United are on their knees – how can they get out of this mess?
The mutinous reaction to defeat against Burnley has raised big questions about the club’s future
Are the owners to blame?
For many, the Glazer family has long been the root cause of Manchester United’s many ills, from their underinvestment and choice of executives to spearhead a scattergun football operation right down to their tedious micromanagement. It certainly did not require fans leaving Old Trafford en masse against Burnley on Wednesday, not long after much of the stadium had risen to its feet to join in the chants of “stand up if you hate Glazers”, to recognise that.
Since the Glazers’ hostile takeover in 2005, close to £1billion has been sucked out of the club in debt repayments, interest bills, management fees, dividends and other costs, money that could have been invested in the squad and infrastructure, not least a tiredlooking Old Trafford.
United’s gradual demise mirrors the woes felt by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers American football franchise under Glazer rule. The Bucs have just endured the worst decade in the team’s history, during which time they have suffered 100 defeats, gone through five head coaches, two general managers and failed to make a single play-off appearance – and watched attendances plummet. “If you follow the odour, it leads to the offices of co-chairmen Bryan, Joel and Ed Glazer,” Rick Stroud wrote in an unsparing piece for the Tampa Bay Times last month, and plenty of United supporters will share those sentiments.
What about Woodward?
The Glazers’ so-called “puppet master”, according to his detractors, Ed Woodward is increasingly a lightning rod for much of the anger and criticism directed United’s way. Despite death threats and abuse from the stands, those close to United’s executive vice-chairman insist he is more determined than ever to try to get the club back on course. He is coming under heavy fire, though. Gary Neville, one of his most vocal critics, called for his sacking at the weekend.
The argument is that Woodward has made the Glazers too much money to be sacked, but perhaps the owners should be asking themselves a different question – how much more would they be making if they also had a successful product on the pitch, not one lurching from one failure to the next? Thirty-three points adrift of Premier League leaders Liverpool, despite having the competition’s biggest wage bill and a near £900million gross outlay on players since 2013, it almost seems incongruous that successive managers can pay with their jobs when the one common denominator in the whole sorry mess has clung to power.
Is Solskjaer the right man?
The dismal 2-0 defeat by Burnley means United have now lost more league games (12) than they have won (11) since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took permanent charge in March. Over that period, Crystal Palace have acquired four more points.
However much United might argue otherwise, they were swept up in a tidal wave of euphoria and emotion when appointing Solskjaer full-time. There is no doubting there is a will for him to succeed. But belief in the inexperienced Norwegian’s suitability for a role that has proved beyond even hugely successful managers such as Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho is being seriously challenged.
Senior sources stress their fierce commitment to Solskjaer was unchanged by the Burnley debacle, and it is likely to have to go spectacularly south over the coming months for him to be removed before next season. But with Marcus Rashford, Paul Pogba and Scott Mctominay all out, and an exacting schedule to navigate with a squad deficient in key areas, the pressure is building. Mctominay is, at least, targeting the third week of February for a return.
Is there the cash and nous to improve the squad?
Talk of a “cultural reboot” has been well documented, but two pressing questions persist. First, do United have the personnel, expertise and structure, on and off the field, to successfully execute that task? And, secondly, do the Glazers really have the appetite properly to bankroll what has become the biggest rebuild the club have faced for generations? The average net summer spend under the Glazers has been £48million. Since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, it has been just shy of £85million.
Solskjaer needed a midfielder and a striker last summer and got neither. Twelve months earlier, his predecessor, Mourinho, was denied the centre-half he demanded. A pattern has developed.
A director of football has still to be appointed, long after it was first mooted, and for a club who have had an abysmal strike-rate in the market, they are now in a position of needing to hit the mark with almost every deal they do.
Will one summer be enough to put things right?
When Solskjaer took over, he felt United needed nine players with character and quality to get the club, in time, back into a position to challenge for leading honours. Having signed three to date, that would leave him wanting six more.
United want Bruno Fernandes from Sporting Lisbon this month but the clubs remain well apart in valuations of the Portugal midfielder. With United having missed out to Borussia Dortmund for their top January target, Norway striker Erling Haaland, Rashford’s absence for months with a double stress fracture has left them looking at emergency replacements.
The prospect of signing Edinson Cavani – who wants to leave Paris St-germain this month – is being tentatively explored but the Uruguay striker’s age (33 next month), injury troubles and exorbitant wages are all serious concerns for a club who are still counting the cost of how badly the move for Alexis Sanchez backfired.
Will the club’s commercial clout be hit?
A weakened United may have lost to Burnley but they have had a full-strength team out in Davos this week. A nine-strong group of United executives, led by cochairman Avram Glazer and group managing director Richard Arnold, attended the World Economic Forum. For a club looking for a new shirt sponsor, with their existing £357million deal with Chevrolet due to end next year and no guarantees the American car giant will renew, Davos represents a target-rich environment for big-money commercial signings.
Apathetic fans exiting early in their thousands is not a good PR look, but privately Woodward has often cited Liverpool’s 30-year wait for the title as an example of how immune commercially he feels big clubs can be from on-pitch struggles. In that regard, the size of United’s next shirt deal will be instructive.