The time has come to be blunt about what’s going on at Manchester United football club. Sadly the men who currently control the destiny of our football club don’t know what they’re doing. And I’m going to tell you why.
Anyone who knows me – or watches my channel on a regular basis – will know l’ve always backed the manager.
I backed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to the end. The difference was Ole finished third and then second in the Premier League. His unbeaten run of 29 away matches is still an English top flight record.
I backed Erik Ten Hag to the bitter end. He won 2 trophies in 2 seasons, reached 3 cup finals and finished third in his first Premier League campaign. Ole in particular i think was hugely under estimated. And I’m certain we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in right now if we’d carried on with Erik or his No.2 Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Wishful thinking
Meantime, I have consistently told you I do want Ruben Amorim to be successful at Manchester United. I’ve argued that he needs time. As an optimist even now I still cling to the hope that Ruben will somehow make United great again. But it’s a hope based on wishful thinking and nothing concrete. Right now his body language tells me I don’t even think Ruben Amorim believes that Ruben Amorim can turn United around.
So far the coach has turned into a Portuguese pretender who looks like a manager way out of his depth. He’s got the worst record in Manchester United history. By a long way. Seventeen defeats in 33 Premier League games. No back to back wins in the League.
He tells us he’d rather keep losing than change his system. I hate that stubbornness and that total disregard for how crazy that sounds. His in game management is diabolical. His team selection and his substitutions are baffling. I hate his stubbornness. I’m tired of his endless excuses. I’m not interested in what he did in the second rate Portuguese league. And I can’t stand the way he plays bruno Fernandes out of position. I could go on.
But Ruben is a very nice man. And he talks well when he’s in front of the media. Bottom line is Football is a results business. And Amorim looks and sounds like a manager who’s all talk and no substance.
In short he doesnt know what he’s doing. But he’s not the only one and he’s not even the biggest problem at this football club.
Ownership stinks
In any business. At any football club, it all starts at the very top. The ownership of Manchester United football club stinks like rotten fish. The ownership have zero understanding of how to run a successful football club, not least the biggest football club on the planet.
The owners are more interested in money and balance sheets than legacy and silverware. They absolutely do not understand the history, the ethos or the culture of a football club made great by Sir Matt Busby and Jimmy Murphy. They don’t respect or understand the high standards and winning culture created by Sir Alex Ferguson.
They certainly don’t respect our fans or our former players. We all know how the Glazers gutted Manchester United by treating our football club like a cash machine. We all know the Glazers don’t care what the fans think or how we feel about the way they’ve abused our football club. But Jim Ratcliffe and his INEOS mob are even worse. Much worse.
Ratcliffe enabled the Glazers to keep their greedy fingers in the pie and he’s consistently made one bad decision after another. His claim that he’s a lifelong fan of Manchester United is as hollow as his personality. He’s an arrogant man who doesn’t understand the first thing about being a true red.
He can’t understand why many fans want the words football club back on the badge. He doesn’t value the older fans who’ve supported the club for decades. He’d rather fill Old Trafford with tourists making their first visit. He has no time for tradition or former players as he proved when he ruthlessly axed the 40K a year sponsorship of the former players charity. He wants the fans to pay for the mistakes made by the owners by hiking ticket prices. By asking them to pay money up front for the right to buy season tickets at a new stadium.
Football family
He’s made one bad decision after another. Giving Ten Hag a new contract then sacking him. Poaching Dan Ashworth then sacking him. Bringing in Ruben Amorim mid season. Then sacking Ruud van Nistelrooy.
And then there’s the stadium . . He wants to knock down Old Trafford and replace it with a commercial and residential development. In my mind tht’s sacrilege. He wants to build a new stadium on land the football club doesn’t even own. And he arrogantly thinks he can buy that land for 50M when the freight company who own the land want 10 times that amount.
Maybe I’m unfairly painting an overly negative narrative around a man who’s invested his own money into buying nearly 30 per cent of MUFC. His emergency funding solved a huge cash flow problem and helped upgrade our Carrington training ground. But I feel that’s all overshadowed by the demoralisation of a workforce decimated by redundancies and cutbacks.
