m

 Benno (@Benglorious)

To take my mind off the football I’m currently watching Making a Murderer. If this show had been one of those schlocky American 1-hour specials nobody would be talking about it, but spread it out over ten shows on a paid subscription service and suddenly it’s the greatest crime show there’s ever been. It’s not. That award goes to Murder, She Wrote, which fought off stiff competition from Quincy, M.E. and Jonathan Creek. I’ve forgotten my point.

Prediction:  Mata to score another disco goal and/or Martial to score another mad thing and/or Cantona to score another 1996 FA Cup Final volley. 0-0 United.

 Tom (@tom_mcghee)

The name on the glass said ‘Tom McGhee: Private Investigator’ but the reflection staring back at me wasn’t so sure – it had been two weeks since my last case and in my book that was thirteen days too long; I needed a clue and a drink – one of them I knew where to find…

I awoke with a jolt, the click of a hammer being cocked behind my ear focusing my thoughts like only a loaded .38 can. “Stay away from the Fellaini Racket old man, you’ll only get hurt” (but in a really thick New York gangster accent I couldn’t type phonetically) Before I could move, two goons squeezed my spine like an accordion and started playing a polka with their brass knuckles. I’d always hated Mondays.

When I came to, my office was trashed and I was seeing stars. Reviewing the facts there wasn’t much to go on….questions rolled around my brain like a load of marbles on a rollercoaster: who were these mugs? What was this Fellaini trying to accomplish? I had a hunch that before it was over, I’d be sorry I asked…

Lost (season 3)

What the what?? Man is this confusing I don’t think Ben is very nice. Thats Ben from Lost not Benno from here although he is also a bit of a rascal at times once he put a banana in Judge Reinhold’s police car exhaust. That aside, pretty good.

Prediction:  0-0 United. Liverpool are not very good but then neither are we. Hard one to call so going with 3-3 because thats the last result I can remember.

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 Brett(@it)

Meh.

Lol. That wasn’t even in reference to anything. I just said ‘Meh’, like out of nowhere. The implication I suppose is that I was reacting to something and that I was petulantly disagreeing with the general positive consensus, even though in actual fact I wasn’t reacting to anything. It just came to me. You can’t make that kind of improv up. Not. Reacting. To. Anything.

I just made that paragraph up off the top of my head. Off. The. Top Of. My. Head.

Meh.

I did it again. I. Did. it. Again.

This writering game is tough. This. Writering. Game. Is. Tough.

Meh.

Again etc. Again. Etc.

Prediction: 0-0. United and Liverpool to photo finish in third. All two ran. All. Two. Ran.

Welbeck has one ‘L’ of a problem with ‘greedy’ Lallana.

When it was announced earlier this week that both Andros Townsend and Michael Carrick would be returning from International duty to their respective employers, as a result of minor knocks picked up during England training, no-one thought anything of it… but that was one ‘L’ of a mistake…

Tensions frayed, earlier this week, when Danny Welbeck and Calum Chambers were reading the Metro on the bus on the way into training and noticed England teammates Gary Cahill and Adam Lallana were ‘carrying a spare’. The pair were left stunned by the shocking discovery and it proved too much for the young England stars to stomach; as both have been singled out and ridiculed for the overwhelming lack of the letter ‘L’ in their respective names, since birth.

Roy Hodgson has never hidden his preference for ‘Non-‘L’ers’, in handing Wayne Rooney, and before him, Steven Gerrard, the England captaincy, but it was assumed, by F.A bosses and experts, that the appointment of Gary Neville (a Two-‘L’er) – as a balance – had eased any lingering tension. Unfortunately the animosity between the One-‘L’ers, Non-‘L’ers, Two-‘L’ers and Surplus-‘L’ers, is yet again threatening to split the England dressing room in four!

When Michael Carrick a fellow One-‘L’er, and father figure to the young One-‘L’ers in the squad, confronted Cahill and Lallana, Towsend (a Non-‘L’er) stepped in: the violent scenes that erupted left the dressing room needing a really good tidy up.

A source said, “Rooney’s degenerative condition in his knees … no wait, you were asking me about ‘L’s in players names … I’m sorry you’ve lost me. That makes no sense.”

As you list the players that have gone down in the history books as the greatest players ever in the history books of history, it’s clear to see players with ‘L’s come out on top, if you ignore approximately half of them, Maradona, Eric Cantona, Cruyff etc… and just consider the ones that substantiate the theory that this is a real serious issue: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Pele etc…

Either way it’s abundantly clear, it’s an ‘L’ of a problem for Roy and he needs to learn how to deal with it fast!

