One of the great truisms of the Fergie era was that from Manchester United the only way was down.
Great players either never left – why would you? – or when they did find themselves forced out, managed out or in rare cases actually did choose to leave of their own accord, generally soon discovered that the grass was rarely greener.
There is one definite and also one arguable exception to this rule that stood for two decades and more: Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham.
But these truly are exceptions to prove a rule. Beckham was the most famous footballer in the world; Ronaldo remains a live contender in any wearying debate around the greatest of all time. And they also both joined Real Madrid.
That’s what it took to step up from United in those days. Being the best or most famous player on earth, and joining the biggest club on earth.
It’s not exactly news to note that Man United now and Man United then are slightly different beasts. Pretty sure we’ve all managed to get our heads round the fundamentals of that concept by now. It has been more than 10 years.
But still, though. Still it remains slightly jarring for those of us who lived through that long period of United dominance, one it truly seemed might never, ever end, to see just how much has changed and just how far they done fell.
It’s not just easy to step up from United now; it’s actively difficult not to. You can now cheerfully fail upwards from United. In the immortal words of Yazz and the Plastic Population, the only way is up.
Marcus Rashford is no United failure. But he has been struggling for some time and finds himself no longer in the manager’s plans. Imagine a player in that situation 15 years ago looking at the possible next destinations and all of them being so much better than Man United. Dortmund. Milan. Literally any other big Premier League club that isn’t Spurs. Actual Barcelona if they can get a bank loan sorted.
And then you get to the actual flops. Alejandro Garnacho isn’t the floppiest flop in floptown but that’s mainly because Antony exists. He has shown glimpses and flashes of brilliance but never the consistent high level that United demands, or at least did.
Where’s he heading? Chelsea. Who, while undoubtedly a club capable of matching United in the basket case sense are currently far better in a football one. And if not Chelsea, Garnacho’s reward for three often forgettable and only sporadically decent years in United’s first team is likely to be finding himself parachuted straight from a Premier League relegation fight to a Serie A title fight.
Even Antony – a literal byword for transfer flop – is set for what is currently at worst a sideways move to Real Betis and some mid-table La Liga fun.
The most recent departures tell a similar story. Scott McTominay is in that Serie A title fight with Napoli where he may yet be joined by a familiar face in Garnacho.
We don’t really even want to start on how lucky Mason Greenwood is for so many reasons to find himself swanning around the upper reaches of Ligue 1 right now.
Jadon Sancho is clearly better off at Chelsea than he was at United; Aaron Wan Bissaka is at West Ham, but let’s just skate past that quickly. And even then, the league table insists it’s not really a backward step.
Many things have died away at Manchester United over the last 10 or 11 years. But one we’d perhaps not truly considered until now is the idea of United as an end in itself for players.
This was a club that was enough for almost anyone. Great players who started here finished here. Great players who arrived here finished here. And if they didn’t it was someone else’s choice and their career had still peaked with United.
United is no longer a final destination, but just another club, just another staging post in a career that can lead on to bigger and better things elsewhere regardless of whether your time at United is good, bad or indifferent.
United appear set to rush through multiple departures before the transfer window shuts. For the likes of Christian Eriksen and Casemiro, whose careers are on an inevitable end-of-the-line slide, their time at United will not be considered their career highlight.
And for those in the early or middle stages of their career there will be expectation now rather than hope that this is also the case for them.
Because Manchester United are now just another football club.
