The sensible thing to do might be to link what I wrote last time around after Manchester United’s debacle against Liverpool and say: see idem. One would have thought it cannot get any worse, but it has. Since then, United came back to win late against Atalanta (undeservedly) in the home tie of their Champions League group game, defeated a hapless Tottenham Hotspur (who sacked their own manager at the end of that match, for the crime of being so bad that they lost so poorly to this United), drew against Atalanta, once again courtesy late heroics from Cristiano Ronaldo, and then lost yesterday to Manchester City.
Plenty of teams succumb to City, and this was after all only a 2-0 loss. But the manner of the defeat, that United had a mere four touches in City’s box, that they shot more at their own goalkeeper David de Gea than they managed at their opponent’s, that they allowed City to control the game with such consummate ease, was telling. This is a Manchester United side who’s coach has been at the helm for three years now, who’ve spent hundreds of millions on securing premier footballing talent from across the world. To lose this way ought to be unacceptable. But the owners at United clearly don’t care enough about the team’s performances on the pitch.
This is a side that is built with an intent to make commercial gains, and those gains, the management is implicitly telling us all, scarcely depend on silverware. Last time around, I wrote about potential alternatives to Solskjaer. And there are a few: Erik ten Haag Julen Lopetegui, Marco Rose, even Ralf Rangnick. But I was amiss in failing to pose a more fundamental question: why would anyone good coach want the United job? Who would want to work within this structure?