Whoever the new Louis van Gaal is, I really hope they make Giggsy their number two. The Moyes toll taken on the players was visibly lifted and, well, it’s obvious why. Keeping Scholesy and Bicky Nutt involved in some capacity would again serve the new Louis van Gaal very well – whoever the board choose to charge with Louis van Gaaling us.

It’s been nice to be able to watch press conferences again. To be looking forward to the end of the season with excitement, not trepidation. To not have to defend the indefensible. To think that David Moyes can leave with a shred of dignity intact. Giggs that.

The way David Moyes’ United career played out in the mainstream media, effectively fuelled by Twitter ‘banter’ was really uncomfortable towards the end. No doubt he’ll come back to Old Trafford with another team in the future. Would be fitting to see him exact a bit of revenge.

The game itself, I thought, bristled with the expectation of the imminent new era.

Tony and Carrick most notably looked different somehow: more like themselves. Perhaps Cleverley, in a positional sense at least, aided that. Just saying something. I know nothing. Am never right. Nor do I want or profess to be. Even though this sounds like I’m doing the thing where I’m saying I am right. I’m not.

Giggsy summed it all up perfectly after the match in saying – nice to be able to quote your Louis van Gaal – only Dave has had a decent season; and that goes for everyone at the club.

We are pregnant with the future.

p.s A case for the new Louis van Gaal:

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.

I was asked a couple of years back which other player Danny reminded me of the most and, without pausing for breath, I replied: “Henry” because he did … a little bit. It was met with such unexpectedly high levels of derision that, to save face; to pretend I wasn’t wounded – and that in fact I felt I should be the one laughing at them, not the other way around; that they were the ones who’d gotten it so catastrophically wrong – I had no choice: no choice but to forego my usual equanimity.  From that point onwards, where Danny was concerned, I went dark; darker even than that: fluorescent dark, I’m talking real messed up. I trained myself to make reference to Danny’s similarities with Henry whenever there was the slightest hint of one, and especially where there wasn’t; the obscurer the better. I was the saline drip (Oi! Who said without the saline?!) of the Welbeck Trust, slowly administering the comparison into their bloodstream. The problem was, these other people were armed with antibodies and things; things like facts and evidence and strong opinions and relatively well articulated arguments, not to mention bitterness, bad manners and I’m pretty sure I saw all of them steal from the ‘dogs for the blind’ box at the bar – and so you see, being as I am, oil to their water – armed with only love and hope – I had no choice.

If anyone so much as owned, let alone raised, an eyebrow when Danny was unfortunate enough to have mistimed an attempt on goal on account of all that overt dynamicness (“scuffed a pea-roller harmlessly wide from eight yards”), they’d have me coming at ‘em like a distressed seagull (only with a beard and therefore more handsome): “YOU REALLY THINK HENRY SCORED EVERY TIME HE TOOK  A SHOT?! WELL DO YOU?! ANSWER ME?!” I’d say, but cleverer than that and with some longer words in it, I don’t remember which ones, it’s not important. Friends. Family. Children. Pets. Inanimate objects. Objects. Lists of objects. No-one or nothing was gonna have a bad word to say about Danny with Henry getting away with it. All the time I was crossing my fingers under the table – hoping that I just had to wait it out.

Loving Danny is easy, ‘cus he’s beautiful. I love Danny to bits. Loads of United fans do. Some don’t, but that’s something they’ll grow out of, so long as they can outrun the released hounds. It’s a no-brainer. He’s stockpiling boxes for us to tick as we speak. However, it’s not traitorous to note that his finishing has lacked the consistency we’d all perhaps wished he’d have by now and that when in full slalom, the ball occasionally intertwines itself betwixt his feet more by happy accident than design. When you’ve fallen in love with someone though, these little things are nothing more than adorable idiosyncrasies: “It’s no biggy Danny, we still love yer,” we whisper into our cups of tea.  Besides, we’ve all seen enough of Danny’s finishing, when it is more instinctive, or of confident mind, and enough penetrating runs with the ball absolutely in control, to recognise these as mere wrinkles that he’ll iron out over time, rather than something terminal.

