United Road Take Me Home

The New Aston Villa?

We’re so used to hearing players in pre-season repeat the mantra about needing to get off a to a flyer that actually seeing them follow through on their words comes as quite a shock. So we’d be forgiven for getting a little giddy and carried away, after all we’ve played football of a pretty intoxicating kind, particularly the vintage uncorked by Ryan Giggs. But looking around at the company we’re keeping at the top of the table my doubts are starting to surface once again. Indeed I’m starting to think that United’s slide from pre-eminence has been even more precipitous than first feared. Take a look at our fellow early pace-setters, Aston Villa, Everton and Portsmouth. Exactly the kind of perennial mid-table also rans that you would never dream of lumping United with. The kind of teams who get a couple of lucky-breaks in August and early September and their fans inundate phone-ins with rash claims about ‘this being their year’. By November they’ve inevitably slid back into the state of anonymous mediocrity that they’re used to and memories of ‘this being their year’ evaporate in double-quick time as they fight to stave off relegation.

Is this what its come to for United as well? Is our virtually immaculate start to the season merely a red herring, the gods of football once again teasing us by dangling something shiny and wonderful in our faces then thwarting us when we reach out to grab it? (And don’t think the gods aren’t toying with us; did you see the Cup Final two years ago? Did you see the way we got close to Chelsea last year only to be trounced at their place and a final twist of the knife coming in Rooney’s injury? Oh they’ve got it in for us alright).

Is this their greatest insult yet? To find ourselves in such proximity to the Premiership’s legion of mediocrities. In fact I’d feel less nervous if Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal weren’t all wobbling away around mid-table, but were squatting directly behind us. Maybe I should be reassured by the style of the football we’re playing and by the way that we’ve calmly swerved around the latest obstacle that those pesky gods have hurled in our path, namely the unjust bans for Rooney and Scholes. These gods clearly have their emissaries on earth, vessels through which they will wage war on Manchester United Football Club. Brian Barwick’s one, Peter Kenyon another. Having tried his best to destroy us from within, Kenyon is now trying the from without method. Both will fail. ‘We’ll never die’ is more than a mere song, after all.

Sometimes I really wish I could just enjoy football. But then that's not the point, is it?

posted by Royton Red @ 8:22 AM