Aidan Smith: Manchester United are looking like a mouth full of rotten teeth again and what they need is the new Doc

I wonder if Manchester United fans, out of Europe and very possibly out of Old Trafford as well, are thinking wistfully of two Scottish managers right now. Neither of them, though, is Sir Alex Ferguson.

I mean, they’ll be thinking of Fergie, too, because that must be their default position. And as they contemplate the wrecking ball scudding into the Theatre of Dreams and a new stadium sprouting up nearby, the faithful will be utterly convinced that never under the greatest of them all were the Red Devils ever as witless in Europe as against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night.

No, this time they may be pondering David Moyes and Tommy Docherty and the fates which befell them. Twenty-four hours after Man U’s exit, Moyes was steering West Ham United past Sevilla and there are bound to be some who now regret that he wasn’t given him more of a chance as their boss.

Then, also on Thursday, came publication of Jon Spurling’s Get It On: How the 70s Rocked Football (Biteback), a vital compendium of the teams, characters, bust-ups, shocks, heroes, villains, pioneering punditry, fashions, haircuts, pop-star appropriation and bovver-boy activity which shaped the game’s most chaotically exciting decade. Under the heading of “The Glams”, the Doc gets a chapter all to himself.

Now I’m pretty sure that if Docherty was still with us – he died on Hogmanay, 2020 – supporters would not be campaigning for his return to the dugout. A long time out of the game, he lived to the grand old age of 92. Those five years at United were sometimes mad, occasionally bad. But they could also be thrilling. Tell me if I’m wrong, all you semi-retired skinheads of the Stretford End, scarves tied round wrists, but did the “Attack, attack, attack!” chant not