We are screwed for as long as the Glazers are around, sadly, and we don't seem able to force them out. This is going to be long and desperately hard season. I switched off the match at half time yesterday and sat in the garden with a Guinness, trying to think of some positives. I couldn't find any.
I really feel for Ten Hag, he has been lied to. Everybody knows he was promised six players he named; he's actually gotten Erikson alone from that list. Martinez wasn't his first choice centre-back. The Glazers and Murtough and Arnold have yet again failed to deliver, producing yet another shambolic transfer window. Several players who were at the end of their contracts left, but only Pereira was sold. Look at the rubbish we are still left with; players who are still here, with some are even still playing: Maguire, Shaw, Wan-Bassaka, Bailly, Jones, Tuanzebe, Williams, Fred, McTominay, Rashford, Telles, Diallo. Bruno and Sancho haven't kicked a ball in months, but haven't been dropped. There must be at least ten players who need shipping out, but the club has failed and they still play. Maguire is still club captain; what's that all about?
The whole thing needs tearing up and starting afresh, but the manager isn't being helped to make the radical change. He is being set up to fail; that's the only possible outcome when a club is dysfunctional both on and off the pitch. Hence we continue with panic signings, without a proper plan.
I watched Gary Neville's post match rant, and he is right, we have owners who use the club as a cashpoint. Somewhere around £2 billion has been taken out of the club by the Glazers, during a period City's owners have put that much in. A £4 billion funding gap, it's no surprise we can't compete. Yet we seem unable to remove them; where that will lead in the end is anybody's guess. Short term I think we will finish somewhere between eighth and twelfth in the league and will remain dysfunctional. So many things need completely changing: owners, key employees, coaches, players, stadium. I can't see light at the end of the tunnel.