“Nobody’s tough enough to deal with the immigration problem. But somebody needs to do it”.

If someone told you that was a footballing pantomime villain voicing their two-cents on the state of the nation, you might think it had been said by Newcastle United’s Reform-supporting former owner Sir John Hall, or ex-Southampton chairman Rupert Lowe, who is a Restore MP.

But those are the words of Sir Jim Ratcliffe. In a recent BBC interview, Manchester United’s co-owner swung another downward punch at immigrants, having initially claimed that they had “colonised” the UK. Some fan groups now want Ratcliffe to leave the club.

Is that not slightly trigger-happy? Yes, a billionaire tax exile scapegoating foreigners is inflammatory. And hypocritically bankrolling a squad full of non-British players douses those flames in INEOS-branded petrochemicals.

But Ratcliffe’s simply expressed an opinion. One which is totally tone-deaf, moderately offensive, and not abusive at all. In days gone by, some other United affiliates said and did far worse without being cancelled.

Midfielder Nicky Butt, for instance, was arrested in 2003 for allegedly assaulting a woman while on a night out. Butt continued to play for United. The year after, our former manager Ron Atkinson called France defender Marcel Desailly a “thick, lazy n****r” off-air on ITV. It ended his punditry career, but there remains a place for Big Ron in the hearts of many United fans.

And then there’s Jonathan Woodgate.

The Majestic Thug

The millennium was a tumultuous time for the defender and his then-employers. A good 1999-00 season for David O’Leary’s Leeds United side is best (and worst) remembered for two horrific incidents. In April, the day before the away leg of their UEFA Cup semi-final defeat to Galatasaray, two Leeds fans were stabbed to death by the Turkish club’s ultras following a brawl. Violent clashes involving Dirty Leeds and their ‘Service Crew’ hooligan firm are very common. The club’s players behaving like members of said firm, off the pitch, is more unusual. That’s what happened three months before the Istanbul tragedy, on 11 January 2000.

Woodgate was enjoying a boozy, birthday knees-up for his teammate Lee Bowyer. The celebrity pair were joined in the VIP lounge of Leeds’ Majestyk nightclub by a handful of their civilian mates. One of these, Woodgate’s lifelong friend James Hewison, had come down from Middlesbrough. The Teesider was anything but teetotal; Hewison was thrown out by the bouncers for his paralytic drunkenness. Outside, he crossed paths with Sarfraz Najeib, a 19-year-old IT student from Rotherham, who was standing near the club’s entrance with his older brother and three friends. Minutes later, Najeib was lying unconscious in a pool of blood.

What happened in the time between, exactly?

The ensuing trial at Hull Crown Court didn’t provide an answer. Amidst all the finger-pointing, arse-covering, and buck-passing, though, some very muddy details on that night did emerge. It sems Najeib and co. had been, like the LUFC entourage, another macho clique out on the town, with a stark cultural difference: they were British-Pakistani Muslims. Stone-cold sober and, according to the Guardian-led media storm, “foolishly provocative”.

There were funny looks, and some jibes about Hewison’s inability to handle his drink. Hewison, incensed, threw a punch at Najeib, who hit back just as Woodgate, Bowyer, and the others were filing out. They all went for Najeib, who fled down a nearby side-street… but he was never going to outrun two professional athletes. And these were athletes who kicked for a living.

Woodgate’s defence admitted that he and Bowyer caught up with Najeib, threw him against a bin, and broke (among other bones) his leg. But they didn’t tell the whole truth. Woodgate had already received police cautions in his youth, including one for headbutting someone following a post-pub argument in Middlesbrough. No one mentioned that to the jury. Thus, Woodgate couldn’t be found guilty of grievous bodily harm with intent (unlike some of his mates, including Hewison, who got several years inside).

Also omitted was the racial language heard by witnesses during the confrontation. “Do you want some, Paki?” were the last words Najeib could remember from the altercation, and he maintained that the attack was exacerbated by his ethnicity. But this was before CCTV facial recognition, and when few mobile phones were equipped with a camera. Zero footage meant that no one could be sure who had said what, exactly. Thus, Woodgate couldn’t be found guilty of racially-aggravated assault, either.

Woodgate’s solitary charge of affray meant a ‘punishment’ of hundred hours’ community service – twenty fewer than Eric Cantona was given for his one-man anti-racism campaign at Crystal Palace. Not a slap on the wrist, so much as a ‘get-out-of-jail’ nightclub wristband.

‘Thug and Liar Walk Free’ went The Times’ iconic front-page headline, referring to Woodgate and Bowyer respectively (the latter denied all involvement despite his teeth-mark scars being visible on Najeib’s face). When Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers are the voice of reason, you know something’s gone terribly wrong.

Spanish Inquisition

In 2003, three years after he swerved incarceration, Woodgate did the same with relegation. He jumped the sinking Elland Road ship and brought his proverbial Najeib-shaped skull-and-crossbones – complete with broken nose and cheek – to Newcastle. A small step up. Then a huge one, a year later: after signing David Beckham and Michael Owen, Real Madrid wanted a third English Galactico. It seemed the skeleton in Woodgate’s walk-in wardrobe was not haunting him all that much.

The Bernabeu, however, became a gladiatorial ‘kangaroo court’ for Woodgate, dishing out the only justice he has ever faced: karma. The defender, as crocked as he was crooked, had to wait a year for his debut, and then had the worst one in football history. In a La Liga match against Athletic Bilbao, he scored an own goal and got sent off. This comeuppance, coupled with constant injury problems, ended up in Woodgate spending most of his career afterwards in the comfort zone of his hometown club. He joined the Middlesbrough coaching team months after playing his final game there.

Head(hunting) Over Heart

When Michael Carrick took over at Boro in 2022, he kept things as they were, retaining Woodgate as his assistant manager. And continuity was key when Carrick was appointed interim United manager in January, too, with Woodgate selected as a first-team coach ahead of a plethora of bigger, more familiar names (Jonny Evans, of all people, was the one ex-United player who made the cut). This ruthless recruitment style has been seen before, here: Jose Mourinho’s backroom team was entirely devoid of former United stars.

Carrick, significantly, was made captain in that side by the Portuguese, his tactical awareness making him a near-flawless cog in a faulty engine room. Pivotal ‘supporting actors’ at the base of midfield is a common trope of Mourinho’s blockbusters: Claude Makelele at Chelsea, Esteban Cambiasso at Inter Milan, and Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid, to name three. Intelligent, deep-lying midfielders like those tend to share a wavelength with the Special One because they possess his archetypal trait: coldness.

There’s something to be said for the head. ‘Heartfelt’ can very easily cross over into heartless.

Mourinho’s predecessor, Louis van Gaal, misguidedly placed romance over reason when choosing his own assistant head coach. The presence of Ryan Giggs in the dugout was effectively nostalgic fan-service from Van Gaal, who believed that the Welshman’s record 963 senior appearances outweighed his solitary (albeit semi-incestuous) extramarital affair. Maybe the tarnished legacy should have been seen as a warning sign, not a blip. In 2020, Giggs was accused of actual bodily harm against his ex-girlfriend Katie Greville. When it came to the cheating, some could look the other way. Violence, however, is a criminal matter…

As is attempted rape. Mason Greenwood was arrested for both, two years later. Greenwood was a talented young striker whose goalscoring, not to mention transfer value, would vanish instantly with a conviction. Just as Leeds chairman Peter Ridsdale had misguidedly done with Woodgate, United’s CEO at the time, Richard Arnold, stuck by his player and thus failed the victim (in this case, Greenwood’s partner Harriet Robson).

Treble Standards

If Giggs’ hindsight was 2020, then his déjà vu came through Greenwood: a catch-2022. Both trials featured hung juries, withdrawn witnesses, and scant evidence. The two victims, ultimately, dropped the charges. Giggs’ retrial happened in metaphorical form only; the Welsh FA ushered him out of his managerial role. United have all but severed ties, too…

From our Giggsy. The dictionary definition of a club legend. The Class of ’92’s most decorated graduate. Scorer, in our greatest ever season, of the best goal in our history.

We had, in every sense, a wonderful run. We’ll always have those moments Ryan Giggs gave us. But he’s not who we thought he was.

Greenwood experienced the same kind of irreparable reputational damage. Following a public outcry, United did a one-eighty ‘drag back’ and abruptly jettisoned the striker to a loan move. Like Woodgate, Greenwood’s cardinal sin led to Madrid – except garden-leave at unglamorous Getafe was an obvious downgrade. Greenwood has since remained banished to the continent, having previously been at United since the age of seven. Loyalty to this club, it turns out, isn’t necessarily reciprocal.

