The Scottish Souse stretches his arms before another barcrawl
United are marching towards another Premier League title, buoyed by the strength of their squad and the unerring confidence of the collective. It is, begrudgingly, a sight to behold, especially as witnessed at Emirates Stadium on Tuesday.
With Ronaldo shooting from all angles, seemingly unable to miss, and the tireless hustle of Wayne Rooney, it's become dispiriting for the chasing pack who, even when given a small window of opportunity to make up ground (I'm looking at you, Liverpool), have never quite been able to get within touching distance.
For all of United's irritating, frustrating might, I'd argue that one force has been far stronger this season, looming large over the heads of fellow title chasers, gnawing
at their spirit.
Despite the fact that United's squad have played 61 games already this season, it's the one they haven't played that has made the biggest difference.
Before Christmas, United took a trip out to Asia for The Club World Cup, a gloriously empty and unnecessary tournament that provides money, minimal excitement (just look at the teams involved!), a slew of meaningless trophies -- not just a "Golden Ball", but a "Silver Ball", a "Bronze Ball", and then a Top Scorer Award (something I thought the "Golden Ball" would have covered, but there you go), a Fair Play Award (lame), and then a Winning Manager award, something I reckoned might be folded into the actual trophy for winning the damn thing.
In short, it's a FIFA moneyspinner and a way for them to keep the outlying soccer federations happy via bags of unmarked banknotes and suit pockets lined with gold. It says a lot that the tournament disappeared for 4 years only to reappear in newer, shinier, shittier form.
Anyway, I'm backing off the main point here. The Club World Cup gave United a fortnight's break from the frosty rigors of the EPL. While their biggest challengers were suffering and playing in games of consequence, Fergie's lads put their feet up and prepared for two difficult matches against Gamba Osaka and LDU Quito.
Then, upon their return, they slowly, diligently set about making up their missed matches in order to catch up with everyone else. Or not.
You see, they were supposed to play Wigan in the EPL on December 20th, a date slap-bang in the middle of their Club World Cup jaunt. And so, while other fixtures were rescheduled due to their participation in 9,161 competitions this season, this hanging chad of a home game with Wigan Athletic has been allowed to carry over into the middle of May.
By all intents and purposes, that's a fucking disgrace.
The psychological impact of a game-in-hand is immense in any sport. Opponents know that their own team's record only tells half the story when trying to keep pace with other title hopefuls. Well, it's nice if Liverpool or Chelsea win this weekend to close the gap to 2 points, but that gap is essentially 5 points pending United's tidy sweep-up of their game-in-hand. And so it goes, and so it goes, and so it goes.
While other teams have played massively condensed fixture lists in order to keep up (I believe Arsenal played a stretch of 5 games in 12-15 days at one point because they were behind in FA Cup games or Carling Cup games or something? Gooner fans, help me out here), United's dalliance with Wigan has been allowed to surf over the masses to the end of the season.
How does something like this happen? Are the two clubs immune from a mid-week fixture? How can the EPL justify their season going for the better part of five months with an asterisk hanging over its biggest club? I mean, while Liverpool, Chelsea and others have done their part in handing the title to United via draws at heartbreaking times, it could have all been so different if everyone was playing week-to-week and having the same number of games played by that Monday.
The perceived injustice stings that much more when you consider how bitter and angry Fergie gets about the fixture list to begin with. Remember back in January when he was ranting about playing all the Big 4 clubs away from home in the first half of the season? Yeah, he isn't bellyaching so much about that now.
To add to the bitterness of this article, the game-in-hand is against Wigan, coached by United's cuddliest defender of the 1990s, Steve Bruce. I'm sure that game will be as hard-fought as Dancing With The Stars.
So while we wait for United to complete the inevitable, let's not overlook the game-in-hand. Whereas baseball does this sort of thing all the time due to rain-outs, they end up compensating with double-headers. Not only that, but one game amid 162 doesn't stick out nearly as much as one game amid 38.
Next time Fergie opens his whisky-rotted mouth and comes up for air to gripe about his team's mistreatment, think of the game-in-hand. It's been a godsend for United, considering now they get to play it when it no longer means a thing.
Read more on "A Game in Hand is worth two in real life"...
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