11 points that remember the original

1. “I have of late - but wherefore I know not - lost all my mirth…”

Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Emotionally, United fans are in a quandary. Should we be excited for the future - or depressed the past is gone? In the latter years of Ferguson’s reign many dared to wonder what life would be like without him. To some the monotony of success had become too much. Every home game brought sighs of anguish, groans of boredom and a laissez-faire attitude. Another win, another three points, another pinpoint pass from Scholes - stick it on the bill. It got to be that winning the league wasn’t fun anymore. It was just another trophy. Life just was and anyway what does it matter? We’re all destined for dust as Hamlet concludes. The ecstasy of that first Premiership trophy or the night the treble was sealed – those were moments confined to the past. As long as SAF continued we would be consigned to excellence. Boring, predictable excellence. And then everything changed. Moyes came. Moyes went. LVG arrived – so did six new players. Promises were made and we were hooked. Pre-season was like being drunk at a wedding. Enjoyable at the time but cringey when you see yourself dancing on the video. Yet, for some, the giddy achievements of pre-season have not been diminished despite our dreadful start. Six games in we have already lost to Swansea, MK Dons and Leicester. We failed to beat Sunderland and Burnley but did manage a four nil win over the worst team in the division. Since deadline day we have looked murderous in attack but suicidal at the back. The midfield is soft and the back four (used to be a back five) have clearly never met. The experienced Premiership centre half LVG wanted in Vermaelen (weird) manifested itself as an Argentinian left back with 20 odd appearances for Sporting Lisbon. Watching Evans, Smalling and Jones limp off the pitch like very slow lemmings you wonder where this is all headed. LVG predicted a few turbulent months. He got that one right. His track record means no one is panicking. Yet having presided over possibly United’s worst ever Premier League result at Leicester he must start getting the basics right. And unless he and his coaches have a masterplan for the defence, there are going to be more drubbings  – and to better sides. It won’t be dull. But I confess to being happier when we signed fewer players but won more games. Those United fans who moaned their way through years of mundane success may find themselves crying with frustration at our new found unpredictability. Some people are never happy I suppose. As Hamlet said, “what a piece of work is a man?”

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2.

Buzz Lightyear: Do you people still use fossil fuels, or have you      discovered crystallic fusion?  

Woody: Well, let's see. We got double-A's.

At its heart Toy Story is a tale about the old and the new. The moment Buzz Lightyear appears, Woody knows life will never be the same again. He’s old hat. He has a choice: sulk or fight. Like Woody, Wayne Rooney was, for a long time, the favourite toy. No discerning fan will ever forget the first time they saw Rooney play. When Ferguson signed him, the nation breathed a sigh of relief. He would not go down the Gazza route under Sir Alex. And he didn’t. He just got old. Almost overnight he became a relic of a bygone era. As the game got faster, he slowed down. As greater emphasis was placed on conditioning, pace and skill Rooney flirted with midfield and played second fiddle to Cristiano Ronaldo. The dynamic forward that changed English football now resembles a toy bought a few Christmases ago. He is the latest in a line of boy wonders who never quite made the leap to manhood. Raul was the golden boy at Madrid, only to vacate his prestigious number 7 shirt to Cristiano Ronaldo in 2010. Many of us watched Iker Casillas debut (seder night 2000) with open mouths. How could an 18 year old be that good? At 34 (a keeper’s peak) he now finds himself out of the side. How and why? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe it just happened. Maybe it’s just life. Kids are, after all, forever discarding old toys in favour of bright, shiny new ones. Buzz Lightyear could fly – Woody couldn’t. The modern footballer plays with pace, aggression and purpose – Wayne Rooney doesn’t. The ball carrying, hip swivelling styles of Sterling, Sturridge and Welbeck make Rooney look very much the man who has played 600+ plus games at the highest level. He looks lost. His double-A batteries are running out. LVG gave him the captaincy because there was no one else. But he is not an idiot. It’s only a matter of time before he realises that Wayne Rooney will not take him where he wants to go - to infinity and beyond.

