Not the first time
@Twigginater has echoed this sentiment, and not the first time that people have responded, but ... yes. I feel disconnected from this club right now, too. But it's
right now.
A flamboyant, classic and romantic club, with a manager who would make a great story out of every season - and we loved it. He was the grand protagonist, and there were heroes and villains and great side characters along the way, new villains and anti-protagonists, gripping side-stories and character arcs, and almost always the story ended with dramatic plot twists which would lead the protagonist and his loyal folks to victory, in style. This is how, in principle, quite a lot of us remember the Fergie era.
Then the playing fields changed, and the old protagonist left, with most his characters.
We tried to be romantic, and stick to the old rules. We got one Scot to replace the next, and it failed. We tried to play the youth, and they weren't always good enough, and failed. We thought we'd play the transfer market the same way with Fabregas and Vidal and the rest - and it failed. Our game was poor, and we lost to shit teams and dropped out of CL, twice. There were no equivalent replacements for the old guard, and no star faces who'd provide the victorious plot twists. The story had fallen apart, none of the characters were good enough. LVG was a step in the right direction. A more pragmatic and tactically astute coach ( or so we thought), and he cleared the ranks once more and got in his players. One season of shit football, but encouraging results, and the next where the youth were trusted. Parts of the old story were falling into places, but it just wasn't the same. We weren't winning enough - other's stories were having better endings. The FA Cup was a consolation, like saving the princess or something, but it wasn't good enough. We didn't get to the fecking throne.
We could have stayed romantic, repeated the same mistakes, retained our 'principles' but lost the legacy of success because of which these principles were famous. Not many care about the principles of Accrington Stanley or Stockport or Birmingham City - they're not the biggest champions of England. The story is forgotten if it doesn't have a victorious ending for the protagonist.
Mourinho is the best step we could have taken. We want the ending to remain same, and we changed the whole fecking archetype of the story. This time the protagonist is the cunning scheming bastard (who was once the villain who always wanted to be the good guy in our previous stories), and now he is. He does things differently - he understands the playing fields and how to win. It's not going to be so romantic as it is going to be ruthless. It's like replacing Sherlock with Moriarty as protagonist, the story changes completely into something scary and ruthless, but you'll still probably win with style in the end - which means you'll at least have a good story.
"I tell the players that the bus is moving. This club has to progress. And the bus wouldn't wait for them. I tell them to get on board." - Fergie's words.
Mourinho is the next driver, and we're chugging along new roads. With him at the helm, and the likes of Zlatan, Mkhi, Pogba, Martial and the new set of players whom we might see over the next few years, it's going to be a fun ride, with regular silverware.
So,
right now. Sure the old book was great, but this one is new.These characters are new, and the story, in its nascent stages is unfamiliar. But read on, you'll hopefully like it as it goes along, and hopefully, it'll have a familiar ending.
So much drama in that post. lol. I'm off to the Pogba thread. :P