Where to start…
We’ll start a bit personal.
I left the house after the second goal.
The disaster that was Manchester United at Como was interrupted, thankfully, by life. A meeting with the boss at the day job, a friend visiting from out of town who wanted to get coffee- my day was taken on a more comfortable ride in another direction as the Reds began to crash out in the Italian rain.
What I came back to was expected and accepted by the time I returned to it this evening.
Let’s zoom out a bit.
The warning
sign was there last week with Lisandro Martinez speaking out on TV after the loss to Atletico. It was rhetoric most of us agree with in perhaps not the right setting to air grievances, but maybe we should have read more into it. There was little need to read into the post-match words from Bruno Fernandes, and eventual response from Michael Carrick, in Como today.
The club is stumbling down a path we’ve all become too familiar with now. Eventually something will give, Carrick will go and someone else will come in to try and fix a disaster of a squad assembled with incoherent planning on a timeline that makes even less sense and overseen by an awkward assembly of executives with questionable at best qualifications to run what used to be the biggest and baddest club in football.
Let’s zoom out a bit more.
Under the stewardship of the Glazers, the club withered and let modern football pass it by before anyone could realize or understand what it took to go along with it. In the process, the team was left to tread water. Sometimes they swam comfortably, but there was no guidance or assistance that could lead them properly back to the shore.
Under the stewardship of INEOS and Jim Ratcliffe, the club has more involved leadership. But that alone solves nothing, and in the case of Manchester United has created even more problems. Any idea of the existence of some overarching plan is shattered by the very real evidence of costly indecision, poor scouting and recruitment, and penny-pinching over costs while continuing to assemble a squad of players that are not good enough while the better players who needed replacing out or leave for little return.
The only apparent overarching plan is the push towards a new stadium that will no doubt have plenty of bells and whistles, and will certainly increase the club’s value for an eventual sell-on to some private equity fund that will then take its turn squeezing out as much value as possible from something people still love dearly.
Now to narrow the focus a bit.
It is hard to have an optimistic answer to “what now?” at this point in time, so it’s good to let the rest of life distract you from the Reds for a bit. Managers come and go. Perhaps it’s an unfortunately short period for this current one, or perhaps the next will have a pleasantly longer tenure, but the reality is that whoever is the manager will likely not be the sole determining factor in the club rediscovering success.
There are holes throughout the team despite the apparent efforts of the higher ups. Some positions aren’t good enough, some have players who will need replacing next summer or the next year, and some positions simply don’t have depth at all. Add in the lack of any overarching tactical theme in the squad and you’ve got a pretty big mess for anyone to try and manage.
And it will be that, not cleaning up. The ones responsible for that haven’t even found a formula that works yet, which takes us back to focusing on the present.
All signs are pointing towards a reckoning or a fallout. Maybe even both. A match or two more to see what can be done, and then there is either a solution on the pitch, or there’s not. Perhaps tomorrow we see a shot of Old Trafford and the words “Club Statement.” Perhaps we see that on Monday. Either way, the pessimism has set in and the consensus is moving towards another reset at manager.
It may not even be a dire season yet. It could be a bit like last year where someone finds a quick fix. After all, it’s only seven games into the league season and the European spots are just a couple of fortunate weekends away. The biggest issue right now appears to be a severe lack of belief and finger pointing, indicating that it may be an untenable situation with Carrick anyway. Regardless, there is a match at Old Trafford on Sunday. Someone has to set the team up and 11 players have to play. As fans, maybe that’s the healthiest focus for now.
