United Road Take Me Home

So it’s that time of year again. That time of pre-season frenzy, when excitement and apprehension go head-to-head, and reason, as it tends to in most matters football-related, goes straight out of the (transfer) window. And as the forums fulminate and the twitter feeds gorge themselves, wearyingly familiar battle-lines are drawn amongst United fans.

On one side of the fence all is gloom.  Here, the war-cry has a familiar ring to it; ‘We’ve never replaced Roy Keane!’ they say. Retaliate that Roy Keanes don’t drop from the branches of the Forest every other year, and they’ll come back at you with words to the effect that city got Yaya Toure, he’s just the kind of player we needed. Retort with anything about Toure commanding the kind of eye-watering salary that we should be thankful United are unwilling to indulge (unless you’re a certain Scouser with an agent with his eye well trained on the prize) and they’ll riposte , ‘Well would you rather the money went in some mercenaries bank-account or disappears into the Glazer’s deb-fund?’ And you tend not to come back with anything to that. We’ll give ‘em that one.

According to the doom merchants, United, currently lugging that debt half-way across the globe to scrape-up another repayment or two, and weighed down by the most threadbare midfield in the club’s history (perspective, like reason is another early victim in all these debates), it’s quite obvious to everyone but Sir Alex Ferguson and his apologists, are heading for their worst season ever. In gingham for god’s sake. ‘Win the league? Pah! They’ll be lucky to finish mid-table. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not been sacked by Christmas.’

To express an opinion contrary to this is to paint yourself as the kind of naive fantasist that Red Issue print a warning about on the front of every issue. Believe that United might actually win the title this season, or if not, run whoever does win it all the way, is to show yourself up as a stooge of the Glazer PR machine, the kind of clueless idiot who takes Fergie’s every press conference at face-value and agrees that if Sir Alex says we only really need one more signing, then we really do only need one more signing.

What I’m sure you didn’t see coming was the fact that I’m not fully buying either of these two scenarios. By now, anyone with a shred of sense has surely recognised that the Glazers are a cancer eating away at the club, and that Fergie’s mute acceptance of their vandalism is tragically undermining the monument to his genius that he has built at Old Trafford. And yet, it’s his ongoing presence that comes as close to a guarantee as you can get in football that this Worst United Side in Living Memory will be competing to the dying seconds of next season, just like they did the one just gone.

Anyway, that midfield is nowhere near as lightweight (insert your own Anderson gag here) as the merchants of doom would have us believe. Without wishing to reopen tiresome old Carrick debates, the fact remains he can measure a pass better than virtually every other player in the league. No Roy Keane though is he, you say. Granted, but let’s not do another circuit of that particular issue.

Then there’s Tom Cleverley. Admittedly, it’s hard to completely banish the suspicion that, in his mind, every good run of games (make that run of games free of serious injury) takes him nearer his life-long goal of getting his own range of branded hair-products in Superdrug, but the lad’s potential is undeniable. Somewhat more deniable is the potential of Anderson, a player who should have long graduated beyond Next Big Thing (insert etc) status. As per, he’s been making noises about this being the season when he finally blah, blah, blah. But I’m willing to court ridicule by wondering, ‘What if he’s right? What if he does click with, ahem, Clevz, and they start rampaging through teams in a way United haven’t since as long ago as, oh, the start of last season?’ Sir Alex clearly thinks he’s capable of it or he wouldn’t put faith in the lad, would he? (Here, pause, while the conspiracy theorists bash their heads off the wall and snort at the fact I’m too dumb to see that Fergie only persists in playing him because the Glazer’s won’t/can’t fund replacements).

That’s before we get to Scholes (another debate that I’m too tired to drag myself through again), Giggs (ditto), Valencia, Nani (still the first player in the squad I’d be booting out of OT given one bullet alone), not to mention this lad Kagawa, about whom I’m not about to pretend I have any expertise, so I’ll say nowt for now. Have I missed anyone? Apart from Bebe. Doesn’t sound that threadbare does it? Silva and Toure would earn a berth there, but would Milner and Barry? I’m not convinced.

So who knows where we’ll be a year from now? Maybe the doom-mongers will get their vindication and they can warm themselves castigating Fergie and saying he’s been out of his depth for years now. Maybe we’ll play fluid, electrifying football, a beautiful synthesis of youthful English talent and South American (and Japanese and Portuguese and Ecuadorian) flair. Maybe financial Armageddon can’t be postponed any longer and we’ll be begging that a MUST-backed Newco is given permission to join League 2. As ever, the beauty is in not knowing, no matter what those who claim to know everything might say.