Terrace Talk: Enjoy a smug grin after our Easter resurrection

This morning, many United fans will be experiencing a facial expression they had almost forgotten they could enjoy. Step towards the mirror, lads, and feast upon The Smug Grin.

At last: a match we can be wholly proud of, without reservation. At last: players in The Shirt whom we can universally praise. At last: a happy manager who got every decision, from line-up to tactics to changes, spot-on.

And has this Conte Chelsea side ever received such a lesson, such a bamboozling that left them bereft of ideas and of hope long before the final whistle?

United’s Easter resurrection was as unanswerably triumphant as it was utterly unexpected, and those embers of top four hope upon which I have been blowing here these past few weeks have now roared into full flaming life.

Rejoice!

To be fair, United had already shown some indications of an imminent upswing out in Brussels last week. For many travelling Reds, United’s first half display had offered evidence of a team coming together at last. But I doubt many would have put money on such a comprehensive victory as what we witnessed yesterday.

Rashford will rightly receive the most golden tributes in the press today, and the fact that he performed as he did in the absence of the “tired” Zlatan could be telling for United’s future.

There has long been a school of thought in the stands that United need to move beyond The Swede, and that we would benefit from a set-up that’s not built around his needs.

Of course, if United do now go on to qualify for the Champions League, Zlatan will be much more likely to take up his year option, which may mean he ends up being next season’s Wayne Rooney.

But let us leave such summer considerations aside for now, and focus on what shimmers on the immediate horizon.

We have a three-quarters-done job to finish on Thursday against the Belgians, and then what is theoretically one of our less challenging remaining league matches at Burnley on Sunday. Given what lies further ahead — Arsenal, City and Spurs all loom — this ought to be (gulp) the easiest of the spring’s remaining weeks for us. (There, Fortune, is your Hostage, all tied up and ready for capture).

Rashford must surely be undroppable now, which in some ways makes José’s job easier, reducing as it does the amount of attacking selectorial permutations he has to consider. Years of watching Fergie fiddling has long since convinced this observer that life is better the fewer decisions a manager has to make. Fergie once complained about his 1994 side playing so well that it left him with nothing to do. Indeed: an idle manager makes for a happy fan.

Even at the centre of defence, so problematic an area for United at the start of the season, there appears increasingly little for the boss to muck about with, such has been the increasing confidence of Rojo and Bailly.

The latter had many of us pretty much won over early doors, but Rojo had appeared to be in danger of slipping off the top table at one point. Yesterday may well prove to be a key moment in their partnership’s history.

So Happy Easter Monday to you all from a correspondent who, for once, can find absolutely nothing to complain about: it’s a seasonal miracle. I’ve seen many a United season of the past collapse around Easter — 1992 most painfully — but also many spring to life.

Something shining did rise from the miasma of a confusing season yesterday; pray it’s here to stay.