DECEMBER 13 — It’s often said that sports fans are fickle, but I don’t think it’s really appreciated just how fleeting our affections can be.

Today’s hero can very easily become tomorrow’s forgotten man, and today’s anonymous unknown can always become tomorrow’s next big thing.

In the words of the rock frontman par excellence David Lee Roth: "Here today...gone late today.”

This weekend’s sporting action delivered plenty of examples of just how quickly sporting fortunes can change, including the rapid rise of Manchester United’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

Just a month ago, Mkhitaryan – a summer signing from Borussia Dortmund – wasn’t getting anywhere near the action, apparently being punished by manager Jose Mourinho for a poor performance against local rivals Manchester City.

He didn’t play for nearly two months after being substituted at half-time during that game against City, leading to speculation that his Old Trafford career was practically already over before it had even properly started.

Now though, the Armenian international has been given a second chance and he is taking it with both hands, capping a fine run of form by scoring the only goal as United defeated Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.

It didn’t have to be that way. His confidence or attitude could have been irrevocably damaged by his early failures, or Mourinho could have decided to wash his hands of the player without giving him a second chance.

But for whatever reasons, fate conspired to present Mkhitaryan with an opportunity to prove himself, and he has taken it by becoming a player whose name may soon even be spelt correctly by millions of United fans all over the world.

A couple of thousand miles away, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, until this weekend Matt Moore had sunk to far lower depths of anonymity than Mkhitaryan.

Moore is the back-up quarterback for the Miami Dolphins American Football team, and his status as perennial back-up to never-injured first choice starter Ryan Tannehill means that he has not started a game since 2011.

He will now though. Tannehill suffered a serious knee injury during Miami’s game against Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, forcing Moore into action at a highly delicate time in a game which had to be won to maintain the team’s hopes of qualifying for the play-offs.

Moore later admitted that as he prepared to take over from Tannehill for the latter stages, with the score tied, he thought to himself: "I haven’t done this for a while.”

But there were no signs of five-year rust as he promptly led his team downfield for a winning score which keeps their season alive. Now, with just three games of the season remaining, Moore has been propelled from not even playing to becoming the team’s most important player as they attempt to make the play-offs for the first time since 2008.

If he succeeds and takes Miami deep into the post-season, it would be the most dramatic possible example of how a player can emerge from the shadows. Moore would be a superstar, and Tannehill – who had started 77 consecutive games – would be as good as forgotten.

If there’s one sportsman in the world whose deeds looked like they would never be forgotten, that man is probably Sachin Tendulkar.

As the undisputed star player for more than two decades in the national sport of the second biggest country in the world, Indian cricketer Tendulkar is revered as a god – and that’s no exaggeration whatsoever – in his native land.

Until the last few weeks, the idea that anyone could ever even come close to matching the esteem of Tendulkar, who retired in 2013 after becoming the leading run scorer in cricket test match history, was laughable.

But now Virat Kohli is doing just that, with the new captain’s double-century against England, which went a long way towards sealing India’s series victory, leading to tributes on a scale previously only reserved for ‘The Little Master’ Tendulkar.

A new generation of Indian children are growing up now having never seen Tendulkar play but watching Kohli every week. And as much as their older brothers and fathers may extol the virtues of the man they loved so dearly, that won’t mean very much at all to the youngsters, who are far more interested in what they are watching right now.

Tendulkar, at least, is being spared criticism from his former fans. But the same can’t be said of Jamie Carragher, who greatly angered many Liverpool fans with his fierce criticism of goalkeeper Loris Karius’s performance during Sunday’s draw against West Ham.

Carragher played 737 games for Liverpool and was perceived as one of the club’s greatest ever servants, but that hasn’t stopped him from being called every name under the sun by fans who feel he should show more loyalty to the current crop.

It’s all in the rise and fall. Fortunes go up and down, and the cases of Mkhitaryan, Moore, Kohli and Carragher show precisely how fans move on from today’s hero to tomorrow’s superstar in the blink of an eye.

Fickle? That doesn’t even begin to describe it.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.