Just winning a trophy this season would be incredible for Moyes

Before kick-off on Saturday, a colleague dryly remarked: “So, we’re a wobbling mid-table side, up against a tight, in-form, Champions League-able team, who have a settled-in manager, with players that he actually wants at the club, in a system they are comfortable with ... I’ll be happy with a point gained.”

He was only half-joking, though I wasn’t laughing at full-time.

Moyes had picked a good-looking line-up, which none of us were complaining about, and which deservedly took the lead, as well as hitting the woodwork twice. Then, as what we once called Fergie-time approached, we entered what I sincerely hope will not become known as Moyes-time i.e. a period when the bottom quivers, nonsensical defensively-minded changes are made, and a game is surrendered.

There can be no debate on this one: Moyes’ actions cost us the three points. There can also be no debate about this, either: anyone calling for his head because of that needs beheading themselves.

Figuratively, of course.

That didn’t stop half of Twitter, though, where thousands of kneejerking dimwits duly over-reacted in the way that only people who go on Twitter can.

Let us remember Moyes was talking about needing “two years to be judged” and about “the changes required” from day one. Frankly, I’d already quietly concluded to myself: “fourth will be a bonus”.

Fergie agrees, it would seem, telling his Telegraph ghostwriter: “For David, just winning a trophy would be an incredible achievement this year. It doesn’t matter what it is.”

Many, if not most Reds, had accepted even before Fergie’s resignation this current squad needed some proper surgery, and agreed just one incoming transfer this summer would not suffice.

We can hardly be too surprised, then, that we are where we are.

A bit of history, perhaps. The only United manager since Busby who’s come in and not ended up looking like a chump within the first two years is Big Ron, our most under-rated leader. Wilf? Sackedafter 18 months. Frank O’Failure? Ditto. Tommy? Worse, even — relegated after 18 months. Deadly Dave? Look up Christmas 1978 and shudder. Oh, and the Saint Alex? Where was he after 18 months? Heading for the bottom half of the table, and months from having the terraces turn on him and demand his head. This is normal. It’s true that Moyes was left what was technically a ‘champion squad’ but, as we’ve noted, we all recognised that it wasn’t really worth what the price tag claimed. Wilf McGuinness was left a side that just had been one offside decision from a second successive European Cup Final — he wasn’t fooled either.

The Fergie-zealots, now crying loudly that Moyes isn’t up to the standards the old warrior set, need to remember: this is your camp’s man. This is the successor for whom your icon deliberately shoved every other candidate aside, the protégé for whom he stamped his feet in insistence at the spring Board meetings.

What are we all going to do — start calling for his head at games? Join the idiots on twitter? The clocks haven’t even gone back, yet some are calling for the sack. Worse than Geordies; worse than Bitters; Lordy, even worse than the Scousers.

Get in the trenches, start digging, and be prepared for a long wait until the all-clear sounds.

Or, in the immortal words of Fergie, “if you don’t like it, go and support Chelsea”.

They like sacking bosses after a few months: you’ll feel at home.