United we once knew is slowly being killed off from the inside
ON May 12, 2013, when Sir Alex Ferguson walked out to the centre circle at Old Trafford after taking charge of his final home game, against Swansea City, and gave his valedictory speech to fans who had gorged on his successes, some accepted there might be a bump in the road ahead for Manchester United.
Few, however, foresaw that before the end of 2018, United would be searching for their sixth boss in five and a half years, derided as a basket case of a club desperate for a manager who would not only win back their respect but also wrest back their soul.
The Glazer family and their patsy, Ed Woodward, have thrown so much away so quickly and so carelessly at a club that dominated English football for so long that it beggars belief.
The inventory of everything they have torched since Ferguson retired includes stability, success, grace, class, dignity and Juan Mata.
The inventory of everything they have gained includes a boat-load of mediocrity, an official global lubricant partner, a reputation for wages largesse that measures 9.5 on the Peter Ridsdale Scale and a non-playing Chilean who was home for Christmas so early he was almost in time to open the first window on his advent calendar.
In that context, the bitter, self-immolating reign of Jose Mourinho at Old Trafford was a symptom of United’s ills, not the cause. Mourinho was on the downslope of his career before Woodward appointed him, a man consumed by bitterness and resentments, a man who showed every sign of having fallen out of love with the game and the men who played it, a man whose playing style was outmoded and dour.
But when Woodward, United’s executive vice-chairman, chose Mourinho, he just saw a name.
He likes names. Big names sell things. They make money. They move merchandise. They sell tickets. Glory? Please. Don’t be so naive. It’s the profits, stupid. At United, they have taken the Glory Game and turned it into the Glazer Game.
Only one currency matters and it’s not trophies.
When Mourinho was fired last week, reality bit: United aren’t getting any closer to recreating the glory days. They’re getting further away. They’re getting weaker and weaker and Manchester City and Liverpool are getting stronger and stronger. Compare the quality of the players at Old Trafford and the Etihad, say, and there’s a chasm between them.
Come the summer, it will be six years since United last won the league, a hiatus that seemed unthinkable not so long ago. But Mourinho and Woodward brought the club so low that, right now, it does not sound outlandish to say it could be another six years before they win it again.
So what does Woodward do now? Resign is the option that springs most readily to mind. Admit that while he may have been a brilliant commercial director, he sucks in this role. Quite how he’s still in a job when he has driven United this far south is staggering until you catch yourself and remember that the Glazers are still raking in the profits and that that is really all that matters to them and Woodward.
Woodward has, after all, presided over three disastrous appointments in David Moyes, Louis van Gaal and Mourinho. He’s the guy who bought all the most expensive players he could find and thought that would fix everything. He’s the guy who thinks money buys you love in football. He’s the guy who wears an expression of constant surprise that at United it hasn’t.
United don’t have an identity any more. Nobody can ever take away their glorious history but Woodward and the Glazers are stripping it of all its romance.
The appointment of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as caretakermanager is a half-hearted recognition of that.
It’s a half-hearted attempt to win something back. It’s an acknowledgment of something they should have done a long time ago.
Solskjaer has shown more enthusiasm for the job in two days than Mourinho did in two years. He has talked already of ‘an amazing squad of players’. He has said they are ‘all quality’. He has given the impression he is happy to be back in Manchester, too, unlike Mourinho, who could not even bear to buy or rent a property in the city.
It was left to ex-players like Gary Neville and Paul Scholes to observe United’s decline from the TV studio and to provide the commentary on the fall of the club they had done so much to build into the colossus of English football and hint as best they could at the incompetence of Woodward and his cronies.
Mourinho painted Neville and Scholes as the enemies of the club but everybody else knew they were telling the truth, which is that Woodward and the Glazers are killing the Manchester United we once knew.