Nor should it be. United were right, in those particular instances, not to take care of their own. But now, after setting those precedents, it’s strange for them to take care of a Leeds fan-favourite. Unlike Cantona, Woodgate’s playing career never saw him swap the imitation-brand ‘United’ in West Yorkshire for the genuine article in M16.

More importantly, unlike Giggs and Greenwood, Woodgate has a clear-cut criminal record. Yet those former Old Trafford poster boys are now personae non gratae, while Woodgate is sat in front of the Charlton Stand every other weekend. Surely, were he still with us, Sir Bobby himself would single that out as a double standard. Or an absence of standards altogether. Charlton, along with Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson, epitomised the United ethos of combining world-class calibre and working-class character; not just good players, or good coaches, but good people.

A penny – and I’d pay a lot more than that – for their thoughts on Woodgate?

The (Red) Devils’ Advocate

Fergie, a dyed-in-the-wool socialist, might sympathetically view uneducated young men as acutely susceptible to their environments. Woodgate was said to be slow-witted and easily led, which would explain the way he seemed to shape-shift around his influences: a provincial, post-industrial town in the North East, then nineties lad culture, and then glossy-mag metrosexuality.

How might Woodgate have differed had Gareth Southgate, his gaffer at Middlesbrough in the late noughties, instead managed him for England a decade later? The thought of Woodgate joining the Gen Z moral high ground and condemning racist social media trolls is surreal, but bizarrely plausible. A few years ago, on a Sky Sports interview, he spoke about how the football landscape has largely shed its culture of toxic masculinity and emotional bottling: “We’re a more open society now. Talk to people if you’re struggling. That could really help you”.

Clearly, Woodgate has matured since his playing days. But he was talking about his self-described “Real Madrid failure”. What about Najeib? The radio-silence leaves more questions than answers. Does Woodgate ever struggle with guilt? Has he told his children what he did? Above all, if talking about difficult issues is so important, why has Woodgate ignored his own advice and brushed that enormous taboo subject under the carpet?

United’s assistant coach, like the club itself, appears trapped in a cycle. Put together, that actually means the Woodgate issue is self-resolving. He and Carrick flopped upwards to arrive here (their Middlesbrough side finished 7th in the Championship) and are now, unsurprisingly, even more out of their depth. At the time of writing, United’s long winless run is ongoing and players are openly mutinous.

There’s no urgency. There’s no style of play. And, above all, there’s no point removing a right-hand man when the boss will soon be shown the door.

Carrick and Woodgate will be someone else’s joint-problem soon. Probably Tottenham Hotspur’s. Both men played there, and Spurs love a bit of drama. Newcastle, too, would be a fitting destination, each having ties to the Magpies. Not that sentiment is ever a factor for Carrick, however (the fact he never signed for his boyhood club says a lot about him).

Sentiment is a factor for fans, though. Especially United’s. The club motto isn’t ‘Think’. It’s ‘Believe’. We go by intuition and gut-feeling; the truth is just as important as the facts. Woodgate being at this (or any other) club will sit uncomfortably with many of those who know the truth about him.

Woodgate might be done with the past. We can decide whether the past is done with him.

‘Woodgate-gate’ (a tongue-twisting scandal)

I’m not saying we should bring out our Fred the Red pitchforks, and start a retroactive character assassination. And I’m not saying that every despicable act is an unforgivable one. But you can’t be given a second chance without first acknowledging the error of your ways.

More ‘inclusion and diversity’ lip service, ghostwritten by PR spin doctors, is not what we need here. Woodgate should provide his mea culpa himself. If he wants to avoid scrutiny, this could easily be filmed in-house and behind closed doors (MUTV finally put to meaningful use?!). Before mentioning Sarfraz Najeib, though, maybe the interviewer should start by asking Woodgate for his thoughts on the anti-immigration stance espoused by one of his own higher-ups.

Perhaps Woodgate would agree that Sir Jim Ratcliffe has inadvertently hit on a fundamental reality: these are two kingdoms which, at times, don’t feel very United. Over a quarter-century on from that night in Leeds, divisions in this country are just as insidious. The murder of Henry Nowak – a ‘house of mirrors’ role-reversal of Najeib’s attack – shows that the more things change here, the more they stay the same. British football tends to reflect British society. Especially its reluctance to face up to the ugly truth.

Nobody’s tough enough to deal with the Woodgate problem.

Does somebody need to do it?

The post Woodgate: Too Late to Cancel? first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

Manchester United manager Michael Carrick has insisted he does not need assurances from the club’s hierarchy over his future, despite growing speculation surrounding his position following Sunday’s disappointing result.

Carrick has faced questions about his future at Old Trafford, with uncertainty surrounding how long he will remain in charge. However, the former United midfielder insists his attention remains firmly on improving performances and preparing his players for their upcoming clash with Chelsea.

Reflecting on the days following Sunday’s game, Carrick admitted that the result had been difficult to accept but explained that his priority was identifying where improvements could be made.

To be honest, disappointment from the game, the result, initial disappointment. That’s pretty clear, the way the game went and the result, dealing with that is the main thing. What could we have done better, what could we improve on, what can we make the difference with, and then focusing on getting back to training with the players and preparing for the next game, for Chelsea, and a big week ahead, really. That’s been my main focus, how can we make the difference?

Despite speculation about whether he will remain in charge until the international break, Carrick was emphatic when discussing whether he had sought reassurances from senior figures at Manchester United.

I don’t need any assurances from anyone. I totally get the position. I understand the job. I understand the responsibilities. I understand what comes with that. So, I really don’t need any assurances from anyone in that regard.

His comments suggest he is fully aware of the pressures and expectations that accompany managing one of the world’s biggest football clubs.

Carrick was also questioned about the constant scrutiny surrounding Manchester United, including opinions expressed by former players and pundits.

However, he maintained that he deliberately avoids much of the outside commentary, preferring to concentrate on his responsibilities and the expectations of supporters.

I don’t see it really. I see the things that I need to see. I don’t look for it. It doesn’t really help in any way. I’ve said it before, I care about what the supporters think, I care about what it feels like in the stadium and them travelling for games to us to come and see us and support us. I care about what we give them and what we offer them and what they see. I genuinely don’t take any notice of anything else. I know this job, I know what it brings, I know what we need to do, really, to be better. I don’t need anyone else to tell me anything else.

Carrick’s remarks underline his determination to remain focused on matters within his control rather than becoming distracted by speculation about his future. With Chelsea next on the fixture list and an important period approaching, the United manager appears intent on allowing performances and results to take priority over the debate surrounding his position. What will Saturday afternoon bring? Time will tell.

The post Carrick: I don’t need assurances from anyone first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

Once upon a time, Manchester United losing to Bournemouth would have registered as a seismic event. Think back to a young Harry Redknapp’s side dumping the Reds out of the FA Cup in January 1984. Back then, it was a giant-killing, a shock for the ages: Bournemouth were two divisions below us. Their players were promised free pizza for lives for their win. These days, it’s barely worth raising an eyebrow. The extraordinary has become ordinary. Defeat to Bournemouth is no longer a shock. And we’re the ones who look like we belong in the lower leagues.

It’s just another miserable afternoon at Old Trafford and not a free pizza in sight. Miserable barely covers it: if Morrissey covered a song called Misery and played it while Annie Wilkes smashed novelist Paul Wilkes’ ankles in with a sledgehammer in the 1990 film Misery it might get a bit close. But still no cigar. Storm Boelo was doing its worst. The Metrolink wasn’t running because of maintenance works – what a day to pick. The roads were clogged with traffic. There were gusting winds chucking bits of masonry and roadsigns at us as we walked, bent against the force of the blasts, through driving rain and the horrible, horrible KNOWING that we were going to get bloody beaten and that the match would be no fun, and that the players wouldn’t match our efforts. Jesus Christ. Some of my mates wanted to meet for beers before the game ‘just so we could get through it’. Another messaged me overjoyed that his lad was ill, as this gave him a great excuse not to go.

Still, most of us turned up. More than 70,000 of us. Because that’s what United supporters do. We turn up, time and again. Contrast that with the Etihad in midweek, where the much-sung-about 20,000 empty seats record we are accused of lying about was actually BEATEN. There were at least 21,000 free from Bertie bums. And this despite tickets literally being GIVEN AWAY for their clash against AEK Athens. Even if they’re FREE, city fans can’t really be bothered. Maybe the cityzens need to bribe them with free pizzas for lives for attendance. Anyway the contrast was stark enough without labouring it. United’s supporters continue to turn up, in huge numbers, for a club which seems determined to test the limits of our endurance.

