TERRACE TALK: Man United - A mystery how all three points escaped us

Thanks to the vagaries of the modern telly-tampered football calendar, you and I shan’t be meeting here again for three weeks.

That should be just about enough time for at least one of us to have worked out the precise answer to the question: How did United not win yesterday?

One of the elements in the explanatory equation, we must sportingly note, was the stunning display by the Stoke ‘keeper, of whom not even most Potters had heard before Sunday.

A club once graced by Messrs Shilton and Banks will have witnessed more than its fair share of great goalkeeeping games, but yesterday’s must surely demand inclusion on the memorial list.

I also doubt we’ll ever see Pogba make quite such a repeated hash of things again — if we do, we need to check his warranty guarantee. (Or did we pay by credit card? We’d be covered for 6 months.)

His forgettable first half display was thankfully partially offset by the smiling ebullience of Mata, who is increasingly offering evidence he and Jose have indeed ‘moved on’ from past misunderstandings.

One goal scored from well over 20 chances created is clearly not championship-winning lethality, and so we must continue to mutter the Mou Mantra to ourselves: “Work-in-progress...work-in-progress”.

Five points behind City already is obviously not where we were expecting to be by now.

But at least there was enough to enjoy in yesterday’s performance to dispel any possible notions that we were about to slip back into mid-September’s crisis mode.

Moreover, lest we forget, there was an unexpected bonus in the apparent rebirth of Anthony Martial, for whom some had begun to fear.

His lively, enterprising and goal-scoring cameo will be what most Reds will remember from a second half that had been threatening to drift away from us.

As for the slightly pathetic and threadbare elephant in the room, give Rooney some credit for making us smile in true Scouse stereotype fashion.

To be able to manufacture two goal assists in a week out of his own inept misfires is most mirthsome, but a joke that’ll soon wear pretty thin if further repeated.

Off the field, one might summarise the OT situation as being akin to that on the pitch; a curate’s egg. Talk of players’ general dissatisfaction with the boss and his regime has disappeared, with one or two out of order and unrepresentative individuals now being blamed.

However, I can report some trouble with a couple of the younger regular players.

One is causing concern amongst some of his colleagues with his off-field behaviour in general, and his spending in particular.

Another young player appears to have been the unlucky victim of an excessively physical over-reaction from an older pro to some supposed disloyalty, of which we may hear more later this week.

Such shenanigans are the stuff of club life, of course, and don’t necessarily merit any alarm bells being rung just yet.

Nevertheless, we all remember what happened to Mourinho at Chelsea, and can only hope he’s got someone reliable acting as his dressing room eyes ‘n’ ears.

Knowledge is power, and he needs to know the ins and outs of these things.

When we meet here again, United will be in the middle of an intense nine-day/four-big-game spell that promises to determine the fate of our autumn. Chelsea, Liverpool, City and Fenerbache are all eminently loseable propositions; repeated slackness such as yesterday’s would surely condemn us to another of what Fergie memorably used to dub ‘cracked badge weeks’. And we’ve had one of those already, ta very much.