Manchester United must turn to a ‘shaman’ to succeed Michael Carrick, and Sir Alex Ferguson is to blame as they head for the Championship.

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Sir Alex Ferguson’s role in Manchester United’s demise

As I sit here, a United supporter, gazing at the bottom of the table, one gnawing thought that has come back at me repeatedly over the years has been getting harder and harder to ignore.

Why didn’t Sir Alex Ferguson stand against the Glazers in 2005?

At the time I know many United fans including myself hoped that he would form a principled line alongside Shareholders United (soon to be the Man Utd Supporters Trust).

This was after all a man from Govan, of working class socialist stock. A manager who fiercely defended the club in any way he could and had an unshakeable loyalty to those who worked there. Surely he would step in and stop this vampire capitalism takeover?

After all had Ferguson come out and said that the Glazer family were an existential threat to Manchester United, that they were not acting in the interests of the club, that supporters should show them they were not welcome and if they completed their takeover he would resign on the spot, there is no conceivable way that the takeover would have happened, it would have been dead in the water.

<sigh>

It’s such a hard thing to reconcile with the figure who brought the most sporting joy to me and my mates lives, who forged the modern MUFC in his own image, who built 3x great teams in 3x different eras and…ultimately got the takeover ball rolling by having a stupid row about horse spunk where he was clearly being a petulant idiot.

Some real duality of man stuff right there.

He went along with all of it, defended them in public and due to his sheer force of will allowed us to carry on for a good 8 years after, but the cracks were starting to show before his retirement (replacing Ronaldo with Antonio Valencia being a prime example) and then his disastrous anointment of a clearly out of his depth David Moyes beginning our lurch into management speed dating.

And now here we are, a burnt out husk of a club in a crumbling stadium, like a drunk in the bar talking about their glory days to anyone still inclined to listen, an irrelevance over £1.1 billion in debt with the calamitous Ineos bolt on somehow making us even worse.

There are no green shoots, there is no one coming to save us, we are not too big to go down.

People always say it can’t get any worse, but it has and there are more depths to plumb, and once again I have to wrestle with the idea that our greatest manager was also a willing, active participant in our downfall.
Andy, Belfast

Take Our Clubs Back

While this is about MUFC, it’s also not about them…

To my recollection, the first of the “rich owner’s play thing” was Jack Walker and for a time, Blackburn shone brightest, but the sun set on them long ago. But the football authorities, probably giddy from all that TV cash, did not see the consequences. Then came the gold rush, Abramovich, Hicks and Gillette, and now the petro-dollar / nation states. Amazon is taking a nibble so how long before Musk et al swallow up a club whole? They have no interest in us, the fans. We are going to have to do something about it ourselves.

During its history, MUFC have been pioneers in a number of creative and innovative ideas. We were the first to recognize the importance of European competition, early adopters, if not the first, to pursue corporate sponsorship, and even were the first to become a publicly listed company. Not all have been unqualified successes as it was being a public company that enabled the parasites to buy the club in a leveraged buyout (what we reap, we sow!). Maybe it is time for us to come up with another innovative idea – the fans buy the club!

Assuming the parasites value the club at 6 billion pounds, we would only need about 600,000 investors to pony up about 10,000 each. Given the number of celebrities and affluent fans who could, and most likely would, be willing to purchase more, that 600,000 may be substantially less.

Additional safeguards would need to be introduced so that the next iteration of parasites can’t do it all over again. For example, institute bylaws to ensure that the club remains private or even a non-profit. Incorporate the “50% + 1” rule that seems to work well in Germany. No one owner or consortium can own more than 25%. Tons of possible checks and balances.

Alas, this is not something that could be achieved via a “GoFundMe” campaign. It would need someone to spearhead it who has a combination of experience in owning a club, could attract investors, a fan of the club and, even better, a former player.

If only there was someone out there like that…
Adidasmufc (Unrelated note – Sorry to harsh people’s mellow but, I ran the “physician” email through AI and it confirmed it was AI generated. Clue – multiple paragraphs of one sentence.)

Man Utd tuko na swara…

What do you call it when a litany of strange, inexplicable, almost hilarious misfortunes and calamities start following you as if on cue from the blue? Murphy’s Law? Mick McCarthy’s “it-can” law? Well, in Swahili slang we call it swara. And right now Man Utd we’re up to our ears waddling in it. We have swara = Tuko na swara.

