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There’s Nothing Like This

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I’m writing during the middle of the winter break and honestly, its arrival came as a relief given it signalled a fortnight without having to suffer watching United play football. It’s debatable whether this last 6 months has been the nadir of the post-Ferguson era, but it’s certainly up there with the regrettable Moyes experiment and the 2nd season under Van Gaal. It’s been tortuous at times, and the forward trajectory and resultant optimism of a year ago has disappeared completely. 

There are numerous mitigating factors of course, but it doesn’t alter the fact that United remain in a complete mess. Sometimes, like after the Villa home game, you look at them and think “they’re definitely behind him” and you manage to convince yourself there’ll be a concerted effort to carry that level of determination into the next game. Then 4 days later it’s Forest away and they simply don’t turn up. It’s so predictable and the same thing has been happening for years on repeat. 

Now that the transition to being INEOS-led is finally underway we can hopefully look forward to having some serious people in charge again. Poaching one of the main heads at City could be seen as a coup of sorts, but such is my complete lack of faith the immediate thought was “I bet he’s a plant” – either that or he’ll be in prison in 6 months’ time if they’re found guilty of these 115 charges. I’m being facetious of course, but it would be classic modern day United if the incumbent CEO ended up in court defending the actions of his previous employer. 

Given that splashing the cash on big money transfers is no longer an option, (such activity being one of the root causes of our current predicament), there’s little we can do except pray the changes Ratcliffe, Brailsford & Co put into practice have an immediate positive effect on the current staff. Despite haemorrhaging millions on players, the overall quality of the squad is still questionable. Senior pros aren’t performing or have a terrible attitude (more on Rashford in a bit), the few quality players we have are too old or injury prone, those possessing the right work-ethic aren’t good enough and the jury’s still out on a handful of recent arrivals. 

I’ll be convinced by Omar Berrada if we manage to go a few months without hearing rumours of Wan Bissaka’s terms being extended or that United are considering handing Scott McTominay a new deal. When is the penny going to drop that keeping mediocre players under contract doesn’t suddenly pique the interest of potential buyers? We’ve been doing this for a decade now and I don’t recall the tactic working once. Mediocre is probably harsh as this pair are good players, they just aren’t good enough if we’re expecting to compete at the top level any time soon. 

Dalot is another one who United consider a major asset despite his performances suggesting the exact opposite is the case. By all accounts he’s a good professional and he clearly tries his hardest, but are you kidding me? I’m left dumbfounded by the narrative that he’s developed over the last couple of years. He was a liability when he was shipped off to Milan on loan 4 years ago and he remains a liability now. The fact he’s found the net as opposed to Row Z on a couple of occasions recently is more a statistical anomaly than evidence of marked improvement. It’s embarrassing that the club’s social media promotes such nonsense, it’s like they’re trying to gaslight us.

The club’s financial position is so perilous that we don’t appear to be in the position to bring in our annual comedy loan signing this month. Despite losing Martial to injury and shipping that rat Sancho back to Dortmund, unless something dramatic happens at the death it looks like we’re relying on Hojlund and Rashford alone to provide goals for the rest of the season. If one or both get injured what’s the plan then? Recalling Hugill from Burton Albion would be an option (I can’t believe I’ve just typed those words) but whatever way you look at it, we’re desperately short of options. 

Although he’ll always have an army of defenders on social media, I think most normal United fans have lost it with Rashford after his “performances” over the last few months. Watching an alleged senior pro and lifelong red strop around the pitch scowling whilst turning in a series of utterly abysmal displays has done me in. I’m not sure how he had the gall to make that yapping gesture after scoring against Spurs the other week. Like a number of his peers, it’s uncertain if he’s got a clue what’s going on with his life anymore. 

How he’s turned from an excited young teenager absolutely buzzing to have scored on his PL debut to the brooding, entitled bellend we witness today encapsulates everything detestable about a growing number of modern footballers. The manner in which players so lauded and highly remunerated lose all perspective and basically start taking the piss out of their own public speaks volumes about their true character. In Rashford’s case it’s all the more embarrassing given the cringeworthy “humble kid with a heart of gold” schtick that’s pumped out by his PR team. 

