That was horrendous, whatever you think about Carrick after that Manchester City game.
Can we just reiterate how much this squad simply doesn’t work as a team? It hasn’t been fixed, and the ownership has brought in someone who very much loves this club but wasn’t backed at all in the right way.
Now, some could say: is this a situation where they’re not confident in his ability to take them to the next level and buy those sorts of players outright? Personally, I feel that’s just an excuse for an ownership that has had many chances to get this right. If anything, the Glazers passing over to Ratcliffe has only allowed them to get away with so much more in the way of this. It becomes like a reset, but effectively you’re still stuck on autopilot — and I think we’re seeing that happen around Manchester United. Because what is happening at that football club is just unrecognizable.
Forget about the result. Forget about the bad performance, or if it was offside or not. Let’s recognise the real issues here, because this has been a revolving door in terms of managers. If we do not start to understand the core issues here — why Manchester United isn’t working — we haven’t evolved since Fergie left. I haven’t seen us actually have a style of play that represents the honour of wearing our club crest.
Effectively, who is allowed to keep choosing the cheap option? And can we just recognise that this isn’t actually going to win us any trophies? Yes, last season’s third was fantastic for club revenue, but what about the ambitions of the fans? We keep pumping money into this club and we’re seeing no return.
The reality is this way of carrying on isn’t sustainable for this football club, and we need to find a way to bring a fresh perspective in from the bottom up. Until we get that, it doesn’t matter if the results are great one week and then we’re back to where we were the following. We’re not going anywhere, and we’re certainly not competing at the level we aspire to.
When the squad on a matchday isn’t being utilised in the right way, and when the same mistakes keep being made throughout, there has to be an answer to why this is allowed to continue. Of course, we have to give chances, but how many chances can we continue to give when the result is effectively the same? Where is the accountability the protests are actually there for?
Written by Craig Clark
From gaming industry headlines to all things Manchester United and entertainment, Craig covers the stories everyone's talking about — alongside his own published works.