And we deserve better. By the second half, the storm outside had found its way into the Stretford End. What followed was an extraordinary outpouring of anger. Not the familiar grumbling that accompanies another poor performance, but something more visceral. The Glazers were in the firing line, naturally, but so too were Jim Ratcliffe and Jason Wilcox. There were boos, and there was the kind of gallows humour which has become a speciality of the Stretford End. “Best in class, you’re having a laugh,” rang out, a pointed response to the grand claims and corporate language which have accompanied the latest supposed reinvention of Manchester United. The proposed new stadium was treated with the contempt many supporters clearly feel it deserves when the footballing foundations of the club are crumbling beneath their feet. Yes, Scruffy Jim, you can indeed “stick your new stadium up your arse.”

Sideways.

And fuck off while you’re at it.

The players weren’t spared either. There wasn’t a player out there looked confident, or even who wanted the ball. Mind that Lammens clip from the other week when someone passed it back to him yet again and he was caught on camera yelling “I don’t fucking want it!” That was all of them.

Then there was the Standards banner. That word has become something of an obsession at United. Standards. Raising them. Restoring them. Demanding them. It’s easy enough to put the word on a banner, harder to recognise it in the decisions being made by those entrusted with running the club. Supporters are entitled to wonder exactly whose standards are being upheld, and by whom.

When Bournemouth’s third goal went in, there was every reason to expect a mass exodus. Thousands could have headed for the exits, seeking shelter from the weather and from the spectacle unfolding on the pitch. But most stayed. That matters. Not because supporters should be congratulated for putting up with anything, but because there was something admirable about the response. The anger was directed where it belonged: at the people responsible for allowing United to drift into this state. There was frustration with the players, certainly, but also recognition that this is an institutional failure, not simply another bad afternoon for eleven men in red shirts.

There was support for Michael Carrick, too. An acknowledgement of his efforts, even as the prospect of another managerial casualty loomed. By the time this is published, he may already have gone. If so, he’ll be the latest man left carrying the can for failures which extend far beyond the dugout.

A new manager might provide a bounce. There might be a few better performances, a little renewed optimism, another round of declarations about fresh starts and restored standards. We’ve seen the film often enough to know the script.

But changing the manager doesn’t fix the people making the decisions above him. And now, with Halloween approaching and Chelsea next on the fixture list, the prospect is suitably frightening. Storm Boelo might have passed by then, but the perfect storm engulfing Manchester United shows no sign of blowing itself out.

The supporters will be there again, of course. The question is how much longer those running the club expect loyalty to substitute for competence.

By Andrew Kirby, Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post United 0-3 Bournemouth: A Perfect Storm at Old Trafford, and United Fans Deserve Better first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

The United head coach began Friday’s press conference with an emotional statement addressing the team’s recent struggles, including Wednesday’s disappointing 4-1 defeat to Como. Carrick acknowledged that, despite a period of relative success earlier in the year, recent performances had fallen well below expectations. He described the Como defeat as unacceptable and admitted it had hurt him deeply. He also recognised the disappointment experienced by supporters who had invested their time and money travelling to watch the team.

I’ll start today, I just want to say a few things. I think, recently, we haven’t had a good time, I think that’s pretty obvious, so I totally accept that, what we’re going through at the moment.

We had five months of relative success in a spell where I was happy with things that I was seeing and what we we’re doing as a team. We haven’t done well enough lately, I think that’s pretty obvious to say. We’ve had a spell we’re really not happy with.

Wednesday was a bad night, it was a bad night for a lot of reasons. It was a bad night and that hurt a lot. It obviously hurt me to see us play like that, to see how the game panned out. It was, as I said after the game, it was really unacceptable for us to play like that and to be like that. The supporters are a huge part of this football club for me, the supporters have to make the effort and spend the time and the money to come and support us on Wednesday. And to have the feeling that we all felt after the game was a tough moment. I think that’s pretty obvious.

My responsibility is to get a team on the football pitch that represents this football club, represents the supporters, and [one] they can be proud of with the identity we showed. We have gone away from that, just recently in certain games, which I’m totally, fully aware of and definitely doing something about. So I think it’s important that we all recognise that, I certainly recognise it, and our supporters are [of] the utmost importance to me and the football club. And, for them to feel like they’ve felt for five months at the start of the year, to have that connection and vigour, intensity and enjoyment and passion, that we all felt through that period, was something we need to get back to and we will get back to it, and I fully believe that, and I think it’s important that we recognise that we haven’t been doing that.

The foundation of this football club and the values of this football club have been etched for many years and I totally understand and get every one of them. And it comes down to humility, it comes down to being humble, it comes down to being hardworking, and being really proud to work hard and being proud to them values. There’s a resilience about this football club that’s been shown for a long, long time, whether that’s bouncing back from adversity, whether that’s comebacks, whether that’s late goals, whether that’s success, whether that’s sustaining success. There’s a resilience in this football club that runs very, very deep and I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I’ve felt it.

I’m aware of some of the individuals and know them closely who have been part of that history. I said it after the game, Manchester United’s always bigger, and always has been, always will be bigger than any single individual. Bigger than me, bigger than any of the players, and it always has been, you know? I’m fortunate enough to know some players and played with some myself, you know, Ryan Giggs, arguably one of the greatest to play for this football club. It was never about Ryan Giggs, it was about Manchester United. Wayne Rooney was top goalscorer of this football club, his biggest thing was playing for the team, sacrificing for the team and what was good for Manchester United.

Sir Alex Ferguson, the best manager of all time, the greatest, for me, and working with him, and his main priority was Manchester United. And going back to Sir Matt [Busby], Sir Bobby [Charlton], the resilience was beyond belief for what they showed and the way they rebuilt this football club. Again, it was based on being humble, having humility, and hard work, and we can never lose that, and I won’t let us lose that. We’ve had it for a spell. I feel very strongly about that. It inspires me a lot to live up to that, and keep driving to that with the players and the group, we showed [it] for a good period of time and that we’re capable of it.

At the moment, yes, we’re in a moment where it’s not gone well, so we need to show exactly what it means and, you know, respect this football club, respect what it takes to be here, respect what it takes to win, what you have to do to win. I’m not entitled to be here, entitlement cannot be at this football club. We’ve got an incredible past, an incredible history. That doesn’t mean you’re entitled to just win. I’m fully aware that it takes hard work, it takes a lot of sacrifice, you’ve got to invest yourself in the football club and you’ve got to do a lot of things that maybe aren’t so nice, but you’ve got to do it for each other and you’ve got to win. I think it’s important we live up to that and it’s important to push those values and it’s important for our supporters to feel that moving forward.

We’ve had it, we’ve kind of lost our way a little bit, if I’m totally honest, and we’ll get it back. I’m totally convinced we’ll get it back. I respect this football club, I respect what it takes, because it’s very, very important to me.

The post Carrick insists United will restore their identity after admitting they have lost their way first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

Michael Carrick has gone from having the Midas touch to having the cheese touch. Bruno Fernandes has gone from being arguably the best, most creative player in the Premier League to looking like that man who shouts at pigeons at the bus stop. And Manchester United have gone from being the most in-form team in the country to a side that hasn’t won in seven matches and has managed just two victories in its first eleven games of the season. Some transformation, that.

Last night, after the final whistle, my TV went dark and my phone immediately lit up with messages about the match. People going mad, people demanding answers, people wanting to know what I thought. I didn’t want to know what I thought. I didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to write about it. Didn’t want to engage with any of it. It was too raw, too depressing, too horribly familiar.

Because what was there to say that we haven’t said already? Abysmal. Appalling. Gutless. Slow. Disorganised. Half-hearted. Take your pick from the increasingly well-thumbed United Book of Adjectives (Jim Dingle is probably flogging it in the SuperMegaStore). We’ve been using the same ones for years, and they’re beginning to wear out. I was hoping to retire a few of them this season. Fat (Tielemans) chance.

Girlfriend in a Como

I’d spent most of Wednesday with an earworm: The Smiths’ Girlfriend in a Coma, except that my brain had decided to change the words to Girlfriend in a Como. It had been going round my head all day, and by the time we reached the fucking Chronicles of Riddick ‘are we going to play at every time apart from 3pm’ 5.45pm kick-off, I was beginning to wish Misery’s own Morrissey would turn up and put me out of my misery. Not that the misery required much assistance.

