“Hopefully next week will be the biggest celebration of our lives,” he said, as he manfully attempted to put a cheery gloss on this, likely to be only the fifth season in the past 23 under his stewardship in which no trophy has been won.
Their manager’s motivational speech is now all that Manchester United and their followers have left this season. Expectation – “the standard currency around Old Trafford – left the building long before even those hoping to beat the traffic. And they were on their way in their droves with half an hour to go on Sunday, serenaded out by Swansea fans inquiring, “Is this a fire drill?”
But then there wasn’t much to get excited about here. The news from Newcastle United had utterly smothered the atmosphere around Old Trafford before kick-off, as the fans arrived knowing that, as far as this season goes, the oversized female vocalist has not only completed her repertoire, she’s sung the encore and is in the bar with the leader of the orchestra enjoying a post-performance gin.
To swing the mathematics at the top of the Premier League back in their favour United needed to win this one by 10. And frankly, against a team as organised as Swansea, that was never going to happen. You could understand the keenness to head home: no point getting stuck in a jam to watch the last rites conducted on a pointless season.
That said, just as Roberto Mancini insisted, this was an easy victory for United. Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young gambolled down the wings, Michael Carrick threaded his through-balls, Wayne Rooney buzzed about like an angry wasp, as the Welsh side were dispatched with mechanical efficiency.
But the reaction of Paul Scholes when he opened the scoring in the 25th minute with the most nonchalant of backheels indicated this game’s true significance in deciding the destiny of the title: the old stager barely managed a flicker of a smile in celebration.
There will be much discussion in Manchester’s workplaces over the next week about what exactly United lost here. It wasn’t just the title, nor the fortnightly opportunity for the public address announcer to welcome “the Barclays Premier League champions”. Local supremacy has gone too, as has the sniggering sense of superiority about all things City.
But perhaps the most damaging thing that has been lost in this championship run-in has been that sense of invincibility that has hung for so long over this stadium. The characteristics United supporters can generally rely on in their team at the business end of a season – “a ruthlessness, single-mindedness, an ability to close the deal” – have been absent this past month. The title was not surrendered to City because Ferguson’s men only managed to score twice against Swansea. It wasn’t even surrendered in their failure to muster so much as a shot on target at the Etihad last Monday. It was lost by forgetting to win away at Wigan last month and, most damagingly of all, by failing to hold on to a two-goal lead against Everton a fortnight ago.
“Eight points up and you messed it up,” sang the gleeful visiting Welsh choir. Except they didn’t use the word “messed”. And it is not often in Ferguson’s tenure that anyone has been able to accuse any side of his of messing up.
Ferguson now faces a tricky summer, plotting how to restore his club’s superiority now he is obliged to work in the lengthening shadow cast by the mountain of money down the road. His mood will not have been bettered by the fact that Swansea’s Gylfi Sigurdsson, who is said to be near the top of the United’s shopping list, hardly gave a sparkling audition. His passing was largely off target; twice he put balls through for Nathan Dyer to chase that Usain Bolt would have struggled to reach. To catch City, though, he will require more than an on-loan Icelander. And that remains the case even were the most unlikely set of circumstances to prevail next Sunday.
“It’s not over yet,” insisted the cover line on the front of the match-day programme. Hope, as Ferguson insisted still remains. Though in truth, relying on Joey Barton, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Djbril Cissé to deliver your dreams brings new definition to the term hope.