Benno (@Benglorious):

I’ve actually been to Stamford Bridge a few times, and a couple of those were even to watch that football thing that so many people know and love.  I’ve seen Eric get booked for scoring an outrageous lob on Boxing Day and I’ve also seen Rooney miss a penalty in the League Cup, but that one was for Everton so nobody cares.  Now that I think about it, United have a 100% record (P-1 W-1 D-0 L-0 GF-3 GA-2 Pts-3) away at Chelsea when I’m at the match so things bode very well for the next encounter.

[Phone rings: YO!……  Sorry, Mum, it’s my new answering thing.  Cool, innit?……  It means “isn’t it” but it’s shorter…… Yeah, I suppose it is already shortened.  Never really thought about it befo…  Anyway, stop distracting me with grammar stuff.  What do you want?……  Sorry, Mum; what can I do for you today, my wonderful and beautiful sire?……  I’m not taking the piss……  Well I’m sorry you feel like that, but I’m not…….  FFS…… Yeah, I know you know what that means……  Why?  Because it’s quicker to type and Brettney doesn’t allow swear words on here……  Yes, Mother, I know what “meta” means; that’s the joke……  Well, you think Mrs Brown’s Boys is funny so I’m not taking advice on comedy from you.  Good day, madam……  I SAID “GOOD DAY”.]

Turns out United are at home, and even if they weren’t I wouldn’t be going as I’m barred from Fulham due to a pending libel case involving Al Fayed over a previous preview from before in the past.  Chelsea players to watch out for are Kerry Dixon, Adrian Mutu and John Terry’s dad.  Wink, wink, sniff.  Allegedly.

Prediction:  After masterminding a resounding victory against the Baggies last week, Vangle will be looking to keep the momentum going.  His team will not disappoint.  Medium Angel will get his first goal-setting-up pass of the season that isn’t a scuffed shot, when his delightful dinked through-ball is thwacked into the roof of the net by Medium Robin.  Medium Juan will pull himself out of his recent funk by doing one of those boner kicks that have been on the Twitter all week, leaving the Chelsea keeper gaping open-mouthed as the ball sails over his head into top bangs.  Medium Marcos will have Diego Costa so deep in his pocket during the match that the Spanish striker will be choking on lint and five pence pieces for ninety minutes.  Medium Janners Aye will finish up the scoring with ten minutes to go with a towering diving header, also into top bangs.  1-0 Chelsea.

This week’s recipient of the acrostic-love is Rafael Pereira da Silva, more commonly know as Rafael.  This is lucky for me as that surname is far too long for someone of my limited vocabulary.  Besides, he’s only little and there aren’t any pictures of him that are big enough to fit the acrostic in.

Rafael, 24, lists his interests as wrestling, millinery and Fabio (the model/actor).

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Tom (@Tom_McGhee):

I was at Stamford Bridge when Chelsea got relegated. By Middlesborough. They were a lot funnier then.

Prediction: United to win 2-1 because Mourinho leaves 85 minutes early. This blatant disrespect backfires as Chelsea forget it’s a real game and spectacularly collapse due to internal strife after an incident at their weekly quiz night (Spock is only HALF Vulcan).

This should’ve been longer and had more jokes but I’m saving all the best other two for the MBMBM thing.

Ed.- You should’ve been longer and had more jokes.

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Brett:

What else can we say about Mourinho and Chelsea that hasn’t been said before? Well, for a start, thirteen minutes before every other away game, Mourinho selects members of the squad out of an oversized hat (a bit like the one that Dr. Seuss lent Robbie’s brother, Pharrell) – how they all fit in there, is anyone’s guess. Those picked are then forced to rest pickled eggs, tween their torso and toppy arm bit – in the pit of the arm if you will, if only sciencers had given this area an appropriate name – and then the players who manage to keep said pickled egg intact (after formal inspection by former, or possibly current kit man Garry Grey) for the first 45 minutes, plus stoppages, of the match, are given a free ticket for the club’s Christmas meat raffle. Those who go on to protect the pickled egg until the end of the full ninety minutes, plus stoppages, get a basket of pot-pourri, Jose has prepared and put together himself.  And how about the cocktail umbrellas the Chelsea players are instructed to put up and carry around with their opposite hand (easier for those in the squad who are amphibious) during training sessions played in heavy rain, so that Jose can serenade them with a reinterpretation of the theme tune from Jossy’s Giants, imaginatively entitled, Jose’s Giants, with Bryan Robson on keyboards. We’ll not get into the hedgehog crisp tiddlywinks champion ship they sail around Chelsea harbour. None of these things are of course true, but they are three things that have never been said about Mourinho and Chelsea before. Which was the thing I was doing.

