17 October 2024
All Great Empires Die from Within
It seems to be a reoccurring bad dream for their fans but Man Utd have just never found the right formula since Sir Alex Ferguson ended his stint as manager. Since then, the Old Trafford outfit has had eight managers including Erik ten Hag. Despite this, the Red Devils have failed to win the Premier League title since their victorious 2012/13 campaign. They have spent in the region of £1.6bn on player transfers during that time.
Looking at the current squad, Man Utd look some way off being considered title challengers once again. Managers often carry the can for the club’s inability to compete for major silverware but at Old Trafford the discontent and anger is often aimed at the hierarchy too. Sales of green and yellow scarves, seen as a symbol of protest against the current owners, are at an all-time high no doubt never seen by the team known as Newton Heath.
The big question is, will Man Utd ever return to their place in English football from yesteryear. Prior to the Ferguson era, the club endured lean periods and top-flight titles were not a regular occurrence. If anything, the exception to the rule since the club’s inception was the success that their Scottish manager enjoyed. Yet the fans now demand it, having grown up watching the Red Devils make a name for themselves as Premier League giants.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe bought a stake in the club and was the self-proclaimed knight in shining armour looking to get the Old Trafford outfit back to where they should be. The billionaire purchased a 27.7% stake in the Red Devils and immediately started striding around the place like a newly-anointed monarch. His early demands ranged from the UK taxpayer footing the bill for a new ground to a complete overhaul in operations from top to bottom. An ironic statement from a tax exile living in Monaco, so much so, Alanis Morissette could be penning a song about him right now.
The man who has cited being a Man Utd fan himself since childhood, actually tried to buy Chelsea back in May 2022 but had his £4.25bn offer rebuffed. Since then he has become part-owner in the Red Devils, proclaiming the aim to be knocking Man City and Liverpool ‘off their perch’. The short-term ambition is to bring Champions League football back to Old Trafford. They failed to achieve that at the end of his first season and currently sit fourteenth in the Premier League table.
As an outsider looking in, the whole club seems to be somewhat toxic currently which could be the ideal home for a man who made a name for himself in the chemicals industry. The roof of the ground is leaking more than their defence and it seems a huge project to get the former Premier League champions back to where they want to be. With ‘Profit and Sustainability Rules’ now in place, nobody can simply buy a title anymore, but don’t tell Todd Boehly that.
Aside from overseeing football operations, Ratcliffe’s role at the club is to implement cost-saving strategies. One of those has not gone down well with the fans and ex-players. This week they cancelled their arrangement with Sir Alex Ferguson to be an ambassador for the Old Trafford outfit. It is rumoured that the 82-year-old was paid an annual salary in the region of £2.16m. It is also alleged that the former manager and board members have been told to no longer visit the dressing room.
Current manager Erik ten Hag never seems to be far away from the hangman’s noose. His contract was extended on the back of a FA Cup final victory over Man City. The club has no identity on the pitch and tactically seem lacking. It is difficult to see the Dutchman’s vision during games, despite having been in the role for two years now. He has spent in excess of £600m on players to mould this squad but they still look a long way off the pace when it comes to the Premier League’s top teams.
There is no ‘quick fix’ to their current plight, that is for sure. As to whether any manager in world football could win major silverware with this current squad is another question. In the modern game, you need to have a good academy feeding the first team squad with the next generation as well as a scouting network finding the best talent before your rivals do. Add to that an infrastructure of coaching staff that are able to develop talent into world-class players.
While Man Utd are still a global power and have one of the largest fanbases around the world, this is not an immediate recipe for success. The club appears to need a complete overhaul and that will no doubt take time. All while their competitors continue to build on their own platforms of success. The Red Devils are playing catchup. Aside from all of this, as a result of the ownership model, the decision making process at Old Trafford seems to be a mystery. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
The reality is, if this were a game of Football Manager, you would be tempted to start all over again. Currently, the first-team squad is a combined vision of eight different managers. Ten Hag has brought a lot of big money signings in who he seems to lose trust in very quickly. That was underpinned when both Martinez and De Ligt were left out of their last game as the Dutchman reverted to Maguire and Evans as a centre-back partnership. Two players who were deemed surplus to requirements some time ago.
Post-match interviews from the manager make you wonder if he has been watching the same game as you. Constantly finding positives in dreadful performances makes you question the mindset of the man at the helm. It is rumoured that the board do not want to get rid of him until nearer the January transfer window as it would affect their ability to get a big-name replacement as they would not fancy the role with the current squad at their disposal. If true, that says a lot about the current situation.
Until then, the people selling Norwich City scarves outside the ground at Man Utd games will be licking their lips. Fans of rival clubs continue to hope that the Dutchman gets tenure at Old Trafford. While ten Hag will no doubt take the fall for the current state of the club, it seems the problems are far bigger than most people could even perceive. Not even the Saudi state could buy their way out of this one, although fans fantasise of such a quick-fix.
The bigger question is whether the Red Devils can ever clamber back up the league ladder to that infamous perch. Then it is another matter staying there. All too often a couple of results strung together create the euphoria of that ‘we’re back’ moment. The reality is that dream still seems so far away it may only be visible via the Hubble telescope soon. They endured a 36-year drought for the top-flight title before Fergie, now they have gone over a decade without one since his departure.
How the Glazer family and INEOS approach this current situation will dictate the long-term future of the club. If Man Utd want to be a force in football once again, it is going to take time and the creation of a far better infrastructure. If they cannot do this, it will just be another fallen empire that is spoken about by historians and people old enough to have lived it. For now, the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ has become a thing of nightmares. Their fans hope to wake up in a cold sweat realising it was all just a lucid dream.
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