We're looking like ghost of Christmas past

One of my website’s punters, listening to the howls from thousands of Reds after Saturday’s defeat, suggested they should adapt the current Slade-inspired Old Trafford chant to this: “So, eff off Davey Moyes / we’re chucking out our toys / we go ‘wah, wah, waaaaaah’...

And there was no escaping the sound of tantrums all weekend long, egged on by an understandably delighted media who love both novelty — United being a ‘bad news story’ after two decades of glory — and the smell of blood — “Moyes only 10/3 to be sacked next summer” grinned one paper.

My colleagues, who tend to be the older, seen-it-all types, always in a hurry to turn black humour onto any situation, were more phlegmatic. My mate Mike, whose first Old Trafford game was Best’s debut 50 years ago, ruminated: “I quite like the terrible uncertainty as to which United will turn up on any given day. It’s a blast from the past: like being in a TV series called Life On Moyes’... Arf!