Can't really call yourself a fan if you only support your team while the going is good. Moreover, the entitlement among some is quite ridiculous when they're whinging about everything and comparing watching United to watching people getting burned alive - all because United is in sixth place and not playing very well. Rather pathetic, to be honest.
Seen this put forward a few times in this thread and was going to point out it's essentially a strawman that is triumphantly argued against whilst having barely any grounds in the discussion going on.
Sticking with a team through the thick and thin of them playing well/poorly/dreadfully but following the common ideals their fanbase identify with is not the same as watching wilful self-sabotage, indifference and malaise at board level filtered down to a staff that don't know what they're doing, which, common sense should dictate will lead to a mass exodus of the best players who refuse to partake in the circus any longer and will look out for themselves and their careers if the club they're playing for is perfectly happy to write off seasons in November. Ronaldo will most certainly be the first out the door if we're a Europa team next season, for example, with other top quality players been completely justified in asking their agents to find them a new club.
I can't even name an equivalent club to us because at Barcelona, everything was rosy until their financial incompetence caught up with them - ultimately they spent like imbeciles for the benefit of the club. Foolish in sentiment, but at least with the common goal of making the team the best it could be. At Ashley's Newcastle, they mightn't have played good football, but at least had a manager, team and staff that was in line with their standing. Newcastle are a traditionally attacking team, so the fans were let down there, but they were resigned to their lot knowing things couldn't be much better without Ashley releasing funds he had no intention of doing.
United are covered in Japanese knotweed with clearly addressable footballing problems draped all over them, even though we're thin in midfield, anyone stating this is not a world class squad, ripe for a good manager and coaching staff to challenge on all fronts is to be summarily dismissed. United finally have a squad that should, and would, be competing if the footballing side of the franchise had a clue. This frustrates the majority of the fanbase because they can see not only the issues unfolding in real-time, but also the very real likelihood of it damaging the club going forward for years yet as we face a departures of players who have it in them to make us a force, who will then need to be replaced with equivalent level players, who, in their right mind, will avoid us like the plague given their options.
This is a pivotal season, one we could still be challenging in, and yet some fans seem to be happy to watch the ship go down... for no reason at all. This isn't the 70's or 80's where we had mountains to climb and the expectations set for the club had faded: we're a global superpower who spend in a manner only Real and Barcelona can outside of the oil clubs. There is no excuse for the way the season is unfolding - it doesn't matter that it's Ole overseeing a 0-5 loss to Liverpool; off the back of a shocking season up to that point, only managers with credit in the bank should survive such a compound humiliation, and then, we flail until the disgraceful City game that was ostensibly worse than the Liverpool one despite the scoreline. That's not 'thick and thin': that's the territory of what is the board playing at? It shouldn't be common to be complicit in watching your team be routinely routed, its players exasperated for no good reason. This isn't underdogs in the trenches stuff - the strawman narrative doesn't fit, to the point I'd ask you to name another team that mirrors what's happening here. Clubs that spend £400m in three seasons can be counted on two hands: name a single one of them that passively sits an leaves its support up in arms.
What we have is a lot of self-serving people in key positions not looking out for the club, but rather their own position(s) in the establishment, again, something you won't find an equivalency with elsewhere because we're the worst run giant in football, if not sport.
Supposedly:
- The Glazers don't want any manager in who will kick up a fuss and comment about the football side of things, which other side in the world can this kind of accusation be hurled at?
- Woodward, supposedly doesn't want to sack the manager because it makes him look bad - at no point in there is there concern about the actual club he's working for.
- Ole is doing all sorts of madness with a squad that's worth an obscene amount to save his skin rather than benefit it [squad], his survival mode is causing ruptures that mightn't heal if left too long as half the squad he's alienated will have morale on the floor and the other half playing no matter what, whether fit or not, which benefits nobody.
Our problems run deeper than not being an 'entertaining brand' or feeling sorry for ourselves for one or two bad performances: we're in freefall and for all intents and purposes, it looks like nothing will be done about it until the season is an absolute write-off, which makes no sense at all.
Frustration is running rampant and the support is practically at arms with one another as camps have become staunch and entrenched: it should be pretty clear to see why some say they are 'done'.
If a few bad games was all there was to what's going on, I doubt people would be up in arms. And despite the rhetoric, if Ole was capable, I doubt there'd be many who would want him out.
It's also not entitlement to want to see your side do the best its resources allow, where again, a £400m investment should not see a side languishing playing atrocious football. I'd actually like to ask you what you believe £400m of investment should warrant, and at which point expectation for that £400m reaches the point of entitlement - where do these lines blur, in your opinion? Should nothing be said whilst the manager benches £200m+ at a time because he doesn't know how to utilise the talent at his disposal?
Anyway, for all that said, I am one of the poor buggers who will be watching every [needless] humiliation through to the end and taking that anger/disappointment into the remainder of my day/weekend. It'll not have the same energy or connection some want it to have where we were underdogs and Fergie's era of dominance hadn't yet been undertaken, and it is a nonsense in this time, with this investment, and this squad, to liken what's happening now to those kind of tough times of the past. It's nothing alike: this is just gross incompetence at every single level on a scale I'd challenge anyone to find an equivalency to in United's history.
.