Those people I used to hang out with have since moved on to sit at a different table in the pub, and so with Danny in the ascendancy, and receiving praise from all corners this summer, I thought I’d reiterate my feelings regarding the Henry comparison on Twitter, to see if I could recruit some digital allies. The abuse was swift, stealth like; amongst it a couple of death threats (hastily retracted) and some jip from United fans: “#Idiotz lik u giv us a bad gnome…”, etc. My tweet went something like this (actually, this is it verbatim): “Danny is better than Henry was when he first moved to Arsenal. Henry moved to Arsenal when he was 22 years old.”  The implication being, that, in my opinion (already implied in being posted from my Twitter account), Danny is better than Henry was – and this is the key part – when Henry FIRST moved to Arsenal. Also implicit in the comparison, is that the two players’ ages are the same, at the point of their respective careers being referred to: Danny now, Henry then.  So it’s not entirely impossible for me to stretch my imagination and picture Danny getting somewhere close to achieving the amazing things that Henry has. It was a compliment to Henry. Of course, we don’t see tweets as they are, but as we are.

Inevitably I was also inundated with more of those ‘things’ – all up in my chops again. The things like facts and that. So, I thought I’d try some of that there research myself; yuck. And yet. And yet…

Y’know, it turns out, Henry scored just three goals in sixteen games for Juventus, the season before he joined Arsenal, after being asked to play ‘out of position’ as a winger (sounds familiar). Combining this with his scoring record for Monaco – and therefore encompassing his professional career to that point – his goals tally was just above one in every five games. So, if we then cross-reference this with Danny’s goal tally up to this point (not including the two against Swansea) it’s … oh … wait … just above one in five. There’s more … the internet stores this stuff – who knew?! Just before moving to Arsenal, Henry had broken into the French national side and, on his first appearance at a major tournament, finished as their top scorer. Danny happened to make the ‘step up’ to international level much earlier in his career than Henry, relatively speaking, and … oh … wait … also became his national side’s top scorer in his first major tournament. Hey, that wasn’t so bad.

With regards to Henry: I wasn’t that convinced by him at first, and I know that Arsenal fans I was friends with at the time (reluctantly and probably under duress and certainly never in public places), felt the same. He was seen as something of a ‘poor man’s’ replacement for he-of-the-upside-down-smile, who was Real bound having burned Wenger’s cookies once too often. He proved me, and a lot of other people, wrong. That first season he went on to score 26 goals, no mean feat; especially in light of the fact that he initially took time to settle. The rest is Premier League history. I think, scooched in next to Eric, Scholesy and Giggsy, Henry rightly takes his seat in the pantheon of Premier League stars.  I would have absolutely loved him at United. The point being though (it’s in here somewhere), that a career viewed retrospectively, with the benefit of hindsight, does not my comparison quash.

Course, it’s not that I really think Danny is the new Henry: Henry is Henry, Danny is Danny. When I first made the comparison, it was to do with something about the way they both collected the ball – with a similar physicality – and shifted it on; something about the positions they took up; something about the runs they made; something about the types of shots they shape for. But more, it was something about wanting Danny to realise his potential and become one of the best players the Premier League has ever seen, and that is what it’s always been about.

I’ve put a bet on Danny winning Player of the Year, not because I necessarily think he will – though I do necessarily think he will – but because he makes me feel giddy; he gives me hope. As I’ve written before, hope is seen by some as a negative, as delusional, but I see hope as a catalyst, a stimulant, that inspires to better things, and so, I really hope that in fourteen years time we’re talking about Danny Welbeck in the same breath as Thierry Henry.

@manutd24 ManUtd24 site

@BeautifullyRed Beautifully Red site

@Tommy_CTS Can They Score site

@Awate91 Awate Will Make Your Life Better site

@Tr16ia

@UtdRantcast The Rantcast

@TweetsofARed Round The Keeper site

@WilliamAbbs   Saha From The Madding Crowd

@RoughEstateDate  Ellezed site

@LizWorsley  My Sport Toons site

For the past one hundred summers (or thereabouts), the transfer window for United fans has played out like a clever analogy for unparalleled frustration; with nothing remotely central-midfieldy to celebrate. But for a club who supposedly don’t have, haven’t had, or even seemingly got all that close to buying, any one of the best central midfielders around for a hell of a long time (or perhaps more specifically since Roy Keane was shoved onto his own sword mid-fall), United have, have had, and have bought their fair share of the best central midfielders around.

Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves, Darren Fletcher and Anderson (and Tom Cleverley (though still a work in progress), Paul Pogba (though let’s not go there) and an ageing Paul Scholes (though no need to go there)), could all  – under test conditions, with all things being considered and equal – be seriously considered some of the best midfielders around over the past few years. They are all also, as good as, if not better footballers, than Roy Keane was. Now, no doubt the subjective opinions of United fans (and other fans) on all of those players varies dramatically; just because we’re from the same star stuff doesn’t mean we’re on the same planet, but for the purposes of this post, purse those cuss-laden lips, step away from the ‘Leave a Reply’ button (you don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to) and just go with it for a minute…

I make the pointed comment about those players being better footballers than Roy Keane with no agenda, it’s what I think and so I wrote it down. That’s not to say I think any of those players make for better central midfielders. Roy Keane is rightly afforded his status within United’s recent successful history. He was, without a doubt, a more effective force than any of the players listed and possibly – it could be argued – than any other player you may choose to list amongst his peers. I’d also like to add that I’m in no way suggesting that Roy Keane wasn’t a very good footballer, it’s more that, that alone wasn’t what made him Roy Keane; it was the something Other. The indefinable Other – an intensity created by an individual’s attitude and their application of it – that can separate the very best players, from those that are just a little bit better.

Since Roy Keane was hustled off the mic, things – at United, but also things in a broader football sense – have changed. The accepted aesthetic of the midfield has evolved, and the rise to prominence of the likes of Michael Carrick emphasises a part of this. We’re just about wholesale on-board with Michael Carrick at United: a player who had previously fallen short of fans expectations on account of being predisposed to avoid irrational (or intentional) violent acts, for the greater good. That, and not having the genetic coding necessary for a low centre of gravity, therefore being slightly easier to shove off the ball than those less sharply inclined. He instead prefers to concentrate his efforts on other matters, like ball retention, passing, and that – the stuff that wins wars, but not necessarily every battle. But you don’t need me to tell you about Michael Carrick. He’s now generally regarded as a successful and integral part of United’s central midfield, and rightly so, because he is. But, as good as he his, I personally don’t think he has enough of that Otherness. You could (and should) be happy with having a central midfield formed from two players of Michael Carrick’s standing, it would without doubt succeed, but it wouldn’t have that edge and I think it’s that what us greedy United fans are after.

I think you’d be hard pushed to form a sensible sentence that argued that Owen Hargreaves wasn’t the best central midfielder United could have signed when they did. He was an answer; probably THE answer. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be, and alongside Anderson – in his own perpetual state of ill-health – and latterly Fletcher, spent more than enough time staring longingly from the window of the medical centre. Three of our best midfield options out of commission. Hargreaves was upset with the level of treatment provided by the club’s medical staff, suggesting they don’t have the players’ best interests at heart, but this is from a man who collected the Premier League trophy with Manchester City wearing sports sandals over football socks, and so can’t be trusted. There are other, more sane, theories as to why we haven’t shaken free of our midfield malaise: lack of money (or lack of real intent to invest in the team) probably being the theory of choice, but personally I choose to believe it’s been something else.

I genuinely believe, both Darren Fletcher and Anderson not only have bucket loads of the ability necessary, but also of their own brand of that Otherness to be up there with the best – and I think Fergie believed that too. His affection for the pair of them was never more apparent than on his final day at Old Trafford and I think it was his faith in them, his loyalty and regard, that fed a reluctance to seriously pursue and invest in a proper central midfielder. It was a gamble of sorts that never paid off while he was manager. It’s now up to David Moyes.

Before I finish up, think of all the central midfielders United have allegedly lusted after during these summers of malcontent, how have their careers turned out since? Off the top of my Google search: Nasri, Schneider, Rodwell, Modric, Wanyama, Mikel, Dembele, Tiote, Strootman, Hazard and Moura (you can add your own and play along at home) have hardly blazed a trail since having the temerity to resist OUR supposed overtures. Two of those listed I hadn’t even heard of before we bid on them and I still haven’t haven’t heard of them to this day. That’s not to say they wouldn’t have been the appropriate square peg to shove into our inappropriately empty, round hole, but I think it’s important to remember the things you didn’t get that you didn’t really want – it’s more positive; more healthy.

I’m not sure what we want, or whether it even exists and if it does whether it’s available, or if we can afford it if it were, or even if it would want to come to us and if it did come to us that it would be okay with the move – you know would it settle in and that – or if it would be more interested in the money, and if so, as long as it did, well would I be happy with that? Or whether we’d be able to keep it fit and healthy (that one’s for you Hargo) and nurture it’s talent, or if we’ve already got it and it just needs to stay fit … but I do know I want it really bad and it’s not okay that’s it’s just A. N. Other very good midfielder, it has to have that something Other.

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