As Leyton Orient fan Jon Bongiovi noted in his unforgettably hugely massive big hit Midnight in Chelsea based on the really real life real occasion he was kicked out of Stamford Bridge for aggressive hair: I’ve seen a lone, sloane ranger drive. And haven’t we all. Let’s hope Vangle has taken heed.

As for Manchester United: quite the conundrum. ‘Specially, what with conundrums only normally consisting of nine letters. Anyway, fingers on buzzers: start the clock…

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-d

*BUZZ*

GOT IT! Ahhhh! Eat my brain on toast! All bow down to my wordsmithery … ‘Humanist Centre’! Oh, now wait, gah, not enough letters. I didn’t want to play this stupid game anyway. Okay…

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-

*BUZZ*

‘Decennatherium’! Bless you. Not even sure if that’s a word that exists and means an extinct genus of giraffidae (I dunno, I just copied and pasted it), and not enough letteYou’ve panned and filled for long enough now.

Doodoo-doodoo-diddlydum-dooooooooo.

Prediction: Susie Dent with her customary 7.

All together now…

Ben (Benglorious):

When Mr Bifurcated (I don’t know his real name) asked me to contribute to his website, I immediately asked about the remuneration package.  After getting some very evasive responses, I finally realised that I was supposed to do it for free like all the other “writers”. This struck me as odd, particularly with regard to @tom_mcghee as I know him in real life and he charges me a Queenhead every time he texts me (it’s a plumber thing); but if that corporate shill does it for nothing then I suppose I can give it a go.  Until something better comes along.  Or I get bored.  But what if they don’t do it for free?  What if I’m being mugged off and they’re all laughing at me for being such an idiot?  Oh well, just like real life, then.

I thought I’d start by doing some research on the site, and came to the horrifying realisation that I would be expected to write about football; in particular, MAnchesTA United (pun #1).  I did not see that coming.  Particularly because I know for a fact that I’ve never said anything serious on Twitter about the beautiful game.  Or any other topic.  Ever.

Anyway; football.  I’m supposed to preview the Cardiff game but I’m refusing as I feel that a Welsh team shouldn’t be playing in an English league.  Not for nationalist reasons, mind you, but purely based on travel complications.  Why should we have to take our passports for domestic league and cup games?  They should be saved for those special occasions when we tour the Far East or the States on important shirt-selling missions.  Champions League?  Not a league and far too many non-champions playing so that’s irrelevant.  The upside of this Welsh segregation is that, in my mind, we’ve never played/never will play Cardiff or Swansea and so results against them don’t Mata (Boom! That’s #2).  I’m still outraged that United are out of the FA Cup due to an administrative error/lost ball during the ITV draw.

I imagine that Mr Bifurcated (note to self: find out his name) is pulling his hair out at my “short match preview” so I’ll wrap it up and do the only bit that will actually make it online…

Prediction: 3-1 to United, with a brace for RVP, both set up by our new number seven EIGHT who also bags the third before being subbed off to a standing ovation so he can get suited and booted for the press conference.  Romantic, eh?

About the author: I’ve never been to Wales.

Dislcaimer: All puns contained herein remain the intellectual property of @PaulGunning1.

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Brett:

Mata.

As for Cardiff…

Ole has breezed into the Premier League with the assurance of a man who’s never attempted to exit a coffee shop by pulling the push door. No doubt, as a child – “the foetus-featured, L-plated sniper” – he’d mastered potty-training well before his teens. What?!

Tis, on the surface of it, a strange job for Ole to have taken. But the reality is, the expectations of the fans are relatively low, he’s got money to spend, and if it goes wrong everyone’s going to blame that bloke wearing the massive baddy outfit, with the massive baddy face, who behaves like a massive baddy, with a massive baddy neon sign bolted to him reading ‘MASSIVE BADDY THIS WAY’, and not Ole.

When we played them earlier in the season – when everybody’s favourite spoonerism Malky Mackay was still in charge – we couldn’t beat them then, even with the away advantage. So, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them limit Mata to just two brilliant goals.

