Roll on Sunday, 20 September.
Forgive me for not taking it one game at a time and
looking slightly beyond Saturday morning’s pre-season opener in
Kuala Lumpur, but I just can’t help relishing the Reds’ first
skirmish with the New Improved Manchester City, especially now they
have one Carlos Alberto Tevez in their ranks.
The summer recruitment drive at Eastlands – with or without the
still possible additions of Adebayor and Terry – will not only make
the race for fifth place more interesting (look out Everton and
Villa, City are coming), it should also make for a better derby
than the one we witnessed at Old Trafford on 10 May.
Of course, United picked up three more points on that last derby
day, thank you very much, but it became a procession after the
break with the Reds already two-up; even the ever-industrious
Darren Fletcher admitted afterwards, “We slackened off a bit in the
second half, but we’d done enough to win the match.”
I wonder, did the lack of resistance from City, then Arsenal six
days later, give the United players the best preparation for the
bigger fish they had to fry in Rome? I’d say not – if every game is
a full-blooded, high stakes affair, with both teams going hammer
and tongs, surely that’s better for maintaining levels of intensity
and tempo. The Reds were playing, almost literally, cup finals
every week en route to lifting the European Cup in 1999; when,
conversely, the Premier League was won at a canter in 2000 and
2001, the concurrent Champions League campaigns faltered.
City at home won't be a cup final, it never is for United, but
coming just six games into the league season, it could tell us
just how seriously we should take the threat from our shopaholic
neighbours. Especially if the Blues have
lived up to the expectations of their understandably giddy
supporters and racked up a maximum 15 points before kick-off at Old
Trafford.
So roll on the first derby of the new season, with a certain
Argentine hell-bent on scoring against his former employers –
assuming Mark Hughes brings him off the bench, that is. Such fire
and brimstone from the Blues could bring out the best in the
champions on the pitch and stir the crowd off it as we rise to the
challenge of a new world order in football. Apparently.