TERRACE TALK: Manchester United: A horror show from our very own walking dead

One of my oldest friends reported a telling exchange with his son on Saturday night.

“Do you want to watch United on Match of the Day, or The Walking Dead?”

“Is there any difference?”

Out of the mouths of babes, indeed.

Hours later, as though in tribute, pictures appeared online of Van Persie, fresh from stinking out the Liberty Stadium, hobbling on crutches. An accompanying caption noted: “The extent of Van Persie’s injury is not yet known. However, Van Gaal did say his fellow countryman ‘could not run anymore’...”

Yes, we’d already noticed that during the match, chum.

RVP’s abysmal display reminded me of one of broadcasting behemoth Danny Baker’s better ideas: that footballers should be made to collect their fat wage packets in the centre circle straight after the whistle. I’d wager not even someone as self-basting as Van Persie would dare join the queue on Saturday. As one colleague growled: “My ‘philosophy’ now is that anyone Dutch can eff off.”

Which neatly brings us to LvG, or ‘Van Loony’, as some have begun to dub him. Looking back on past Terrace Talk columns, I see that as recently as November, I still felt able to praise the rapidity and purposefulness of his team’s passing and movement. Even in late December, I could write that we looked forward to 2015 with more hope than we had when 2014 was looming under Moyes.

What was once ‘progress’ that I characterised as ‘two steps forward, one back’ has since gone through the gears, becoming ‘one forward, one back’ sometime around the Southampton defeat.

And now... well, what would you call this? At best, it might be thought of as ‘going round in circles’, as though we were all in LvG’s ever-rotating kaleidoscope, feeling nauseous whilst he tries out every single possible combination of players and formations. And to think we dared call Fergie ‘Tinkerbell’! Are we simply to write off the season as one long trial?

That it should have been Swansea who have brought matters to some kind of head is apt. Back in January 2014, it was our elimination at their hands in the FA Cup that persuaded Red Issue to run the first of its well-publicised polls questioning Moyes’ legitimacy. He still managed to garner roughly 75% support at that point, which then dropped to 50% by mid-February, after which it was downhill all the way.

Van Gaal is now at the point where Moyes was 13 months ago, an assertion seemingly supported by polls this week in both Red Issue and the Manchester Evening News, both giving him approximately 80% backing.

In other words: questions are now being asked — which should be disturbing for him — but the answer is still ‘carry on, for now’ — which he has already admitted comes as a “surprise” and a relief.

Thus it is clear that a majority of Reds are still holding fast to the old initial Moyes consensus: “he gets two years, no matter what horrors we must endure.” Of course, the one ‘Red’ who matters more than most, Ed Woodward, turned out to be very much in the dissenting minority on that. I wonder where he stands today?

Another poll running on Red Issue, asking whether United will qualify for the Champions League, currently has only 57% replying ‘yes’. Over the next seven weeks, we will face Spurs, Liverpool and City, as well as Arsenal in the cup. If LvG’s shower continues to produce wretched performances of the kind seen against the relatively inferior likes of Burnley, Swansea, West Ham and Southampton, we will surely be facing the prospect of our season all but ending a few days after Easter, but with no resurrection in prospect. What would the voices in Eddy’s head — or, more pertinently, down the phone from Florida — tell him then?