At the half time interval of the 25th anniversary concert of The Dubliners, Paddy Reilly brought the curtain down on the first half thus: to “The rats are deserting the ship, but thankfully the captain of the ship (Barney McKenna) is still at the wheel”.
Paddy is known to be a long time Manchester United fan, and after the latest embarrassing catastrophe at Old Trafford one thought of Paddy’s line that night and how appropriate it would’ve been for the behaviour of some of the United players in the last few weeks.
The real captain of that club at the moment was on the sideline on Sunday last wearing the manager’s blazer, the chancer supposedly the guardian of the armband in the dugout, and lucky to be there in my view.
Now, at this point I will admit that during the coverage of the match Gary Neville was wrecking my head because he was constantly running down a club from whom he reached echelons of the game he absolutely wouldn’t have with anyone else.
However, having listened to his podcast recorded immediately after full time I must cut the former full back a bit of slack. Hearing him demolish their buffoonery away from the midst of an actual match gave the opportunity to judge his viewpoint in a different context.
Neville raged “They’re nothing. I live in Manchester, I see them. They don’t eat right. They don’t sleep right. They don’t think about the club every hour of every day. Which you must do at this football club. It’s a privilege to be here”. He was entirely correct with every one of his observations.
But here’s the thing, he could – and to an extent did – append the same analysis to the swindling cowboys in the carpeted offices. Make no mistake about it, Glazers, Rathcliffe, none of them give a damn about the club.
The Yanks merely use it as a cash cow with which to bolster their American Football franchise. To the extent that they were able to lure the great Tom Brady for one last tango and bag a Super Bowl.
Now how do you square that circle with the fact that Old Trafford – the home of supposedly one of the biggest football clubs in the world – has a bloody leaking roof?
Methinks you wouldn’t see the likes of the Nou Camp or the San Siro with the same mortifying farce continuing. And ultimately, as Gary rightly put it, it’s all down to penny pinching at every level within the club. You get what you pay for, or do not, as the case may be. Just think about all the top pros, players and managers, Manchester United have been linked with signing and not landed any of.
To stick to players first, including but not limited to:
Evan Ferguson, Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Erling Haaland, Sandro Tonali, Elliot Anderson, Declan Rice, Cody Gakpo, Jarred Brantwaite and Adam Wharton.
Just study that list. They are all elite players in the modern game, but wouldn’t be fit to carry the gear bags of some of those who have graced Old Trafford in the past. Compare them to, say –
Irwin, Bruce, Pallister, Robson, Keane, Cantona, Cole, Yorke, Sherringham, Rooney, Ronaldo, Van Persie, Van Nistelrooy and Berbatov.
Now consider that, if those in the first list aren’t fit to lace the boots of those in the second and the former still snubbed United, what does that tell you about the standing of the club in the eyes of the outside world?
There was a time to have your name mentioned in the same breath as Manchester United would be enough to have players excrete bodily fluids that wasn’t urine. Now, bang average hole fillers are choosing Spurs, Chelsea and, Lord help us, Nottingham Forest over United.
And that’s all before the discussion moves on to managers. Look, at the outset here, the obvious and fair thing to point out is that whoever took over from Alex Ferguson was always going to be on a hiding to nothing.
Even allowing for that though, David Moyes deserved more time to put his own imprint on matters. To sack Louis Van Gaal after winning a trophy was nothing short of insulting. Doing so to José Mourinho after the great man had guided the Red Devils to two was even worse.
Then, again, magnificent servants to and ambassadors for the club Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, Van Nistelrooy, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer and Darren Fletcher were all dispatched with.
All the while replaced by jokers like Ralf Ragnik and Erik ten Haag and Ruben Amorim. But it has been no joke and the only ones laughing are the rest of the football world.
So, you’ve lost your status, lost your attractiveness and, maybe most importantly the fear factor that a trip to what was once the theatre of dreams – now the scrapyard of nightmares – used to be laced with.
Playing Manchester United now is akin to what tackling an Everton or a Crystal Palace or a Brighton used to be for them. They’ll give you a decent game and you will need to have your guard up, but they’re handy enough to pick holes in and you’ll beat them eventually.
This is an institution that might only lose one or two matches a season and they would absolutely not be home fixtures.
In all probability Michael Carrick will eventually end up falling on his sword, even though to much fanfare it has just been announced he will still be in charge for Saturday’s game against Chelsea. Meanwhile, the inept idiots who will be the ruination of the club will most likely skip away unscathed.