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3. Fail to prepare, prepare to Rafael…

Amidst the chaos that was the transfer window we neglected to fill two key positions. No, not centre half or midfield (actually yes centre half and centre mid) but right back and keeper. City and Chelsea have two international keepers pushing each other - we don’t. And bizarrely, having made do with one left back for years (despite Evra being clinically dead for the last two) we now find ourselves in the contrary position of having three left backs (four including Blackett) but only one right back. So what if, let’s say, just throwing it out there in a whimsical fashion, Rafael gets injured? Surely that won’t happen, I hear you scream. Well, in an eleven points exclusive, I can reveal that Rafael is due to get injured in two weeks time. I have been made privy to his injury cycle. It works much like a menstrual cycle. He’ll get moody in the build up to his injury and is liable to snap at people in training. In a quiet moment he’ll put it down to being hormonal. He then gets injured (probably in the warm up), cries a little and eventually apologises for his behaviour. Repeat once a month for the rest of his career. All this makes the paucity of his replacement bizarre. This Saturday we play West Ham at home. Not only will we need Rafael for balance, we’ll also need him for his experience. That’s right having just turned 25 and with a whopping 158 appearances, Rafael will be our most experienced defender on Saturday. I’m all for giving youth a chance, but I’d rather not give the opposition one while we’re at it.

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4. “When the Gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.”

Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

I’ve waited my whole life for a long-haired South American forward. And now he’s here the Gods have answered my prayers. As a youth I would have visions of this mythical striker crossing himself repeatedly before bursting into tears having scored from under the crossbar. In my dreams he had ten tattoos – all of the Virgin Mary - and he smoked on the way to training. (The tattoo thing is a modern addition to the dream. No one had tattoos when I was kid. If they did they were genuinely hard. You crossed the road if you saw someone with a tattoo. Now if you see someone with a tattoo you know it’s for ‘body art’. They are not hard.) Growing up this sort of player never came to United. Salas teased us, Batistuta battered us but, finally, Radamel Falcao joined us. And now we find ourselves with a new problem. What if it doesn’t work? What if he doesn’t perform? What then? We’ve blamed Fergie leaving and Moyes arriving. We’ve blamed Woodward for not signing players and we’ve blamed the Glazers for not spending money. So what now? Previously we could look at the money of City and Chelsea and righteously claim we couldn’t and wouldn’t play that game. We were above that. Well we’re not – which is great - but I hope it works. Because, having pestered God for 30 years for a long haired, left-footed South American striker, I don’t think he’ll take kindly to me getting in touch again any time soon.

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5.  M***f**er

Call me old fashioned but I like midfielders that can run, pass, shoot and head. I like Bryan Robson. I like Roy Keane. Real midfielders. A midfielder is not someone who hangs vaguely off the striker in the attempt to score 20 goals 'from midfield'. Ever since Gerrard and Lampard were relieved of their defensive duties it's been in vogue to search for a goal scoring midfielder. That's fine. But they are not midfielders. They are attackers. Adam Lallana is not a goal scoring midfielder. If he is then Wayne Rooney is too. That is not to say we shouldn't expect goals from midfield, but they are not the sole statistic we should be judging our new midfielders on. The midfielder we are looking for (and he is not Herrera or Blind) is someone with ordinary stats but who makes extraordinary contributions. A player who picks us up when we’re down, calms us down when we’re up and is good enough to take the ball against the best. Michael Carrick is a fine player but ever since Scholes flirted with retirement we’ve required major investment in midfield. The heir to Robson, Keane and Scholes is out there somewhere. Whoever he is needs to be very good at everything. It’s what being a midfielder is all about.

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6. “The lion runs faster when it’s hungry.”

The biggest danger facing MUFC is millionaire footballers with no medals, lacking the hunger to succeed at the highest level. Ex-players’ experiences with Ferguson are littered with anecdotes of him refusing pay rises. Gary Neville said recently “you’d go in to ask about money and come out with a worse deal but feeling better off.” We can no longer play those games. Losing Pogba persuaded the club to give Adnan a mega contract. Shaw is rumoured to be on a similarly lucrative deal. Ferguson kept players hungry. If they wanted more they had to achieve more. LVG’s job will be to retain that hunger in the face of astronomical wealth. If he fails, we’ll fall even further behind the pack.