It’s full-time now and as upset and disillusioned as I am now I still remember the first half, we could have scored four! Some of the quick transitions and fast breaks took me back to the respite of last season. Then the second half comes and wipes all that away like it was a debt we owed some gods. Or some witches.

A while back, a contributor here suggested the same for Liverpool during their run into the wilderness last season and I think we need the same. We need a shaman to perform rituals, to exorcize and banish these spirits we seem to be fighting against this season. Because I bet even if we went 2 nil up we’d still find a way to fall face first into a loss.

Surely, even Mainoo and Baleba, who so far have looked immune to this thing, are now both infected too! Maybe Rashford is sat somewhere with Sancho summoning these demons, but hey, let’s concentrate here…

We need to put Calamity-Carrick out of his misery ASAP, put pride aside and hire a shaman…and no I don’t mean a hipster good vibes football coach like Klopp or Ranieri…NO! A real actual literal shaman. From Haiti or Ghana.

Wait one…that sangoma witch doctor guy who blew juju for Kane not to score vs Ghana, what’s he up to right now? We need to move quick before Ghana need him for the international break!
PaddyG, MUFC, Mombasa, Kenya (sangoma and shaman don’t even take cash payments anyway so Ratcliffe would be into that…only deal breaker for him would be that they’re immigrants)

Standards at Man Utd

As a Man Utd fan of many years, it’s been so disheartening over the years to see so many players pull on the red jersey and utterly fail to live up to the standards and expectations of the match going fans.

After many years of titles, success and general competence, it has been a general breath of fresh air to have a bunch of players who perfectly reflect me and my attitude to life.

To explain, I’m a lazy, entitled prick, and I don’t know how I’m still in a job. I down tools when I don’t like my manager, and somehow they get the blame. I can see my peers laughing at me. The lack of respect is palpable.

Feels like I’ve got my club back.
Ben (Start packing your bags Keith, yes I’m sending this on work email. What are you going to do about it?)

I thought I’d just watched an amazing goal, turns out Rogers just ran in a straight line and the Utd players sort of pirouetted around him to make it look fancy.

He did show great strength and a nice chipped finish, but somehow the Utd players made that goal look way better than it was. Also, man runs in straight line with ball, maybe tackle said man?
Will

Fermin Lopez to Manchester United? Really?

I read with interest, albeit from the Gossip Column section of the BBC website, that United are apparently interested in signing Fermin Lopez from Barcelona.

I’m not sure who’s responsible for identifying our transfer targets, but perhaps someone should point out that we’re heading for the Championship. I’d have thought the likes of Rotherham and Barnsley might be more realistic hunting grounds than fucking Barcelona.
Ant MUFC

Nostradamus predicts a bleak Man Utd future…

2029.

Utd bottom of League 2 having just been hammered 5-0 at home by the mighty Hereford Utd.
Wilcox steps up to the mic, “Some encouraging signs today and we don’t want to rush into a knee jerk reaction. We want to give Michael and the lads time to turn this around. We have got our new ground share arrangements with Salford City starting soon and we hope this will raise enough money, with the few quid I found down the back of our sofa, to enable us get a loan player in from the National league to help out the one game a week we are now playing. We have absolute faith that Michael and his team will get us out of this situation and back to our rightful place in the Premiership.”

After leaving the interview and going into the back room he forgets he still mic’ed up a la Gordon Brown and proceeds to talk to a mate, not realising the whole world is still listening.

“The fact is we spaffed all the money on interest and dividend payments, planning for the supposed new stadium and paying for useless players, managers and exec staff. There’s no money left. We can’t even afford to pay the relatively small compensation to get in a decent manager who could sort the mess out. We’ll be in the National league next year and probably in administration by then. Sam Allardyce and Neil Warnock have been in touch, but even we’re not that desperate. ”

Sorry, my crystal balls are going misty now, so i need to visit A & E pronto.
Russ

But kudos to Man Utd’s away contingent

Excluding the silly little boys trying to rile, unsuccessfully, an exiting Chelsea crowd with a rendition of “Chelsea Rent Boys” – all clubs have idiots – may I once again note that, overall, Man Utd’s away support are, and have been for Donkey’s Years, the best in the land.

Kudos to them from this Chelsea fan.
Lawrence in Muswell Hill