Desperation breeds a desire for messiahs. And as time goes by and the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson, a triumphant farewell at Old Trafford reaping his 13th league title, drifts further into the memory, so Manchester United’s scrabble for solutions becomes increasingly urgent.
With every new arrival, the hope has been that this will be the one: that José Mourinho would bring success because he had won things in the past; that Ole Gunnar Solskjær would do so through nostalgia; that Jadon Sancho would by his youthful promise; that Cristiano Ronaldo would by not eating dessert; that André Onana would because he can play out from the back.
But this is not about individuals, no matter how gifted. In the complexity of modern football, nobody can magically put things right; the age of messiahs is over (although Ange Postecoglou is threatening that assertion). There was a period when it seemed Bruno Fernandes had somehow made sense of a chaotically assembled squad. Casemiro last season for a time gave United a sense of purpose. But this is about systems and cultures and individuals can only stand against that for so long.
And that’s why Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s investment feels so important. For the first time since the Glazers took over the club in 2005, there is a realistic chance to implement real structural change, particularly given the willingness to hand Ratcliffe control of the sporting side of the business is a tacit acknowledgment that it is not currently working.
United do seem to have been very good at finding commercial partnerships, with noodle tie-ups and tyre deals across the globe. But Old Trafford is showing its age, the flow of talent from the academy has slowed to a dribble and recruitment has been haphazard.
There is more to running a club than transfers, but they do provide a useful barometer, at least to the level of football expertise at play – which, for now, still matters. Nobody expects United to be like Brighton. Resale value is only part of the point; for those at the very top of the pyramid – as United still are in status and wealth – they should be a final destination, the place where proven stars reach their peak.
But still, it is worth asking why there have been only five players sold at a profit since Ferguson left the club, the most recent being Dan James. It would be hard to argue, though, that he, or any of the other four – Alexander Büttner, Daley Blind, Javi Hernández and Chris Smalling – improved significantly at Old Trafford.
United has become a place where potential withers. That leads to short-termism: Casemiro and Raphaël Varane, for instance, used to be players of the highest class. Neither signing can be said to have been a mistake but they create a problem in that United now have two thirtysomethings on high wages who are past their best.
That the failure of recruitment has been so consistent for so long suggests the depth of the problem: this is not about a couple of bad apples or about a poor managerial appointment; it’s about the whole culture of the place. If United are to return to success, it is that very culture Ratcliffe has to change – which is why his talk about a “holistic” approach (the same word City used in justifying the sacking of Roberto Mancini in 2013) should offer encouragement.
The oddity is that this is the culture of Manchester United. Their history is of three periods of extreme success set amid decades of underachievement. They are the most successful club in English league history with 20 championships, but they were won under only three managers. Between their last league title under Ernest Mangnall and their first under Sir Matt Busby 41 years passed (or 31 seasons, given 10 were lost to the world wars). There were 26 years between their last league title under Busby and their first under Ferguson.
Already 10 have gone by since that last championship under Sir Alex. The assumption then was that the self-perpetuating nature of modern football in which wealth accumulates around the wealthy, would ensure United remained successful. Yet they haven’t so much as challenged for a title in that past decade. In part that’s tribute to the sustained excellence of Manchester City, but it’s also a mark of the depth of United’s failure.
What is not yet clear is what Ratcliffe is buying with his £1.3bn. How much say will he actually have, given the Glazers still control the boardroom? Will he be able to mount the overhaul that is so obviously necessary? And how long will it take? It took Busby six years to instil his ideas and win his first title. It took Ferguson seven. The bigger the club, perhaps, the harder it is to turn around – particularly when so many aspects are so deficient.
At the end of last season, it seemed that Erik ten Hag was the man to lead the revolution. He had jettisoned Ronaldo and appeared to have the toughness and single-mindedness to impose his vision. Two months into this campaign, though, and poor form is leading to more fundamental questions, most notably about his stance on the Mason Greenwood issue, the number of players United have signed from the Eredivisie and the influence of SEG, the Dutch agency that represents him.
Ten Hag has worked with Onana, Antony and Lisandro Martínez before and sanctioned, perhaps even demanded, their signings. Every underwhelming performance from those players reflects badly on him. Worse, he has begun to seem a man under pressure: the cold-eyed truth-teller of last season transformed into a beleaguered excuse-maker.
There should not be any immediate threat but, if Ratcliffe does have genuine influence, one of the first decisions he will have to make is whether he sees Ten Hag as the manager to lead the club to a brighter future. It may be that is a judgment based less on objective assessment than the sense there is need for sacrifice to inaugurate the new era.
But the manager is only the most visible symbol of the leadership and that has been failing since Ferguson left. Commercial deals aside, United have been failing in every department.
