Dog Day Afternoon

United, Januzaj and a Mancunian afternoon

After years of laziness, it finally seems the fitting day to decide to write with more regularity. Oh wait, there have been fitting-er days. But none more relieving than this one.

Your average Saturday, spent looking forward to watching your side in the evening. Clubs you once competed with are nutmegging their way past you. Arsenal winning with ten men. Liverpool on song elsewhere. And here you are, wondering if life would ever be the same again.

Mike Brearley recently spoke beautifully on the oft-encountered debate about the relevance of sport. On days like this, when all else is low, it is only natural to think that, sport is one of the few things that can comfort you that all isn’t wrong with this world. In this case, Manchester United.

About 8 weeks into a season where we have only known mediocrity, these were 80 minutes you had gotten used to, but pretended were only an aberration. That some day, when our squad would channel their Fergie-ness and come back to win, would seemingly never come.

It finally did, at long last. Javier Hernandez, the pea which that pine tree defence ignored, slotted that winner in. The cameras panned to show a wrestler-like fist pump from Moyes. Those hundred million bad things in our Pandora’s box seemingly disappeared for a fleeting moment. Hope was all that we had left.

Whether Moyes got it all right or wrong today would be judged on his tactics over the next few games. That classic throwing of the kitchen sink after the hour was a relief. In the end, you have to say, Januzaj made the difference. That magical difference.

18 year old kid comes on. The old men have been getting it all wrong. Teaches them not to pump balls into those towering heads. Dances his way through that overcrowded marketplace. Gets those mules penalised. They finally relent. Five free-kicks and as many corners result. The old men duly acknowledge by scoring.

The brightest star in the Canis Major, Sirius, lends its name to the so-called dog days- long, warm summer afternoons. Our lanky young star, likewise, shone brightest on an afternoon bathed in sunshine.

A little, if limp, attempt at poetry, to end this one.

On a day we went hell for leather,
Huffing and puffing our way,
He ran hither, he ran dither,
Our brightest star, Adnan Janu-zaay!