THE GLAZERS, WE read, are beginning to make tentative noises that they are finally ready to sell Manchester United. If they do, and if they were to break a habit of a lifetime and give a valedictory interview, they might be tempted to channel one of their former presidents.
“You won’t have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore…”
Jamie Redknapp and Gary Neville’s ‘look at me when I’m talking to you’ set-to on Sky was an attempt to apportion blame: Neville focused on the Glazers, as Redknapp said the players shouldn’t be spared the ritual humiliation.
Neither were wrong of course, and United is a target-rich environment. But the ultimate responsibility lies with the Glazers and their pioneering brand of parasitic incompetence.
A quick catch-up. Since the Glazers took control of United in 2005, more than a billion pounds has been sucked out of the club in interest payments, debt repayments and directors pay, while a gaggle of under-qualified football executives have wasted hundreds of million pounds of the clubs’ own money on one of the most scattergun and pitiful recruitment strategies in English football history.
The now-departed Ed Woodward, for instance, claimed the club analysed 804 different right-backs before deciding on Aaron Wan-Bissaka, who is currently linked with a return to the club he was signed from at a £40 million loss.
Hatred of the Glazers among United’s support is at an all-time high, but it has always existed. Just not always from within the club. As Jamie Redknapp pointed out last Saturday, Neville didn’t criticise them when he was a player, and nor did Alex Ferguson.
“I am comfortable with the Glazer situation. They have been great”, said Ferguson in 2012. “They have always backed me whenever I have asked them. I have never faced any opposition.”
This presaged Ferguson’s famous parting words. “Your job now is to stand by our new manager” was directed to the supporters rather than to the boardroom, where one of the club’s many, many failings has been a fidelity to that rallying call. Hence successive managers have largely been given players they want, a ploy that works once the club don’t then sack the manager. Sack the manager, though, and you’re merely bloating the squad for the next guy. The current squad contains players signed under five different managers, and Juan Mata, signed by David Moyes, only left in the summer.
Nothing better summed up this lack of direction at the club than the permanent appointment of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer until they replaced him. Ralf Rangnick arrived with a good reputation as a Sporting Director when given a long-term view at a club whose playing style was clearly-defined and built on high pressing so United, naturally enough, made him a coach on a short-term deal and gave him noted mover Cristiano Ronaldo.
This complete lack of strategy and the revolving door of managers means the football side of the club has no true figure of authority, which, when cocktailed with a massive salary budget and an obsession with artifice, PR, and content, has produced the omnishambles of today.
Into this circus steps Erik ten Hag, which signals the club’s latest plan is titled, Ajax, But in Manchester.
Mimicking club policies works – Man City have replicated Barcelona – but they didn’t just recruit Pep Guardiola, but Director of Football Txiki Begiristain and CEO Ferran Soriano, too.
Ten Hag was one part of an effective sporting operation at Ajax – though Marc Overmars has left in disgrace – but he is swinging in the wind by himself at United. It is very early days and while he isn’t remotely to blame for the dysfunction around him, there are already very early signs of struggle.
Team selection is confused. How does Christian Eriksen go from false nine to deep-lying six in the space of a week? His main signing thus far, Lisandro Martinez, has been targeted twice already and looks too small to play at centre-back in the Premier League.
Ronaldo meanwhile is plainly unsuited to playing ten Hag’s style, yet has been indulged even as he extravagantly and corrosively performs his unhappiness. Also unsuited to ten Hag’s passing demands is David de Gea, and yet the manager says he is sure he can play that way, having seen him do it in training. That’s not against any real pressing, though: this is against Man United’s pressing. De Gea, it seems, has been too encouraged by a too-kind home environment, like a talentless singer whose parents chivvy them to do an audition in front of the X-Factor judges.
Perhaps ten Hag doesn’t want De Gea and Ronaldo in his team, but the club can’t offload them right now and the manager would be forgiven for not trusting his bosses to source the right replacements. Casemiro is a good, if overpriced signing, though it may take time for him to reach his levels in a midfield that doesn’t feature Luka Modric and Toni Kroos. That he wasn’t signed in July and allowed to adapt in pre-season is the latest indictment of the recruitment policy.
Their slight relief is that they are catching opponents at an opportune time on Monday night, as Liverpool are ravaged by injury and searching for rhythm and flow after a summer of transition.
There’s been no real transition at United since Ferguson left, though.
It has just been a succession of different faces and different ideas, all swallowed up by the Glazers’ transatlantic ATM machine.
Premier League fixtures (kick off 3pm unless stated)
Saturday
Spurs vs Wolves (12.30pm)
Everton vs Nottingham Forest
Leicester vs Southampton
Fulham vs Brentford
Crystal Palace vs Aston Villa
Bournemouth vs Arsenal (5.30pm)
Sunday
West Ham vs Brighton (2pm)
Leeds vs Chelsea (2pm)
Newcastle vs Man City (4.30pm)
Monday
Manchester United vs Liverpool (8pm)
Originally published at 06.30