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7. Words I never thought I'd say

“At least Everton lost.”

Ho hum.

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8. Right footers have left the building

According to Scientific American 15% of the world are left-handed. Up to 19% are thought to be left footed (though this is a harder statistic to nail down). So for United to sign 5 left footers (6 if you include Herrera who’s probably two-footed as every player ever to play for Marco Bielsa had to learn to peel an orange with both feet while playing in a midfield 7) is somewhat anomalous. It is not beyond the realms of possibility for LVG to start with Rojo, Shaw, Blackett, Blind, Mata, Januzaj, RVP, ADM and Radamel Falcao. That would be 9 left footed outfield players. If Anderson sneaks his way into the side as an emergency right back (we only have one don’t forget) LVG could field 10 outfield players all of whom are left footed. Imagine the scenes. There’d be lots of wonderful technique and plenty of beautifully weighted passes. The outside of the boot would be used more than if a thousand Seba Verons played. The players would have a strict code. Anyone who blasts the ball with their laces as opposed to caressing it calmly into the top corner will be out. The queue of players lining up to take a free kick will stretch back to the halfway line. It would be wonderful. We’d lose – but in many ways we’d still be winners.

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9. Rule number 1 – there are no rules.

It’s a funny old game. So said Greavsie. And for all his gin dribbling nonsense, he wasn’t wrong. It’s certainly funny listening to modern managers banging on like management consultants. The powerpoint presentations of Andre Villas Boas have made him one of Europe’s richest men, while helping him achieve precious little on the pitch. The ramblings of Brendan Rodgers and his evangelical mission to make players better, you know, people never cease to amaze me. Jose Mourinho for his part brought the idea of total control to these shores. He could predict every scenario and every score. He knew every player, every team, every permutation – nothing was left to chance. Football was no longer a beautiful game it was a science. Mourinho, as we all know, took his cue from a certain Louis Van Gaal. LVG is not a manager; he’s a trainer-coach in charge of every forensic detail at the club. Everything must be planned. It makes sense. But football is a fluid game. It ebbs and it flows. It’s instinctive and at times, chaotic. It’s about character and it’s about random, unpredictable moments of magic. Not every pass can be accounted for, not every step can be planned – there must room to breathe. With the attacking talent we have the players must be released from their shackles. There must be planning off the pitch but freedom of expression on it. The players must stick to LVG’s vision but that vision must allow for improvisation. Because it’s a funny old game and, when it comes to attacking football, there really are no rules.

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10. (Won’t) see you next Tuesday

Here is Moyes legacy in a simple mathematical formula:

Don’t get into Europe X mentally broken squad + first round exit from Carling Cup = Hardly any football this season.

Moyes. Cheers.

I’ll miss Champions League Tuesdays the most. Mondays were made bearable by the thought that United were playing again in a few short hours. And now, thanks to Moyes, that’s been taken from us. To quote Eddard Stark, “winter is coming”. And it’s going to be boring.

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11. Is no longer Ryan Giggs

When Giggs retired both this column and MUFC were left with a problem. What to do with the number 11? For United the choice was clear: retire it (either definitely or indefinitely) or find an appropriate successor. Fortunately they chose the latter with Giggs handing the shirt to Adnan Januzaj personally. At its most poignant retiring a shirt is a mark of respect. In the tragic instances a player passes away, I fully understand a vacant shirt number. But at its worst retiring a shirt is an admission of defeat. It’s an acknowledgement that the best has been, no one will ever be better and thus we should all spend our lives talking about the past. Nothing frightens me more than being stuck in the past, reminiscing about the glories of yesteryear. I want more. And I want it now. We should always be looking for the next number 11. The fuss about shirt numbers is, at times, extraordinary considering how little it means. Great players make even the most ordinary number stand out. Think Henry 14, Beckham 23, Van Persie 20 and, of course, Evans 6. Yet two numbers hold a special place in football: 7 and 11. Wide players. The players that make the hairs stand up, who thrill as they glide past hapless defenders. Giving Adnan Januzaj the number 11 shirt was bold but right. He is the future of this club just as his predecessor was 300 years ago. I love that we didn’t retire the shirt but gave it to Adnan as a challenge. He has been dared to be as good as Giggs. Whether he gets anywhere near only time will tell. But watching him try will not be dull.

