UNITED HAD BECOME A VEHICLE FOR EGOS...NOW THEY ARE A SERIOUS CLUB AGAIN

IT IS still early in the Manchester United revival and although they are lingering at the edge of the Premier League title race, it feels as if they aren’t quite at the level of Manchester City or Arsenal yet. No one should get too carried away with the fact they beat a Newcastle team that is running out of gas in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final, the least of England’s domestic competitions, but it is enough for now to know United are a serious team and a serious club again. In the latter years of Ed Woodward’s tenure, United had become a vehicle for egos and has-beens. They were a commercial entity blinded by the light of personalities such as Jose Mourinho and Cristiano Ronaldo. Their new chief executive Richard Arnold and manager Erik ten Hag have changed that. United are a football club again now. Players who once exuded division and complacency look hungry and united again. Ten Hag deserves most of the credit for that. On the pitch, Casemiro has been a game-changer in midfield. And if you wanted a symbol on Sunday of the defiant, competitive spirit that has infused the club, there was no need to look any further than Lisandro Martinez. Bloody but unbowed, a superb reader of the game and an indomitable leader in defence, he is an example of the kind of player who turned United from a team that folded under pressure into a side climbing back to the summit.