“Ohhhhh wanky wanky, wanky wanky wanky Wanderers” doesn’t have quite the same effect when you’re 1-0 down against Bolton at the Reebok. Nicolas Anelka, the bitter-bin-dipping-rent-boy, scored with 11 minutes played following a mistake by Gerard Pique.

Without Wayne Rooney, the player who was absent in every single defeat of our title campaign last season, we just looked fairly spineless.

We travel to Bolton tomorrow and Rooney is out again. Our back four could be Fabio – O’Shea – Vidic – Rafael. In our last 10 games, we’ve scored 1 goal or less on 8 occasions. Doesn’t bode too well?

Gary Megson got the first win of his Bolton career against United and has reflected on what effect beating us last season might have on our players.

“It was a good result for us last year,” said Megson. “It stuck in the throat a bit in that if we could play like we did against United all the time we could be in the top six, and not the bottom six. Every player wants to play against them but, more importantly, wants to be in a team that beats them. We are no different, and that is what we are looking to do again. But our result against them last year will make it harder for us. Someone told me Sir Alex said his two disappointments last year were losing at our place and somewhere else.”

No doubt, tomorrow will be tough for us. We had a great performance and a great result against Chelsea last weekend but that will have little bearing on tomorrow.

We need those three points though, we want to go top, so we have to beat Bolton.