be better to look off the pitch, in the form of the shattering announcements made by the Glazers in the past 48 hours, rather than banging on about Berbatov or Owen and so forth. I won’t bore you with the details, which will be covered at arse-numbing length elsewhere in the papers, but we can best sum it up as “desperate times, desperate measures.”

Burnley arrive on Saturday, manna from heaven in these dire straits, reeling as they are from the Coyle betrayal. I hear the Clarets are considering the merits of Mike Phelan, inter alia, to which I can only say: please, take him. I’m obviously tempting fate, but if Saturday doesn’t mean three easy-ish points, then I daresay we truly are in trouble.

Looming above it, in any event, is next Tuesday’s showdown, which promises to bring us up to a quarter of classic league cup meetings with City. The epic clashes on 1974 and 1975 brought heights of ecstasy and misery, levels of emotional experience that you just don’t associate with the league – or even FA – Cup anymore, sadly. Gerry Daly’s penalty “giant-killed” City in ‘74, who were a division higher than us at the time and who had been in the final just six months earlier, on a celebrated night for veteran connoisseurs of classic OT night-time atmospheres.

Then in ‘75, we endured the infamous 0-4 savaging that took us almost 20 years to avenge, and caused me to wag school the next day for the first time in my then law-abiding life in order to avoid the playground persecution. City would win the trophy that year, their last one to date.

Before that, and before my time, were the 1969/70 clashes, which oldsters assure me were the greatest League Cup semi-final matches ever played, replete with aggro, drama, last minute strikes and the most notorious indirect free-kick in Mancunian history.

All this trips easily off the tongue, be it Red or Blue. Because this stuff matters, and even more so given the contemporary context, which is, firstly, City’s 33-year duck and, secondly, the fact that we just lost at home to a third division club whom we hate with a passion. So, all that said, you can understand why the managerial insistence that we might be fielding some kind of ‘weakened’ side enrages many of us.

Listen: wining the league cup with kids was hilarious. We enjoyed it because it didn’t really matter. This time is different. At the end of the second leg, the group that owns and runs the famed ‘trophy ticker’ banner in the Stretford End plans to be ready to turn the counter to ‘34’ at the final whistle, should we prevail, thus forcing the penned-in Blues to sit and fume whilst having their ignominy shoved in their face.

If they are not able to do that because Fergie and Phelan have decided to play Tinkerbell Roulette once more, then the Red rage will be mighty and justified. Fergie often claims City isn’t a big game that really matters for him. Maybe. But it is for us. And the last time I looked, it’s we who are Man United, not him.

Do your duty, Alex: make it “34”.