In the meantime, the player is out clubbing in “the biggest dive in Belfast” according to another contributor to the mag, before phoning in sick and missing training the next morning. Despite the club briefing journalists that “everything is fine” and the  video footage was from a previous night (it wasn’t), the optics are pretty terrible here – just as they were following his comment on Instagram reacting to Sancho’s arrival at Dortmund. They can try and play down his antics all they like, but he’s been phoning it in all season and something is clearly not right with him. 

The club is facing a bit of a conundrum now because whilst Rashford appears to have decided he doesn’t fancy Ten Hag, he remains one of their biggest commercial assets and is one of the few players who’d command a large fee if they were to leave. If United decide to dispense with the manager at the end of the season (which is entirely possible irrespective of Rashford’s feelings on the subject), I’m sure he’d feel placated and everything will settle. If Ten Hag is given another season, then it’s looking increasingly likely that the club will decide to cash in this summer. Fingers crossed they go with Option B. 

Copyright Red News – February 2024

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Deja vu

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United is a soap opera at the best of times, but this last month played out as if there’s a team of behind-the-scenes scriptwriters devising the scarcely credible stream of calamities occurring on an almost daily basis. It’s been absolutely relentless. So much so that you’d be forgiven for thinking the much vaunted “cultural reset” that occurred during ETH’s first year in charge was somewhat overstated. One might even go as far to suggest that it could be time for another. 

Firstly (and predictably) Mason Greenwood got shunted off to Getafe once the realisation hit that Arnold & Co weren’t going to be able to re-integrate him into the squad without causing a major PR stink. Quite how it took an internal investigation lasting several months to reach this conclusion I’ve no idea, given it was patently obvious from the moment that video started circulating he would never play for the club again. Naturally in taking an excruciatingly long time to make the decision (not to mention performing a u-turn en-route) United managed (also predictably) to score a PR own goal anyway. Absolutely brilliant work all round lads, well done. 

Greenwood’s new employers wasted no time in confirming how they would handle any potential fallout caused by their new acquisition. Now you might think given his notoriety, a carefully worded statement exuding calm and sensitivity might be in order. Nope, scrub that. Instead, their socials manager demonstrated the composure of a 15 year old boy fresh off a 48 hour Fortnite bender, amped up on Prime and Strawberry Elf Bars. “Our guy Mase” was heralded in a stream of training ground pics as they revelled in the attention and hoovered up new followers on twitter. Still, if a few thousand “Starboy” apologists have now switched allegiances to Getafe this could turn out to be a positive thing. 

During the post-mortem that followed defeat at the Emirates, it was revealed that Jadon Sancho had been omitted from the squad following sub-par performances in training that week. It comes as no surprise to learn he isn’t cutting it during practice sessions given his underwhelming contribution to the vast majority of games he’s appeared in over the last 2 years. Indeed, such is the player’s complete lack of impact at United, Ten Hag’s interview was the first time it occurred to me that he hadn’t featured that day. Normally you’d expect a player to take a public dressing down on the chin and vow to improve. Unfortunately not, as nothing emitting from the confines of Carrington can be described as normal at present. 

In his infinite wisdom, Sancho took to twitter to refute the allegations, claiming “I have been a scapegoat for a long time.” I’m not certain if this broadside was aimed solely at Ten Hag, given that he’s only the latest in a number of managers and coaches to question the player’s discipline and take umbrage at his timekeeping. One can only assume being granted a 3 month leave of absence last season to work on his fitness levels was a part of this scapegoating process as well? Poor misunderstood Jadon. 

Given this occurred at the start of the international break, Sancho had ample opportunity to sort this out quietly but you figured something was amiss when he was pictured at some event in NYC a couple of days later. Nothing was resolved at a Carrington summit meeting scheduled for the following Monday, so the club then issued a statement announcing the player would be training alone for the foreseeable, “pending resolution of a squad discipline issue.” Cool. Quite honestly, I don’t require any further updates to this story as I’ve heard enough already. See you later, sunshine – don’t let the door hit you on the way out. 

The next bombshell to drop concerned Antony and allegations of domestic abuse that first surfaced in South America a few months back. The story gained traction after a couple more women presented evidence to the media, leading to him being dropped from the Brazilian national squad. United responded by granting him an indefinite leave of absence, so in the space of 4 days we were now £150M-worth of highly erratic wingers down. Ten Hag must have felt some relief at his own baldness at this point, otherwise I’m certain he would’ve been pulling his hair out. 

