Bruno Fernandes followed Lisandro Martínez in revolt after his team’s 4-1 defeat to Como in the Champions League
You have to credit Manchester United. Your local rivals have turned the Premier League into an almost meaningless farce. We are questioning the validity of anything we’ve seen over the past 20 years; wondering how many goals Erling Haaland will get in the Championship. We are looking at the league table from second position down and wishing we’d invested in inflatable bananas a month ago.
And yet here comes the Old Trafford machine: from players to the captain to the manager to the director of football, to the director of the director of football, to a minority owner who feels the UK is being “colonised by immigrants”, to debt-leveraging majority owners who take vast sums out of the club and are collectively saying hold my Ineos-sponsored high-performance wellness immune boost smoothie.
Yes, it’s time to dust down the Manchester United bin-fire article. Read this and compare and contrast. From 11 August 2022: “Reds rinse and repeat: will we ever break the Manchester United crisis cycle?” There are others.
It is some feat to be more newsworthy than Manchester City, even for an evening. The defeat in Como wasn’t surprising. We’re getting to the stage where the large pieces of furniture Barney Ronay keeps comparing Harry Maguire to are fighting back. @19thCenturyArmoir: “mate i’m a hundred and sixty years old, of course my legs have gone.” @CoffinFridge69: “#BeKind Ronay, appliances have feelings too.”
Everyone knows the problems at Old Trafford lie deeper than the defensive line held by Maguire and Matthijs de Ligt on Wednesday.
Perhaps it was only a matter of time before Bruno Fernandes’s constant on-field complaining spilled off the pitch. An exercise in throwing his manager under the bus, where presumably Michael Carrick found Jason Wilcox, still lying in hiding under the 250 to the Trafford Centre after Lisandro Martínez’s post-match intervention in Madrid.
Carrick did push back on the criticism: “Whatever system you play, whatever tactics you play, if you don’t run, and you don’t run forward, and you don’t run back, you aren’t going to win.” But it’s hard to throw someone under the bus when you’re already under the bus you’re trying to throw people under.
Poor Carrick, who may well be gone by the time I finish this tram ride, never mind by the time you get around to reading this. It was one of those funereal press conferences: Carrick being as earnest as it is possible to be, while journalists take it in turn to sound even more earnest, as if they’re questioning a man who’s just failed to blow up the asteroid coming to destroy the Earth.
At this rate, that meteor will arrive long before United have recaptured past glories. Ineos presumably has a big blame pie chart constantly updating on a PowerPoint. Spin the wheel – who’s to blame today? Maybe the players?
Does anyone genuinely know any more whether any United player is good? I have analysis paralysis when trying to work out whether Fernandes is world class or why Youri Tielemans never lumbered at Aston Villa. How bamboozled will we be when Joshua Zirkzee has 25 goal involvements for Real Sociedad next season?
As for Carrick, while most of us (me included) felt he’d earned the right to manage the side this season, a more ruthless and efficient ownership would have made a different call. It wouldn’t have been popular.
He may turn out to be a world-class manager – he may not. Football decides pretty quickly about these things. But if he is sacked, there is a path to redemption. Daniel Farke has moved beyond “only good in the Championship”. Frank Lampard could reasonably expect an apology from anyone who comments on the game for his achievements at Coventry.
But at this stage it is fair to say Carrick doesn’t have the tactical ability or experience of almost all his competitors in the division.
Above him, is Jason Wilcox good? Perhaps the last time someone yelled at him like Martínez, it was Mike Newell after an overhit cross at Ewood Park in 1991. What will Omar Berrada’s CV look like after the independent panel delivers its punishments?
It is fair to say that barring the odd All or Nothing documentary, I have almost no knowledge of what happens behind the scenes. But £1bn spent by United to create this squad over the past five years, plus the randomness of Rangnick/Ten Hag/Van Nistelrooy/Amorim/Carrick, gives us limited evidence to suggest high performance.
And at the top, what does Jim Ratcliffe care about? Apart from enjoying the tax rates of Monaco while opining about the fallen British empire. The good old days where you could just colonise and get a pat on the back, eh Jim.
And then there’s the Glazers. Even for someone whose brain shuts down as soon as they hear the words “leveraged debt” the fact they have extracted about £1bn out of the club since the takeover in 2005 is an outrage. Perhaps if they had overseen a period of sustained success, but it is the opposite.
So when you add bad (maybe bad?) players, bad (or at least disrespectful) captain, bad (not great yet) manager, bad technical director, bad chief executive, bad minority owner, bad majority owners – apologies if I’ve missed anyone – it is, well, bad.
So what’s the best plan of action now? Did someone say Antonio Conte? For the wind and the rain make it happen. As Paul Watson said on the latest Guardian Football Weekly, he might resign during his unveiling.
Lots of us who lived through the Fergie success can’t help but enjoy a Manchester United crisis, but it’s possible to laugh and at the same time sympathise with powerless United fans under that dripping roof in the East Stand.
Football is so stupid that Conte, or Eddie Howe, or even Carrick could turn this into a good season. Perhaps everyone’s expectations still cling to a Manchester United that do not exist any more. Perhaps the odd trophy, the occasional foray deep into Europe, may be the new normal. But right now, how many Premier League teams are worse than they are? Did someone say a Manchester derby in the Championship next season? I can hear David Prutton’s excitement already.
