i think we lost all the aura of a great footballing club when Ferguson finally retired. What's worse was that David Gill left at the same time. The Club lost two footballing figure heads. Ferguson alone can earn us points because we just know that somehow he'd do something and we'd win the game. The players are with him, fight for him, for the club, know how to grind out results week in week out, year in year out, leadership all over the pitch.
When you ask what is the real problem is, it's because everyone involve not working toward the same GOAL, on the same boat, fighting for the same thing - Winning.
Looking the past five years after Ferguson retired, we can see that the clubs has no more footballing foundations, no medium or longer plan. The board is happy as long as United makes more pricey sponsorships and doesn't really care about the performances or results as long as we stay at top 4. We can see this with LVG, that when Mourinho available, he's sacked without even given notice in person. Woodward now are trying to do the same by relaying any blame to the manager again. The board makes it clear that they only interest in making money when they make sure everyone knows that they only sign young star names to help with sponsorships.
The manager has his own flaw as well be it his football style or his management of his players. We know what we get when we hire Mourinho that if you want to win something with him, you have to continue to pay big amount of money to bring players that he wants/can use to play his football. We can see that he's trying something that wasn't his style this year with Carrick and Mackenna but i think it's too late now because the players that he has won't be helping him or the club. Ferguson was able to evolve because he's already has years of success, foundations, players/leaderships. He only needed to tweak a few staffs, players to change his style to evolve with the footballing world or aspiration (CL). Mourinho can't because he's still trying to win the PL and by the looks of it, he's not that backed by the board if choices has to be made between him or players. United has become just another corporate football club these past years and it's a final nail on the coffin when we saw that the board was/is siding with players over manager.
Then, we have the players that some have the talents in the world to be world class but couldn't because of mentality or has too much over their head. This is a team game but if when anything bad happen the stick ends only with the manager then i'm afraid the players won't care much about the consequences of their performances. Players nowadays have too much power and coincide with Mourinho only been here a few years, they know that the board might back them rather than the manager when push come to shove because they are considered pricey assets by United than the manager. Players nowadays seems to care more about their brand when they haven't even make a big impact on their clubs yet. This exacerbates because fans seems to care more for particular players than the entire good being of club. We can see here that some don't even care about the balance of team or results as long as their favorite players play/signed.
What we need to do now is keep working hard to win, win at all cost, everyone helping each other out, fight for each other. But i'm afraid this won't happen as the board already mess up with the transfer, Mourinho already mess up with his changing of footballing style at the wrong period, players are just...sigh.
All in all, the United that most of us love, attached to, the mystique, the history seems to be gone/lost. We had those even when Glazer bought us because we still has SAF. Now, those sentiments/emotions are gone. I feel really indifferent toward United especially this year or at least that's what i keep telling myself. But somehow i can't keep my urge of keeping track of what United doing, then, only to realize again and again that it's not very much the same United that makes me mesmerize and fall in love with anymore.