Como is a beautiful place, you know: the lake, the mountains, the picturesque streets, the sort of scenery that makes you wonder why anyone would want to leave it to go and stand in the rain watching the imposters who call themselves Manchester United. And it was absolutely chucking it down.

There’s a lovely romantic story to be told about a little football club beside an Italian lake, taking on one of the giants of European football. Unfortunately, as with most modern footballing fairy tales, it becomes rather less romantic when you follow the money: Como were acquired in 2019 by interests associated with Indonesia’s Hartono brothers, whose extraordinary fortune is rooted in the Djarum tobacco business. The little lakeside club is backed by billionaires. It’s less Local Heroes and more Succession. I find the tobacco connection morally distasteful. Before anyone accuses me of hypocrisy, I’m not pretending United occupy some lofty moral position here. We now have a gambling company on our shirts, which is its own particular variety of tawdry (but unsurprising given our owners, the Gimps and Scruffy Dingle Jim).

Modern football is awash with money from industries that ought to make supporters uncomfortable. We don’t have to pretend otherwise simply because it’s our club benefiting. That Man city, eh? The difference, perhaps, is that Como’s wealthy owners appear to have built something coherent, whereas our own collection of supposedly brilliant businessmen have spent an awful lot of time making United look like a business run by a committee of scruffy gets who couldn’t organise a pizza delivery.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe is meant to be an exceptionally clever businessman. I keep waiting for some evidence that this particular expertise extends to running a football club. The whole idea of gradually investing in little sections of the team, fixing one bit here and another bit there, isn’t going especially well, is it? We’re apparently renovating the house one room at a time, while the roof caves in and the kitchen catches fire.

Diogo’s big night

Pre-game several United fans had commented on social media about the dangerously close proximity of Como’s stadium to Lake Como, and the meagre height of the stands. Their fear — which is entirely warranted — was that Diogo Dalot’s wayward shooting and crossing could see any number of balls ballooned straight into the water. In mitigation, the Italian authorities might have to deploy a whole fleet of pedalos, in the manner of that old bloke who used to row up and down the Thames in a coracle fishing out balls that had escaped from Craven Cottage.

And within a minute, Diogo was presented with a perfectly decent opportunity to put United ahead. Naturally, he fluffed his lines. Poor Diogo. If he was a stand-up comedian (and some United fans would argue that he already is), he’d get his cue to come on stage and high-five himself in the mirror. He’d give the dressing-room door the full high-ten, double-slap treatment on his way out. Up the stairs — careful not to trip, Diogo! — and into the wings of the stage.

The compère announces him: the audience is alive with anticipation, but there’s trepidation too, for this comic has been known to stumble over his words, or mix up the wrong punchline with the right joke. We hold our breath as he emerges onto the apron of the stage, narrowly avoiding a collision with the curtain.

Then he’s up to the compère, giving him the full high-five treatment again, and the audience relaxes a little. Our Diogo has done the hard bit. Now he just needs to deliver. He approaches the microphone. But suddenly, caught in the glare of the spotlight, he walks straight past it. Keeps walking. And falls off the edge of the stage. Oh, Diogo. You are a one.

Normally, when United miss an early chance like that, there’s a nagging feeling that we’ll look back on it later with regret. Perhaps after an hour, perhaps in the dying minutes, when we’re chasing a game we should have won. Last night, we only had to wait about sixty seconds. Como went straight up the other end and scored. Nico Paz – who’ll be at city next year mark my words – was allowed far too much room, Harry Maguire backed off, and the ball ended up in the net. Two minutes gone. One-nil down. We’d conceded even earlier against Atlético Madrid the previous week. Apparently, this was progress.

Another slice of humiliation

The last time we were in the Champions League, we embarrassed ourselves and disappeared at the old group stage. I’d hoped this return to the competition might be different. It isn’t. By the time Como had finished with us, they’d scored four. Paz was magnificent, scoring twice and creating another, while United looked like eleven people who had been introduced to one another shortly before kick-off and told to improvise. Jazz, man. Jizz, actually.

Cesc Fàbregas had his side organised, aggressive and playing for one another. United’s pressing, by comparison, resembled a group of people taking turns to complain about the service in a restaurant without anybody actually calling the waiter over.

And this brings me to Fàbregas. There is a German word, Backpfeifengesicht, which roughly describes a face that looks as though it’s asking for a slap. I’ve always thought he had one of those faces. Thierry Henry too, particularly when he’s doing that insufferable eyebrow-wiggling, smirking thing from the meme. Wonderful footballer. Undoubtedly a tool.

Henry is, of course, among Como’s minority investors, which gives me another reason to be irrationally irritated by the whole enterprise. Fàbregas belongs in the same category. A brilliant player, but I’ve never forgiven him for his association with the pizza that was launched at Sir Alex Ferguson in the Old Trafford tunnel after the Arsenal match in 2004.

And now here he is, in Italy, dishing out another pizza-related humiliation to Manchester United. This time, unfortunately, the pizza was ours: it was cold, undercooked, missing several essential ingredients and delivered by somebody who’d apparently forgotten where the goal was.

A team infected

My mate noticed Noussair Mazraoui appeared to be wearing thermal tights. The sort of thing the under-nines wear when their mums insist it’s too cold for bare legs. Come on, Noussair. Grow a pair. The Manchester Evening News gave him two out of ten for his performance, which struck me as quite generous.

But singling out individual players almost feels pointless now. There are too many candidates. Carlos Baleba arrived with the promise of bringing something different to United’s midfield. Already, I find myself wondering whether he’s beginning the familiar process of becoming a bit crap, just like the rest of them. It’s the motherfucking cheese touch, like in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Is there something in the cheese at Carrington? Some airborne strain of apathy that eventually infects every footballer who walks through the doors? Mould?

Players arrive looking energetic, confident and capable. Give them a few months in a United shirt and they’re wandering around like men who’ve just discovered that their pension funds have been invested in a cryptocurrency run by Jason Wilcox.

Baleba’s contribution to Como’s third goal was especially cheese-touchy. Caught in possession, he gave the city-bound Paz the opportunity to run through and score. It was exactly the sort of calamity that we’ve come to expect from United midfielders, although I had hoped it might take Baleba a little longer to acquire the habit.

For years, Bruno Fernandes seemed almost uniquely resistant to the general air of scruffy crapness surrounding the club. Whatever was going wrong, Bruno would still be there, demanding the ball, trying the impossible pass, creating something out of nothing. He could be infuriating, certainly, but he was also the player most likely to drag us out of a hole. Now even he looks to have been dragged down into it. When Carrick substituted him for Joshua Zirkzee, he didn’t look particularly happy. Neither did I, although by that stage I’d stopped expecting happiness to feature in the evening.

According to The Guardian’s report of Carrick’s post-match comments, the manager was furious with the performance and apologised to the travelling supporters. Fernandes, meanwhile, publicly questioned the coaching staff’s decision not to press Como man-for-man, suggesting that allowing them so much possession had given the Italians confidence. That’s a fairly extraordinary thing for your captain to be saying after a European defeat. And it raises the obvious question: if the players and the manager aren’t even in agreement about how they should be approaching these matches, what exactly are we doing all week in training?

Carrick was once the man with the magic touch. He came in, settled everybody down, got results and made football seem enjoyable again. Now he’s got the cheese touch. Everything he handles appears to go off.

The number seven and the doom loop

There’s an irony in all this: over the summer, while editing my new book about Manchester United’s number sevens, which comes out in January, I had a brief moment of doubt. One of the central premises of the book is that the health of Manchester United as a football club can be measured, to a remarkable degree, by the status of our number seven. When United are flourishing, that shirt tends to mean something. When we’re struggling, the number seven often becomes a symbol of everything that’s gone wrong.

I wondered whether I’d been too negative. Perhaps the tone was a little harsh. Perhaps things were beginning to improve and, by the time the book came out, I’d look like a miserable old sod who hadn’t noticed the green shoots of recovery. Well, that’s taught me. If anything, I might not have gone in hard enough.

Because here we are again, trapped in the same old doom loop. A new manager, a burst of optimism, some encouraging performances, talk of a project, talk of progress, a few signings, and then the whole bloody thing collapses. The crisis spiral starts turning. The questions begin. The briefings appear. The players look bewildered. The manager looks exhausted. And we all start wondering who’s next.

I’m sick and tired of it.

