The Devil In Me

Satan has not risen from hell to assume control of earth. No nuclear missiles have been launched by the world’s superpowers, nor is there a large asteroid on a collision course with the planet. In short, Armageddon is not here yet, this is not the end of the world. However, United have now served up two pretty stale performances in a week and a mild inquest is in order.

Congratulations if you saw this coming because I certainly did not. A month ago we did draw attention to the large number of games we were playing and the result against our beloved neighbours marked the end of a month in which we played two games a week. It is the second such period we have survived so far and understandably I think the players are all knackered. 

The results up until now have been stupendous but seasoned United watchers will have observed that we are yet to hit anything like top form. I suppose we all expected that to kick in at some point or other but unfortunately the opposite has happened.

A wounded animal would have gone straight at Fullham and torn them to shreds yesterday. In the first half United looked like prisoners recently released from a Taliban cave. They wandered around blindly as if the sight of sunshine was something they hadn’t seen for a while. Fulham are a well organised outfit and took advantage of this. Scholes, great man that he is, behaved like a bit of a pillock.

The rabid hyperbole that has accompanied the result against Liverpool last weekend may have seeped into the players minds a little and I would say, from the looks of things, that they are more angry with themselves rather than anything else. Fergie should be able to get them back together again and we are still in with a shout in all the competitions but Aston Villa’s role in this championship is now critical.

This is a blip we are going through and certainly not a pleasant one. But we need to get out of it straight away because frankly, teams that start stuttering in March are teams that throw away league titles.

Honestly, I am doing everything I can here. I have stopped reading the newspapers, a brick has been thrown through the screen of the TV and I have managed to block out all radio broadcasts to my house. But somehow this word ‘quintuple’ keeps coming back into my consciousness. It is not going to stop. With performances like this one we are doomed to the build up for this outrageous trophy bid.

If you had asked any normal red what they wanted for this season they would have replied, quite simply, for that 18th league title and some way to erase the memory of Ronaldo’s antics during the summer. Our odds with betfair for the league title are now 1/33, which is utterly absurd, and some bright spark has even paid out on us collecting the domestic treble. How the hell do you keep calm in the middle of all this lunacy?

United are starting to resemble Alexander the Great’s lustful quest for power across the entire known world. Famously, after his billionth superb military victory, ‘big Al’ (as his generals liked to call him) “wept, for he had no more worlds to conquer.” Well diddums. Our own Alex (Sir, as his generals like to call him) does not seem on the verge of tears. He has, however, revealed something that has not been in his repertoire previously. Fear. What is Ferguson sacred of? Is it Chelsea under Hiddink? Barcelona’s goal machine? Sneaky Mourinho’s master-plan for Old Trafford?

Nope, none of the above. Ferguson is afraid of retiring. It is unlikely the rest of the management fraternity looks upon this with any kind of triumphant joy. I can see visions of heavyweight boxers punching long dead opponents hours after the bell has been rung before shrugging their shoulders and saying with tearful eyes “I’m sorry, I’m scared to stop hitting you.” Fergie is indeed a psychopath, but he is our psychopath and we love him. He is obviously so addicted to the adrenalin of winning that he can no longer stop. Perhaps if he ever does retire he could co-star with Jason Statham in Crank 2, the sequel to the movie where our hero had to keep his heart rate above a certain level to stay alive.

With the world gone quintuple mad, cats and dogs living together, oceans boiling, mountains crumbling and a decent president in the White House perhaps we do have a place for this United juggernaut. It will hurt me later, I am sure it will, but I give in. Okay, the quin-flipping-tuple is on!

Footnote: I reserve the right to amend this article after Wednesday night.

Back in the 80s Carling was an entirely different company. Their beer was invariably connected to superhuman feats of derring do in absolutely fantastic adverts such this one:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/aY9GBl7UmVs" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

And, in an act of foresight quite improbable, they even managed to include an early Ben Foster in this one:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/qKHc-U2FNHk" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Today, the beer now hides behind the shiny gloss of 21st Century marketing but there are those of us who recall when it was associated with being a bit of a legend.

The association between Carling and legends is alive and well though. What a fantastic keeper Ben Foster is. The last time United really tested him he came off the bench two seasons ago, and did fine well, but to recover from the injury lay-off he has had is phenomenal. What a performance.

United came out of the traps flying in this game but we ran out of puff pretty quickly. There hasn’t really been the cutting edge of last season all this term and it showed again today. In my head I have been saying that this is down to the fixture pile-up (and I believe that it is) but these games are not going to go away just because we are tired.

All in all, you have to give the best chances of the game to Spurs, and were it not for our third choice goalie the trophy would be in London now. It isn’t, and Ferguson’s haul of trophies is now somewhere in the gajillions.

The reality is though, a team near the bottom of the premiership took us to penalties in a cup final. I don’t think for a second that Spurs should be where they are in the league but if we can’t break them down in two hours what on earth are we going to do with Inter?

We have a lot of tired players at the moment, Evra, Ronaldo, Scholes, Ferdinand and Tevez all played the full 120 minutes. Will it cost us down the line? I am not sure.