It was John Cleese, in Clockwise, who said: "I
can take the despair. It's the hope I can't
stand." Manchester United fans would beg to
differ. Usually, the best thing about pre-season
is the hope: reality's incisors have yet to
pierce the gums of optimism, and fans can live
off the balmy, often barmy belief that this is
their year. For supporters of most of the other
91 English clubs, that's the mood right now. For
United fans? Forget it. After three seasons of
papering over the cracks, it seems most United
fans are awaiting the moment that the fault lines
tracing a veiny path across Old Trafford are exposed.
Almost everything about the club reeks of
disarray. Owned by the Glazers, who push buttons
from a remote hideaway like Dr Evil; run by a
manager who shreds his legacy at every turn;
almost exclusively represented by the inadequate
(Kieran Richardson) and the odious (Rio
Ferdinand); unable to close a deal for West
Brom's reserve keeper, never mind the new Roy
Keane. The signing of Michael Carrick, a Pirlo
when a Gattuso was needed, is a band aid for a
bullet wound, and a ludicrously expensive one at that.
If anything, it's a surprise that United have
bought anyone at all. This summer, they have been
like a pathetic drunk lumbering across a
dancefloor at 1.45am, trying to get off with
everything that moves. No matter how many people
they move in for - and if reports are to be
believed, United have made offers for dozens of
players - nobody wants to go near them. And the
one person who surely would, Damien Duff, was
allowed to slip into the arms of Newcastle for
less than United paid for Patrice Evra. You
couldn't make it up. You don't have to.
United finished second last season, but that said
more about the deficiency of the Premiership than
their own. Arsenal will not have a four-month
blind spot this season, while all evidence
suggests that Liverpool's gradient will continue
on its upward trajectory. With Tottenham getting
stronger, even with the loss of Carrick, it is
entirely conceivable that, if they start slowly,
United could finish fifth; in today's environment, that would be disastrous.
The problems are so obvious, so fundamental, as
to be beggar belief that they have not been
addressed. Just as the glory years of 1992 to
2001 will only fully be appreciated in 20 years'
time, so will Ferguson's subsequent failure. It
is particularly bewildering that a man who once
exerted such an unyielding grip on every single
aspect of the club that he had to be virtually
coerced into delegating has let things slip to
this extent. Take the Cristiano Ronaldo
situation: Ferguson said recently that he had not
even spoken to Ronaldo since the World Cup, a
staggering dereliction of duty that is in total
contrast to the us-against-the-world protection
that he gave to David Beckham - and for which,
for a time, he was so thrillingly rewarded - in 1998.
Once upon a time Ferguson could play 'who blinks
first' with fate and win every time, his iron
will shaping his destiny exactly as he wanted.
Now he is reduced to uttering garbage like "it's
like having a new signing" of Paul Scholes, Ole
Solskjaer, Gabriel Heinze and Alan Smith, the
irrational if-I-say-it-enough-it-might-happen
gibberish you'd associate with a serial loser
like Kevin Keegan. These days, the man they call
The Hairdryer is full of nothing but hot air.
Ferguson's squad, once so taut, is a baggy mess
of has-beens, never-will-bes and Liam Miller. The
simple repetition of 4-4-2, of Giggs, Scholes,
Keane, Beckham, Cole and Yorke, has given way to
myriad tactical and personnel changes, to a
ruinous obsession with utility players and
tinkering. It's a truly appalling fact that, with
Ruud van Nistelrooy gone, none of United's
outfield players have played in only one position
at the club. A nadir was reached in the FA Cup
game at Wolves last season, when nearly £60m of
defensive and attacking talent (Ferdinand and
Wayne Rooney) was used in the centre of midfield.
It is an increasingly inescapable conclusion
that, unwittingly or otherwise, Ferguson is
winding down, a prizefighter who no longer has
the stomach or the wit for an admittedly enormous
challenge which, once upon a time, he would have
fervently inhaled. Like he did with Liverpool.
Ferguson's almost maniacal yearning to "knock
Liverpool off their fucking perch" was arguably
the single most important factor in United's
1990s renaissance. It makes it all the more
vicious an irony that, 10 years later, he should
knock United off the perch he had made for them
through increasingly rank mismanagement.
Indeed, it must irk him beyond belief that United
are making exactly the same mistakes that
Liverpool did: lack of pheromones in the transfer
market; laughable, fall-back signings at
suspicious and ridiculous prices; deluded
ramblings ("we are as good as Chelsea, no
question") - and, worst of all, a dressing-room
where playing the field seems as important as
playing the game. Liverpool's Spice Boys were
bad, but they have nothing on Merk Berks like
Ferdinand, Richardson and Wes Brown.
Ferguson has taken this end-of-an-empire template
and, incredibly, managed to develop it: he's
added a sprawling, outsized squad chock-full of
obscenely well-paid deadwood; insultingly obvious
spin that a two-year-old could see through (the
Van Nistelrooy saga); economy with the truth
(Ferguson ridiculed a journalist for saying that
Paul Scholes had been scouting for United; a few
days later Scholes confirmed the story); a
coaching set-up that had Wayne Rooney playing
wide for a season and turned Ronaldo from the
world's most thrilling off-the-wall talent into a run-of-the-mill winger.
Ferguson, an essentially honourable man, is
partly suffering because of the impossibly high
standards he set, and he carries the fatigued
incomprehension of a man who is out of time. When
he cites his favourite United team it is not the
Treble-winners of 1999, but the Double-winners of
1994: Schmeichel, Bruce, Pallister, Ince, Keane,
Hughes, Cantona, Robson - a team that dripped
masculinity, who bonded over blockbusting
Saturday-night sessions, who embodied the
old-school values to which Ferguson can relate.
Real men. The gentrification generation -
sarong-wearing, pink champagne-swigging
metrosexuals - are entirely beyond his
comprehension. He could handle one, David
Beckham, for a time before eventually giving up
on him. Now he has a pack of them, for whom the
hairdryer means only one thing - a trip to Toni &
Guy. It is a different world. Ferguson probably
doesn't even know what 'merk' means.
Everywhere, principles are being sacrificed. In
years gone by Ferdinand - who for all his
irrefutable ability is the type of character
whose presence in a United shirt symbolises
everything that has gone wrong with the club -
would've been out the door faster than Paul Ince
could say 'big-time Charlie', but now Ferguson
can't afford to lose his only world-class
defender. In years gone by he wouldn't have
considered signing someone like Patrick Vieira,
on grounds of age or character, but now he is
left looking for someone, anyone, to appease the
fans. In years gone by he would never have given
a game to someone like John O'Shea, whose sole
use is to put the podge in a hodgepodge midfield.
In years gone by, he would never have sanctioned
the mediocre football that, except for a few
giddy weeks in the spring of 2003, United have
played ever since Carlos Queiroz arrived in 2002
spouting gobbledygook disguised as continental sophistication.
And the thing is, it is only going to get worse:
Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham have all made
shrewd, cheap signings and are going in one
direction. United are going the other way: they
are hugely dependent on Ferdinand and Rooney, but
no amount of Carling Cup medals is going to sate
their ambition. Then there is the Glazer factor,
the full, inevitable horror of which is only just
beginning to emerge. United fans think this
season is going to be bad. It hasn't even started.
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