A few anniversaries have been celebrated at Manchester United this week. On Wednesday it was 12 months since United signaled that Cristiano Ronaldo would leave the club by mutual consent; This statement was followed four hours later by news that the Glazers could increase their sales after officially launching a strategic review at Old Trafford.
Despite United’s enduring capacity for drama, it was an eventful day but both developments signaled the winds of change that would blow through the club and the possibility of a brighter future.
A club that has long allowed corrosive player power to take root now stands firmly behind its manager in his fight against its highest-profile and highest-earning star. At the same time, United fans dared to see a world beyond 18 years of hateful American owners. It turned out that brokers were targeting a sale in the first quarter of 2023.
United had won their eighth home game in 12 Premier League games before the mid-season break for the World Cup in Qatar; This series would gain new momentum after restarting with 15 wins in 19 matches and would conclude for the first time. the six-year-old cup, the Carabao Cup.
Discipline and unity were being restored by their progressive new manager Erik ten Hag, Old Trafford were rediscovering the fear factor, new signings Lisandro Martinez, Christian Eriksen and Casemiro hit the ground running and Marcus Rashford was soon to be in the form of his life. There was a lot of optimism.
Fans might have rightly wondered if they had been told that a year later, the club, having lost 9 in 18 games and struggling to score goals, would be beset by problems on and off the pitch and would still be under the control of the Glazers. What happened in the following period?
Likewise, in line with Manchester United’s misfortunes this season, their trip to Goodison Park this weekend is likely to be Everton’s first game as the club receive 10 points for breaching the Premier League’s financial rules.
Goodison hasn’t been the happiest hunting ground for United over the last few years, with just two wins and a couple of grisly defeats in their last five league visits. Now Ten Hag and his players can be fairly certain they will be entering the lion’s den given the sense of injustice in the scale of penalties imposed at the Merseyside club and with it the opportunity for Sean Dyche to create a siege mentality.
Five league wins before the international break earned Ten Hag at least something but the performances in all of those games were less than convincing and, as with most things at United at the moment, the feeling of fragility and uncertainty remains. .
The Everton match marks the start of a terrifying run of fixtures that suddenly look more testing. They will lose to Galatasaray in Istanbul next Wednesday and United will be eliminated from the Champions League. They will next face Newcastle, Chelsea, Bournemouth, Liverpool, West Ham and Aston Villa in the run-up to Christmas; This is a dangerous process that could help United improve their season if they come out of this season strongly, but it also has the potential to deepen their problems. If Galatasaray survive, they may need to do something at home against Bayern Munich and Harry Kane in their final Group A game to progress.
It was a pleasing development for Ten Hag that United’s much-missed left-back Luke Shaw returned to training this week; Goalkeeper Andre Onana should be ready for Everton despite returning early from international duty following an injury scare. But Ten Hag is still without Martinez and Casemiro, while Christian Eriksen and Rasmus Hojlund succumbed to injuries against Luton in the final game before the last international tour.
At the same time, Jadon Sancho remains in exile following a falling out with the manager at the beginning of September, and Rashford, Antony and many other attacking players signed by Mason Mount in the summer are out of form. United’s 13 goals in 12 league games are the fewest among the league’s top 12 and will become increasingly problematic as this continues.
Off the field, Richard Arnold stepped down as CEO after failing to recover from his inept handling of the Mason Greenwood saga; Sir Jim Ratcliffe hopes to finally complete his £1.3 billion purchase of a 25 per cent stake in the club. I’ve been trying for 12 months to get a deal done for the Glazers.
It’s not the revolution United fans are looking forward to and which raises more questions than answers, but they can’t help but hope it’s the beginning of a change they hope to believe was already underway this time last year.
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