Who’s in charge in October 2028?

Here’s a little game to cheer us all up: who will be managing Manchester United in October 2028? If Carrick goes, we’ll already have had three managers in three years. That doesn’t feel like Manchester United. Or at least, it doesn’t feel like the Manchester United I grew up supporting. Although perhaps this is Manchester United now.

My entirely unscientific prediction is that Carrick will go before Christmas, we’ll appoint somebody with an impressive reputation and a PowerPoint presentation full of arrows, and by October 2028 we’ll be discussing the future of his successor. I’ll stick my neck out and predict Kieran McKenna will be in charge in October 2028, having arrived to great excitement after another expensive managerial experiment failed. And I’ll predict that, by then, we’ll have had five different permanent managers in roughly three years, counting the man who began that period in charge.

Five. At Manchester United. Once upon a time, the identity of the manager was one of the most stable things about the club. Now it’s beginning to feel like the revolving door at a particularly badly managed hotel. And above all of it sit the people making the decisions. Jason Wilcox has questions to answer. So does Omar Berrada. So does Scruffy Get Ratcliffe.

At what point do we stop treating each managerial failure as an isolated problem and start asking whether the people choosing the managers, buying the players and setting the direction of the club might be part of the problem? How many more pizzas do we have to send back before somebody admits the kitchen features in that Gordon Ramsey show where he goes in and finds rats in the soup?

Bournemouth, and the prospect of more misery

I’m going to Old Trafford on Sunday for Bournemouth; I wish I could say I’m looking forward to it. The recent history of this fixture doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Bournemouth have given us some miserable afternoons, including a 3–0 defeat and that extraordinary 4–4 draw towards the end of Ruben Amorim’s time in charge. That was the match when Amorim changed his system and went to a back four, amid all the talk of what Jason Wilcox wanted from the team.

And here we are, another manager later, apparently no closer to understanding what Manchester United are supposed to be. If we lose on Sunday, does Carrick go? And if he does, who comes next? More importantly, why should any of us believe that the next appointment will be any different?

We can keep changing the manager, changing the formation, changing the players and changing the language in the latest grand strategic review. But unless something fundamental changes in how this football club is run, I fear we’ll still be sitting here in two years’ time, using the same exhausted adjectives: abysmal. Appalling. Gutless. Slow. The only thing that changes is the name on the manager’s office door. And perhaps the toppings on the pizza. At least Como was pretty. Not that I particularly enjoyed looking at it.

By Andrew Kirby, Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post Como 4–1 Manchester United: The cheese touch, a girlfriend in a Como and another helping of humble pizza first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

The former Arsenal and Chelsea midfielder has attracted attention for his work in management, prompting suggestions that he could emerge as a potential replacement for Carrick at Old Trafford.

However, when asked about the possibility during a press conference, Fabregas made it clear that he was unwilling to entertain the question, defending both Carrick and United.

As you can understand, I won’t answer that question because I think that’s not a very nice question. I don’t think that shows enough respect to a great footballer and manager like Michael Carrick at the helm of a wonderful Manchester United side. We have so much respect for who they are, for what they do because they have incredible players, good staff.

I know (United assistant) Steve Holland very well because I worked with him for years at Chelsea and I know Michael has done really well in previous clubs as well. Last year he did really well bringing Manchester United back to where they belong, which is the Champions League, for the first time in many years, so not everything is that bad.

Fabregas’ comments represent a strong show of support for Carrick at a time when questions are being raised about United’s direction and the manager’s position. While Fabregas’ own managerial progress has fuelled speculation about his future, he gave no indication that he would welcome an opportunity at Old Trafford. Arsenal fans wouldn’t be too happy with a move to United either.

The post Fabregas: Carrick has got United back where they belong first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

I watched Sunday’s game in a pub in Sheffield, where I was visiting family. There was only one other customer in the place. Judging by his complicated haircut, questionable fashion sense and general demeanour, I had him down immediately as a Leeds supporter.

It wasn’t a promising start to the afternoon. I was expecting ninety minutes of terrible football, surrounded by Dingles. Anyway, after the first of Leeds’ many fouls, my fellow drinker let out a particularly heartfelt curse. We got talking. He was a Sheffield Wednesday fan, and it turned out he hated Leedsscum every bit as much as I did. Suddenly, the afternoon was looking up. At least there was something we could both enjoy.

I’ve had a complicated relationship with Leeds for thirty years. I moved there in 1996, a MUFC supporter arriving in enemy territory at a time when Eric Cantona was still the subject of what appeared to be a city-wide nervous breakdown. For United supporters, Cantona was/ is the King. For Leeds supporters, he was the one who got away, a grievance so deep that it seemed to have become part of the local identity.

I spent years travelling back and forth across the Pennines, encountering all the usual rituals of the rivalry: the chants, the arguments, the hostility towards anything red. On my first day at work, a work ‘mate’ smashed my United mug on purpose. I clocked him do it. He clocked me clocking him do it. And he did it anyway. He said oops. I sung thank you very much for Eric Cantona to the tune of that thank you very much for feeding William (a tortoise) off that old Yellow Pages advert. He sung that daft Shoes off if you hate Man U bollocks. Oh what larks! Then he let my tyres down.

They always need to take it to the next level, the Dingles. More recently, I’ve enjoyed an ongoing feud with a Leeds-supporting acquaintance I’ll call Norman here after ‘bites your legs’ because he goes in hard. It started in the school playground when we were both picking up our daughters and descended from there. Halfway through, after a win at Bellend Road I got my daughter’s chalk and graffitied his driveway with the names of the scorers: Garnacho. Rashford. Eric. And received such a sustained level of abuse over WhatsApp that I genuinely feared we might have to just fight it out in the playground. After they won at OT last season, life was barely liveable here. I could hear him laughing from streets away. To sum up how much the Dingles hate Manyoo, the Maccy Ds by Bellend Road is the only one in the fecking wurrald that doesn’t have any red branding.

Anyways, all of which is to say that Leeds against Manchester United is not a fixture I approach with the calm detachment of a neutral observer. Because I don’t want my tyres letting down again, fuck you very much. And thank God for that. Because if I hadn’t been a United supporter, I would have found Sunday’s game boring as fuck: Michael Carrick decided to match Leeds’ shape by effectively playing five at the back. Amorim-ball, in other words. The system we’d spent so long trying to escape had returned, presumably wearing a false moustache and a Dingle wig and hoping nobody would recognise it.

I can understand the thinking, up to a point. Leeds are a difficult side to play against, particularly at the skip hire/ Flamingo Land stadium, and Carrick was evidently determined not to let them overwhelm us, especially not in front of the intimidating stand which used to be sponsored by the fearsome Lurpak. After a difficult week and an increasingly miserable start to the season, perhaps there was something to be said for trying to make United harder to beat. Remember that ad with the little butter guy playing the trombone and all the United fans used to mime playing a trombone at them and they responded by doing the aeroplane? They always go too far. The team get the bug too.

Anyways, there were aspects I liked. In Andrey Santos and Carlos Baleba, we have two midfielders who can put themselves about a bit. It’s been a while since United’s midfield looked capable of winning a physical argument, and there’s something reassuring about having players who can compete, tackle and make life uncomfortable for the opposition. At one stage in the first half we’d won twice as many ‘duels’ as them. We then lost the next five, but I won’t complain, even about the word ‘duels’ – don’t be saying that around Leeds or they’ll get their swords out.

Unfortunately, the price of that solidity seems to be almost everything else. When you match an opponent’s five-man defensive shape, and then ask your midfielders to concentrate on protecting it, there isn’t an awful lot left for creating chances. Bruno Fernandes was pushed into an unfamiliar attacking role, where his ability to influence proceedings was severely restricted. Our most inventive player was effectively being asked to operate somewhere other than the area in which he tends to invent things. And he looked lost.

Sure we looked more organised, certainly. But organisation isn’t the same as ambition. There were occasional flashes of actual football. Youri Tielemans actually came as himself, not as his Wayne Lineker brother, and delivered a lovely cross that Bryan Mbeumo somehow headed wide, before the same combination eventually produced our goal after 35 minutes and has anyone ever noticed how big Mbeumo’s little finger is? It’s longer than his ring finger. Amad was involved in the move, Tielemans supplied the ball, and Mbeumo finished from close range. Then celebrated by playing an imaginary trombone. He didn’t, but I wish he had. But anyway it was a rare moment when the players appeared to remember that the object of football is to put the ball into the other team’s net, rather than spend ninety minutes demonstrating the effectiveness of a defensive trombone formation.

