If you’re reading this and you’re a Manchester United fan then I’ve got some good news for you. It’s basically the title of this piece.
As United plodded their way through the dismal 1-0 defeat at Goodison Park on Saturday, most of us were left scratching our heads.
How could it be possible that this felt even worse than the 4-0 loss there three years ago when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, fresh in his permanent appointment, declared that he would be successful at the club and some of those players would not be?
Well, back then, we felt that was the end of a rotten cycle and we looked forward with optimism. This time around we started the season feeling as though great things were achievable; the club has gone backwards at such a rapid rate it makes Solskjaer’s job look better than the week.
The third-then-second finishes don’t seem so easy to achieve now. And it seems fair to say that with eight first team players off the books in the summer of 2019, Solskjaer was as ruthless as he could reasonably be, even if the fact that six players who played at Everton in 2019 were still strolling around the same turf on Saturday suggests otherwise.
What that does in bring in to a sharper focus the poor work done by the owners and the decision making that has held the club back. By the time Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer were sacked (and you might even include Louis van Gaal in this), nobody could argue in terms of results and performances.
But you could easily trace back six months and say the rot was set in by the owners. In Van Gaal’s case, no investment was provided for a squad in a league that was so winnable Leicester took it. For Mourinho, both incoming and outgoing transfers were blocked just months after giving him a new contract.
Solskjaer was rewarded for his first Champions League qualification with a panic buy deadline day rush that contradicted all talk of planning; and rewarded for second place with the refusal of a midfielder that could have been provided if the Glazer family had decided that, after a pandemic, it would be bad taste to take dividends from the club and instead allowed them to put that money into the team.
Enough time has passed since Solskjaer’s sacking for everyone to understand that the issue lays primarily with the ownership of the club and that has reignited anger from apathy in the support. Protests are planned for this Saturday’s game against Norwich City.
It’s fair to say that for anyone living, this is the worst Manchester United team they’ve ever seen.
There are some players who aren’t good enough and you can’t point the finger at them; it’s not an easy job to play for the club where the demands are so high every single week. You’re expected to put on a Cup Final performance in every game and then you’re not expected to be praised for it. You would say it’s a thankless task if it weren’t for the hundreds of thousands of pounds in salary and the massive shop window they have for their personal ‘brand’.
There are others who seem disinterested. Whether that’s an inherent thing or a natural consequence of the fact that so many contracts are up in the summer, one of the most infuriating aspects of the close to the season is the pedestrian and disconnected way those performances are correlating with what are, ostensibly, the club’s short term ambitions.
Sunday saw a game billed as the bestest ever, by the bestest ever teams, in the bestest ever rivalry. And it was entertaining and refreshing to see two sides attacking but are we really giving both coaches credit for that?
There wasn’t the intensity or all-round quality of United’s games against Arsenal or Chelsea in the last two decades; in fact it seemed representative of a stark decline in the league, the disparity of which has been proven by the embarrassing inconsistency of the teams trying to throw away the Champions League places.
Sorry guys – nobody is quite as competently incompetent on that score as Manchester United.
It’s worse than the post-1958 or the relegation team for one simple reason; any lack of quality was more than compensated for with commitment. This was one of the basic ethics drummed into any good Manchester United side by any manager, not just Busby or Ferguson.
And let it be said for clarity and posterity that the football played by the Docherty side from 1974 to 1977 was light years ahead in terms of quality compared to anything served up since 2013.
United are in such a low ebb that they have a significant hurdle to overcome to match the flair and thrills of the Docherty or Atkinson sides before even thinking of the sort of dynasty teams the club is renowned for.
The good news is that it really can’t get any worse, realistically, for United. Surely.
All signs point to Erik ten Hag being appointed permanent manager in a few weeks and maybe this writer is getting a little carried away with the idea of a fresh face and new ideas but if the appointment is made as quickly as possible then there is genuine cause for optimism that ticks almost every box to satisfy anyone wanting for their club to be reborn. (Almost – the dream is that Saturday’s protests spark a successful start to the owners selling up, but let’s presume that they won’t, not out of pessimism for their chances, but because of a multitude of reasons.)
Ten Hag could theoretically be in position in enough time to make the numerous inevitable exits part of his era and therefore part of his choice. Take the contract off the table for Paul Pogba. Make it clear that those who are running out their days are indeed doing that. No bluffing, no last-minute reprieves. A clean sweep to give the manager some power in the dressing room.
It’s impossible to envisage any team playing in such an apathetic way as United’s limp showings against Leicester and Everton, and so this should nicely set up a welcome for a multi-functional dynamic system as preferred by Ten Hag.
In fact, the Ajax philosophy – so long as it isn’t rigidly imposed by an autocrat like Van Gaal to the extreme degree that players have to be in exact positions – is close enough to United’s historical identity that you could say it’s a bit like John Hammond setting foot on Isla Nublar.
In their best moments in the latter parts of the Ferguson reign, where he was assisted by Rene Meulensteen, there was a very modern multi-functional capacity to many of the players, as proven by many surprising, and successful, team selections over the years.
The thing all of those surprising and successful results had in common is that the surprises were sprung using players who were workhorses and not the stars of the team; dependable players were deployed in unfamiliar positions because their professional intelligence and work-rate was exceptional enough to count on.
The balance at United is wrong – all wrong – but a clean sweep and a manager with these ideals can instantly address this issue too. That is what this low ebb provides.
There will be a clear and obvious vacancy in the team and squad to bring in players with these attributes; the doubtful voices, mine included, who believe it might need a change of the entire team to return the club to winning ways may be pleasantly surprised by the influence of four or five so long as they are the right players.
The United support will respond to players who are visibly putting in a shift even if things aren’t going right. They respond to commitment like-for-like; and in that respect, United aren’t that different from any other football club.
It’s a long, gradual process in front of us, but the dross of recent weeks provides us with optimism that any improvement will be seen as vast. Those players with the right attitude will, hopefully, possess the required character to assist the development of the number of talented young players waiting to come through.
These things can be achieved even with the ownership as it is. Liverpool, a club with lesser resources, have proven that. And the general lack of quality in the rest of the league provides United with a handy leg up; a lesson that needs to be quickly learned is that it isn’t about matching Manchester City, it’s about accumulating enough points in 38 games to contend. And United don’t play City and Liverpool every week.
These things can be achieved – so long as the manager’s decisions are then backed to provide him with a stronger power over the playing squad than his predecessors were given.
So take in the next few weeks which are likely to resemble a sore wound; repeated lethargy is on the menu, and it might be difficult to stomach, but the relief will be profound come the summer because there is no reasonable way this can continue and it is clear that all parties now recognise it.
Without knowing it, the depths to which the club has been sinking could provide the perfect platform for its resurrection.
Too hopeful?
