Are we preparing to give it another go at last?

It’s the expectation that’s gonna kill you.

Five years to the day, the last time we started well, we convinced ourselves we were on the verge of something special. That’s when it began to fall apart. A calamitous sequence of draws in games where we had every right to expect a win saw us fall so far behind United that a perfect finish still wasn’t enough.

Three early wins this time out and some began wondering if the bar lowering exercise of “just improve, fourth at best” might be a touch timid under the new circumstances. Swansea and Southampton soon brought them back to earth.

Two wins against basement squatters saw hopes revive, yet the complacency was palpable at Newcastle, especially against 10 men. Were we ever going to learn our lesson? It was quite timely that Ferguson’s book should arrive, bile flowing freely. He’s not even their manager any more but we were still being tweaked, trolled almost.

His bizarre assessment of Gerrard was easily contradicted by his own glutinous praise years before. We’ve beaten them 14 times so far this century, quite the achievement when your best player hardly gets a kick.

The Henderson comments appeared to upset even a few of Ferguson’s long-term lickspittles and sparked talk of ethics; always a dangerous subject in an industry where few hands are clean. It inevitably fell to Rodgers to invoke the preposterous notion of an apology. I’m sure the old soak will produce one momentarily. In spit, probably. It just provoked more accusations of victimhood, like ‘they’ needed an excuse anyway. So Rafa’s Rant became Rodgers’ Retort. The fans warmed to his response much as they did in 2009, but now as then came the real problem; you have to vindicate that belligerence with victory.

Thankfully Brendan’s begun better than his predecessor. We were aided by Albion’s improbable, perplexing recent success against us. The danger of complacency was negligible. We were ready, ironically galvanised by the old foe.

As usual we needed the opening goal to settle the nerves, but what a goal it was. Most of the talk afterwards was about the forwards, rightly so. Yet it’s worth pointing out Lucas and Henderson were damn good too, and Gerrard was top without ever being top top (whatever hat’s supposed to mean).

Qualms? We’re still too open. The better sides will know how to exploit it more than West Brom did, and as chance would have it there’s one on the immediate horizon. I suspect Wenger will watch Sakho and Cissokho’s unnerving alliance on the left and jot a few notes.

All that can wait. At times during the second-half on Saturday it was a joy to be there. The match is often a chore, loyalty based on past privileges you know deep down will take several lifetimes to repay. This was plain old-fashioned fun.

Bale will eventually rise to his Madrid challenge, but no-one will ever convince us he should cost more than Suarez, never mind twice as much. €46.6m? The mind simply boggles now, and the owner’s admirably pugnacious stance has already paid off.

When Ronaldo started scoring regular headers he seemed elevated to a whole new excellence. Presumptuous it may be, but Luis seems ready to breathe that rarefied air too. He was also apologetic for fouls, the ref even had to tell him to stand one yard closer to a free kick. Such saintliness is often his cue to scowl and scandalise in the next match, which would be very interesting indeed.

When Alonso’s fluke beat Chelsea in 2008, there was no denying then we were in the title race for keeps and that’s when everything got harder. A lot harder. Are we preparing to give it another go at last?