11 points for anyone who doesn't care where Rooney plays for England

1. In love, in fear, in hate, in tears

And breathe. Well that was eventful wasn’t it? 2013/14 – so bad it was funny. Sort of. Since we last spoke we’ve had three managers: the inept and unfortunate David Moyes (unfortunate for being awarded a job he neither deserved nor applied for), the iconic Ryan Giggs (more on that) and now the absent, but instantly likeable, Louis Van Gaal. One manager in 26.5 years. Three in three weeks. The stats have taken one hell of a beating. We wondered how the club would react to the loss of Ferguson. This season we got our answer. The man’s shadow loomed over Old Trafford with every crushing defeat. Every player performed at 50% in his absence, some apparently unable to perform such menial tasks as tying their shoelaces without the great man. Word is even the food in the canteen deteriorated without him. The club’s in crisis! The Moyes effect? Possibly. The Ferguson effect? Definitely. This isn't uncommon in popular culture. The Sopranos begins shortly after the death of  Johnny Boy Soprano. His son Tony is now running the family business, struggling to cope with the pressures of the modern world, trying to emerge from his father's shadow. The spectre of his father hangs over him like Banquo. Johnny Boy is everywhere. Johnny Boy is nowhere. Ferguson is everywhere. Ferguson is nowhere. The club was in mourning this season. They lamented the loss of the boss. Their Steve Jobs, their Don Corleone, their Alex Ferguson. But such institutions do not crumble and fade. They have a choice. They can use their resources, their traditions, the pull of history and they can embrace the future. They can take chances, they can follow their beliefs, and fulfil their philosophies – they can rise again. And we will. The appointment of LVG is the right move. A forward thinking, progressive coach, renowned for his work with young players, this is the man Ferguson would never have appointed. This is the rival. Good. Who knows how he’ll pan out in terms of trophies, but the impact he’ll have on our young players will be immeasurable. In my pre-season piece I made one prediction, “we will be OK.” I was very nearly wrong. But perversely, I enjoyed this season. History unfolded before our eyes. Now I’m ready for normal service to resume. It won’t be instant but it will happen eventually. History demands it. So, not learning from last year's nearly fatal mistake, here’s another prediction: Man United will never die.

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2. “You can’t always get what you want/

 But if you try sometimes you’ll get what you need."

The Rolling Stones

Steve Bruce was not a very sexy signing. We acquired him from Norwich in 1987 for £800,000 when he was approaching his 28^th birthday. Eyebrows were raised further when Ferguson shipped out Old Trafford favourite Paul McGrath. Bruce was hardly a spring chicken, had achieved no international recognition and could list few notable achievements on his C.V. He was Steve Bruce. He had a broken nose, was a good passer of the ball, bit slow on the turn but never missed a game, or a header. He was a leader. When he signed he told the watching world he’d have walked to Old Trafford if he had to. Nine years later, club captain Bruce had overseen our most successful period since Busby and will be remembered as one half of the greatest centre back pairings in English football. When we go into the transfer market this summer we need quality. Of that there’s no doubt. But more than that we need players willing to crawl to Old Trafford just to get a game. Big money signings who don’t want to be there do not work. Anyone who’s read Andy Mitten’s Glory Glory Man United (if you haven’t you should) will have noted how honest Blomqvist and Cruyff were. They didn’t want to be there. Cruyff’s father had just been forced out of Barca meaning Jordi  had to leave and Blomqvist had his heart broken at his dream club Milan. Veron would never have left Lazio had it not been for a passport scandal. He did not want to be in Manchester. We shouldn’t take it personally. But we should take it seriously. Young, hungry players, from Britain and beyond will form the basis of our success. Anyone sat at home checking Twitter five times a time hoping to sign Barca or Bayern’s rejects is misguided. We have to produce our own, we have to get more from our players than we have any right to expect and we have to start now.