Prediction: 2-1. Having received the signal, Ole to suddenly get up from his seat and calmly make his way towards the centre-circle, where he begins removing a patch of loose turf, revealing the rusty box where he’d some time before stashed his Remington Model 700 rifle. It all now becomes clear: *flashback waves* the incident with Rob Lee was a carefully orchestrated distraction. Haven’t you always wondered what Ole was doing as last man back? As Rob Lee had made his way over the halfway line, Ole had been busy burying an object – we now know to be the rifle – but the onrushing conventionally attractive footballer had disturbed him; and thus threatened to give the whole game away. Thinking on his feet, Ole gave chase, and brought GQ chops down, just outside the area, creating a hive of activity well away from the middle of the pitch. Ole was, of course, sent off, but as Newcastle prepared to take the free-kick, Ole, having now disguised himself as a discarded crisp packet (a costume he’d had on under his kit, in the event of something like this happening), returned quickly to the pitch, finished hiding the fire-arm, replaced the turf and disappeared on the next zephyr… *flashback waves* Ole (now back in the present – keep up!) loads the rifle in two slick movements (which gets a round of applause from the Old Trafford crowd, which he acknowledges), and with one shot he takes down his target. Meanwhile, Chris Woods and Phil Neville have removed their masks, to reveal they were themselves all along.

Danny to give his permission for Mata to score his customary two for him.

I was in bits at the opening sequence. I managed to just about hold it together for the rest. I fell in love with Eric more (even more)(I didn’t think it was possible, either). And much goosebumps ensued.

Do you like being wrong? I like being wrong. Do you like being wrong? I like being wrong. Love being wrong. Love it. Yeah. It’s great being wrong, isn’t it? Yeah …  I like being wrong. Really like being wrong. Really, love being wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Love IT! Yeah, really, REALLY love, love, LOVE being wrong. Yeah … you know the best thing about being wrong? The best thing about being wrong? Yeah, the BEST thing about being wrong? The best thing about being wrong is when your friends remind you, you were wrong. Yeah, LOVE being reminded when I was wrong. BEST THING! LOVE BEING WRONG!!

When I first heard this documentary film was being released, I was expecting a Christmas cash cow, and was happy to tell anyone within ear shot how it would inevitably take the form of a thrashed-out slash straight-to-video slash regurgitated montage off all those familiar clips; a pre-prescribed emotional mugging. It unequivocally is not that. The production spec is proper; this has been taken very seriously, by proper film-makers. But that’s not even the half of it.

As the six players eloquently talk us through their story (joyfully abetted by the two Erics: Harrison and Eric), we’re reminded, not only of how special their story is, but of just how integral to it their relationships with each other were and are. It’s no surprise then that the moments when the film really excels are when the players are gathered together over their tea. It’s they themselves who tell this story best and the creators of the documentary provide them with the perfectly understated platform to pitch it from here.

A couple of little things: I understand there’s a formula to documentary film-making and key to this is providing a social and political context for the main narrative, but (just throwing it out there) perhaps one or two of the external talking heads accepted the invitation primarily to indulge in some professional self-serving – I’m definitely looking at you Tony Blair (Boo!). For my personal taste, the film could have done without these asides – not you Mani, you’re alright – as the television and media footage that was interspersed throughout did the job more than adequately. I also thought we might find out what happened to a few of the other graduates. I’ll shut up.

Though it’s really hard for me to watch this film any way but subjectively, I think there is enough in the relationships of the players, and in this new take on their real-life fairytale, for fans of other clubs, and non-football fans to get behind. For United fans it’s a no-brainer – you have to see this film.

To coincide with the release of the new Class of ’92 documentary film (@classof92film, Class of ’92 DVD) we’re taking six familiar faces, with six all too familiar names to Canvey Island: Giggsy, Scholesy, Butty, Phily, Gary-y and Becky. What?!

For this special trip, our Canvey Island family will be sharing the song that defined 1992 for them.

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As they were boarding the train, the conductor stopped them for a second to ask “if we’ll get to find out what happened to the other 86?! Hey?! Hey?! Lads?!” (Hey! That’s my joke.) and then helped them aboard, in silence, ‘cept for a distant death knell.

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There was only one train waiting to depart, there was only one destination …

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Canvey Island!

