Winter of discontent just about avoided

IT’S rare but wonderful to welcome a new Red star you can adore wholeheartedly. You want to know what’s wrong with Hernandez? Absolutely nothing.

(Apologies to fans of Audrey Hepburn there). Actually, many of us don’t care for the nickname-on-the-shirt business but, after the week we’ve been through, we’ll make the necessary allowances for cultural differences here. (Including that pointing-at-the-sky malarkey, which is a tad too Lampardesque for comfort).

Reds duly ballooned at Stoke “like it was a derby”, to quote one crowd behaviour expert: happy days are here again, it’d seem. Fergie spoke on Monday about the “galvanising effect” of the boy’s winner, and you certainly feel something has changed in the air.