TERRACE TALK: Manchester United - LVG must beware of restless natives at Old Trafford

There is a phrase that brings a chill to the spine of governing politicians, imperial generals and football managers alike: "The natives are getting restless".

The next step is “the peasants are revolting” which, in the case of many repellent Nu-Football fans at Old Trafford, is already the case.

The wretched half ‘n’ half scarfers are not the only things we can smell, though. Poor Di Maria is now stinking the house out to such an extent that even those burglars would have given it a miss.

Ah yes, that famous robbery, after which many a knowing Red predicted we’d soon start seeing stories about the player being “unsettled”.

They have since duly appeared, together with disinterred rumours about the boy never having wanted to come to Old Trafford in the first place. To be fair, those were well-founded: had PSG been able to give FFP rules the swerve, there is no doubt he would now have been pinging balls for Zlatan to bury, rather than forlornly meandering around the pitch like a lost child in the Arndale Centre.

LVG’s decision to give him the half-time hook on Saturday was undoubtedly the right one, and a reminder that one of the manager’s worthier attributes is a willingness to make changes earlier rather than later. Which is just as well, given how often it becomes apparent very early that his team line-up hasn’t worked out, again. There were boos during that first half, as there were against Burnley a fortnight ago. Some outsiders might find that strange, given both games were won with comfortable two-goal margins, but that’s United — always looking at the quality, not the quantity.

I recall a notorious home match against Bolton in early 1980, also won by two goals, which saw fans openly booing Dave Sexton’s team, despite them lying second in the table. He had spent big, changed the way we played, and retreated into cautious boredom: sounds familiar? That he was eventually sacked, 15 months later, shortly after completing a winning run of seven straight matches was also very United. As chairman Martin Edwards explained at the time, the fans just didn’t want to watch it, no matter what the results. It’s a bit of newspaper archive that should be shown to every new United boss for eternity, and would be far more valuable to them than, say, Gary Neville’s newspaper article last week, telling us abandon our ‘United Way’ ideals.

Before you reach for the noose, however, let’s put the best possible gloss on the second half. Yes, much of it was against 10 men, but still: there was something there, wasn’t there? Van Gaal’s ‘philosophy’, such as it is, could be said to be based upon three essential elements: possession, pace, and panorama. Use the whole width and length of the pitch, keep the ball jealously, and move it around fast: what’s not to like? As we have all painfully witnessed, we have seen only one of these three basics in operation since mid-November, namely ‘possession’. But during Saturday’s second half, there were signs of both renewed width and urgency gingerly popping their heads above ground, as though shoots sensing the imminence of blooming spring. Ashley Young in particular is increasingly giving the impression that he is seasonally metamorphosing into a rather more attractive creature than the insignificant grub he once was.

Van Gaal has talked recently about having the patience to wait for everything to “click into place“, and perhaps we restless natives should stifle the temptation to guffaw, or reach for the spears: after all, great Ferguson sides clicked at unexpected moments and in unforeseen manner, in 1992, 1998 and 2006. St James’ Park on Wednesday would be as good a time and place as any, Louis. Try omitting the blatantly out-of-form players, and then deploying the others in their favoured positions, for starters. Hey, it’s crazy, but it just might work...