They stepped off the train and were ushered, like the others before them, towards the car park where they found the car-boot sale and the stall run this time by someone who looked suspiciously like ex-Manchester United player Eric Cantona. He always rotas himself in for the good ones.

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Eric had a message for them: “Bonjour mes petits amis spéciaux préférés … Hey! Je me demandais si nous pourrions obtenir pour savoir ce qui s’est passé à l’autre 86? Non! Attendez une minute … qu’est ce que c’est cloche pour? Quoi qu’il en soit, s’il vous plaît jeter un oeil à ce que la famille Canvey a choisi pour vous…”

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…And this is what the Canvey Island family members picked as the song that defined their own 1992, and why (in their own words)…

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Estranged by Guns ‘n’ Roses

Picked by Paul Ansorge

Harvest Moon by Neil Young

Under The Bridge by Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Picked by Paul Gunning

“I was only eleven years old in 1992. So, my first year in high school, a year of first, awkward, taking-an-age-to-build-up-the-courage-to-slip-my-arm-round-a-girl’s-shoulders dates at cinemas, first kisses with tongues, terrible clothes and ‘curtains’ haircuts.

It’s fitting that this song should be a love letter to a city, as 1992 was also the year that I truly fell in love with Manchester and began to feel the first flutters of melancholy and aloneness within my soul, perfectly encapsulated in this heart-rending track.

It’s such a powerful, evocative song that brings back flooding memories of important loved ones in my life, and a time of awakening and possibility as I embarked on the first, faltering steps of my teenage years.”

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Would I Lie To You by Charles & Eddie

Picked by Tom Pattison

“In my ninth year on planet earth it was ALL about Charles & Eddie Would I Lie To You and it basically still is.”

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Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits

Picked by our very own David

“When I was 11? Probably Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits!”

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End of the Road by Boyz II Men

Picked by our very own Brett

“One of the best things about this song – and there are lots of best things about this song (apart from perhaps the second half of the talky part, that goes on a bit) – is that it can be sung in a key that means anyone can proper belt it out, irrespective of singing ability. It also lends itself really well to the fist-clenching-grabbing-of-that-lingering-hope-and-anguish-and-pulling-it-in-close-to-your-chest move.

My only experience of music before my early teens (I was 13 in 1992), was via the medium of Atlantic 252 and the telly (Top of the Pops and The Chart Show). Naturally I was into some pretty dark stuff: Michael Jackson. Take That. Simply Red. NKOTB NKOB. MC Hammer. Jimmy Nail. And Boyz II Men. Though I do think End of the Road is one of the best pop songs of the past twenty-five years, it’s not the song in and of itself that marks it out as defining my 1992. It’s the memory attached to it (yes, there is more)…

It was the ‘Christmas Variety Show 1992′ at our school. The Christmas Variety Show at our school was really just a vehicle for the posh and confident and “talented” and popular kids to show off, as teachers and parents fawned over them. Meanwhile, the rest of us were supposed to watch on, gratefully. Paradoxically, we despised them all, yet (for no good reason) longed to be one of them. This year the headline act was to be a duet performed by the two school ‘hunks’ (I forget their names) and it seemed everyone was restless with anticipation – everyone, but me.  As the familiar slow drum roll from the backing track tumbled in and hunk #2 sloped towards the front of the stage and began to speak in a low voice whilst hunk #1 caressed himself, it soon became apparent that this was very much not cool. I’m not sure if I’d ever experienced the frisson of cringing on someone else’s behalf before that moment; certainly not to that degree; nor for that long; nor that intensely. 

I might have been achingly shy and tragically unpopular and a bit rough (themes that have stuck), but at least I wasn’t that. And I didn’t stroke my groin in front of the whole school, with the minimum of self-awareness. I went home from the Christmas Variety Show 1992 feeling comfortable in my own skin – happy I wasn’t one of them. Happy to be me.”

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And then we dropped them off back home, but not before asking if we’d be finding out what happened to the other 86… 

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To get your hands on a copy of the DVD > Class of ’92 DVD

To keep up-to-date with all the news about the film > @classof92film

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Remember, to see the original musical picks from any of the lovable members of the Canvey Island family simply click on their names.

If you want to become a member of the Canvey Island Family, then please refer to the train timetable at selected stations, or easier still, drop us an email.

