This is what rock-bottom looks like, is it?
Manchester United fans, with a view skewed by years of Sir Alex Ferguson-led glory, assumed many, many times in the dozen years since that the nadir had been reached. Nope. Come 6pm on Sunday while likely looking up from 17th in the Premier League, all that is left beneath is the Championship.
Until now, the thought of Manchester United being relegated has been restricted to the wet dreams of ABUs. Logic says the club is simply too big to fail so spectacularly. But this is not the United of old. F*** knows what this United is.
Now, barely a night’s sleep after losing the Europa League final, it is too much to explore in depth all the issues that make the Red Devils the undisputed banter champions of the world. Too much. Too sad.
In short: United are a failed state. Once the richest of world superpowers, now unashamedly penny-pinching and staff-shedding in an attempt to live within its means, while those most culpable for their decline – players, executives, owners – trouser their grotesque salaries and dividends.
The Glazers don’t give a f***. They milk their ailing cash cow from behind the safety of an INEOS-shaped shield, fronted by Sir Jim Ratcliffe carrying the look of billionaire regretting his life choices. At his stage of life, he doesn’t need this sh*t.
And that’s precisely what the team have served up on a bi-weekly basis. At least, unlike Ratcliffe, the players and coaching staff are only tied to the boulder dragging them to the ocean floor for as long their contracts dictate. Or until someone, anyone, offers to pay actual money for them.
There is perhaps one player, Bruno Fernandes, whose departure would be mourned by a majority of supporters. For many of his team-mates, there would be long queues of fans willing to piggy-back them to their next destination.
It is too simple to say they don’t care. Most do, though predominantly with self-preservation in mind. Being a United player in recent years has been a cushy gig. Unlike other clubs, the personal rewards – the highest salaries and biggest profiles – were guaranteed regardless of the team’s fortunes. It is why Old Trafford remained an attractive destination, even while it was crumbling, literally and metaphorically.
Not now. Would you advise any player to join this circus? Instinctively, the motives and sanity of anyone signing for United this summer will be questioned. Any top talent with a modicum of sense and palatable alternatives would drop their shoulder on Ruben Amorim.
Poor Ruben. He did not want to join United mid-season and, in hindsight, he should have stuck to his guns. It highlights that as recently as six months ago, United still had something like the pull of old to make him doubt his instincts. Now, his first summer coincides with the first in generations when the club has so little to advertise.
If Amorim was a pragmatist, he would consider resigning. He has offered to leave without compensation if the board and fans feel he should. Though he has failed to deliver anything like the improvement that was expected when he replaced Erik ten Hag, or even just a continuation of that dross, he probably still has an acceptable approval rating among fans. Barely.
But if he looks at the task now before him, are his targets achievable? Just a fortnight ago, it was said that Amorim had been set the goal of a top-six finish next season. Would he honestly back himself to get what he admits is the ‘worst-ever Manchester United team’ up at least 11 places amid the chaos likely to ensue in the coming months?
If so, crack on. If not, he’s still new enough in the job to deny ownership of the sh*tshow around him and leave with his reputation bruised rather than battered, beaten and left for dead in a gutter.
MORE ON MAN UTD’s EUROPA LEAGUE MISERY FROM F365:
👉 16 Conclusions on Spurs winning the Europa League: Amorim sack, Postecoglou vindication, terrible Manchester United
👉 Rio Ferdinand blames £25m Man Utd star for Europa League final defeat to Tottenham
👉 Ten Europa League final players who should be axed in Man Utd, Spurs rebuilds
👉 Amorim offers to quit ‘without conversation or compensation’ if Man Utd want new manager
If you ask supporters, most would probably prefer to avoid another managerial change. Who else is there? Amorim is a likeable fella and many fans appreciate his honesty even if outsiders don’t. But suspicion grows that he doesn’t help himself.
He was appointed as one of Europe’s brightest young coaches with an admirable, steadfast belief in his principles and system. For as long as he’s in charge, United will be playing 3-4-2-f***ing-1.
Which, of course, makes them hilariously easy to play against, especially while he has a squad wholly unsuited to it. It is lost on precisely nobody that a must-win final between two coaches who refuse to adapt was won by the one who eventually did.
Amorim admitted in the wake of the Europa League final defeat that without tangible evidence of improvement, he is asking for ‘a little bit of faith’. Blind faith, that, when the manager has neither the means to play his way or the will to even consider the possibility of another.
In the absence of anything else to cling to, Amorim will probably get what he’s asked for. Maybe he’ll repay that faith. But amid the post-Bilbao gloom, after a 21st defeat of the season, it is entirely conceivable that United have depths yet to plumb.
