Awakening a Giant, Heisenberg’s Task
Imagine if you would that you were a Manchester United fan leaving the Luzhniki Stadium on the 21st May, 2008 after watching your team secure a third champions league trophy, and then you fall hit your head and enter a coma. Now the year is 2022 and you have missed 14 years of football and naturally you will be looking to find out just how many trophy parades you’ve missed and maybe you have caught up to Liverpool’s Trophy count domestically and in Europe, but then you have to very important questions that need answering, first what the hell is a tiktok? and second, who is Erik Ten Hag?
In reality, yes though Manchester United would equal and even surpass the record for most domestic top league trophies, what would follow the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson would be a period of torment and trials which is not known to a fan base that has grown up knowing nothing but success, like that trust fund kid that had everything they asked for until they blew all their cash and now have to work part time McDonald’s.
It has been nothing more but mistake hiring after mistake hiring, first there was David Moyes who was way out of his depth and not even backed in the market to at least hide the fact he might be tactically inept for the role. Then came Louis Van Gaal who may have been past his prime and not given the player he wanted to at least get some form of his tactics across (they signed a player who didn’t want to be there and another who had just been rushed back from an ACL injury) and his time at United ended so disrespectfully and poorly he now actively warns other players from joining the club (just look at the Jurrien Timber saga). Then after unceremoniously sacking LVG right after winning the FA Cup, Man Utd decided to go for a manager who in the previous season had been sacked from the reigning champions because he had all but put them in a relegation battle, but still this was Jose Mourinho, the special one, surely he will be the solution, a serial winner and one of the greatest footballing minds of all time, it couldn’t possibly go wrong, unless he decided to play a boring outdated style of football mainly due to the fact you didn’t give him the tools he wanted or needed to succeed, guess how it ended. Finally came Ole Gunner Solskjaer a glorified Cheerleader and then Ralph Rangnick a man who is known to build clubs but wasn’t even given a chance to do that only leaving a legacy as a failed interim manager.
And now we have Erik Ten Hag, a manager carrying very high hopes and expectations from the Old Trafford faithful, but then given the track record in recent years, why are the fans so excited? Well firstly, there is a belief that it truly cannot get worse than the horror show from last season and then there is Ten Hag himself, a man of principle a man with a style of play that could in theory rival the best in the country and Europe, but the true hurdle comes from within.
If you paid attention to the run down of managerial failure, you would have noticed a pattern appear. The failure of Manchester United managers has been directly linked with the board and owners failing to back the managers especially with Ed Woodward in charge, and in all fairness to us fans, the backlash the club received is not unwarranted, nor is it the petty cries of a spoiled child who is no longer getting their way, that comatose fan was protesting the Glazer family all the way back in 2005 when they just took over and now the situation has gotten worse with protest reaching the homes of acting CEO’s Richard Arnold and Ed Woodward before him, even a pitch invasion that saw a Manchester United v Liverpool match postponed, a further sign that the fanbase has had enough.
So to save face, the Glazers went with the fans, they ditched long term target Mauricio Pochettino and went with Erik Ten Hag whom the fans were begging and screaming for. But despite this positive, the Ten Hag era has started off a bit patchy. The only way for United to succeed is to back the manager, the Glazers and Arnold made us believe that would be the case, but that was hard to believe given they couldn’t even buy a midfielder to help secure Champions League football at Ragnick’s request, and now they aren’t. even able to get a midfielder in to replace the comedy act of McFred because whether De Jong comes or not seems to be in the hands of fate, the failure to capture Timber and the reluctance to make bids earlier on that saw the prices of Martinez and Antony sky rocket, forcing a pricey buy for the former and lack of progress for the latter. A poor showing int he window has seen star Cristiano Ronaldo request his departure since he sees no ambition, a damning statement from your talisman and a less than ideal start for the new manager.
But despite all this, I remain optimistic for the season ahead, I know we wont win the League, I don’t think we will finish outside the top 4 though but it will be a long upward climb, there will be beautiful football returning but there will also be inconsistencies and that happens its okay, Pep lost 4-0 to Everton in his season and I need not even bring up the Stoke 6 Liverpool 1, but of course I will bring it up cause it was hilarious. This manager gives us a foundation, a bit of hope that we shall have a time where the sleeping giant of Manchester shall awaken again, his task for this season is to build a team, one that can be confident and begin to strike fear into the opponents, and his task for his tenure is to build a dynasty, to Make United Great Again, something which require the backing and help of the board and owner, and as it stands, that task will not be easy to achieve but who is to say that he cant do it? Everyone strap in, this shall be a bumpy ride, to bade we let Jesse go.