Terrace Talk: Man U - Don’t be fooled by August promises

If there’s one lesson United fans have long since learned about season openers, it’s not to pay too much attention to first impressions.

Whether you go back to 1989 (demolishing champions Arsenal after some Knighton ball-juggling) or 1992’s first home match (thrashed by a middling Everton), you’ll see an unforgettable reminder about the perils of Augustinian auguries: the former opened a season of crisis, the latter one of historic triumph.

Just 24 months ago, after all, we were all giddy after Moyes’ outfit hammered Swansea in Wales, prompting this column to utter in a state of drunken sunstroke: ‘Sir Alex who?’ (Ouch. Sorry. Again.) So the temptation might be, after Saturday’s 90 minutes of tired boredom, to dismiss the afternoon with that hackneyed line about the players ‘still being at the beach’, and suggest there was nothing useful to be learned.