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Also available in the series (see below)…

Tom Cleverley is fertile ground for cynics, and it would be reasonable to assert that he’s invited this upon himself in apparently choosing to embrace narcissism where authenticity would have served him better. Cynics are, after all, hopeless romantics with cripplingly high moral and ethical (and mostly hypocritical) standards, that the modern footballer couldn’t possibly hope to live up to. But aligned with this cynicism aimed at Tom Cleverley, often comes blame; blame for United’s current plight, seeded within the lack of a midfield of note – which I think is unfair. It’s true that the emotions which accompany any loss creates scapegoats and there isn’t much that still hurts United fans more – in a footballing sense – than the loss of Roy Keane (especially as the club outright refuses to adequately replace him, and the more protracted the non-attempt becomes the worser it gets). It’s instinctive to lay blame, it’s overwhelming, and whether appropriated correctly or not  – with the Glazers, who we know are ultimately responsible, appearing deaf to the noise – it’s almost the only relief from those emotions. But because, as football fans, we never really stop blaming (the referee, the fourth official, the rules, the weather, a dodgy pint, a butterfly flapping its wings, a pube on an ice-cream) we never allow ourselves the time to stop and realise just how irrelevant it is. It ushers in a failure of sympathy towards players – players just like Tom Cleverley.

One of the things repeatedly levelled at the modern footballer, of which Tom Cleverley is very much one the last time I looked, is that “they’re getting paid X-amount of money, so should be playing an F-load better”. This suggests that what any given player offers at any given time is finite (that they’re nothing more than vending machines): a flawed concept – it doesn’t take into account the unique circumstances any one individual inhabits.  For example, Tom Cleverley’s ‘breakthrough season’ at United was dogged by injury, making it difficult to carry through any kind of form, or develop.  Tom Cleverley has also recently become a dad, shifting the priorities in his life (at least you’d hope so). He plays for Manchester United, a club that currently has a real problem with the concept of midfield, a club that have let down all of their playing staff with its lack of serious and considered intention to improve where it is failing. A club now going through a lot of change, which effects everyone.

You can try and star in midfield, but you cant do it on your own; players need to be coalesced. As gifted as the players we’ve had (and there have been plenty better than Tom Cleverley) in the past twenty years have been, they’ve still needed Eric’s poise, or a Roy Keane thrust to get them a result. A team needs these sorts of players, these ‘leaders’. Tom Cleverley is not a leader (in the old fashioned, yet still important sense), none of the midfielders in the squad are (Carrick is a leader by example; Fletcher too). The only perceived leaders left in the United side have their own problems: Evra, Rooney (leader lols), Vidic, who’s running down his contract, Rio’s limping down his.

Fergie said lots of things that we don’t need to remember (unless we’re remembering in order to enable the forgetting), but he did once say that nostalgia plays tricks on us* (*that’s some irony). Nostalgia would have us believe that Roy Keane would be eyeballing Vieira in the tunnel before every game, not just the Arsenal ones, or dragging us through to the Champions League final even when we were playing in the second round of the League Cup against York City. Scholesy would be volleying in from corners against Barcelona every week, and celebrating whilst hitting a player on the head who’s having a piss by a tree on the other side of the world. These moments, that encapsulate what these players came to represent, inform how we remember them. These things weren’t happening all the time and there were periods with these two in the team when we weren’t winning, and weren’t dominating. And though achieving just half of what they could do, and did do, on the pitch would make you some force, they weren’t, in every instance they took to the pitch, the Roy Keane and Paul Scholes that we compare the likes of Tom Cleverley to. It’s only on reflection, after a reasonable period of time, that we can really assess any player’s contribution (see also: Darren Fletcher).

I’ve seen Tom Cleverley when playing instinctively – not just in the past, but this very season – and his ability to shift a ball around is enviable, and something that very few players I’ve seen are capable of doing at the pace he does, and so I find it a little premature to be writing his United obituary just yet. However, when given time on the ball, habits of an altogether different nature surface: at times when Tom Cleverley passes the ball, he really passes it. He wants you to know he’s passing it: “Look at me passing this ball in that direction” the follow-through and accompanying body language shouts. This, for me, isn’t about technique, ’tis mere trompe l’oeil; style over substance. Just ‘cus you look like you’re passing it doesn’t mean you’re actually passing it passing it. When he does shape his body in this more affected way he tends to make a right mess of it. Superficial affectations like these continue to creep into the game: where once players were primarily concerned with playing good, they are now compelled to want to look good doing it; and they perhaps end up playing a role, and forget to be it.