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3. So long tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum.

Growing old isn’t fair. Watching Rio and Vida at Southampton we saw two men past their prime, in a struggling side, their bodies no longer able to do what their brains were asking. The lasting image of two old warhorses in need of putting down is too easy to dwell on. It’s easy to consign them to the past thinking we’re better off without them. It isn’t true. They must be remembered at their peak when they took their team to greater heights than we dared to dream. Only Ronaldo and Cantona won more games single-handedly than the brilliant Vidic. His performance in Moscow is among the finest I’ve ever seen from any United player. He had the ultimate quality: when he played I never felt we’d lose. I first noticed Rio in 1999. He was at the heart of a West Ham defence that conceded seven at Old Trafford. Rio was a mess. He wanted too much time on the ball and couldn’t head it. He had talent but looked like a boy in a man’s world. How he changed. Getting away from the comforts of his home club and into the wilderness of Yorkshire – no place for a Southern Softy – was the best thing he could have done. He started to look a player. After the disastrous defensive displays of 01/02 Rio was brought in as part of a revamped back four. The anecdote he tells about his first training session is known but worth retelling. He receives the ball from the keeper and plays it to Gary Nev at full back. He receives an instant bollocking from Keane. You’re at United now, the easy pass won’t do. Your game must have risk – and if you’re not good enough you’re not good enough. Don’t hide. Rio’s mind was blown. He had to step up. And he did. The Rio that was torn apart by Raul (1^st leg) and Ronaldo (2^nd leg) did not stay for long. By 2006 he was the real deal. He’d stepped out of the Keane and RVN shadow and became a leader. He was at the heart of the new spirit that had engulfed the United dressing room. Together with Vidic he became among the best in United and English football history. The typical heroic English centre half is all blocks, lunges, blood and guts. Rio was different. Always a step ahead of his opponent, he dictated from the back and never gave the ball away. His brilliant positional sense and football brain explain why he went two years (2009-2011) without receiving a yellow card. These were golden times. En route to becoming European champions in 2008 we conceded a miserly 6 goals including two clean sheets against Barcelona. In fact, with Rio as captain, United went three full years undefeated away from home in Europe (April 2007 to April 2010). Defensive master classes in Barcelona, Rome, Porto and Chelsea allowed us to reach three European cup finals in four years. In the midst of it all it was hard to realise how good we had it. We know now. I don’t know Rio - and the stories this year haven’t been particularly encouraging – but I’m willing to give anyone who dedicates their life to MUFC the benefit of the doubt. The Rio I know is a guy who had enormous potential, came from humble beginnings and left the home comfort of East London to further himself in the foreign lands of Leeds and Manchester. The Rio I know is a guy who handled himself with great dignity in the midst of a race scandal, who was barred from playing for his country because the captain racially abused his brother. I see a guy who made (big) mistakes, who wasn’t from Manchester, but who made it his home. That’s the Rio I know. Only the very best get more than 10 years at MUFC. And he was the very best. And yes, he may have had a Cockney accent, worn stupid caps, said ‘brap’ and sported those ridiculous corn rows but he was still one of us. Rio, Rio he was a red you know.

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4. If Moyes falls in the woods and no one’s there…

You’ll notice we’re at point 4 and I’m just getting onto David Moyes. It’s funny how quickly I’ve moved on from the Chosen One. It’s not his fault he was so out of his depth – nothing on his CV suggested he was in any way qualified for that job. That United got it so wrong will go down as one of the most spectacular failures in the history of sport. Moyes, to my mind, has already been consigned to the past. It feels an age since I was in the stands watching a team I didn’t recognise produce some of the most astonishingly awful performances in the history of top level football. It’s not even worth using this forum to castigate Moyes – it’s simply not his fault. But to say he was treated badly is hard to take. He was given a job he didn’t deserve, proved pretty quickly that he was way out of his depth, managed to survive nine horrendous months and had the audacity to a) ignore every piece of Ferguson’s advice and b) blame all the players for what was going wrong. He was genuinely looking to sell up to ten players this summer. It’s astonishing how badly he did. At the start of the season I said: “he’ll be given time”. Thank the lord I was wrong. Moyes out.

