YEP SAYS: Forget summer, let's start the soccer season

But you can excuse United fans for counting down the days to mid-August when Garry Monk’s new team first kick the ball in anger.

For the first time in goodness knows how long, United supporters have a manager who, it seems, can count on support from everyone at the club – from the supporters to Massimo Cellino and everyone in between.

Steve Evans did a good job in difficult circumstances, but Monk will have much more going for him.

Of course, three quick defeats and all this optimism will seem foolish and misplaced but now in early June United supporters can look forward to a team playing good football and – maybe – an eye on the Premiership rather than League One.

Everything Monk says seems to make sense. The way he has moved on from his Swansea disappointment; the way he went to Seville to learn; the way he looked at other sports to gain a better knowledge of management.

“I have tried to use it positively,” said Monk of his time on the sidelines.

For a man of 37 – a mere infant in soccer management terms – he seems to have a wise head. Unity at United? Whatever next!

Two caught by their own greed

ANYONE WHO has ever travelled by train will have bemoaned disrupted services.

So it good that there is a system in place for passengers to be compensated.

But two men decided to cheat the system and falsely claim for thousands of pounds for ‘delays’ on services they had never even been on. It was a ‘carefully organised’ scam which was uncovered by the greed of the men concerned.

They may have thought they were cheating a faceless company. But it is the public who end up having to foot the bill for such dishonesty. Thankfully, they have now paid for their crimes.