Manchester united: is it a cursed club? | OneFootball

We were having a conversation in the attacking football group chat yesterday after Rasmus Højlund scored his second goal against Sporting in the Champions League. One of my friends in the group chat has said Manchester United are cursed.

That word led me thinking, is the club really cursed? why does it seem that nothing ever works us for the club? Managers have been changed, squads have been changed, the owners have been changed and still nothing seems to work.

A Fanbase Buried in Revisionism

You open Manchester United twitter and you will find highlights of Marcus Rashford tearing it apart for Barcelona, Højlund and Mctominay tearing it apart for Napoli, Elanga cooking for Newcastle, and everyone is looking at Manchester United and thinking: Oh but why no player can succeed here?

This fan is old enough to remember Fabian Barthez, Laurent Blanc (two world cup winners), Juan Sebastian Veron and Diego Forlan coming in in Sir Alex Ferguson managed Manchester United teams and failing miserably? Was Sir Alex Ferguson a bad manager? Was the environment around the team bad? Were Barthez, Blanc, Veron and Forlan bad players? The answer to the three questions is a simple No. Sometimes players do not work out in certain clubs. They do not get comfortable in a certain country. It has nothing to do with the club, the manager or actually the quality of the player.

I am one of the few people who actually said that Højlund is a good player when every one on twitter was calling for his head. I am the one who wrote a farewell to Marcus Rashford.

I always believed in these players talents. Yet, sometimes players are not able to handle the pressure cooker that is Manchester United. With all due respect to Napoli and Newcastle, the level of pressure is 1/1000 of the one at Manchester United. This pressure sometimes eats players alive and they need a calmer and a more stable environment to succeed. The level of pressure in Manchester United is similar to the one at Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, clubs where losing one game represents the end of the world. Even at Liverpool, the level of pressure is not like Manchester United.

Can you imagine a £116million Florian Wirtz with no goals and assists at Manchester United after nine games and the media is not even criticizing him?

Who left Manchester United and went on to any of Europe top clubs and had a successful career? the number of players is ZERO. Sometimes players are talented and good but not good enough to play at the top level. There is no need for revisionism. This also goes for managers.

Manchester United Failed Managers experiences

Again if you look at twitter, you will find videos of Ole Gunner Solskjaer games and people reminiscing at it. You will find statistics about Erik ten Hag 30 games at home unbeaten run. You will find people defending Ruben Amorim citing his record and success at Sporting.

While it is fine to acknowledge Amorim and ten Hag success in their own homes, it is also needed to acknowledge that the difference of quality between their teams and the mid/bottom leveled teams in their own respective league is massive. They did not have the same advantage at Manchester United.

If the problem was at Manchester United, why did Ole get sacked at Besiktas with less than a year in charge? Why did Erik ten Hag get sacked after Bayer Leverkusen after two games in charge? Did Moyes take charge of a top club after leaving Manchester United? Did Mourinho return back to training at the top level after leaving the Red Devils? It is fine to acknowledge that these managers gave been good before Manchester United yet also accepting the fact that they are not cut out for the top level. Manchester United is a different machine, not anyone can succeed here.

That argument will hold if these managers left Manchester United and succeeded, yet no one succeeded at the top level after leaving the club.

A FEAR OF SACKING MANAGERS

If you look at Manchester United, you feel a scare of sacking a manager. It is like everyone is holding onto the hope that whoever manager is gonna turn all of a sudden with a magical touch.

Yet, I decided to take a look at other Premier League top clubs before settling on their managers. I tried to research Chelsea but it was too much to be honest so just opted that the Blues had four permanent managers since Clearlake came in 2022. I will not try to do the same for the Abrahmovic era.

Abu Dhabi Football group has hired Marc Hughes, Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pelligrini before scooping Pep Guardiola. FSG hired Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish, Brendan Rodgers from July 2010 to October 2015 before finding Klopp. Real Madrid had 10 permanent managers in the last 15 years. Bayern Munich had 13 managers since 2008. It is a myth that big clubs do not sack managers when they prove they are not up to the job. The only club which stuck to a manager who has not won anything is Arsenal with Arteta and guess what, they haven’t won anything since that FA Cup in 2020.

Some people would sit here and say, what do you do, should you keep sacking managers? The answer s simple: A RESOUNDING YES. Keep sacking the managers till you find the right guy. Do not keep going with a mistake in the hope it is gonna fix itself because guess what: it does not.

Who Is the Right Guy?

Some people will read this article and say which manager would you choose Mr smart guy (in a sarcastic way. Well, I am not paid millions to make that choice so it is not my job.

Yet Manchester United is not a place for trials. A manager of the Red Devils should have experience in the top 3 4 leagues in Europe (Serie A, La Liga, Bundesliga and Premier League).

The manager of Manchester United should be a proven winner and someone who is able to handle the media. This is not the club for niche trials nor the club where managers/players come to discover their foot in world football. Manchester United is the end game and the board should do well to remember that when they choose their next manager.

The club is not cursed, the club is mired in a cycle of wrong decisions and lack of ruthlessness. Manchester is buried under a cycle of revisionism and the hope that any manager/player if given time can turn magically to be the next Sir Alex Ferguson or the next Cristiano Ronaldo.

Well, as long as the fanbase and the club keep dreaming that everything will magically turn around without setting the standards and applying ruthlessness, nothing will change.

INEOS sacked Dan Ashworth after three months in charge. They have made a lot of staff redundant, they need to remember that ruthlessness when the decisions come to managers and players. Enough with treating the club as a nursery.

Time has to be earned and all the players/managers who the fanbase are doing revisionism on have already overstayed their welcome.