One of two things is happening. Either every player that Manchester United buy is a poor choice and every player already there was a poor choice. Or there is a culture within the club that causes players to regress sharply. I think it’s the second and I think that the culture is only ever suspended – temporarily – by the short-term buzz of a manager who quickly drowns in reality. Farewell, Michael Carrick. That was you.
Manchester United is a club with endemic problems; this much we know. The Glazers are vampiric leeches on the soul, mood and finances; always have been. Jim Ratcliffe is vaguely unfit for purpose but relatively harmless until he sharts bad PR every time he opens his mouth.
These things are not changing for now and their impacts lower the ceiling. Who would have thought an out-of-touch, culturally insensitive multibillionaire and leverage buyout ultra-capitalists would be bad individually and worse in combination?
But there is also a dismal acceptance of mediocrity that has seeped into the football side of the operation. It may well be subliminal, but that makes it no better or worse nor any less true. Too many players have been allowed to use systemic problems above them as an excuse for their own incompetence, indolence and indifference.
It is expressed in three ways: players thinking that when they have arrived at Manchester United they have made it and so don’t need to improve. Players thinking that performing well for a bit rather than all the time is worthy of praise. Players think that doing some elements of the game is a good enough reason to be lacking in other areas.
This is demonstrated best in how few players actually improve over time at United after signing. Bruno Fernandes is pretty much the only long-term exception. That’s because he’s allowed to treat the pitch as his fiefdom (which is why his numbers are very good even though the team is bad) because you can see the pain on his face when it’s going badly. Which is just another symptom of the pitifully low bar.
My most militant – and least popular – Manchester United opinion is that they should have appointed Gareth Southgate as their manager before Ruben Amorim. Not because Southgate is a wonderful tactician, but because the situation that all of the above reminds me of most is the England national team between 2007 and 2017. England didn’t need a coach, then. They needed a cultural resetter.
Southgate could never have got the job because a) supporters would have vehemently protested against his appointment because the England job warps people’s minds and b) he didn’t want it. But United missed out on the chance to reset the culture then. They went for the tactician (who promptly failed miserably) and then returned to their new-old ex-player vibe train for one more loop around the circus.
I think Eddie Howe is the closest to Southgate, but also available and potentially willing. Howe evidently benefitted from the change of ownership a fortnight before his appointment at Newcastle United, but he also established a dressing room culture in which excuses were non-applicable and physicality and maximum effort were non-negotiable. He plays the statesman role (translation: he’s reassuringly boring to owners) but inspires players to be better than their previous best. And he’s done it in the Premier League.
Read more
Mark Douglas: Unai Emery leads six candidates to replace Michael Carrick
Kevin Garside: Piers Morgan cannot handle the truth about Cristiano Ronaldo
Is Howe the man to ride Manchester United back to glorious days of yore? No. But that is the wrong question. This club is afflicted by its own hardwired arrogance that being good 20 years ago is reason enough to be better than Bournemouth, Brentford and Brighton now. Newsflash: for all the talk of red cartels and established power, smart clubs will still beat thick clubs lots of the time.
But having six problems is not an excuse for getting another one wrong. Michael Carrick lacked anything other than history, which is roughly where Manchester United have been living for too long because it’s easier than even starting to clear the mess of the present.
They need the sensible option. They need a dressing room culture reset that comes without the fire, brimstone and scorched earth short-termism of Antonio Conte because that hasn’t worked here before. They need competence because you can only ever lay foundations for excellence upon competence. They need Eddie Howe.