During the 90s, the club embarked on a pioneering path and understood the way the game was going better than most, appreciating that globalisation was coming and commercialisation was the way to monetise the “brand”. We were the first to have a third kit, the first to flog tat to fans thousands of miles away. We did this whilst aggressively expanding our stadium to being the biggest in the country.
Following this, the club had a huge financial advantage over everyone (til Roman arrived) and had arguably the greatest manager of all time at the helm that had a unique ability to adapt and rebuild sides in the face of a changing game.
When any institution has achieved massive success through a particular model, it becomes inevitable that complacency will set in over time, with a dogmatic belief that what has worked previously will always work and this is what has happened in the last decade. Old Trafford is now pretty shabby in comparison to rival grounds, for instance.
As such, we’ve stopped innovating, stopped being ahead of the curve and fallen behind our contemporaries in the process. This rot had begun prior to Sir retiring, with the departure of Ronaldo probably the first sign of the decline. We carried on winning trophies, because Fergie was that good and our rivals were nothing special, but his final seasons were spent wringing the last out of his final great team, the 08 champions league winners.
When he finally departed, we had an ageing squad that desperately required major surgery. Rio and Vidic were finished, as were Scholes and Giggs, and Rooney and RVP didn’t have much left to give either. A prolonged lack of investment and Fergie softening to the extent that the likes of Anderson were still kicking around meant we were in poor shape.
We all know what happens next; Moyes, Van Gaal and Jose, 3 completely different types of managers all trying to get to the root of the problem, but that kind of deep malaise takes a while to fix and requires patience which given our previous success was understandably in short supply.
This brings us to where we are now and hopefully the early stages of a rebuild. Do I think Ole is the man to lead us long term? Almost certainly not, but there’s not a chance we’re winning the title no matter who is in the dugout. Pep and Klopp are probably the finest managers currently working and they’re deep into their respective projects. They’ll take some toppling. As such, a long term view is the sensible option and I think Ole is a reasonable shout to manage us through the start of the rebuild. The squad has been purged this season. Sure, we could do with one or two more, but as Liverpool have shown, it’s better to buy the right players than any old players.
If we can rebuild a team spirit, something that has been sadly lacking, and blood some youngsters, work out which ones will make it, then we’ll wind up with a lean, young, hungry squad.
The 3 managers before Ole all inherited a mess, I think Ole’s job is to clean everything up and ensure the manager that follows him (which I think will be Poch next summer) inherits something much better. A young, motivated squad, a trimmed wage bill and a handsome transfer kitty to build towards a title challenge. Realistically, we’re not going to challenge for the league until 21/22 at the earliest; what we’re doing now seems to me to be laying the foundations for that. Ole is not a title winning manager, he’s a transitional one and I for accept that.