Away from all the off-the-pitch shenanigans, match days have provided little respite. Numerous mitigating factors have conspired against us so far. A full blown injury crisis, key players out of form and some refereeing shockers haven’t helped, but it’s not overly critical to state that it’s been a fairly abysmal start to the season. A fortuitous win over Wolves (masking the fact that we were outplayed for long stretches) and a stirring comeback after being 0-2 down to Forest after 4 minutes  being the only highlights. Aside from that, it’s been grim viewing for the most part. 

The point has been made before, but it’s pretty clear that prioritising lucrative exhibition games and racking up thousands of air miles ahead of proper pre-season training is terrible preparation for a fresh campaign. Every opponent faced so far has looked fit, fresh and hungry whereas United have struggled to maintain focus and intensity for 90 minutes. We start brightly enough, miss a couple of sitters, concede and then capitulate completely. It’s all becoming a bit predictable. Rinse and repeat. 

I’m duty-bound to give a nod to the Glazers for their role in this mess, so shoutout to them too for ensuring new faces rock up at the last possible moment leaving no time to integrate them into the squad. The fact that a club of United’s size has to rely on loan signings at all is quite ridiculous, yet here we are again with Sergio Reguilon arriving on deadline day to go straight in as first choice left-back. Don’t even get me started on the options available at right-back, where you’ve got the equally abysmal Wan Bissaka and Dalot competing in their weekly “who’s looking the least shit to ensure selection” duel. 

There’s little doubt that once we get some players back and things settle down, results will start to improve. Unfortunately, that’s going to take some time and until then the noise surrounding the club and pressure is only going to intensify. Plugging the omnipresent leaks and driving out malignant dressing room influences remains an ongoing process and there’s no quick fix. As I’m sure the manager is quite aware by now, this is just how it is at Manchester United. Clearly, the quickest way to end this current “crisis” is to start winning football matches again. Turning this around in the next few weeks is Ten Hag’s biggest test so far. 

Copyright Red News – September 2023

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Alive and Kicking

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Sometimes I sit down to write this column and it’s a struggle to hit the word count if it’s been a quiet few weeks. And then there’s occasions like this where it’s difficult to know exactly where to start. Super League, Woodward’s exit, anti-Glazer protests, European finalists… it’s no exaggeration to say the last month or so has been fairly eventful. 

The proposals for a European Super League announced back in April came as both a surprise and no surprise at all. It was always going to happen one day, it was just a matter of when exactly. What I didn’t anticipate is that the product would arrive as such a half-baked, amateurish package. Everything about it was essentially crap. The justification for it, the timing, even the logo and the site looked like they’d been knocked up in a couple of hours by some low-end web design freelancer.  

If something of this magnitude was ever going to succeed, it had to come out fully-formed and ready to roll. Instead, it turned out that the invested clubs weren’t even convinced as the whole thing had collapsed within 48 hours. The ESL arrived dead on arrival because fundamentally, it offered nothing of value to the very people it was being aimed at. They were attempting to sell an inferior product to the one that already exists. It was nothing more than an opportunistic power grab from morally bankrupt, financial leeches who’re ideologically opposed to the very notion of ethical business practice or protecting the sport as a whole. 

The motivations of their plot were so transparent that the entire football community were unanimous in their condemnation. Here, after contentious topics such as Brexit and COVID, was a subject everyone could agree on. The momentum was strong at this point and there were encouraging noises being made that we might potentially see a review leading to reform of football club governance. One of the loudest, most passionate voices was Gary Neville. This struck me as a little strange given that Neville is a multi-millionaire thanks to football’s relentless commercialisation over the last 20 years. Perhaps that was just me being cynical and we had to give him the benefit of the doubt here.

The fact that the Glazers were front and centre in ESL discussions came as no surprise to United supporters. This, after all, felt somewhat inevitable given it was widely acknowledged 16 years ago that their ultimate goal would be to oversee a gargantuan boost in revenue stemming from devolved TV rights. We were largely ignored when pointing this out back then, probably because the only party likely to suffer in the short-term from their takeover would be MUFC itself. The reaction was a bit different now the penny had dropped there might be consequences for English football as a whole. 