As I’ve said before this is a football family as well as a football club – ripping the heart and soul out of Manchester United with penny pinching cutbacks on the pretext of making the figures add up for me is the biggest route cause of our current malaise.
Footballers are affected by the demoralisation of the workforce they’re part of. And there’s no leadership that inspires the players to fight for United’s history and identity. Let me say that again there’s no leadership from the owners that defines what Manchester United stand for. That is on Ratcliffe who’s overseeing the worst period in United’s premier league history.
Mediocrity
Since Ratcliffe started making the big decisions everything has gone pear shaped. On top of that the owners for a long time now have settled for mediocrity. We’ve spent fortunes in the transfer market. But when was the last time we signed the best player in the premier league. When was the last time we signed the best player in any position on the football pitch.
Consequently we have a squad of highly paid footballers who simply lack the fight, the passion and the skill that playing for Manchester United demands. We’re turning into a burnout shell of a once proud football empire.
The whole ethos of the Ratcliffe regime is based around finance and not our football religion – he’s turning the club into a faceless institution that doesn’t care about the fans, the players or our status. The R missing from Manchester United stands for Ratcliffe ruining our Red family and our reputation.
It’s becoming purely a business. And that is not what dreams are made of. Every other football club in the premier league has a togetherness the players can feel part of. It’s that togetherness and big family identity that is sadly being neglected and forgotten at Manchester United.
Crystal clear
The club is being run purely for the benefit of the shareholders and not for the fans. For me this is crystal clear. And so are the consequences. I don’t care how much you pay players you can’t buy their total commitment to a club that has lost touch with its soul.
And then there’s the move to enforce a new identity and a new way of playing. That’s the vision of Omar Berrada and Jason Wilcox. Both are extremely nice guys but they’re unproven in the roles they currently fill. And they don’t understand the United way. They both built their reputations at Manchester City.
Neither are best in class. And 2 weeks ago – exclusively on this channel – we heard Jason Wilcox say in his own words – he’s guilty of being a frustrated coach who wants to interfere with what the manager is doing. So it does beg the question: how much of Ruben Amorim’s decision making is being influenced by Jason Wilcox.
While I do think Jason Wilcox is a thoroughly decent guy I question his decision making. We’ve failed to tackle our midfield requirements. We sold one of the best midfielders in Europe when we got rid of Scot McTominay. We’ve failed to sign a goalkeeper proven at the top level. We’re painfully short of strikers. Sesko is our only genuine centre forward. And we’ve got 5 players who are best suited to playing the No.10 role.
Strip away the fanfare and back slapping our summer transfer window activity generated and you have to ask yourself do we actually know what we’re doing?
Ratcliffe controls the media by feeding inside information to a select number of preferred journalists. In return those journalists don’t expose the real mess created by the owners. When the reaction to results on the pitch gets so bad the demand for change is deafening it’ll be the manager who walks. Not the players. And definitely not the owners.
What’s next?
Next it’s Sunderland at home. And then Liverpool away. On current form we could easily lose both those matches. There’s a growing belief that Amorim is already a dead man walking. And the only thing keeping him in his job is the financial penalty of the 12 million pounds in compensation we’ll owe Amorim if he’s sacked before November 1st.
After Sunderland and Liverpool we’ve only got brighton at home before that deadline. Then it’s Forest and Spurs away. .. before the next international break that follows our match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on November 8th.
It’s an old cliche that managers always take one game at a time. Amorim has all week to focus on Saturday’s Old Trafford encounter with newly promoted Sunderland. But it’s impossible for fans not to look ahead. Fail to beat Sunderland and the clamour for Amorim to be dismissed will inevitably reach fever pitch.
My guess is that Ruben Amorim will stay in the hotseat until the spurs game. And whether or not he survives the international break will be decided by results in our next 5 games. But even if we change the manager don’t expect any real progress until we have clear leadership from the owners. We need leadership that unites our fans and our players. We need a United Red family. And I don’t believe we’ll ever get that under the existing ownership model.
