TERRACE TALK: Man United - Complacency prompts unexpected relapse

By Richard Kurt

How ironically apt that on the day Alex Ferguson showed us all the extent of his recovery, Mourinho’s United decided to have a relapse.

And yet it had all been going so well, hadn’t it? (Well, Sanchez excepted; he has remained useless throughout the whole month.) But the second we got home after a series of sterling away day efforts, we collapsed onto the metaphorical home sofa in a tired heap.

Complacent slipper-wearing United were back at OT, slobbing around unshaven and eating Pot Noodles with their fingers.

All the old tunes came back to haunt us, those refrains we had begun to think consigned to the past. ‘Pogba the Plonking Poseur’; ‘Lumpy Lukaku’; ‘Luke UnShaw; ‘Boring Boring United’.

Poor Fergie would’ve been excused for wondering whether he should’ve bothered missing the Countdown Omnibus and Racing at Ayr for this tedium.

👏 Sir Alex Ferguson back at Old Trafford 👏

More: https://t.co/ml7dM8slih pic.twitter.com/93ksRSa9MW

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) September 22, 2018

There was something else Alex would’ve recognised too; the terrible atmosphere. You might have hoped that coming off the back of a cracking Eurotrip and playing at 3pm on a Saturday would have set us up for at least some semblance of an atmos, but nothin’ doing.

United have made some new arrangements to encourage more vocal support but, so far, they don’t seem to be working. All told, it would have been a day for us all to forget entirely, were it not for the memory of Alex’s beaming smile and cheery wave.

Fergie Time continues to apply, it seems, and long may it continue to do so.

Doctor Jose had every right to look put out afterwards as he criticised his own patients’ poor attitude. Any medic will tell you that mindset matters when you’re trying to cure the sick, and you do sometimes wonder up which precise fundament some United players’ heads are in.

Fortunately, we do not have to wait long for those players to have the chance to look livelier. Derby County arrive tomorrow night for a cup tie in the competition that brought Jose his first United trophy 18 months ago.

Back then, we were still in the Jose honeymoon period, and we all saw that bauble as merely the first of many.

Today, even though he’s reached two further finals since then, and won one of them, the mood is quite different. We look enviously at City, Liverpool, Chelsea (and even Spurs, despite the Cockerels’ current bumps), and we wonder what fresh horrors may await.

The joy of seeing City lose against Lyon last week was shortlived, after all; five goals in Wales and a new deal for Aguero saw to that. The Liverpool case is, in some ways, even worse for us; there’s no sovereign wealth fund we can use as an excuse to minimise Anfield’s ongoing achievements.

Buried in the Red subconscious, and let loose during sweaty Stretford nightmares, is the prospect of the Double of the Damned: A Liverpool Premier League, and a City European Cup. Some of my colleagues actually spent days discussing this online last week, which tells you where our minds are at.

Which would be worse? It’s Sophie’s Choice.

We’re at wretched West Ham next weekend, which will at least give us the opportunity to face opposition who have far more cause to feel grumpy about life than we do.

This has been a disgruntled column for a disgruntling weekend but we mustn’t forget United do have all the ingredients in house and at hand to produce a successful and entertaining side — which is more than can be said for most teams we face.

When will the chef finally get the recipe right, though?