It’s David versus Goliath

Well, we’re all ABUs now. That’d be All Backing United, of course.

Before the phone lines melt and the email crashes, I hasten to add that, yes, I’m indulging in a spot of hyperbole here. But, at the same time, like all sweeping generalisations, it’s not without a kernel of truth.

In this annus horribilis for the Manchester United faithful, it’s not only the Stretford End which has been forced to come to terms with what, for the current generation at least, must be a wholly unrecognisable, almost post-apocalyptic landscape.

For all those plunged into the shadows by the modern colossus which the club had become under Alex Ferguson, United’s sharp decline from top dogs to underdogs is also taking some getting used to.

True, giddy schadenfreude might still prevail in the red part of Liverpool and the blue part of Manchester but, even there, those recurring sightings of David Moyes in the dugout looking like a condemned man spinning out his time on death row, must soften a few hearts. Sympathy for the Red Devils, a thing unknown for many a year, is beginning to gain ground.

One Liverpool supporter of my acquaintance — I used to call him “long-suffering” but now “tentatively euphoric” is probably the better fit — makes the point that, while this is the season that keeps on giving, on so many levels, he can’t help fantasising about how much more joyful it would have been had Alex Ferguson still been in situ as the rival Red empire collapsed all around him.

Of course, stuck together with Fergie’s glue, the empire might still be more or less intact — that’s one for the counterfactual historians to ponder — but, as it is, the backroom role for Ozymandias robs the nay-sayers of their favourite bogey man at the very moment when the king of kings is forced to look upon his works, ye mighty, and despair.

Instead, luckless David Moyes is the one having to come out to repeatedly defend the indefensible, his touching little smile of relief at every modest reprieve almost instantaneously wiped off his face by the next heavy and even more devastating blow.

And so another Groundhog Day dawns at Old Trafford, as the facile 4-1 defeat of Aston Villa vanishes into immediate obscurity in the face of the ferocious challenge the home side must contend with when they go up against Bayern Munich tonight.

The cliché which usually accompanies a side going into Europe on the back of a domestic win is that they will be “buoyed by victory” but no-one is buying that where this shadow of a United side is concerned.

Even with a full-strength squad, the champions-in-wilting would struggle to contain Bayern but, in keeping with their season of woes, the home side tonight will be without the injured Robin van Persie and the suspended Patrice Evra. They could also be without the admittedly dubious virtues of Rafael as they seek to restrict Munich’s attacking strength on the flanks.

In truth, United’s best hope might be that a combination of hubris and post-title hangover means the visitors are not quite “at it”, as they say in football, tonight. But just one look at the Spanish leader in the Germans’ dugout and you suspect the very minimal standards he sets for his players will still be enough to see off United, even if the latter manage to raise their game above this season’s norm.

Bayern will also be conscious that this is only the first act of two. And if United’s Jekyll and Hyde performance over two legs against Olympiacos is anything to go by, what waits in store for them at the Allianz Arena could be even more gruesome.

Wayne Rooney can be expected, as ever, to give his all but even his broad shoulders are unlikely to be enough to support a team whose tendency to crumble in the face of adversity is in danger of being more ruthlessly — and embarrassingly — exposed this evening than in any other game this season.

In the end, those seeking hope for United are probably best advised to rely on football’s occasional eruption of anti-logic, that strange property of the game to confound form, expert opinion and popular expectation.

It’s what has made giantkilling such a romantic and enduring part of the game for all these years and, even if United must squirm at the very idea of being cast in such a role, the reality is that when David takes on Goliath at Old Trafford tonight, nobody will need to ask David’s second name.