Stinkin’ Thinkin’

The summer is supposed to provide a window of respite from any United-related stresses. As well as giving your liver and bank balance a chance to recover, it usually means a quiet 8 weeks with no ballot deadlines to remember, no tickets to sort and no transport to organise. It’s all quite enjoyable switching off and not thinking about it for a couple of months – something the dopamine-addicted, transfer virgins on social media should try to experience at least once.

For a large number of reds the last couple of months have been anything but stress-free if they happened to receive ‘the email’ – the club’s latest attack on ST holders and members with the usual justification of it being part of their ongoing effort to ‘combat touting’. Yeah right, of course it is. For the hundreds affected it was a case of guilty until proven innocent, with the club threatening to revoke tickets yet at the same time, choosing not to disclose what individual supporters were actually being accused of.

It’s further evidence that the club now sees legacy supporters as a target and this latest move is proof that they’re escalating attempts to take us down. United aren’t unique in this, it’s a scenario being played out across the Premier League with mandatory digital tickets now in place across the board. In reality it just gives clubs more tools to pry into into peoples’ habits (ie how we use the ticket portals they’ve insisted on) and impose threats and sanctions under the guise of caring about supporters’ safety. What a crock of bullshit.

The club insists that a robust appeals process is in place but given it’s now a few days from the first home game and many people are still on tenterhooks, I’m not sure it’s as solid as they claim. If supporters are logging in on multiple devices, what business is it of the club? It’s really not uncommon for people to have a desktop computer, a laptop, tablet, a couple of phones and various work devices accessible – what gives the club the right to demand explanations of how people choose to use these? It’s not just overstepping the mark, it’s completely absurd.

In the carefully-worded, non-apology posted on the official website, the club highlighted the fact they’d uncovered an instance of a single device accessing over 1000 different accounts. Fantastic, so they’ve likely stumbled an actual tout there – mission accomplished, you’d presume. Clearly there’s something dodgy going on in that particular case, so focus efforts there and do something about it. Using such an extreme example as justification for them accusing hundreds of others was just plain disingenuous, however.

I’m convinced the purpose of this exercise was simply to cull a few hundred more tickets in the hope that people would react to the email by saying, “I can’t be arsed with this anymore so I’m not gonna appeal”. I’m sure they knew full well that the overwhelming number of recipients weren’t touts, but despite that they chose to send it anyway. It increases resentment, it causes upset, it creates divide. This as exactly what they want as they know full well the traditional support has no desire to embrace whatever ticketing bullshit they’re planning to introduce at their crap new stadium.

The club has set a precedent that means this level of intrusive snooping will only continue. “You can keep your ticket for now, but be warned that we’re watching you.” Again, I simply refuse to believe that this anything to do with combatting touting – that’s just a sideshow. This is all part of a wider initiative aimed at maximising revenue from match day tickets. My ticket works out at £45 a game and the club are acutely aware that in their hands they could get 3-4 times that price if they threw in a free programme and sold it as part of a hospitality package.

ST holders might have served a purpose in previous eras providing a guaranteed steady income stream, now they’re just a nuisance with clubs looking to attract high spending football tourists instead. Like the World Cup in the summer, the Premier League has moved to a place that’s beyond commercial – it’s cynical, greedy and exploitative. They might try and spin the narrative that they’re concerned with fan safety and ticket touting (ie trying to help us), but ultimately this is about weeding us out so they can fleece bigger idiots with deeper pockets.

With all this dominating the summer discourse there wasn’t much pre-season optimism floating about this year – which seems entirely prescient given the absolute shitshow served up at Hull. I was hoping we might avoid being 7 points behind in September for once, but based on Saturday’s evidence that might be wishful thinking. Honestly, I don’t know where to start. Sloth-like movement, players not looking fit, complete failure to press and once again, an entire team seemingly shocked and stunned by the intensity of the PL.

I was quite enthused by the Tielemans signing but the guy looks woefully out of shape and even slower than Casemiro. Santos was slightly better but I still can’t help thinking we’ve not really plugged any of the holes that were evident last season. Baleba is an apparent done dealio and is going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting over the coming months. A lot of the conversation has been about needing a new LB this summer, but Mazraoui had another terrible game on the opposite flank. It demonstrates just how bad United were when I’m stood there pining for Dalot to be brought on after half an hour.

To cap it all, there’re still no takers for Marcus Rashford. I’m praying something happens over the next week or so otherwise this current marriage of inconvenience will likely end in disaster. The club doesn’t want him and he doesn’t want to be here either. It says everything about him that he’s literally putting money ahead of his career by insisting on seeing out this contract. There’s been lots of good work done in weeding out corrosive figures in United’s dressing room, this shouldn’t be jeopardised by giving a fresh opportunity to someone who burnt his bridges a long time ago.

