Carl Anka isn't necessarily there to offer insightful analysis over United's performances or their day-to-day operations (that's for Laurie Whitwell). He's there to write more artistic (for lack of a better word) articles (the ones that have more vivid imagery in them) and not necessarily write informative reports (which Whitwell does). Example:
I won't typically read his articles, but at least he's a decent writer.
From where I stand as a consumer I don't see what The Athletic offers that anyone else doesn't.
1. I'm not sure how much fans want to consume day-to-day stuff in extraordinary detail. Even diehards want to get away from football's minutiae from time to time.
2. What does the Athletic do better than anyone else?
The tactical analysis wing has Cox but he isn't any better than Wilson. Not to mention Wilson for all his stubbornness is way more endearing, better read, a better writer and has a firm grasp of history.
Football admin is covered better in Josimar. The Blizzard does the more esoteric stuff. David Conn, Tariq Panja and co. do the business side better.
Beyond Daniel Taylor, the Athletic's stable of writers are fairly unmemorable. Anka is dreadful. He writes in that homogenised 2010s BuzzFeed style (he used to work there) and is a shit stirrer but not an especially interesting one ("Pogba would be appreciated more if he was 5 inches shorter"). It's hardly like you are reading bloody Gideon Haigh or Scyld Berry is it?
The best football (prose) writers writers are still Rob Smyth (King of the retrospective) Auclair, Ronay and occasionally Liew.
4. The long reads are rarely worth the effort. Some topics (Newcastle takeover) merit 10K words but a minor bust up after a 5-0 loss?
I'm told the Athletic is the best source for US Sports so maybe they do these things better over there.
Never understood this fetish about going to stadiums, going to the game doesn't give you any sort of magical insight to formation and team selection.
It helps massively. I used to accompany a cricket writer for a while. I can't quite explain it but do you see things differently. The way formations change, the birds eye view, the crowd pressure, being in the mixed zone later.