Tuesday night was something of a triumph for Manchester United and their new treble-Glazered outlook.
Not just because the team beat Hungarian hopefuls Debrecen 3-0 at Old Trafford to just about ensure a record 10th successive entry in to the group stages of the Champions League.
But because three of controversial new owner Malcolm Glazer’s bespectacled boys (Joel, Avram and Bryan, for the record, though I’m boogered if I can tell who’s who in this Tampa Bay tribe) came, saw and monitored without causing a riot.
But there were plenty of empty seats to see the luckless Hungarians battered (though they had beaten Hadjuk Split 8-0 in the previous round and had a goal disallowed at 1-0) and about 700 fans demonstrated outside the ground against the £800-million Glazer takeover.
Ultimately, it was business as usual as Wayne Rooney, Ruud van Nistelrooy and the excellent Cristiano Ronaldo did the business in front of 51 701 (in a stadium that can take 70 000 these days).
Afterwards Sir Alex Ferguson, who finally admitted to a summer spat with Roy Keane, said: ”Let’s stand together and be a truly united football club. Let’s welcome the Glazers and show them what’s so special about the club they have bought.”
What was obviously special to Malcolm Glazer and his bank manager is that United are the biggest club, in financial terms, the world has ever seen.
What appears not to matter enough to the Americans is that they are not currently the most successful club in the Premiership.
They finished last season trophyless after the penalty shoot-out defeat against Arsenal in the FA Cup final and, apart from the acquisition of the excellent Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar for £2-million from Fulham, have they really spent enough to keep up with big-spending Chelsea during the off-season?
Keane, Van Nistelrooy, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs are getting no younger, Phil Neville has joined Nicky Butt and David Beckham on the good old boys train out of town and those rumours about Michael Owen betraying his Liverpudlian roots to move to Manchester appear to have come to nothing.
While Chelsea, who take on Wigan in their first premiership appearance, are on the verge of signing Michaele Essien from Lyon for a whopping £23-million, United and Arsenal remain relatively penny-pinching by comparison.
What we can be sure of, though, is that Everton, beaten 2-1 by Spain’s third-best outfit Villarreal this week, will not be able to repeat their fourth-placed finish last season. They sold Rooney without causing too much trouble, but getting rid of Tomas Gravesen last season to Real Madrid was a ridiculous, self-inflicted calamity.
That’s why United should kick off with at least a point at Goodison on Saturday, with Rooney starring against his old club. Arsenal may struggle against Graeme Souness’s restructured Newcastle on Sunday, but United and the Gunners will remain the only distant runners behind what Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho and his associates are already describing as a ”one-horse race” to the title. For all their brave buying, relegation-bound Wigan will be swept away by the blue tide on Sunday, and they won’t be alone.
Just look at the other week one pairings: Aston Villa and Bolton, Fulham and Birmingham, Man City and West Brom, Portsmouth and Tottenham, Sunderland and Charlton, West Ham and Blackburn. Already half of these games are tinged with relegation fears; none can hope to compete with the top three, and most would find themselves taken apart by Chelsea’s reserves this season.
But there is one fixture worth noting outside the Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United axis: Middlesbrough versus Liverpool. With towering Peter Crouch signed from Southampton and Stevie Gerrard staying on, Rafael Benitez and his shock European champions will compete at the highest level this season on all fronts.
If anybody can stop Chelsea, it’s that canny Spaniard Benitez — if he can get his foreign wimps to perform on wintery nights in places like Wigan and Sunderland.