Terrace Talk Man United: Big hand for De Gea ahead of teenage kicks

For the hard core travelling Red, last week’s prospect looked daunting.

Off the back of the disaster against West Brom, two grim journeys loomed. One to the wild wastelands of the economically devastated East, a land populated by terrifyingly beastly locals with impenetrable accents; the other to the Ukraine.

Nonetheless, the weary Red Army were outstanding on Saturday, unveiling their spectacular repertoire of songs at full volume, befitting what might one day be seen as a key match in Moyes’ reign.

There is a phrase that pops up with sadly decreasing frequency but which many of us wielded on Saturday night.

United folklore is something one enters, via criteria established by those who go on to relate it to the young fans (occasionally a fan enters the pantheon too, though it’s usually at the comical end of achievements, like Peter Boyle’s streak at Selhurst Park in 1993, or the Red hoolie who fell off the Carrow Road roof in 1975).

Saturday, uniquely, produced two candidates: Adnan Januzaj’s volley and David de Gea’s save.

You’ve probably read enough over the past 24 hours about the young Anglo-Kosovo-Turko-Belgo-Albanian, whose future footballing nationality is currently as indecipherable as his name is unpronounceable. You may recall me swooning here about him a couple of weeks ago, based on witnessing 20 minutes of action. But sometimes, that’s all you need.

Cantona and Berbatov had me waxing lyrical after about five minutes. We pinch ourselves, scarcely able to believe our luck and remind each other that he’s still only 18. There are tins at the back of my larder older than that.

Of course, no one at Juventus, City or Real wants to buy my rank pilchards-in-aspic, whereas they’re all buzzing around the boy. The Adnan ‘contract renewal hold-up’ tale has been bubbling under for weeks now but Saturday has obviously brought it roaring to the top of the agenda. Unfortunately, one hears a lot of dark muttering about the type of people surrounding the lad and of the kind of advice they’re giving him, which suggests this is not going to be a straightforward business. Add to that the doubts engendered about Edward Woodward’s capacities and the caveat is clear — don’t get carried away because it might be the boy who ends up getting carried away.

The understandable hyper nova over the kid tended to overshadow the other folkloric moment, De Gea’s sensational save when Sunderland were one-up and rampant. A few days earlier, he’d been the subject of some disobliging newspaper stories after a fanzine interview with his former coach Eric Steele reminded us of his troublesome early days. The contrast between the dizzy, doughnut-snaffling flapper of back then with our soar-away shot-stopper of today was thus brought nicely into focus. He has come a hell of a long way in a relatively short time.

That is not to airbrush out how awful we were in that first 45, which was the 11th consecutive league half United had trudged through without a goal from open play (this must surely be some sort of record?).

But the real horror was at the back. Had De Gea not produced that wonder save, you dread to think where we might have been by full-time. It’s clear where United’s new coaching staff need to concentrate during this international break.

Solving the Rooney-RVP-Kagawa-Welbeck conundrum up front will be all very well eventually, but if you’ve been parking an exploding clown car in front of your goal in the meantime, it’s really not going to matter much because you’ll be too far from the reckoning for it to have much impact on where the trophies go.

Then again, should we even be thinking about trophies this season? My oldest — and possibly wisest — colleague thinks Moyes gets a free pass this season.

Now he just has to convince the remaining 75,000.