There’s no doubt that narcissism has warped ambition: ‘I want to play at the top level’ becomes ‘I want to be a top level player’. The latter entails an image of what being a top level player looks like, the former is prepared to work hard, to persevere (different to Van Persievere, where you try quite hard for a bit to win something with one team and then switch club when you’ve had enough of the trying quite hard, and win something with another team), to recognise weaknesses and work on them, use them as a source of strength; they set themselves personal goals so that the application of their talent never lacks ambition. Perhaps the latter, the one who wants ‘to be a top level player’, having already won the Premier League winners medal and gotten himself into the England team – more than most players achieve – sees that as enough? I think he needs the club to invest in some proper players to help him decide.

We sometimes find ourselves saying things like: ‘If only RVP had been available for the derby.’ Or, ‘if only Fellaini was any one of a whole rake of other players who you care to mention.’ Or, ‘if only Ashley Young had legs that fit right, and were on the right way round.’  Or, ‘if only Wayne “I weally, weally, weally, want to pway in MY pwosition” Rooney loved us more than any one of a list of teams who play in blue.’ Or, ‘if only Shinji was free.’ Or, ‘if only when Moyes opened his mouth, the right shaped words would come out.’ Or, ‘if only Eric was still here. And Scholesy. And Roy. And JOS … whoops, how did that get in there?’ These, and miriad examples like them, are all what I consider examples of, ‘present absence’.

Though none of those examples represent an absence of any one particular thing, what they all do represent in essence is an absence of trust. We miss RVP for the bigger games because we don’t trust anyone else to score the goals necessary to come away with a result. We don’t trust that Fellaini was who the club really wanted, and in turn, trust he’s good enough. We don’t trust Ashley Young has the ability to improve the team (and not to mention the fact that he’s potentially stolen someone else’s legs). We don’t trust Wayne “a wittle bit selfish weally” Rooney, full stop (still never sure if you have to put a full stop after writing that). We don’t trust Moyes’ apparent shotgun assessment of the ability of Kags above our own, well informed one, because he’s wrong, obvs. We don’t trust Moyes to say something good, because he appears to prefer not to. We miss players like Eric and Scholesy and Roy Keane because we had developed a relationship with them over time, and so we kind of knew where we were with them, what they were about; they were familiar – so we trusted in them and/or what they represented. Trust happens to be quite important – who knew?! It’s implicit in all relationships, at least if we want them to work out relatively well for both parties.

Modern football is naughtier than we ever even knew. It plays tricks on us, and when it’s taking a break from playing tricks on us, it’s playing even worse ones. One of these tricks is periodically presenting itself as the Ballardian playground, full of one-dimensional cowards, cheats and hustlers sleepwalking their way to extinction. When, in fact, it’s mostly about real relationships between real human beings, built on trust – a microcosm of the real stuff that happens to all of us outside of Saturday afternoons, only more fickle, on account of the inherent detachment from reality. Within football, one week we can really not like Anderson because he plays like the version of Anderson we don’t like, and then the next we can really love Anderson because he plays like the one we do. However, outside of football we don’t throw our scalding hot boiled egg and soldiers in our mum’s face and tell her, ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’ simply because she didn’t spread the margarine to the edges of those toasted slithers, like we like, like she did the week before (I hope).

Without doubt, the present absence prevalent at United right now is  – understandably – the Fergie shaped hole right at the centre. It stands to reason that different people have different ways of addressing it. Some people say, ‘In Moyes We Trust!’ (and words to that effect), one of football’s one-liners; some people don’t. I’m one of the ones who don’t. For me, these things jar with what’s actually happening. I think that unless a trusting relationship has had time to develop then arrangements of words into affected sound bites like these are nothing but vacuous platitudes – expressions of misguided hope. That’s not to say I think hope is a bad thing, misguided or otherwise, but neither do I think you should use your hope as a stick to beat others with.

If you choose to trust in Moyes based on the evidence of his first few months at the club, maybe coupled with what you already knew about him – his experience and that – and maybe because you interpreted what Fergie said at the end of last season – about getting behind the new manager – as an unequivical call to invest unwavering trust in him (because perhaps you were also one of those people who said, ‘In Saf We Trust’), then that’s cool. The opposite is cool too. I think most people would probably subscribe to the idea that how much trust you invest in someone, or something, within this footballing microcosm is personal to you: it’s a reflection of the ethos by which you live your life outside of it, in the real world.

We are all different, therefore the same. Trust me.