In no sense is the prospect of Carrick being catapulted fair. What I don’t know is whether a groundswell of opprobrium from the right places would be enough to get rid of the Glazers, Sir Jim didn’t-fix-it-he-only-made-it-worse and their merry band of meddlers. Led by Jason Wilcox who – with the greatest respect in the world – was a mid table Championship level midfielder who’d know as much about running one of the biggest operations in the world of either sport or business as a cow would about the concept of Bank Holidays.
Maybe the following is simply skepticism from being around the block too long, but, generally, when a board gives a manager a ‘vote of confidence’ it generally means a stay of execution while the sharpen the Sword Of Damocles fit for use which they will eventually drop on the latest unfortunate sod to be left with whatever poisoned chalice it happens to be.
It has to be said though that you’d have to wonder was it the very obvious differentiation between the fan reaction to the manager and the players in the wake of Sunday’s drubbing against Bournemouth which caused the power brokers to pull the breaks on another act of stupidity? For now at least.
Which is the very least he deserves. The problems at his place of employment are not of his making. Nor should he be made to carry the can for the incompetence of those in the carpeted offices. No more than, in fairness to them, many of those who preceded him in the role, who were, individually and collectively, thrown under a bus by the hapless headline hoggers.
Now, it presumably stands to reason that managers would have a high percentage of the say when it comes to signing players. But, again, going by Neville’s passion fuelled post Bournemouth podcast, several past United managers in the post Ferguson era have been inhibited from going after their primary transfer targets by financial misery.
The former full back and club captain said: “Manchester United is a club at which breaking records to acquire top talent was considered standard practice. You think of £1M for Bryan Robson, 3.75M for Roy Keane, 7M for Andy Cole, 30M for Rio Ferdinand”. All top prices because all of the above were considered to be the best in the world in their area of expertise at a given point in time.
Whereas now, in contrast, he opined “(United) are signing players from the likes of Wolves and Brighton. And, it’s absolutely no reflection on those clubs, but, United should be aiming much higher than that”.
Something seemingly concurred with by one jettisoned former occupant of the home dugout Jose Mourinho when he stated that he was sure he had Harry Kane convinced to join him at Old Trafford but that his efforts fell through when the powers-that-be didn’t have the will to go bull headed about securing his services in a manner befitting either the player or club in question.
With the result that they ended up with decent players, but no more than that, such as Romelu Lukaku, Rasmus Hoijlund, Joshua Zirkzee, Lenny Yoro and Diogo Dalot. With the possible exception of Lukaku in his prime, you don’t see other high aiming clubs straining themselves to sign any of the above.
Go back even further if you wish, Radamel Falcao, Ronaldo Act II, Bastien Schweinsteiger, Angel Di Maria, Rafael Veranne, Morgan Schneiderling, Edinson Cavani, Henrik Larson and Zlatan Ibrahimovich – all signed by United when they were well past their best and on their last lap of the gravy train.
Of course, the other knock on effect of not being able to make prime capital acquisitions is that you are either (a) left with what somebody known to me refers to as ‘the shakings of the bag’ or (b) left in a position of having to parachute green youngsters into first team football before they are within an ass’s roar of being ready.
Notwithstanding the fact that Alex Ferguson faced down Alan Hansen’s now infamous ‘You won’t win anything with kids’ jibe and then some, it is currently the case that United are currently stuck between the rock and hard places options above.
In that you have the likes of Dalot and Yoro who – if right was right – wouldn’t be next or near their back four. And the other side of that is that the likes of Ayden Heaven, Jack Fletcher, Tyler Fletcher or Shay Lacey should be nowhere near first team football yet. But it’s a matter of them having to be.
Plus, don’t get me started on the whole JJ Gabriel debacle. The young lad shouldn’t even be mentioned in terms of adult football and that he is says to me that he either has nobody advising him or those that are are giving him dodgy advice.
Look, comparisons to and desire to be like Max Dowman are wholly understandable but in a case like that the lad needs to be saved from himself.
For one thing, he’s nowhere near the physical specimen Dowman is yet and for another it’s instructive how sparingly Mikel Arteta is using the prodigious youngster.
Indeed, no later than an hour ago as the finishing touches were being applied to what you are reading there was a stark illustration that the languid teenager still has plenty to learn as he petulantly reacted to what was in fairness was a fairly agricultural challenge and ended up getting his marching orders.
The thing is though, my guess is that he couldn’t be with a better man than the Spaniard.
That’s not to say that Michael Carrick couldn’t manage the likes of Gabriel or the other young players mentioned but the fact is he shouldn’t be depending on them to the extent that he is.
That such is the case is the fault of the misconduct of those on and off the pitch. Michael Carrick should not be left to carry the can.
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