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Don’t Look Back

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With the absence of European football there was hope we might see more Saturday 3pms this year but we appear to have become Monday night mainstays instead. Not great for anyone travelling long distances, not great for fanzine sales and especially not great for those of us whose ideal match day is typically bookended by 5-6 hours ‘socialising’. I’ve not added it up but compared to last season’s total outlay I must’ve saved an absolute fortune in total.

Thanks to Michael Carrick and the general ineptitude of rival teams, at the time of writing it looks like CL qualification will be secured with games to spare. We’ve only played once over the last month and yet we’re still in 3rd place somehow – it’ll take an almighty capitulation for us to balls it up now. It’s been quite the turnaround from 12 months ago where despite lurching all the way to Bilbao, a 15th place finish was exactly what we deserved after an appallingly poor PL campaign.

This season has been much improved, particularly in the period immediately after Carrick’s appointment where Mainoo returned to the starting line-up and the whole team started to play like the shackles were off. We’re still quite brittle, particularly at OT (as Leeds recently demonstrated) but the positive signs are starting to outweigh the negatives (he said tentatively). The game at Stamford Bridge serves as a good example of this as there’s no way we would have seen that out so comfortably under Amorim.

Our inconsistency at home is made plain if you consider the experience of my mate’s 14 year old daughter. She’s been coming to the game with us over the last 3-4 years whenever there’s a spare ticket. Last season we noticed a trend had developed and after some discussion and questioning, it came to light that in 25+ visits to OT she’s seen United win a grand total of ONCE. It’s an incredible stat which has now led to her being known as ‘the curse’. If this poor girl had been born 2 decades previously she’d more than likely have never seen us get beat.

I was one of those people banging on about the missed opportunity for an unlikely title charge bearing in mind the horrendous run of dropped points over Christmas. A mate then helpfully pointed out that if we’d won those games (Everton, West Ham, Bournemouth & Wolves) then the likelihood is Amorim would never have been sacked in the first place. Instead of anticipating the return of CL football, we’d still be stuck in mid-table and Kobbie Mainoo would be about to leave for Napoli or wherever.

As usual, the upcoming summer transfer window is going to be key as regards how we progress from here. Prior to that, you’d hope they’ll make a decision within the next couple of weeks on Michael Carrick’s immediate future. All things considered, I wouldn’t have any issue with him getting the gig full-time as I think he’s done pretty well. Judging by the body language, the players appear to be fully on-board and results have been decent overall. If he finishes top four and doesn’t get the job then he’ll have every right to feel a bit aggrieved.

The main priority in the summer has to be replacing Casemiro with someone of a similar calibre, yet minus the ageing legs. Casemiro has been very good this last few months playing in tandem with Kobbie. He’s a top professional and will be remembered fondly for his efforts during what’s been a turbulent 4 year stay at the club. Clearly, he’s benefited from the less-congested fixture calendar this season as there’s no way he can handle playing twice a week at this stage of his career.

Casimero’s imminent departure wouldn’t seem so dramatic if we had someone capable of filling his boots, but Ugarte has been mostly terrible when called upon and will likely follow him out of the door. That leaves Bruno, Kobbie, the perma-injured Mount and a bunch of kids with a handful of first team appearances between them. Amorim explained last summer that we could manage with a depleted squad due to not playing in Europe but that won’t be the case next season.

Aside from that, the priority is probably a right back but given budgetary constraints I’d be content with a couple of new midfielders. 12 months ago I’d have been happy to cash in on Bruno but he’s responded with his best season since he was at the peak of his powers during Covid. He’s possibly in with a shout of winning the PFA award as I don’t really see many other standout candidates. City will probably end up edging out Arsenal to win the league but both teams are nowhere near the level they were a couple of years ago.

This summer will thankfully see us rid of Jadon Sancho, an absolute disaster of a signing whose career continues its steady decline. Neither Villa nor Chelsea wanted him on a permanent deal so he’ll likely opt for another shot at Dortmund – the only place on earth where he seems capable of getting his act together. There are numerous cases of modern pros thinking they’ve made it at 21 with nothing left to prove, post-Fergie MUFC have certainly been good at cultivating them.

Another one too thick to understand how lucky he actually was, is our friend Alejandro Garnacho. This brainiac has gone from an out-of-sorts, inconsistent mess at United to an out-of-sorts, inconsistent mess at Chelsea where everyone hates him. Those “we’ll have him for 3-4 years then he’ll go to Madrid” predictions seem a very long time ago now. All because he got dropped to the bench for the Europa final and responded with a complete hissy fit. He’ll get forced out there, do 2 years at Villarreal and then head ‘home’ to South America. In other words, the Anthony Martial career trajectory.

Talking of inconsistency, I’m not in the least bit surprised to learn that Marcus Rashford’s ‘dream move’ to Barca might be coming to swift conclusion. Due to a supportive fanbase and an effective PR team, he was given an easy ride here despite years of erratic performances. Instead of accepting some criticism as merely part of the job, the sense of entitlement grew and he’d completely lost the plot by the time he was shipped off to Villa. Keep your fingers crossed the club isn’t considering offering him an olive branch. Enjoy the summer and I’ll see you in August.

