Living In The Past
4 min readFootball$5.89 pending
)I was listening to Paul Merson this week with regard to his comments about Manchester United and he gets it. The club has been living in the past thinking they are a top 4 club in the Premier League and missing out on Champions League football each year is seen as a failure.
The harsh truth is the club is a mid table club at best and anything else achieved must be considered over performing. It does not matter if the club has the best manager in the world or the best facilities as whoever is in charge will fail due to the expectations being unrealistic.
Manchester United las one the Premier League title back in 2012/2013 which is 14 seasons ago and looks further away than ever. Over this period the club has churned through 7 managers and 3 or 4 more caretaker managers or interim managers being the correct terminology.
The club have not been shy with the spending either having flashed the cash to the tune of £1.43 billion which is an average of £100 million per season. The problem with having no stability at the top players are bought under one manager for his plan and then he is replaced so the plan and future vision has then changed.
I can remember saying this years ago and that is you keep a core of two or three players from which you build and over the course of two seasons you clear out the rest and replace those players. Turning a club of this size around is a big job and everyone who supports this club would need patience with no expectations. This stripping bare the cupboard and replacing with a better standard of player would be a 5 year plan which is a realistic time line.
Look at the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal and how attention to detail under the same manager took time to create a foundation before an attack on winning the league was even possible. When you compare Manchester United to other clubs in the top 4 they are shambolic and are lacking the quality players required to run or sustain a bid on winning the title.
Manchester United are further away every time they replace their managers as it is a start over process each time. Michael Carrick or Ole Gunnar Solskjaer were never realistic choices of being the clubs manager and was just the club being in a fairy tale mode thinking it was possible.
As a business Manchester United has made a financial loss for 7 consecutive years yet somehow this is fine for the owners as they have drained the club up to a tune of £2.3 billion since 2012. The club serves their purpose as a financial cow for their other sporting teams they own and was never about dominating the football scene in England or Europe. Staying in the top 4 however is or was the plan due to the financial benefits of being involved in the European competitions.
The club currently sits in 14th spot and depending how results go today they could rise or drop to 17th spot which is depressing if you are a Manchester United fan. This was always on the cards with the quality of players at the club. The lower they are in the league the harder it becomes to attract the top players so this could be a much longer than a 5 year plan.
A quick update as another loss drops the team down the table one point above relegation so they are deep in the mire and a massive struggle to pull themselves out of this mess.