Big clear out sounds great and the right solution but as every serious business (especially publicly traded ones) it cannot come at the cost of tragic results and massive asset value right offs.
It is simply not an option. Shareholders, board, will not allow it.
Since a clear out is by no means a guarantee for long-term success, it is almost never an option.
And I agree that the tail should have never been allowed to wag the dog, any manager (or other member of staff) now operates under these conditions. And we need to acknowledge and adjust our expectations.
Thats the thing though. Football shares little in common with classic businesses in certain areas. Normally you would be completely correct but United have managed to maintain revenues despite flushing huge amount of money down the drain and failing to really compete for over a decade. With a club of our size and status imagine how those revenues would look if we didn't waste vast sums, made money from trophies and had a larger global appeal as a result. Its not quite as simple as number in spreadsheet for player values.
The complete lack of success on the pitch and the weak performances from so many of our players has already reduced their value massively and we overpay for players as a result. Both in transfer fees and salaries. I think that if we sold our entire first team at this moment in time we would get about £200m with the vast majority of that coming from Sancho and Fernandes. We are also in a position currently where a large chunk of players are leaving at the end of the season anyway.
Essentially the club has two options.
Accept that the current way of running the club is awful and doesn't deliver value to any part of the business and we take the short term hit in the value of players/wasted salaries to improve long term prospects.
Try to make the best out of this mess and most likely spend the next decade in the same mire until United truly do become irrelevant as other clubs improve and get bought out and generally run themselves a lot better than United.
I truly believe that if we get even a sniff of being a well run club with an upward trajectory it won't be that hard to go back to the top. Currently its just a perfect storm of overpaid and entitled players who don't see any value in working their arses off for the club. Given the choice between shaping up and putting in the work to be part of something good and getting sidelined, most players will pick up their game. It just needs that structure in place that all the best clubs have. Good manager, a motivated core of players and money to spend. I think we currently have 2 out of the 3.