Why would anybody join Manchester United?
Managers, players, canteen workers – run away.
Erik Ten Hag is in trouble. Again. Despite a new contract in the summer, handed out after new part-owners INEOS failed to find anybody qualified and/or foolish enough to replace him, there’s surely no way the Dutchman can last until Christmas. Unless, of course, what happened in the summer happens again.
Because which manager in his right mind looks at Manchester United right now and goes “that’s the job for me”? There is so much evidence that it’s a terrible idea. Not one of the post-Fergie contingent has been successful. Not one have left with their reputation improved or went on to a bigger job. Only Van Gaal, who went on to manage the Netherlands (for a third time), could be seen to have taken even a horizontal move.
There’s an argument that it’s the club itself. That they’re picking the wrong guys. Had the club persuaded Pep or Klopp, it would have been different. Except they didn’t. The very best managers don’t end up at Manchester United. They clearly see something there that puts them off. It’s the wrong guys picking the wrong guys because the right guys don’t want to go there.
The Glazers were/are clearly awful. The recruitment has been poor and random. The training ground and stadium are outdated. But it seems deeper than that. It’s an unmanageable job. An unsolvable riddle. A curse. Did someone retrospectively place an ancient Indian burial ground under the Stretford End? Was the Casemiro signing the result of a wish on a mummified monkey’s paw? One dark night, did Ed Woodward stand in front of a mirror and say ‘Europa League’ five times?
Current reports are that Ten Hag has two games to save his job. Previous reports also said that Ten Hag was sacked regardless of whether they won the FA Cup. He’s still there. You look around Europe and wonder, who now? Tuchel maybe? He’s perhaps hubristic enough to think he could do it but he’s clearly also a smart guy with his career at a pivotal point. I’m sure Mourinho thought he was riding high when he took the job. You only realise you’re on the way down once it’s too late.
A thought that brings us nicely onto prospective United players. To them, the same question: why would you even consider it? Have any players really improved? Most of them have got worse. Most of the bright sparks are youth players, still relatively untouched by the curse. Lads, look at Rashford and run for your lives. If this was a horror movie, Mainoo and Garnacho would stumble across a basement of old photographs and grainy footage of Marcus Rashford banging in goals as a teenager and realise that he was just like them once: ‘Oh my god, he used to be…. good.’
Bruno Fernandes is probably one of the best players in the world and he’s been condemned to an eternity of being called a disgrace by Roy Keane every weekend.
The club hierarchy’s love of paying average players so much money they can never get rid of them has skewed the data considerably –a business model where you pay £80m for Anthony and sell the seriously under-rated Scott McTominay for £25m is never going far – but they have signed some good players: Jadon Sancho, Matthijs de Ligt, Mason Mount, Noussair Mazraoui, Rasmus Højlund, Lisandro Martínez, Paul Pogba. All of them have done well elsewhere. Most of them have, at some point, done well at United. Some will hopefully see sense and do well somewhere else in the future.
Even club staff would be well advised to stay the fuck away. New owner Jim Ratcliffe has come in on a mission to drag down the club’s Glassdoor score via a number of new measures to ensure that the staff off the pitch are as miserable as those on it. All employees not involved with the players have been banned from integrating with the first team during meal times, leading to reports that some have found themselves eating ‘next to the toilets’. While all office staff have been told working from home is off the cards too, despite there not being enough space in the club’s Manchester or London premises to accommodate all of them. Fortunate, then, that Ratcliffe’s cost-cutting measures (Antony is on £200k a week) mean around a quarter of the workforce are at risk of redundancy.
Despite him clearly being a bit of an arsehole, it will be interesting to see if big Jim turns it around. Tough, though, if all sensible managers have realised it’s a cursed job and every player you sign immediately loses 5 points on their Fifa rating.
Ruud van Nistelrooy, United legend and Ten Hag’s new number 2, seems destined to take the hot seat on an interim basis as a sort of Solskjær re-gen. A new Doctor. Doomed to six good months, a permanent contract and an ensuing shit show before being sacked with your reputation in tatters.
Don’t do it, Ruud!
But also: do do it, Ruud.
They tried to lure Klopp before he went to Liverpool, and he was turned off by their pitch. Something about United being like Disneyland where your dreams come true... Different people running things now, but as they were smart enough to not buy all of the club while being in line to take the flack if things go badly, you have to wonder about their acumen too.
As a MUFC fan of 40 years standing who is actually from Stretford, the hyperbole around the club whenever we lose a few games never ceases to amaze me.