Man Utd in their post-d*ckhead era must ignore Scholes over Romero recommendation | OneFootball

It has been almost exactly three years since Manchester United wanted it known that they were adopting a ‘no dickheads policy’ as a consequence, we can only assume, of something Richard Arnold saw on LinkedIn.

Generally, if you have to spell out such a mandate, you’ve already got a problem. And United certainly did. On the basis of it taking one to know one, the Red Devils should have seen them coming a mile off and, this far down the road, there ought not to be a dickhead in sight.

For the most part, United have weeded them out. The tricky part was not swerving the temptation to recruit more dickheads, but dealing with the dickheads already in their midst.

Defining a dickhead is tricky indeed. Many of those who bang on about dickheads in a professional sport or corporate environment tend to be, well, dickheads.

What Arnold probably encountered during his doomscroll was something inspired by ex-All Blacks mental skills coach Gilbert Enoka, who more than a decade ago characterised dickheads as “people who out themselves ahead of the team, people who think they’re entitled to things or expect the rules to be different for them, people operating deceitfully in the dark, or being unnecessarily loud about their work”.

Enoka, by the way, was last seen working with England’s Ashes squad in Australia, seemingly proving you can’t help them all.

Give Ruben Amorim his dues, though; the ex-United manager might struggle to recognise a functioning game plan but he could pin a dickhead and, if he achieved nothing else – he didn’t – at least last summer he made four of them another club’s problem, if only for a season.

That isn’t to say that the United dressing room is a dickhead-free zone. And nor should it be. All of United’s greatest teams and many of their best-ever players had a bit of the dick about them. But these were dickheads who delivered. It is the dickheads that don’t deliver who must be dodged.

Which brings us to Cristian Romero.

Paul Scholes, like many whose dickhead era really began when he became a podcaster, would ‘love’ United to sign the Tottenham Hotspur captain, fresh off his red card at Old Trafford on Saturday.

We love Romero too. He’s great, isn’t he? And what’s most great about him is that he’s Tottenham’s problem when – pardon us for mixing our performance cliches – he just can’t control his dickhead chimp.

The door to that cage was ripped off its hinges on Saturday, when Romero was sent off less than half an hour into Spurs’ defeat to United. His timing, of the tackle and the act itself, was just awful for all involved.

Romero, as Scholes alluded, spent much of the build-up to a big game for Spurs having a pop at his paymasters. You can question his channel of choice, but he made some very fair points. Indeed, in the 29 minutes the captain spent before them, the Spurs fans sang ‘Romero’s right, the board are sh*te’ to endorse his message.

Then Romero completely undermined his own authority by acting the dickhead, putting his studs through Casemiro’s ankle to leave his manager even deeper in the sh*t. And Thomas Frank was already drowning in it.

Frank went out to bat for his captain in the aftermath of a defeat that leaves Tottenham on the same points as relegation battlers. Maybe it’s only a battle if you acknowledge it. Spurs, last year, just chucked in the league season, correctly assuming everyone else was terrible enough that they need not bother. Alarmingly, this season they are actually trying, but so is everyone else.

That doesn’t appear to be of great concern to Romero because, as Scholes points out, the captain has already checked out. Which is sure to have ramifications for Spurs and Frank. And it should when it comes to Romero’s options this summer.

For the sake of whoever is their manager next season, United cannot be among those suitors, in part because of the reasons Scholes himself listed.

The temptation is understandable. Romero is a very, very good central defender with a handy knack in both boxes. And, despite all the evidence to the contrary, Frank says his captain is a ‘young leader’ who will learn.

He’s not catching on quick, though, is he? Romero will be 28 by the start of next season having been a senior pro for a decade, half of which has been spent at Spurs, with 250-plus appearances across Serie A and the Premier League. He has been a World Cup winner for four years and will go to the United States in June with a half-century of Argentina caps.

The penny really ought to have dropped by now.

United, often for the wrong reasons, by now have too much previous when it comes to waiting for expensive dickheads to reform, so they should recognise trouble when they see it in Romero.

He is not a gamble United need to take. They already have one hot-headed Argentina centre-back and partners for Lisandro Martinez are not currently in short supply.

From Romero’s perspective too, it is not a move that makes sense. If the scrutiny at Spurs is a driver in his dickishness, where might the spotlight at United lead him?

Romero is also being linked with Atletico Madrid and, oh yes, that’s the stuff. Diego Simone and Atletico could be perfect for Romero. And if not, it will be even more spectacular still. We will find out what happens when an unstoppable dickhead meets an immovable dickhead.