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5. The Glazers make an ass of you and me

When Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement the world was shocked. We knew it had to end one day and, you’d have thought, so would the Glazers. Surely our beloved owners would be prepared. After all, Ferguson was not only the club’s most important asset he was also, you know, old. Old people retire. Even in this day and age old people retire – it’s astonishing isn’t it? Over the past 8 years I’ve said numerous times ‘the Glazers may be many things, but they’re not incompetent’. Hmmm. The facts aren’t particularly encouraging. After years of planning they saw Ferguson and Gill leave on the same day and replaced them with Woodward, Moyes, and a squad on its last legs. But we all make mistakes right? The important thing is to learn from them. We have always said, the Glazers know what they’re doing – we just may not like what they’re doing. Now I’m not even sure of that. Down in the money league, down in the actual league, botched every major succession at the club including playing and non-playing staff we now find ourselves in a total mess. Our commercial success has been the envy of the sporting world for years now. So it’s no surprise to see other clubs replicating it. Soon they’ll catch up and overtake us. City’s revenue is growing all the time and will continue to do so as long as the football money bubble expands. Our future is less certain. The Glazers have now gone cap in hand to LVG, begging him to get us back into the Champions League desperate for the revenue that comes with it. If he succeeds all’s well that ends well. If he doesn’t the Moyes blip will quickly become the Glazers farce – and there’ll be no  easy way back.

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6. “It’s good to be in a thing from the ground floor.”

Tony Soprano

Nobody wanted to be the man to take over from Ferguson. But the man who took over from the man who took over from Ferguson – now that’s an interesting proposition. With the club on its knees, we’re desperate for a hero. Step forward Luis Van Gaal. Aged 62, with a C.V. the envy of Europe, LVG is quite the character. He’s also very un-United - an enormous departure from the Ferguson ethos. He’s the antithesis of what Gary Neville would call the Manchester United identity. But he is exactly what we need. He is a kick up the backside. Identity is a misunderstood concept. Just because you’re not British or didn't grow up in the academy does not mean you can’t share philosophies and identities. Louis Van Gaal could prove to be incredibly ‘United’. I’ve said before that belief in youth and desire to succeed are not the preserve of Man United. Look around at Barcelona and Bayern Munich – both reaping the rewards of constructive youth policies. Of course, LVG can only take a small amount of credit for both clubs’ success but his handiwork is certainly visible. If I was under 25 and playing for Man United under LVG I’d be incredibly excited right now. LVG is joining us at a low ebb with the chance to build something of his own from the ground up. If that doesn’t excite the players then more fool them. If they fail they’re finished as top-level sportsmen. After all, you might get away with blaming one manager; you’ll never be able to blame two.

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7. Rotten to the core

Centre halves, centre mid and a laboured strike force. The balance is all wrong. Rio and Vida are gone, Carrick and RVP aren’t getting any younger. The spine of the team – its most important component - is in desperate need of regeneration. Let’s put this into context. There was a time Nicky Butt couldn’t get into the side. He’d be captain now. A 26 year old Wesley Brown would be the first name on today’s team sheet. This isn’t to rewrite history and paint either of those players as world class (though I adored both of them), this is to remind of the standards that predicate success. People would have you believe United never really had a good teams, they just had a good manager and tried really hard. In Barcelona ‘99 Butt wouldn’t have played had Scholes and Keane been available (this was well before the days of three in the middle – oh what a halcyon days). In Moscow Fletcher wasn’t in the squad (though admittedly he’d been injured) and Hargreaves was stationed out wide. Giggs and Park certainly weren’t playing centre mid. The standards are enormously high if you want to win the top prizes. You cannot scrimp and save on the core components of the side as we have done in the past 5 years. The most daunting prospect facing Van Gaal is not that he needs a new team – it’s that he needs a new spine. The chance of finding the right players, with the right character, who gel together quickly is slim. And the truth, though unfortunate, is simple: weak core, average team.

