Going into a sixth season without a league title, off the back of a sixth place finish. Two seasons have passed without any kind of trophy. Signing up Jose Mourinho, the most successful football manager in the world at the time, was meant to bring the good times back, but alas, it ended in tears in spite of him bagging two more major honours during his time at the club.
He should have stayed, just like his teacher Louis Van Gaal had to after winning the FA Cup. These three trophies feels like a long time ago. Ole took the wheel a few months back and went from 0-100 faster than you could say “United are back”, and then collided with calamity as seems to have been the case for every post Ferguson manager. Reflecting on this past season, the clichéd question – “where do we even start?” is one that suffices, coupled with the clichéd response, “at the beginning”?
The mood around the club was tangibly terrible during pre-season, thanks to Jose setting a morbid tone with his frequent complaints about a lack of signings. As the window drew to a close, the latest request was known to be at least one centre half. One. Toby Alderweireld was apparently available and stalling on agreeing a new deal with Spurs. Ed Woodward, a banking man by background, told Mourinho, a serial winning football manager, that Toby was no better than anyone at the club. “Anyone” being Chris Smalling, Marcos Rojo, Phil Jones, Victor Lindelof, and Eric Baily.
Early in the season the Belgian defender lined up against Smalling and Jones where Woodward’s “mistake” was exposed. It is what happens when you give a manager a new contract and then stop trusting him with small change to sign players. Spurs won 3-0 with the first two of those goals scored two minutes apart shortly after half time. One from a corner where Harry Kane lost his marker in Phillip Jones, the second from a cross, and a third from Lucas Moura treating United’s defence like it wasn’t there. United missed chances early in the game, enough to have influenced the result differently, but ultimately it led to the continued capitulation of the Old Trafford outfit. It was only the third game of the season and a second consecutive match where they conceded 3 goals, very unlike Man United, and even more unlike Jose Mourinho. The writing was on the wall.
A club that always has some sense of hope perhaps except right now, some thought a recovery was possible, but it never happened. 14 Games later, a 3-1 defeat to Liverpool was the multiple title winner’s last game in charge and we’ll never know what may have been had he got his sought after CB. The team went on to record their worst defensive results for 40 seasons. Jose knew, as he often did throughout his career, and ridiculously, but accurately pointed out that his second place finish the previous season was among his best achievements as a manager.
Enter Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Man United treble legend. He came in at a great time with perfect fixtures. Almost every game was described by main stream media as his “first big test”. These so called tests were destroyed as the team started life under him unbeaten after 12 games with the first hurdle fall arriving at home to PSG in the Champions League. It was a glorious run.
Solskjaer impressed many with his natural and honest approach to talking up United. He said all the right things with glowing confidence. My own thoughts were often that he sounded naïve but it was pleasing nonetheless that the players could back it up on the pitch with the help of some luck. This included a first manager of the month award at United since Sir Alex retired as well as including a run of eight straight away wins that beat a record held by Ferguson’s United. The Red Devils were indeed back. Or so it seemed. I typically kept saying that the run would have to end somewhere. And it did, badly.
One of Ole’s most repeated comments was how hard he wanted the team to work. After a miserable preseason, and following 18 weeks of below average deep bus parking under Mourinho (who reverted to this style after attempts to change to a more attacking approach left the team too open without protection), the new (interim) manager spiced things up and got the team to work harder with a more energetic way of playing.
Under the circumstances they were never going to maintain that until the end of the season and two months before the finish, United already ranked third from bottom in terms of distance covered by their footballers. Their third highest rank for yellow cards in the league also suggests elements of fatigue, whether that be physical or mental, or both which is probably the case. This completely vindicates Solskjaer’s claims that pre-season will be absolutely massive. It sounds scary because you really don’t want a case where the below par squad is over worked before the season even kicks off. Fingers crossed. Mourinho also had bits to say about the Old Trafford medical team, and you wonder how on earth there’ll be a fitter squad next time out.
Fitness won’t be enough to mount a return to greatness though. There is a desperate need for improved quality in the first team. Too many times, basics were lacking, misplaced passes, missed chances, ridiculous disorganisation and mistakes in defence. Last season they got the second place trophy, this season they finished second for big chances missed. For a team scraping the barrel in terms of poor results, that is unacceptable and you hope that players are held to account for how they have let themselves, the manager(s), the club and the fans down.
It will be a while yet until United challenge for top honours again, but it may not be the worst thing in the world for expectations to have dropped to an all-time low. We know that many out there including supporters and rival fans won’t let up in putting the club under pressure, so it’s over to the incompetent boardroom to change things at the top very quickly, which is where you’d think all success stems from.
United have had worse to deal with before. Ole will know that and like any other United manager, he will have the support of most fans for as long as he is in the dugout. Let’s hope he reverses the horror show that led to such huge relief taken from the season ending, and thank goodness it ended! Cardiff and Huddersfield could not have asked for a better opponent to end to their campaigns against. I wonder if they’d preferred to have played the red devils earlier!
Two lines personally resonate with me as far as United are concerned. One is, “Hated adored, never ignored” which we know will always be true. The second is probably more important and “Man United will never die” has never been as poignant as it is now in my 27 or so years as a fan. Time will tell as to where a revival will come from, if at all. Onwards, and hopefully upwards.
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