MANCHESTER UNITED BROKEN BUT THE RECOVERY HAS BEGUN

Matt Busby, Jimmy Murphy, Walter Crickmer, Matt Mcguinness, Dave Saxton, Sir Alex Ferguson, Loui Van Gaal, the list still has a couple more names that could be mentioned but the point is that these are list of names of pure mortal men whom at one point or the other were brave enough to lead a mountain of a club known today as Manchester United. 

Some of these historical managers were not always successful in their tenure at Old Trafford and Manchester United has had similar difficult periods filled with the dry well of success such as the one the club is still currently facing. Turbulent periods are a common reality for healthy football clubs not just in the Premier League but around the continent of Europe in general. Competition brings struggle, struggle breeds improvements, improvements escorts time, time is created with patience and patience (with hard work and the right amount of attacking strategy) will more than likely lead Manchester United back to becoming champions in the Premier League and (or) champions in Europe. One true aspect of Manchester United’s reality that must never be overlooked is how Vitaly important the support and opinions of the Manchester United fans continues to play in each and every season of football Manchester United football club has experienced and continues to experience.              

  “We will go down with the ship or we will help sail the ship to victory” appears to be the ideology around Manchester United supporters. Support of a football club has never been a far-fetched trait to find in football fans. In fact, support is pretty much the basic quality of being a football fan. Frankly the basic essential of being a football supporter is right there in the name Support! How much easier could understanding the phrase "club supporter" be? When a team is successful supporters cheer the team on and encourage the team to retain that hunger to succeed. When a team fails, good supporters encourage the team to rise up again and prepare to succeed in the teams next challenge. A good team thrives off the backing from their supporters, a successful team thrives from acknowledging the backing from their supporters and supporters thrive off the success of their team.  YIN & YANG! So should Manchester United consider themselves successful or yet to be successful in recent times? Hard to say.

                             

A single good look at the current state of Manchester United football club today and the received perception might be one of a club facing frustration with a hint of anger and disappointment. Understandable considering the feeling of being dethroned and the struggle of completing the ultimate come back story that currently remains the elusive incomplete stage for the past four years, natural for the club to experience a good helping of anger and frustrations along the way. Disharmony and fall outs between a struggling Manchester United team and the Manchester United supporters are more than likely to show up during a period of so much unfulfilled potential. After all, who wants to be devoted to a team who are not moving forward progressively enough? 

If you look deep within the surface the question can be asked: Have Manchester United been progressive enough to ruffle the feathers of the fans in the past four years till now? Watching a Manchester United team batter a newly promoted Fulham team should be considered impressive but apparently not impressive enough to inspire the Manchester United fan base to believe Manchester United can knick the Premier League Trophy this season. Hard to believe but that has been some of the opinions of voices around Manchester United. The lack of steady optimism around Old Trafford is believed to be rooted in the idea that Manchester United is run by a number of people whom arguably favor little actions that add a couple more zeroes on their bank account than investing on big-time decisions that will lead Manchester United to mount a massive return to the peak of the Premier League and the UEFA Champions League. 

Shelling at least £38 a game might not seem like a lot for the middle class Manchester United fan who spends at least £50 for the far more better seats in a stadium but for the Average fan who survives on a dollar a day possibly, spending £38 regularly on the weekends for a seat to see the recently released Ex-Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United team take to the stadium and struggle against beatable opponents will most likely swing the emotions of the fans from high optimism to  pure pessimism. £38 a match! Who would not be angry at watching a giant football club such as Manchester United struggle to perform at an elite level after paying such an accumulative amount of money? Let’s not forget the season tickets which sell at a rate of £399 minimum for the young adults and £380 for the younger fans. 

Considering the expensive rate these tickets sell for and the level of difficulty the middle-class young men and women endure to hold down a 9-5 job in this modern era, the frustration seen from the fans after any unreasonable bad performance from former manager  Jose Mourinho’s men starts to make sense. The performance from Manchester United football sought of makes sense to a certain level but then if you stop to think about the performance level gotten from such a massive club such as Manchester United questions about the clubs poor performance starts to pop up radically. The slow start to the season we witnessed by Manchester United makes sense to a certain extent due to the number of injuries Manchester United faced this season. The likely truth might be that the fans will refuse to accept injury crisis as any sought of excuse for Manchester United's current position outside the top 4 spots in the Premier League table. In the eyes on the Fans spending 380 pounds each season to watch a club with so much talented star players dwelling in their roster sitting outside the top four in the Premier League table and watching Manchester United fail to lift the UEFA Champions League Trophy for the past decade is simply not enough. Any fan spending £399 a season deserves to see better results than what Manchester United is currently producing at least for every two seasons.

  In conclusion, there is no season that will not be packed with difficulties and although the current, long, barren of success facing Manchester United football club is a bit irregular considering the quality of players Manchester United have in their arsenal. However, the fans cannot afford to defer from backing the team because should the fans absorb from pushing the club to greater heights Manchester United could face a situation far worse than poor football being played by the team. The fans are well within their rights to demand success from a team equipped with the tools to succeed. However, acknowledging the teams' efforts, understanding the high intense quality 90% of clubs around Europe operate on today will create some roadblocks for Manchester United is also a way of instigating success on Old Trafford. Succeed or fail, whatever the outcome might be in short term is of little relevance. What is important is that Manchester United maintain a fair level of communication between the Manager, the Players, and the fans. The involvement of the Manchester United hierarchy is of little importance to the current trophy targeting project due to the owners' insistent financial favoritism helped by Manchester United's mediocre to decent top 4 finish. Champions are made by the performance of the players and the undying demand from the fans for quality performance from the Manchester United players which more often than none leads to success. As previously stated, Manchester United fans are well within their rights to demand success from a team equipped with the tools to succeed. However, demanding success must be mixed with the understanding that the players and manager are humans, not androids. Mistakes are bound to occur in the season but the fans must not fall victim to abandoning positivity and instead injecting constant negativity into Old Trafford.

 Manchester United is on the right track back to success just like the progress chart beautifully diagnosed by one Adam Smit of SkySports on March 2018, Manchester United had improved while Jose Mourinho was still manager at Old Trafford. However, the competition in the Barclays Premier League as well as the competition around Europe, unfortunately, keep improving along with Manchester United and Jose Mourinho’s slow improvement just was not enough to keep him on the job at Old Trafford. Success is written Manchester United's grasp and hopefully the next Manchester United manager understands that isolation from the Manchester United fans, as well as Isolation from the opinions of some of today's sports pundits, is not the best route to take and the same thought process apply for the Sports analysts and Manchester United fans as well. 



Success will be gotten through acknowledgment and understanding for all parties involved at Old Trafford. Without understanding from both the Manchester United team and the Manchester United fans, Old Trafford might face a future with problems far worse than a 5^th place finish.