One-nil at Elland Road. Lovely jubbly. Butter up them crumpets. Of course, being Manchester United in 2026, we couldn’t possibly allow the feeling to last. Last week’s soap opera hero Lisandro Martínez went off at half-time, hair treatment’s Mazraoui came on, and six minutes after the restart Leeds equalised from a corner he needlessly gave away. Dressmaking’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin got the decisive touch after we failed to deal with the delivery, and suddenly we were back where we’d started.

Except now Leeds had their flamingo tails up (do flamingos have tails?), and United seemed to have even less idea what to do with the football. Bruno had a couple of efforts. Baleba tried his luck from distance but of course he’s now learning we have no luck. Mason Mount came on, which at least gave him the opportunity to remind everyone that he still exists. But there was precious little sustained attacking threat, and the longer the game went on, the more it felt as though we were hoping to get away with a point.

Which we did. Leeds had 61 per cent of the possession and committed three times as many fouls as United: fifteen to our five. The dirty twisters. The latter statistic will come as no surprise to anyone who’s spent time watching Leeds United. My new Sheffield Wednesday acquaintance certainly seemed to consider it entirely in keeping with Dingle traditions.

Carrick subsequently described the afternoon as feeling like a fresh start. I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. If the fresh start involves returning to a system associated with the manager whose departure was supposed to herald a new beginning, though, it’s a curious sort of progress.

And there is a bigger issue here. United have now won just one of their opening seven league games. Seven points from seven matches. We can talk about formations, personnel and whether Carrick got his substitutions right, but there’s something fundamentally wrong with a club of Manchester United’s resources finding itself in this position.

Which brings me to Sir Jim Ratcliffe. I’ve recently seen a photograph of Ratcliffe apparently transplanted into the Dingle family from Emmerdale. And the more I look at it, the more convincing it becomes. There he is, looking perfectly at home among the scruffy farmers of Yorkshire, as though he’s just wandered in from a particularly unsuccessful afternoon repairing a tractor.

It’s an inspired piece of casting. In fact, if the producers ever need someone to play a distant Dingle relative who’s inherited a fortune but somehow managed to make the farm LESS profitable, they need look no further. The trouble is that Ratcliffe’s stewardship of Manchester United has been rather less entertaining than his imaginary television career.

He arrived promising to restore standards, bring expertise and make United the best-run football club in the world. Instead, we’ve had an endless procession of restructurings, departures, cost-cutting exercises and managerial upheavals, while the football has continued to deteriorate. There is something almost impressive about the gap between the grandness of the ambition and the scruffiness of the execution. Ratcliffe talks like a man who has a plan. United increasingly look like a club where somebody has lost the instructions.

And I can’t help thinking that the Dingle comparison works on another level. For all their faults, the Emmerdale family generally manage to pull together when things go wrong. At Old Trafford, everyone seems to be pulling in a different direction, usually while somebody else is being shown the door. The Guardian’s Barney Ronay made the wider point in his post-match piece: United’s problems cannot simply be laid at the door of the latest man in the dugout. Carrick has inherited a squad assembled through successive managerial regimes, competing ideas and recruitment decisions that rarely seem to form part of any coherent plan. The people making those decisions have a remarkable ability to survive the consequences of them.

Another manager can be blamed. Another system can be introduced. Another expensive player can arrive to solve a problem created by the last expensive player. And the cycle continues. Ratcliffe may not be responsible for every bad decision that preceded him, but he is responsible for the direction of the club now. And after all the talk of transformation, it’s reasonable to ask why United still look so directionless.

I don’t want to be too harsh on Carrick. I like him. He understands the club, and I can see the argument for trying to establish some defensive stability before anything more adventurous. But there has to be a balance. We cannot spend the rest of the season trying to avoid defeat and hoping someone occasionally produces a moment of inspiration.

United should be capable of more than this. We should be capable of going to Leeds and trying to win, not simply matching their formation and congratulating ourselves on surviving. Perhaps I’m spoiled by memories of another time. Perhaps that’s what thirty years of supporting United does to you. But then I think about Cantona, and what he represented. Not simply the goals or the trophies, but the arrogance, the imagination, the refusal to be ordinary. The pearl Leeds threw away, who went on to transform Manchester United.

Sunday’s match was almost the exact opposite of that spirit. Still, there were consolations. We didn’t lose at Bellend Road. Mbeumo scored again. The midfield occasionally looked as though it might win a fight. And I discovered that you can walk into a virtually empty pub in Sheffield, make a completely unfair judgement about a stranger based on his haircut, and end up finding a kindred spirit.

In the end, that was probably the most entertaining part of the afternoon. One-all. A point apiece. The Dingles held at bay. And the scruffiest Dingle of the lot is still running Manchester United.

By Andrew Kirby, Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post Leeds 1–1 Manchester United: Amorim-ball, the Dingles and the scruffy state of United first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

There was a time, back in the days when people still bought newspapers, when the tabloids had a handy little graphic they could wheel out whenever Manchester United were in crisis. It was the club badge, but with a great big crack running down the middle of it. A simple visual shorthand. United were broken. United were divided. United were falling apart.

Usually these images came out of the woodwork when United lost, like, two games in a row in the midst of a season which was generally all-conquering. My mate Chris and I used to love spotting them as it showed just how desperate the rest of the world was to discern just the smallest sign of fallibility in the Reds.

I don’t know whether they still do it: I haven’t bought a newspaper for years, to my shame. But I suspect that, if they do, whoever is responsible for the graphics department at The Sun or The Mirror has been working overtime recently and the cracks really mean something. The ABUs aren’t clutching at straws any more. The crack in the badge must be wider than ever. This season, what started out as a hairline fissure has become a great gaping chasm. The Grand Canyon, only with considerably less hope of finding a way across.

We’d been allowed to forget about it for a little while, at least. The international break provided a welcome distraction from the business of supporting the Red Devils, not least because we could devote our attention to revelling in Manchester Cheaty’s shame. What would their badge look like now, I wonder? A crack as wide as Jim Royle’s bum crack? The Grand Canyon wouldn’t be big enough. The sham bastards.

But all good things must come to an end. The international break finished, United returned, and so did the familiar feeling of dread. Saturday’s performance against Tottenham had been dreadful. Tuesday’s trip to Atlético Madrid looked like an opportunity for United to develop some exciting new methods of disappointing us (as a mate said on a WhatsApp thread which they are – I’m sure – getting increasingly wary of using for fear they see what they’ve written on this blog). I was anticipating a battering.

And after 53 seconds, it appeared my expectations were going to be met. Michael Carrick had left Harry Maguire out of the starting eleven, which at least suggested we might be able to play a higher defensive line without worrying about his lack of pace being exposed. Unfortunately, the high line was exposed anyway, almost immediately, and Pablo Barrios gave Atlético the lead before we’d had a chance to settle into our seats.

Here we go again, as Stakka Bo sang in 1993 when United were boss. For a while, back in 2026, it looked as though we might not get anywhere near the ball. Atlético were keeping possession with ease; United by comparison couldn’t hold it. Bruno Fernandes was giving it away. Carlos Baleba was giving it away. Everyone seemed determined to have a turn.

And yet, strangely enough, United weren’t actually that bad. That might sound like damning with faint praise, and perhaps it is. But given what we’d witnessed against Tottenham, and given the quality of the opposition, I thought we showed considerably more fight than I had expected. We fahkin ran around a bit more, which would delight Harry Redknapp. We created chances. There were moments when it looked as though we might actually get something out of the game.

The problem, as ever, was taking those chances. We were wasteful in front of goal, and at this level you simply can’t afford to be. Bryan Mbeumo, Marcus Rashford and Bruno all had opportunities, but none could provide the finish we needed. The lack of a proper number nine continues to haunt us, just as the lack of reliable options at full-back continues to leave us exposed. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Ayden Heaven was again being asked to do a job out of position because, surprise, surprise, Luke Shaw was unavailable. Shaw’s inability to stay fit is hardly breaking news, yet somehow we still find ourselves in a position where his absence creates a problem we don’t seem properly equipped to solve. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. It’s almost as though someone should have thought about that in the summer. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

There was controversy, too, because apparently United aren’t allowed to have a straightforward defeat anymore. Just before half-time, Atlético thought they’d scored a second, only for VAR to rule it out for a handball by Marcos Llorente in the build-up. I wasn’t convinced: it certainly didn’t look like the sort of handball you’d expect to see penalised in the Premier League. Still, we’ll take it. Then, in the second half, Leny Yoro was sent off, and I thought the officials had got that decision wrong as well. Yoro looked absolutely gutted, understandably so. He’d enjoyed a good international break with France, had been one of the few positives against Tottenham, and was looking promising again in Madrid. It was a ridiculous way for his evening to end.