Faced with the prospect of the sacrosanct Premier League applecart being upturned, there was a whiff of revolution in the air for about 72 hours as fans across the country took to the streets in protest. The media cheered from the sidelines and Boris Johnson quickly hopped on the bandwagon, condemning the breakaway clubs for trying to establish a “cartel”. This was later proven to be shapeshifting nonsense as The Sunday Times revealed that Johnson had met with Woodward in the days preceding April 18th and had apparently given the plan his tacit approval. He denied this of course, but it’s a bit of stretch to believe the ESL wasn’t discussed in No 10 that day. 

As one of the main instigators of the plot, the hapless Woodward soon resigned and after dominating the headlines for a few days the news cycle quickly moved on. The ‘football family’ had spoken and that seemed to be that as far as the mainstream media were concerned. Errr… not quite. United supporters, after all, have longstanding issues with the Glazer family that dwarf any lingering outrage about plans for a breakaway ESL. 

After being the source of much bitterness and acrimony between 2005-2010, it’s fair to say debate concerning the Glazer ownership dwindled after the Green & Gold protests petered out back in 2010. It never went away completely, as referenced in these pages month after month – but a sense of malaise had crept in as people conceded they were likely going nowhere. In truth, after 5 years of banging our heads against a wall in an atmosphere of divisiveness and intimidation from certain parties, most people were probably tired of the subject.

Fast forward back to 2021 and that palpable sense of injustice was back with a vengeance. First we saw a bedsheeted up band of interlopers infiltrate the training ground before that glorious Sunday when a couple of thousand took to the streets and against all the odds, managed to force the postponement of the Liverpool game. Mission accomplished. If the powers that be weren’t listening before, they were certainly listening now. 

This time, however, the prevailing media narrative had shifted. Whereas a couple of weeks previously, the noises coming from commentators and journalists were encouraging of supporters taking direct action to protect the national game, the mood changed once this exact scenario was being beamed live into people’s living rooms. All of a sudden it wasn’t about justifiably outraged fans protecting beloved community assets, this was being framed as a minority of thugs overstepping the mark and taking things too far. “Of course you should protest, just make sure you don’t protest too loudly”, seemed to be the consensus. 

This reaction was as depressing as it was predictable. Pat Nevin whipped himself into a frenzy on 5 Live, spending over an hour lambasting the protesters. Jermaine Jenas was so out of his depth on MOTD that he seemed bemused as to why he was being asked to give an opinion at all. I mean, come on. It genuinely defies belief that someone paid to talk about English football doesn’t have a grasp of why Manchester United fans might have an issue with the club’s owners. This isn’t a new story. This is something that has been brewing for 16 years. There have been books written about this subject. It led to the formation of another football club for goodness’ sake.

Thankfully, the likes of Neville and Keane were on hand to provide some common sense and perspective amidst all the hand-wringing. Much respect to Jamie Carragher too, who appeared to grasp the protestors’ perspective better than any of his colleagues. Whereas Neville continued to pontificate about the ESL, Carragher cut through the noise and correctly pointed out it was nothing to do with the Super League at this point. It may have have been the catalyst, but this was battle lines being re-drawn in a war that began back in 2005. 

Unsurprisingly, the reaction from rival supporters was just as dismissive as some of the nodding dogs in the media. Whereas a fortnight previously there was universal rejection of the ESL proposals, now we were out on our own with people falling over themselves to denigrate the motivations behind the protest. Again, this was entirely predictable. There’s no solidarity amongst football supporters in this country. It’s no wonder that fans have been exploited for decades when club rivalries and petty name calling seem preferable to working together to bring about change that might benefit all clubs in future.

Whether the current strength of feeling continues to gather momentum remains to be seen. We’ve been here before of course, and in the past the Glazers have ridden out similar periods of disquiet holed up in Florida. United’s fanbase is large and made up of many disparate groups. We’ve been prone to squabbling and infighting at key junctures previously, but now is the time to forget all that. Many thought all was lost back in 2005 but the last few weeks have shown that the resistance is still strong. Unity is powerful. Let’s keep the pressure on.

Copyright Red News – May 2021

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