Talent and ambition lost amid Old Trafford’s decay

MICHAEL OLISE is a wonderful footballer. His positivity and drive have been a reason to stay up until Crystal Palace are on Match of the Day in recent seasons. He is a rare talent and has his whole career in front of him, two reasons why those who advise Olise should be telling him to swerve Old Trafford.

As a Manchester United fan, I am resigned to Liverpool signing Olise as the replacement for Mo Salah, anyway. But if you were a confident and gifted young player now, why would anyone want to go to United? It would make no sense.

Jim Ratcliffe and Erik ten Hag apparently had ‘positive talks’ during the week, which is a worry in itself, for it is impossible to find the silver lining anywhere around the club at the moment. Rasmus Hojilund finally breaking his Premier League duck for the winner against Aston Villa was a rare shaft of light, but nobody was under any impression that it was new dawns for this team.

United have been going around in circles for a decade and Ten Hag is the latest to be sucked into its vortex. It is an oddity of the club’s illustrious history that only three of their 25 managers have ever delivered the league title – which shows how much success Alex Ferguson and Matt Busby were responsible for.

Under the likes of Tommy Docherty and Ron Atkinson,

United were more of a soap opera than a football team. And that has continued into the social media age, where the club are great for creating content, oh look at this clip of Onana’s latest mistake, here is Antony failing to control the ball with his right foot – but not so good at collecting titles and silverware.

None of this matters to club owners the Glazer family who feasted off record revenues last year despite a relative lack of success on the pitch. United are less a football team, or even a club now, as something to be debated about or sneered at on social media. Maybe, in that way, they are the perfect club for this era.

But if I was advising Olise, I would tell him to run a mile from the circus – irrespective of Big Jim and David Brailsford’s plans for the club and its crumbling stadium.