The irony is that I thought the two VAR decisions were almost the wrong way round. The one that went in our favour shouldn’t necessarily have done, and the one that went against us was incredibly harsh.

Once we were down to ten men, the task became considerably harder, and Ademola Lookman’s second goal settled matters. Atlético won 2-0, United lost again, and the cracked badge made another appearance in my imagination.

But here’s the thing: I wasn’t especially upset about the result. Losing away to a good Atlético Madrid side is hardly the end of the world. We were good enough to have taken a point, and there were encouraging signs in the performance. Baleba, for example, is a player I like the look of, even if he gave the ball away too often. He needs five games at least before we start passing judgement on him. Andrey Santos is another player who needs time. Even Youri Tielemans looked better in a more advanced role.

No, the real problem with Tuesday night wasn’t what happened during the 90 minutes, it was what happened afterwards. Lisandro Martínez’s interview with Amazon Prime was extraordinary. Watching it, I immediately had that sinking feeling. Here we go again, here we go-go-go (Stakka Bo). Another Manchester United crisis. Another round of public recriminations. Another few days of everyone arguing about who’s to blame while the team continues to struggle.

Martínez didn’t exactly mince his words. He questioned the club’s recruitment, said he expected more from those above the players and singled out Jason Wilcox, United’s director of football. It was one of the most remarkable interviews I’ve seen from a United player in years. You’d probably have to go back to Roy Keane questioning the quality of his teammates after the Bayern Munich game in 2001 for something comparable. But there was an important difference: Keane was questioning the players around him. Martínez was questioning the people above him.

And, uncomfortable though it might be for those in charge, he has a point. The problems at United go far beyond whoever happens to be sitting in the manager’s chair. We have spent years lurching from one partial rebuild to another, forever in transition, forever trying to repair the mistakes of the previous regime. Every summer, our rivals seem to take another step forward while we struggle to address the same glaring weaknesses. The debt, the poor decisions, the wasted money and the repeated failures of recruitment mean that whoever manages United is already falling between the cracks before he’s even started.

We were short of full-backs. We were short of reliable goalscorers. We knew these things. Yet here we are, months into another season, still talking about them. It’s difficult not to sympathise with Martínez’s frustration, but sympathy only goes so far. Because Martínez himself needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror. He’s been directly responsible for several goals we’ve conceded this season, including mistakes against Tottenham on Saturday. He hasn’t been playing well enough to absolve himself of responsibility for the situation we’re in.

You can be right about the bigger picture and still be part of the problem. There’s also the question of why he chose to say all this publicly, and why now. Reports suggest his frustration is shared by other players, but there are also suggestions that Martínez, whose contract expires next summer, may be looking for a move.

Whatever his motives, the timing couldn’t be much worse for Michael Carrick. It was horribly reminiscent of Ruben Amorim last season, when his comments after the draw at Leeds seemed to talk him through the exit door. Once again, the manager finds himself having to answer questions about a crisis that isn’t entirely of his making.

Carrick is under pressure, of course. United’s start to the season has been appalling, and there’s only so long any manager can survive without results. But surely there can be little appetite for yet another managerial change at this stage. We can’t keep changing the manager and expecting all the other problems to disappear. That’s effectively what Martínez was saying, and on that point I agree with him.

The trouble is that United have become a club where the drama is almost as predictable as the football. One defeat becomes two, two becomes five games without a win, and suddenly we’re back to discussing dressing-room divisions, unhappy players, recruitment failures and the future of the manager. Bruno looks increasingly frustrated, too. The whole thing has the familiar feel of a club coming apart at the seams.

The fissures become cracks. The cracks become chasms. And the people responsible for holding everything together seem perpetually surprised when another piece falls off.

There were a few other things worth mentioning about Tuesday night’s experience: before kick-off, Amazon Prime interviewed Peter Bolton and John and Alex Nield, all three of whom have featured in my United People series for Republik of Mancunia. Clearly Amazon’s content producers have been doing their research on this website. You’re welcome, lads.

Unfortunately, the rest of Prime’s coverage wasn’t quite so impressive. There were so many graphics and pop-ups cluttering the screen that at times you could barely see the play developing. The scoreboard operators also had a particularly memorable moment after Atlético’s disallowed second goal, briefly displaying the score as 2-1 to United before correcting themselves.

Another Schrödinger’s cat moment. Atlético had scored, hadn’t scored, and United had somehow scored twice, all at the same time. If only we could persuade UEFA to let that version of events stand.

And while we’re on the subject of television, perhaps United should reconsider the idea of allowing Amazon to film an entire season documentary. At the moment, the obvious theme would be the Titanic. Plenty of expensive passengers, a succession of disastrous decisions from the bridge, and an iceberg everyone could see coming except the people steering the ship.

Which brings us to Sunday, and Leeds away. It’s not exactly the fixture you’d choose when you’re trying to steady a listing ship. They’ll be well up for it, and the atmosphere will be hostile. If United play as badly as they did against Tottenham, we’re in serious trouble. Even if they play as well as they did in Madrid, it could still be a difficult afternoon. And a defeat there would widen those cracks still further.

There was one final bit of news that caught my eye. Fulham manager Álvaro Arbeloa has apparently been fined £25,000 for suggesting the referee wouldn’t let United lose when we drew 1-1 with his team a couple of weeks ago. Could we have that referee on Sunday, please? And next Wednesday while we’re at it? Because at the moment, Manchester United could do with all the help they can get. The tabloids might have retired their cracked badge graphic. They might have decided it was an outdated visual cliché, a relic of another age. But perhaps it’s time to bring it back. Although they might need to make the crack a little wider this time.

By Andrew Kirby, Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post Cracks, chasms and another United crisis first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

The Argentine defender was visibly frustrated after United suffered another disappointing result, with the defeat increasing pressure on Michael Carrick following a difficult start to the campaign.

Martinez argued that responsibility for United’s struggles extends beyond the manager and players, pointing instead towards decisions made above them.

We did a fantastic season last season and now we expect more from the top, more players to compete because many teams bring many players as well. Atletico have an amazing team and they deserved to win today.

I expect more [investment]. 100%. I expect more from our technical director [Jason Wilcox]. I have to be honest, as players we have to do more but it is also important when you make a strong squad to be ready for this kind of night. Tonight it is easy to [blame] the coach, easy to say the players but also we have to see other areas.

United invested approximately £160 million in new players during the summer transfer window, with Carlos Baleba, Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans accounting for £155 million of that expenditure. However, all three were midfielders, leaving other positions without significant reinforcements. 

By comparison, Manchester City spent approximately £458 million, Chelsea £340 million, Tottenham £312 million, Newcastle £273 million and Liverpool £243 million. United’s net expenditure was approximately £103 million, the seventh-highest in the Premier League. 

However, the concern isn’t simply how much United spent, but whether their recruitment adequately prepared them for the demands of the new season.

Last season, United had no European football, allowing Carrick considerably more time between matches to prepare his players and manage their fitness. Having secured Champions League qualification through a third-place finish, United now face at least eight additional fixtures in the league phase alone, with potentially more should they progress. 

That makes squad depth considerably more important. Injuries, suspensions and fatigue become increasingly difficult to manage when players are required to compete twice a week, particularly against Europe’s strongest opposition.

United’s failure to strengthen at left-back, despite concerns over Luke Shaw’s fitness, has already attracted criticism, while questions remain about the depth of their attacking options. 

Martinez’s comments will undoubtedly attract attention because players rarely criticise their own club’s recruitment strategy so publicly. But our fanbase can be pleased that someone is speaking out about the disappointing transfer window.

The post Lisandro Martinez takes aim at United hierarchy after Atletico defeat first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

Saturday was a shithouse of a day. It began with a real-life version of Schrödinger’s cat. Not something you expect to encounter outside a physics classroom, and certainly not something you want to encounter in your own front room.

Our cat, Eric, had been ill for a couple of weeks. He was 19, a grand old age, and on Friday evening he’d been curled up in the front room looking very much like a cat who was approaching the end. When we woke on Saturday morning, I told the kids not to go downstairs. I’d go first. I’d open the front room door and see whether he was still with us.

