So here we are again. Manchester United is in a new crisis after six losses in 10 games. The last one came two years ago with Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Now several of the names are new, but the drama is the same as before. Here is the paradox: United have the most titles in England’s top flight, the most fans in the stands, and several billion kroner set aside for player purchases every summer. It must be a coach’s dream job. But for 10 years they have failed one by one. United have become the sword no one can pull out of the stone. It can no longer just be the candidates that have something wrong with them. It is the task that is impossible. Waste and misses Of course it is tempting to blame coach Erik ten Hag. On Tuesday, United lost 3-2 at home at Old Trafford against Turkish Galatasaray, in a chaotic match that resembled a video game where the teams were ruled by two overtired seven-year-olds. United must be better now than last season, when they took a fine third place. They were on a shopping trip this summer. Should we get some good players back for NOK 2 billion? HARD TIMES: Multiple millions on the transfer market, but the sporting redemption is missing. Photo: JASON CAIRNDUFF / Reuters But this start to the season is the club’s worst since 1986. Marcus Rashford wastes and misses. Casemiro, the 31-year-old midfield boss, plays like he was 41. And then you can blame the coach. Wrong tactic. Wrong switch. Or talk about bad luck: United have had 16 players out with illness and injury, and are without their two best left-backs. But if you take a few steps back, these become small details in a bigger picture. Very few of those who end up at United appear as a better version of themselves. Art in Amsterdam Ta Ten Hag. In Ajax, he built a team that played with the precision of a Swiss watch movement. The system was organized and disciplined, but it was still art. How can the same man be behind the mess of a team that collapsed against Galatasaray? Ten Hag has not become a worse tactician. He just changed clubs. He is the latest in a line of coaches that began when the legendary Alex Ferguson stepped down in 2013. Four have entered the doors with a plan, and left with shattered dreams and grayer hair. Towards the end, David Moyes watched the games as if they were in a horror movie – and it wasn’t far from the truth. BAD MEMORIES: The time at United was far from rosy for David Moyes. Photo: Sang Tan / AP Then we have the players. Why does almost nobody get better at United? In Liverpool and Manchester City, promising signings move into more professional environments with better coaches, teammates and facilities. The two teams recruit well, but good players who go to good clubs also quickly become even better. In United, this is the exception. The winger Jadon Sancho has gone from super talent to flop. The self-confident goalkeeper André Onana appears to be a nervous wreck. Stopper Harry Maguire was wanted by Pep Guardiola when United bought him for NOK 850 million in 2019. Now he is sixth choice. Some acquisitions have lifted the team in the last 10 years, but they are few. Old Trafford has become football’s answer to the Bermuda Triangle, a place where careers mysteriously crash. Must be operated on Why? Most agree that the unpopular Glazer family, who own the club, must get out as soon as possible. The debt is one thing, but in terms of sport they are accused of hiring people who don’t know enough about football, which gives the coach hopeless working conditions. From the outside, we do not see the processes that lead to United spending NOK 700 million on Mason Mount. But we know what previous coaches have said. In 2019, José Mourinho claimed that the second place he had managed with United the year before was one of his greatest achievements as a coach. This was a guy who had won the Champions League with Porto and taken Inter to the treble. It seemed like a joke. But he was serious. – People don’t know what happens behind the scenes, Mourinho said. DIFFICULT WORK: José Mourinho has experience from several of the biggest clubs in the world. Here from his time as United manager. Photo: CARL RECINE / Reuters Louis van Gaal complained about the structure around him. Ole Gunnar Solskjær recently called the job “very difficult”. And it’s been a year and a half since Ralf Rangnick said the club needed “open heart surgery”. Bad atmosphere Ten Hag knew this when he entered. When he was interviewed for the job last year, he is said to have told United how much was wrong. And for a little while, it seemed like things were finally changing. Scouts quietly disappeared out the doors. New roles were handed out. Ed Woodward, who was in practice the general manager, had already been replaced by Richard Arnold. When United started to win, it looked like Ten Hag had got things sorted. – The most important thing for me was to change the culture, said Ten Hag, as if the job was done. IN TROUBLE: Can Erik ten Hag still turn the tide for Manchester United? Photo: OLI SCARFF / AFP But now United are in crisis again. The British newspaper The Independent writes about an internal atmosphere that is “poisoned”. – This is not us, Ten Hag said of the team after the loss against Galatasaray. Deep valleys But this is United – as a club. It is a rollercoaster where the mountains are never high enough to lift the team towards major titles, and where the valleys drag them into crisis. They are not alone: in France, no one gets used to Paris Saint-Germain, and Barcelona was impossible to train towards the end of the regime of president Josep Maria Bartomeu. The culture in a club often comes from the top. Some of them just have a management that makes the coaching job impossible. The hope was that Ten Hag would crack the code. It seemed so promising before the summer. Even if he were to lift the team in the next few weeks – they cannot possibly continue like this – United are far from teams like City and Arsenal. United fans will therefore have to wait for the Glazer family to sell the club, which has been talked about for almost a year. When United last opened the season so poorly, in 1986, it was the hook on the door for coach Ron Atkinson. In came a fiery Scotsman named Alex Ferguson. Ferguson became the first coach to win the league under the Glazer family. Probably he will also remain the last.
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