TERRACE TALK: It’s time for cool heads after our week to forget

Pessimism has its advantages: you’re let down less often.

Last week, I wrote: “Everton are visiting next, which will be awkward. I’ll be glad when it’s over; I fear we’re in for a harder night than Moyes’ Everton usually gave us, anyway.” And so it proved to be, although don’t make the mistake of lumping Wednesday in with Saturday’s game.

The Everton match was a highly entertaining, end-to-end game that United could easily have won 3-0 (the two woodwork strikes and Evra’s wondershot). We were sucker-punched at the end by a move which exploited the fact that Valencia isn’t a natural fullback — and his being there at that moment was due to his being shifted in order to accommodate the type of attacking substitutions that everyone in the stadium had been demanding.