For those unfamiliar with Schrödinger’s cat, it’s a thought experiment in which a cat is sealed in a box and, until someone opens it, is theoretically both alive and dead. It’s a way of illustrating the peculiarities of quantum mechanics. I’m sure a physicist would take issue with that explanation, but they’ll have to get in the queue.

For a few moments, before I opened the door, there were two possible versions of Saturday morning. In one, Eric was still alive. In the other, he wasn’t. Unfortunately, it was the latter.

And after that, frankly, Manchester United were going to have to do something pretty special to improve my mood. Spoiler alert: they didn’t. But there’s something of Schrödinger’s cat about United’s season. Somewhere, in some parallel universe, there’s a Manchester United side enjoying a pretty respectable start to the campaign.

In that universe, United held on against Everton at the Hill Dickinson Stadium instead of conceding a last-minute equaliser. In that universe, Manchester City weren’t awarded another sham goal in the derby, and Bryan Mbeumo might even have scored a last-minute winner. And in that universe, the referee didn’t find eight minutes of added time against Tottenham, allowing United to record a desperately needed victory.

You can almost see that version of United, can’t you? A team with a bit of momentum, a bit of confidence, perhaps even a bit of optimism. Unfortunately, somebody keeps opening the bloody box. And every time they do, we’re still shit. Because whatever alternative realities we might care to construct, the reality at Old Trafford on Saturday was there for everyone to see. United were absolutely abject, particularly in the opening half-hour. It was the sort of performance you watch through your fingers, cringing at what might happen next. Talking of cats, it was a bit like that video doing the rounds from Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Saturday, involving a tiger and that mauling.

In fact, if anyone from the club’s media department is preparing a highlights package of those first 30 minutes, it should probably carry a parental advisory warning: Spuds mauled us. Tottenham. Lads, it’s Tottenham.

And yet they looked stronger, quicker, fitter, more confident than us. United, by contrast, looked slow, ponderous, disorganised and entirely devoid of ideas. There was no urgency, no apparent plan and precious little energy.

I watched the match with an Arsenal supporter, which added an interesting dimension to proceedings. He was absolutely furious. With United. He hates Tottenham with a similar sort of passion to the way I loathe Liverpool, and he’d turned up assuming United would do the decent thing and give the Spuds a right old battering. Instead, he spent the first half shouting at our players for their inability to string together two passes, win a tackle or even look remotely competent.

The extraordinary thing was that he seemed much angrier than I was. He was experiencing the shock of seeing United play like this. I was experiencing the weary familiarity of it. Occasional United watchers still seem to retain some residual expectation that we’re United and will therefore behave like United. Those of us who watch every week have long since had that particular illusion beaten out of us. This season at least.

We did eventually improve. Mbeumo gave us the lead, Spurs went down to ten men, and for a brief, tantalising period it appeared that United might actually win a football match. Then came the added time. Eight bloody minutes. And we all just knew: Solanke – who has basically had one half-good season in his entire career – equalised, Tottenham escaped with a point, and United managed to turn what should have been a victory against ten-man opponents into another exercise in misery.

Of course, in a different reality, the final whistle might have blown before Spurs scored. In another, United might have defended competently. But neither of those realities is much use when you’re standing in Old Trafford looking at the scoreboard.

There was, at least, one welcome sight in the Stretford End. The ticker banner is back.

51 YEARS. ONE LOVE. STRETFORD END.

51 years refers to the time since Manchester city last legitimately won a trophy. It is a wonderfully petty, magnificently provocative piece of football supporter culture, and I was delighted to see it restored to its rightful place.

The number, of course, is not one that everyone will agree with. Particularly those across town who have developed a rather flexible relationship with the concept of sporting legitimacy. But that’s the point of a banner like this. It’s a gigantic, gloriously spiteful reminder that football supporters possess long memories and an excellent capacity for holding grudges.

Which brings me to Sunday: Liverpool against city at Anfield. Ordinarily, this is a fixture where I want both sides to lose, preferably in some spectacular and humiliating fashion with a shit-tonne of injuries and red cards. But before kick-off, against all the accumulated wisdom of my, ahem, considerable number of years on this planet, I found myself thinking that I actually wanted Liverpool to win.

I know. I was as surprised as anyone. Then they started singing You’ll Never Walk Alone, and the spell was broken. Within about 30 seconds I remembered precisely why I’d spent the best part of my life disliking Liverpool Football Club, and shortly afterwards I switched the idiot box off. I did think the atmosphere was strangely subdued, too. Given everything surrounding City, I’d expected Anfield to be absolutely vicious. A sustained, furious, relentless assault from the stands. Instead, what I saw before abandoning the spectacle seemed rather more restrained than I’d anticipated.

After a while, curiosity got the better of me. I picked up my phone and typed a question into its AI assistant:

“What’s the Liverpoo v Cheats score?”

And here’s the funny thing. It knew. No request for clarification. No suggestion that I might have misspelled something. No polite enquiry as to which football club I was referring to when I said “Cheats”. It knew exactly who I meant. Reader, I cannot tell you how satisfying I found this.

I then spent a thoroughly unproductive half-hour trying to goad the AI into saying something genuinely vicious about city. Unfortunately, it proved irritatingly determined to remain measured, balanced and unwilling to descend to my level. Which, to be fair, is a level that most responsible organisations would be advised to avoid.

But the important thing wasn’t what it refused to say. It was what it understood without being told. We’ve reached the point where you can type “Cheats” into a conversation about Premier League football and even artificial intelligence can work out which club you’re talking about.

City won 3–0, incidentally. Which raises another Schrödinger’s cat question. Did the match even happen? Or, more accurately, will it eventually be treated as though it mattered? The blue goons have been found guilty of breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules, with the decision under appeal. What any final consequences might mean for titles, records or the wider history of English football remains to be seen.

Somewhere in the great quantum football universe, perhaps there’s a version of this season in which City’s results stand, and another in which the whole thing is eventually unpicked. I suppose we’ll find out when somebody finally opens that particular box.

Meanwhile, United have three away games in the space of eight days. First up is Atlético Madrid on Tuesday in the Champions League. Diego Simeone’s side are not renowned for their chilled approach to the game. If we start that game as we started against Tottenham, the tiger footage from Yorkshire Wildlife Park might begin to look like it’s that kids wildlife show with Michaela Strachan.

Then it’s Leeds on Sunday, at the skip-hire stadium, where we’ll encounter another team who are likely to run much faster and harder than we do. They ran all over us at Old Trafford last season, and the similarities are worrying: another long break, another opportunity for United to emerge refreshed, reorganised and ready to go, and another performance suggesting we were anything but.

Then, to round off the week, Como away: a trip to the Italian lakes ought to be a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, this involves United playing football, which tends to spoil things.

There was a time when you could look at three fixtures like these and reasonably expect United to win at least a couple. Now, given our away form, you find yourself wondering whether we’ll lose all three. There are, naturally, other possible realities. We might turn up in Madrid and produce a magnificent performance. We might go to Leeds and rediscover our appetite for a fight. We might even win in Como. But based on what we’ve actually seen, rather than what we might wish to imagine, it’s difficult to summon much enthusiasm.

And perhaps that’s what makes this version of United so depressing. It’s not simply that we’re losing matches or dropping points. It’s that so much of it feels inevitable. The slowness. The lack of intensity. The failure to impose ourselves. The sense that the opposition have worked harder, prepared better and want it more.

It becomes exhausting, watching a club that once represented possibility become a weekly exercise in managing expectations.

I’ll finish, though, where Saturday began, with Eric. He was named, of course, after King Eric. Cantona. Our number seven. The man who seemed to arrive at Old Trafford and change not just a football team, but the entire atmosphere around the place. A player who made you believe that something extraordinary might happen every time he touched the ball.

Our Eric was 19. He’d been part of the family for almost two decades, through all the changes and upheavals that life brings. He was a constant, a familiar presence, and on Saturday morning he was gone.

It’s strange how football and life become entangled. You name a cat after a footballer you love, and almost twenty years later, when you lose him, you find yourself thinking about that footballer again. About what he represented. About what United used to be.

I worry that we’re becoming a club that has to keep returning to the past for comfort, because the present offers so little. But there are some memories worth holding on to: the halcyon days of Eric. Both of them.

Here’s Eric, playing football with a meatball.

By Andrew Kirby, Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post Schrödinger’s Cat, Schrödinger’s United: Manchester United 1–1 Tottenham Hotspur | Old Trafford, 10 October 2026 first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.