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Thieves Like Us

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Confession: up until a couple of years ago I was broadly in favour of a new ground. I’m not particularly sentimental when it comes to buildings, plus I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that OT lost its soul when the Stretford End was demolished. So when the question of moving periodically came up, I would blithely wave it away and claim I wasn’t really bothered. Admittedly, this could also have been influenced by the fact I didn’t think there was even the remotest chance of it ever happening. The club has been saddled with massive debts for 20 years+ so the prospect always seemed a non-starter.

Other clubs have borrowed heavily to finance new stadiums but United are already mortgaged up to their eyeballs just to try and remain competitive. That’s the net result of 2 decades of Glazer occupation during which time OT has barely changed. In an ideal world we’d have built over the railway line when plans for that were drawn up in the early noughties. They’ve shown no interest in infrastructure investment from the minute they took over. Instead it’s been the odd lick of paint here and there and several failed attempts at fixing the famously leaking roof. Scandalous really, but that’s where we’re at.

It’s now 18 months since there was any news on the proposed new stadium but last week Collette Roche was wheeled out to provide an update of sorts. Although she trilled enthusiastically about making a lot of progress over the last year, as usual there was little substantive detail provided. Apparently the land acquisition is progressing “really, really well” but there was nothing to suggest any movement on the reported deadlock with Freightliner. Given there’s a reputed £350M gap in valuations to overcome, don’t expect this one to be resolved quickly.

There’s still no indication of exactly who’s planning to pay for it either, although the club have now confirmed (as long suspected) that they’re seeking outside investment. The likely source of funding will be from US-based private equity giants, the likes of Blackstone Inc, Ares Management or Apollo Global. Another possibility would be the Carlyle Group, who were reported to be in talks with the Glazers when they were finalising plans to sell part of their stake in the club back in 2023.

Aside from coming clean about financing, there was literally nothing else to report. The rest of the interview saw Roche trotting out the usual platitudes about fan engagement, “we want to build this stadium with them, not for them”, which is quite frankly the biggest load of bollocks I’ve ever heard in my life. Not a single United fan I know wants this move and most people actively despise the idea. As has been clear from the start of this process, the club had a preordained idea what they wanted and any efforts to consult with fans on the subject are merely performative

At the first round of Town Hall Meetings at OT in 2024 we were told that this was just the first step and there would be plenty more opportunities to engage. In the subsequent 18 months there’s been a single survey sent out gauging reaction to various ticketing options (rest assured, this proposed debenture scheme will definitely happen)… and that’s it. Apparently there were some smaller focus groups held last year (including season ticket holders and members) but I’ve no idea how they were selected – I attended the first meeting and haven’t heard anything since.

Whilst I’m sure the club are determined to retain outright ownership of the new stadium, the fact the entire project is reliant on outside investment raises the distinct possibility that this might not be the case. Further debt financing is neither desirable nor affordable so I expect an entirely new structure could be the most likely outcome. MUFC would become a separate entity with a joint venture company or special purpose vehicle (SPV) forming to encompass everything related to the new stadium.

Although there’s no official confirmation that MUFC won’t be the primary owners, given that existing debts are at such a high level, it’s hard to see how they’ll secure funding without setting up a “stadium company” model. This kind of lease-back arrangement with shared ownership would be infinitely more attractive to any potential investor. It would result in MUFC technically paying rent to the stadium company who would then use that revenue to pay down the loans taken out that funded the building costs.

The optics around this are pretty terrible of course, but INEOS are well-versed in spin and they’ll be plenty of client journalists on-hand to pretend this is all very wholesome and above board. Call me a dinosaur if you like but I’m still fuming that we’re being led down this path to start with. I’m absolutely convinced that the club’s claim of 52% of ST Holders and members being in favour of moving was inaccurate. Whilst we’re on that subject, why were members consulted at all? I’m not interested in what Rory from Hemel Hempstead who goes once a season thinks

I strongly suspect the main driver behind all this, ultimately, is the desire for one final gargantuan payday prior to the Glazers selling up. By borrowing heavily to fund a new stadium they’ll essentially be repeating what they did in 2005 – using someone else’s money to buy something they can’t afford and saddling the club (or “stadium company” in this case) with another couple of billion pounds of debt. Once the project is greenlit, both the club and the surrounding land will appreciate in value and revenue projections will increase. At that point the share price will rise sharply and they’ll be free to ride off into the sunset.

Every club who moves starts off thinking their new home is brilliant before the initial excitement subsides and they start lamenting what they’ve lost. West Ham and Spurs went through it and Everton are currently in the process of realising life at the Hill-Dickinson isn’t all that. I’ve been to both the Met-Life and the SoFi in the USA and although visually impressive, they’re essentially gigantic, corporate megadomes. I’m calling it now, the novelty of selling off our history for chicken tenders, cup holders and £1500 season tickets will wear off in a matter of weeks.

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