Emo Phillips used to have a problem. People would come up to him and ask, "Emo, do people really come up to you?" Well, these days people come up to me, too. Really. They come up to all sports scribblers; we are the emergency services of these turbulent times. They come up to us with their little lost-soul faces and they ask, "What's gone wrong at United?"
After 57 counselling sessions administered free of charge to these mendicant waifs, I have distilled my answer to one brief line. I look the poor divil in the eyes, shake my head softly and say: "I'm sorry, I think you're mixing me up with somebody who cares." Tough love.
It's not quite true, of course. I do give a damn. What's happening at Manchester United is fascinating, much more interesting than anything that has happened there over the last eight or nine years and long may it continue. Meanwhile, feigned indifference is the only sane response to the overkill which has attended the inevitable decline of empire.
Yes, a shrug of the shoulders is the only fitting response, especially here in Dublin, where despite being removed by means of nationhood, sea and tradition from Old Trafford we still managed to co-opt Manchester United as the official team of the Celtic Tiger era. That big, flash, win-it-all mentality was ideal for the times we lived in. Manchester United? Why, suits you Sir, suits you! From D4 to Bertie to those country squires, who might or might not be buying Old Trafford with the intention of installing Alex Ferguson as chairman and official scarecrow to frighten off any other decent manager, Manchester United have been the sporting wing of the Tiger Era. Many of the prawn sandwiches which Roy Keane cited in evidence last year came to rest in soft little Irish bellies.
Which makes the decline, precipitous and timely as it is, of more than mere academic interest to those of us unbaptised in the faith. We ask not what has gone wrong at United; rather, we ask what did the chaps expect? No more recession! Permanent good times! Did they think that Manchester United would win everything, every year, forever?
Have these suckers forgotten that the basic requirement of following a football team is the ability to endure suffering? It's not who wins the most, but who suffers the most. You have your Don Revies, but you pay for it with your Cloughies, your Thomas Brolins, your Richard Bloody Jobsons (sorry for the digression into my own personal hell). That's right, year in, year out, through thick and thin you pay for it. That's the basis of the fan-team relationship.
I watched Manchester United twice last week. I cursed those feeble Boavistans but admired the plucky East Enders on Saturday, noting ruefully that even without Lampard and Ferdinand there is plenty more talent at Upton Park to hang price tags on.
Who could begrudge West Ham their glory on Saturday? Manchester United will dip into slummy mid-table for a brief period and they'll buy Joe Cole or Michael Carrick or whichever bauble they need to get them out of there. Living in that mid-table area and getting uptown via the odd cup run is all that West Ham can really hope for.
Manchester United are one of the reasons why teams like West Ham will always have to sell to survive. Economically Manchester United left The Hammers behind long ago. United have been on the Champions League carousel for the best part of a decade now. Leave aside the merchandising and the size of their ground, and Champions League play alone is enough to attract the best players and pay them what they expect to be paid.
After United there is a queue of teams who either have one foot on the carousel (Liverpool and Arsenal) and others who have gambled heavily on the prospect of squeezing on (Leeds, Chelsea). Maybe four or five others are building towards that. Then there is the fodder whose occasional successes are the last romance of big time English football.
Eventually, though, the elite will get fed up of the inconvenience of being tripped up by the likes of West Ham or Charlton and decide to play only with each other. Until then, the remote possibility that Manchester United might, for a while, go back to being just another club is as good as the Premier League entertainment gets.
So I don't worry and I don't care. I watch because in time of trouble the best stories are those of the individuals involved. These days one's eyes seldom stray from Roy Keane. The sudden descent into mediocrity is so obviously an affront to his standards that his facial expressions oscillate between bewilderment and rage. He devours ground, he devours inept team-mates, he devours opponents. Not since Lear ran wild on the heath have we seen such a storm. Even the daintiest prawn sandwich-eater must come away from Old Trafford knowing that in Keane he has witnessed a true warrior, a professional who gives it all, every time.
Keane's magisterial rage is the main reason why his side are compulsive viewing right now. The progress of John O'Shea is another. His composure on Saturday was remarkable and he looks like a player equipped with everything except experience. Which makes his situation all the more intriguing. In this, his lap-of-honour season, when Alex Ferguson appears to be thinking ever more fondly of the sinecures and suntans he'll be enjoying next year, will he give O'Shea the chance to grow into the player he surely can be? It's tough being a young centre half during a crisis time at the world's richest club, but if O'Shea is ever going to get an opportunity it has to be now, right now, in this season where the league has been lost before Christmas and the United defence is specialising in comedy routines.
If O'Shea makes the breakthrough into regular, first team football, then Ireland will have at last gained a centre half who might compare with the greats we had during the Charlton era, and Ferguson's wonderful legacy will be recalled for a decade or more hence whenever the elegant Irish centre half sweeps the ball from defence.
So we watch for that. And to see what Ferguson will do with the Nevilles. Personally, I'd cash in on poor old Beckham, selling to a team in a country where he might get a tan and conceive a son called Madrid or Barcelona or even Udinese, and I'd throw in the Nevilles for company. I'd stick with 4-4-2 and make Veron fit in with Keane and Butt, not the other way round. Then I'd get a couple of hard and experienced bastards to play full back.
But, hey, what do I know?
