There have been many lows for Manchester United this season, but Tuesday night’s 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Liverpool saw the team plummet to new depths.
United were completely outclassed by their rivals at Anfield. Ralf Rangnick did not hold back, describing the defeat as "embarrassing, disappointing, humiliating" . Having been thrashed 5-0 at Old Trafford in October, United have now conceded nine goals without reply against Jurgen Klopp’s side this season.
As bad as the loss was, it was not unexpected. As former United player Gary Neville put on Sky Sports’ coverage of the game, they “got what everyone in the country expected”. For those that watched one-sided match on television in the UK, Neville’s exasperated and angry co-commentary provided an inescapable soundtrack. For many United supporters he summed up the new low.
"It's a decade of repeated failure and that's not good enough,” he said. "I have no idea and don’t know how to explain how it has gone from being slightly promising, finishing second last season, to the point of an all time low in my 42 years of watching United. I have never seen it as bad as that. I have never seen a Manchester United team wilt in a football game in my 40 years of watching them."
Roy Keane was a more withheld presence on the coverage, but he still managed some of his trademark fury. "There is no soul with this team, they are robotic,” he said. “There is no emotion – you talk about the pride of Manchester United and the word robotic is the word I’m going to start using. What is going on at the training ground? What is the coaching, what is the culture, who is helping these young lads along? I have never heard about so many players wanting to leave Manchester United."
So just how did things get so bad? Mirror Football boils down the major missteps since Sir Alex Ferguson retired into some easy-to-digest sub-headings.
Ownership
For many United fans, everything that is wrong at the club stems from one thing: the owners. The Glazer family have been involved in United since first buying shares in 2003 and they became majority owners in 2005.
This was not a straightforward takeover: the Glazers used a leveraged buyout, meaning they borrowed the majority of the money, which then had to be repaid. Around £525million of the £800m came from JP Morgan at a high interest rate. For many, the nature of that initial involvement has underpinned what has developed since.
United fans have protested frequently and vociferously against their club’s owners, with last year’s failed European Super League proposals – of which the Glazers were among the chief backers – providing renewed vigour. Recent protests ahead of the Norwich City game showed they are not going away.
Hierarchy
The Glazers may own United, but they don’t run the club on a day-to-day basis. Co-chairman Joel Glazer is the most involved of the American family – it was he who was forced to issue a grovelling apology last year in the wake of the Super League fallout – but he has delegated authority to others. That has been another problem.
Ed Woodward has been the figurehead of supporters’ unhappiness when it comes to the way United has been run in recent years. Woodward, who was executive vice-chairman until leaving in February, helped advise the Glazers on their takeover in 2005 and succeeded David Gill in running the club in May 2013.
That date is significant, because it is the same time that Ferguson retired after a long and successful stint as manager.
It was Woodward – a banker with little experience of football – who oversaw a spend in excess of £1bn on players and who hired David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Despite his record of failure, he was the highest paid executive in the Premier League.
Woodward has left, leaving his friend Richard Arnold at the helm, but arguably many of the same problems remain. United now have John Murtough as football director and Darren Fletcher as technical director – and it is this pair who decided on Erik ten Hag as the club’s next manager – but Rangnick’s recent comments about the club’s structure underline its inadequacies.
"In Germany we have a head coach and then there is usually a minimum of two skilled people continuously in the club on a longer-term basis responsible for recruitment, scouting and any daily operation," Rangnick told Sky Sports News this week. "They also bring in the right and best possible head coach for the team. This still hasn't got a big tradition here and so the job of a sporting director or director of football - only a few clubs have that.
"I know that for the future, and I think even more so for a big club like Manchester United, you can't put all those jobs and tasks and the whole responsibility only on the shoulder of one person - on the manager. I'm not sure if this can be dealt with by one person, no matter how good he is.”
Recruitment
United have a long and storied history of paying over the odds for players that don’t fit into a coherent plan. They have paid gigantic fees for Paul Pogba (£89m), Harry Maguire (£80m), Jadon Sancho (£77m) and Romelu Lukaku (£75m) to rack up a total spend of £1.3bn in the past 10 years, according to a study by CIES Football Observatory . Over the same period they have brought in just £397m in sales, meaning they have a whopping negative net spend of £908m.
The list of transfer flops is a long one. Alexis Sanchez (£500,000 per week wages), Angel Di Maria (£60m), Memphis Depay (£25m), Morgan Schneiderlin (£25m), Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£50m), Donny van de Beek (£35m) and many more stand out.
It is not just the colossal waste of money, but also the lack of direction. With no clear playing philosophy since Ferguson’s departure, players have been brought in in a worryingly random manner. That doesn’t engender much confidence for this summer’s planned major rebuild.
"It's clear that there will be six, seven, eight, maybe 10 new players,” Rangnick said in his press conference after the defeat at Anfield. “Before you sign those players you need to be aware of how you want to play. What kind of football does the new manager want to play? If you look at those two clubs ( Manchester City and Liverpool) who are currently dominating the Premier League, they did exactly that.”
Manager choices
When Ferguson stepped down in May 2013 after 27 years in the hot seat, there was bound to be some teething problems. Simply put, United have not dealt with his departure well at all.
Ferguson was allowed to pick his successor, which in itself is a questionable way for a major European club to operate. Moyes lasted just 10 months and looked out of his depth in the Old Trafford dugout. Van Gaal was hired on the merits of being the only world class manager available at the time. Mourinho clearly didn’t fit the brief as a long-term man and was arguably an act of desperation. Solskjaer was over-promoted due to his United background and after managing to instil a feel-good nice-guy atmosphere in the dressing room.
Bringing Rangnick in as an interim manager has not worked either. The majority of the German’s recent experience has been behind the scenes, while, with the benefit of hindsight, the idea of plucking someone from the obscurity of being head of sports and development at Lokomotiv Moscow to thrust them into the spotlight was a strange move.
If Ten Hag will truly be given time, authority and financial backing to undertake a top-to-bottom overhaul then United might finally have learnt their lesson.
Players’ standards
All the endemic issues behind the scenes at United do not justify the continued underachievement on the pitch. United have plenty of good players, even some world-class ones in Bruno Fernandes, Cristiano Ronaldo and David de Gea. They have players like Harry Maguire, Jadon Sancho, Luke Shaw and Marcus Rashford who have all performed admirably for their country.
Yet they are about to end a fifth successive season without any silverware. They can point fingers of blame wherever they like, but for many, the buck stops with the 11 players on the pitch. There is undoubtedly a culture problem in the United dressing room – rumours of discontent and of cliques are leaking far too often.
Something Keane mentioned in his post-match comments at Anfield lingers: “What Manchester United have always had, in my experience at the club, was brilliant characters, brilliant men, people you want to work with, people you would be in the trenches with.” It’s hard to say that remains the case.