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8. The man who wasn’t there

From the moment Paul Scholes appeared as a pundit on Sky Sports, it was clear the landscape had changed. This was without question the beginning of the end for Moyes. Scholes was brought on to say what Gary Nev couldn’t – that Moyes was out of his depth, that his signings weren’t good enough and that he wasn’t the right man for the job. He may not have used those words but he came damn close. Neville, we’re told, warned Giggs (and brother Phil) to distance themselves from Moyes. He was toxic and they didn’t want to be tainted through association. It was a telling piece of advice. This was more than a passionate fan getting involved – this was a guy protecting a vested interest. The man who revolutionised football punditry, Neville already sustains one conflict of interest in his role as England assistant. His reluctance to castigate England players on MNF has been noted live on air by Carragher. His refusal to explicitly condemn David Moyes for fear of starting a witch hunt is proof that, though his analysis is flawless, his position is not without its complications. With Giggs clearly seen as the heir apparent the Class of 92 will have their say in the future of the club one way or the other. A considered analyst, who puts facts before emotion Neville has one of the most astute brains in football. At some point he’ll have to step out from behind the curtain and take his place up on stage.

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9. O Captain! My Captain!

“O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring…”

Walt Whitman

In his famous poem, Whitman laments the passing of Abraham Lincoln, and mourns the loss of leadership, comparing him to the captain of his ship. Every cause, organisation and club needs leadership. It needs inspiration – a man they can look up to who can drag them from the depths of despair. Someone who can make things happen. This United side is leader-less. It’s devoid of character and needs a captain. Normally I turn my nose up at the importance assigned to the captaincy in football. As far as I can tell the captain’s biggest responsibility is sorting tickets for the games. But at this stage in time, United are desperate. Van Gaal and Giggs from the sides can only do so much – there must be more on the pitch. The rumours that Moyes intended to make Rooney captain made me shudder. Now that Vidic is gone and Evra’s future is uncertain beyond this year there is no obvious choice. That in itself tells its own story. RVP has many of the necessary attributes but went AWOL last season in a way a true captain never would. But someone has to step forward because, unlike in Whitman’s poem, the prizes we seek are nowhere near won.

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10. "The wife's lactating/ I'm spectating/ it's a football thing."

Shaun W. Ryder

Is the world cup over yet? Bored.

