I have been following Man United since the around 1980.
The big difference here is that mid 90s we were already a titlewinning team and had our best ever generation of youngsters coming through the ranks. We didn't have massive weaknesses in our squad like we do now. Then you can do sideways moves or recruit from your own ranks. The last season with Kanchelskis and Ince we would have won the league if we just beat West Ham on the final match day, or if Cantona hadn't done his kung fu back in January. We also had enough points that season to win us the league any other year in the 90s. Point is we already had by far the best squad in the country and the class of Scholes, Becks, Butt, Giggs and Keane was ready handle the midfield the next 10 years from there. We won the PL in Erics last season here and came second the season, remember. Then we came back and won the treble with Teddy in a backup role where he played by far the least of our 4 strikers.
Right now we are as far away from being title contenders as we've been since the 80s and have much bigger issues than getting rid of Rashford....and none of the five players mentioned are better LWs than Marcus, or as good.
A new management with a better man management skills should get a chance to make this group of players pull in the same direction, work their socks off for eachother and become better proffesionals. Players with suboptimal habits and mindsets are not chronics and changing their mindsets is not as hard as you would think. You just need to address it and have the right focus on it. ETH has not found the formula and has the charisma of a brick , so it would be interesting to see a new manager have a go at it. Maybe hire some people designated to work with the mental aspect of the game and guide players who need it in the right direction, in stead of just trusting that the players either are good pros or not.
It's obvious that, right now, it's not a good environment in and around the manager and squad.
That's not how things were perceived back then though. Many pundits spoke of us not winning the league, some even placing us 4th at the time which would be great if we did it now but was a travesty back in the time. Manchester United weren't even able to secure SAF's only target at the time ie Darren Anderton (thank god).
My points are simple
a- removing toxicity and complacency trumps on everything. We're better off with a lesser player that is 100% committed to the cause then someone whose is more talented but would switch on and switch off according whether he likes the manager or not
b- balance is everything. A well balanced team would probably win over an unbalanced one filled with stars and would definitely win over an unbalanced one filled with overrated players.
We can argue whether we have the former (I think we do) but we certainly can't argue on the latter. Our defense is a mismatch of two different styles (Maguire, AWB and Lindelof are suited for a deep line, Varane, Martinez, Malacia and Dalot for a high line while Shaw can play both but is always injured), Bar Mainoo our CM is an utter mess. Most of our flank men think that there are all Ronaldos. They are lazy, they put their own interest first and would only pass the ball under torture. Even in our prime we could only afford 1 Ronaldo and to support him properly we had to build a squad around him with players like Park and Rooney fecking their careers to support him. These wingers are nowhere near to that level. Up front we only have Hojlund.
I was very critical to the likes of McT and Maguire and I still want them out of the club. However the first player I would sell if I was INEOS would be Rashford (bar of course the likes of Sancho). God knows how much we need to make a statement that NO ONE, not even Rashford, is bigger then the club