"The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope..." - Sarah Connor, Terminator II: Judgement Day
Yesterday morning, I had absolutely certainty that today's game would involve an excrutiatingly inept performance and comprehensive defeat at Old Trafford resulting in an FA Cup exit at the first hurdle. Now, after The Return of the King, who knows what might happen?
Are we still underdogs? Absolutely. But suddenly the result is an uncertainty rather than a foregone conclusion.
Kenny was not in post in time to affect training so what we see today may very well be unchanged from the sacrificial lambs Hodgson had prepared to lay down on the alter of his close friend Alex. The difference will be in the minds of those players. They are no longer playing for a patsy whose removal was inevitable. They are now playing for a bone fide Liverpool legend and need to impress him if they are to keep their places for what promises to be an electric home game against Everton next week.
Perhaps Dalglish will even have intervened in team selection and tactics. Perhaps we will see Agger and Aurelio in for Kyrgiakos and PFK (Paul Fucking Konchesky). Perhaps we will see Gerrard in the hole supporting a revitalised Torres whom the manager has reminded that United's back four are sh*t-scared of him. Perhaps just the simplistic message "Go out and express yourselves" rather than "Maintain solid banks of four at all costs" will be liberating enough to reignite the fire in the bellies of these players.
Who knows? And that is the wonderful, wonderful thing about today's game. We no longer know what will happen. Ferguson who knew exactly what players and tactics his team would need to overcome, suddenly doesn't know what to expect. A seed of doubt and fear will have been sown in his mind and in the minds of his players and that gives us an opportunity.
Whether today ends with us still in the cup or not, it's just wonderful to be approaching a big game with a sense of hope once more.
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