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11. Is Ryan Giggs

In the company of other boy geniuses, Giggs rather let’s the side down. The story ought to read: boy wonder breaks onto scene, sets new standards, soars to unimaginable heights, then burns out and fades from view. True heroes don’t get old. They don’t need to. It’s their myths that live on forever. Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain – imagine what they could have achieved had they lived past 27. That they never grew old, to many, is a source of comfort. Nirvana fans never had to see Kurt Cobain grow old and fat while fans of The Doors were spared a 1980s Jim Morrison. Oh what could have been - so often the comfort blanket of hope for us all. But Giggs is different. With Giggs there are no question marks. Giggs just was. Giggs just did. And in doing so he destroyed the romantic view of the boy genius who came, who saw, who peaked just before he had time to conquer. Imagine if so-and-so had not had that injury, not been an alcoholic, not lost his pace, if he’d played in a good team – imagine Giggs. Paul Gascoigne has such revered status it’s astonishing to think he didn’t win a single league title in this country. Oh what could have been! Wayne Rooney, the most exciting 16 year old I’ve ever seen, plateaued by 26. Oh but what youth he had! What if he’d laid off the fags, what if Gazza had never touched a drop in his life, what if, what if, what if? And then there was Giggs. Blessed with frightening, God-given gifts here was a boy not interested in 'what ifs'. This boy wonder did the unthinkable and put all these qualities to use. He didn’t squander them, allowing us to sit misty-eyed after a few pints boring the younger generation about the player Giggs ‘could have become’. He didn’t mind getting old. We talk about Whiteside’s back injury, McGrath’s alcoholism, even the wasted late 20s of the great George Best. We don’t lament a single thing about Ryan Giggs. Because, Giggs just kept on keeping on. Each passing year we learnt something more about his character. And he’s a hard man to get to know. Last night’s Life Of Ryan had a common theme – how hard he is to read. That was the first thing Rio Ferdinand said – and he should know he’s shared a dressing room with Giggs since 2002. For the fans he was aloof and laid back to the point we thought, perhaps, he didn’t care about football. It’s not uncommon for prodigious talents, to whom everything comes so easily, to have one nagging question – am I actually enjoying this? Players fall out of love with the game – it’s not unheard of. Pianists lay off the ivories for a while, writers put down the pen for years on end. They have lost their muse. They’re uninspired. Noel Gallagher said everything he wanted to say in Cigarettes & Alcohol and Live Forever. Everything else was just noise. Those were the poignant masterpieces he wanted to share with the world – they represented who he was. But Giggs always had something to say. He always had a point to prove. His Live Forever was the semi final replay goal in ’99. For years I railed against the esteem in which that goal was held. I wouldn’t argue with the quality but I didn’t want his career to be defined by that one run and finish. But now, in the fullness of time, I’m grateful for that goal. As Daniel Harris has said, a career that had threatened to plateau with aesthetically pleasing moments, punctuated with trophy after trophy, was suddenly elevated to immortality. As Phil Neville said in the stunning Class Of 92 documentary, “this was Giggsy’s moment.” And then there was the celebration. Just as Morrisey’s lyrics made The Smiths, so this celebration made the goal. Here was Giggs, that aloof boy wonder to whom everything came so easy, with those cold eyes, a man of no emotion, now semi-naked totally lost in the moment. Gone were all calculations, all rational thought, all self control – here was the ultimate expression of joy. Pure, unadulterated joy. The sort of unconfined joy restricted to those who really, genuinely, absolutely care. Here was a side to Ryan Giggs we had not seen. The laconic celebrations of his youth (finger in the air) had given the impression of a player who was too cool to care. But this Giggs – this Giggs with his top off, twirling round his head celebrating with the fans – this Giggs was one of us. Forward nine years Giggs finds himself in Moscow, now the senior statesman. He’d missed a typically easy chance in extra time having refused to use his right foot and, now, found himself with a much more difficult opportunity – a penalty in a shootout against Petr Cech, the world’s best keeper. As he strode to the spot, I flashed back to Old Trafford, March 1992. A young Ryan Giggs had just missed a penalty against Southampton in the FA Cup. No one who saw that penalty thought that boy would ever score from the spot for Man United. It just wasn’t a skill he had. But this was Ryan Giggs. Not content with his unique athletic gifts, he had it in him to try and perfect every footballing discipline. In Managing My Life, Ferguson lamented that Giggs (in 1999) was too obsessed with perfecting his game. He didn’t focus on his unique balance and speed, instead wanting to improve his passing and his tactical awareness. But this determination, a desire to be the perfect footballer, the best at everything – this is the Giggs that scored the decisive penalty in Moscow. This was a different Giggs. Different but the same. This Giggs would not gently into that good night. This Giggs saw off young pretender after young pretender. This Giggs moved into the middle, destroyed Fabregas, Gerrard, Alonso, Lampard and Ballack, who pulled the strings in European cup quarters and semis, who drove United on to new and unfathomable heights post-Ronaldo. The determination was in his eyes. Those eyes that, as a young man, had hinted at indifference, now screamed with defiance. And he was wonderful. Every shake of the hips reminded us of the young Giggs but, in truth, he got better as he got older. Thrust back into the heart of the side by an utterly desperate David Moyes he produced a passing master class against Olympiakos. This is a special person. One who has dedicated his life to our football club. This is not a time for sadness. All things must pass. We are honoured that he should want to devote the next chapter of his life to MUFC, working under Louis Van Gaal. He could have travelled the world, sought new challenges, learnt new skills. Instead he’s chosen to stay right where he belongs. And while this is the time to look forward to a brighter future of infinite possibilities, I would be lying if I didn’t admit disappointment that I’ll never again watch our number 11, eyes focused, hips at improbable angles, poised “like a cocker spaniel chasing a piece of silver paper in the wind”, with a defender helpless on the floor. There really was no better sight than Ryan Giggs in full flow. And unlike so many prodigious talents before him this one came, saw, conquered and conquered again. There will never be another. Ryan Giggs, football genius.

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