Football club owners usually pick a side: profligacy or neglect. At Old Trafford, the walls are crumbling, the roof is leaking and Manchester United are not so much rising from those ashes as whimpering towards irrelevance.
The decline is best summed up in the trajectory of the forwards – but this is not another anti-tale of Glazer negligence. In the post-Ferguson era, United have spent £540m on attackers. None of them, not since Robin van Persie (26) in 2012-13 and before that, Wayne Rooney (27) the previous year, have scored 20 goals in a league season.
It is understood that Erik ten Hag will target another striker in January. That much is inevitable, with his current front line having contributed precisely one goal all season in the Premier League – from Marcus Rashford against Arsenal. Rasmus Hojlund is yet to score a league goal.
There is no other top-flight club in which its forwards are performing so badly. Erling Haaland has as many league goals as the entire United squad put together – they have registered just four more goals than basement club and lowest goalscorers Burnley.
How has that been allowed to happen? It has been a decade of absent-minded recruitment, managerial failures and over-spending. Agents who have worked with the club have sensed that desperation and panic had set in as soon as Sir Alex bowed out. And United have been exploited accordingly, priced out of sensible deals, over-charged for daft ones, and played off against other clubs.
Man Utd top scorers
Premier League goals
- 2023-24 – Bruno Fernandes, Scott McTominay (3)
- 2022-23 – Marcus Rashford (17)
- 2021-22 – Cristiano Ronaldo (18)
- 2020-21 – Bruno Fernandes (18)
- 2019-20 – Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial (17)
- 2018-19 – Paul Pogba (13)
- 2017-18 – Romelu Lukaku (16)
- 2016-17 – Zlatan Ibrahimovic (17)
- 2015-16 – Anthony Martial (11)
- 2014-15 – Wayne Rooney (12)
- 2013-14 – Wayne Rooney (17)
- 2012-13 – Robin van Persie (26)
Failed deals
The near misses should not make for pleasant reading for anyone within the boardroom. Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo were on United’s radar – both saw Liverpool as a more attractive proposition. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s pleas to sign a £4m Norwegian striker he had managed at Molde – Erling Haaland – fell on deaf ears.
Louis van Gaal first suggested signing Harry Kane in 2015. United’s interest remained until this summer, but when Tottenham were finally amenable to selling he was dismissed as too expensive given his age. The same rules did not apply to Hojlund at the other end of the spectrum.
The academy
United were not always so reliant on effective buying and selling. Yet the issue – that there was no enduring replacement for Rooney when his returns started to diminish – was not spotted quickly enough.
At the heart of United’s lack of long-term planning has been the demise of the academy. It is not an entirely fallow ground for the first team – see Rashford, Scott McTominay and Alejandro Garnacho – there is a fear behind closed doors that the youth set-up is no longer producing world-class players.
That has been reflected in the recent decision to advertise for two new scouts to identify 17 to 20-year-olds, and to bring in a new coaching staff structure for the academy’s professional development phase.
The job has been made harder by City’s success – United are not necessarily the most alluring club for youngsters in their postcode.
Of the promising forwards coming through in the past 10 years, many have ended up in the lower leagues and beyond: James Wilson (Port Vale), Will Keane (Preston North End), D’Mani Mellor (Sutton United).
Aside from Rashford, Mason Greenwood was the exception until his career stalled abruptly amid criminal allegations, which he denied. By even considering to keep him, the club did itself untold reputational damage but it was telling of their desperation to keep a talented striker in the absence of other alternatives.
The recruitment
It remains unclear, on any of those decisions, with whom the final decision lies. Football director John Murtough holds the most influence regarding transfers, but then there has also been Richard Arnold to contend with, the convivial outgoing CEO who meets angry fans in the pub and who will leave at the end of the year, by which time Sir Jim Ratcliffe is set to take control of football operations.
Cristiano Ronaldo once claimed that chief executive David Gill’s departure was just as significant as Ferguson’s. He may have been right. In came Ed Woodward on the back of his success in the club’s commercial department and in his first summer, he left David Moyes with nothing more than Marouane Fellaini.
The recruitment since, conjured up by Woodward, Murtough and Arnold, has flitted between expensive ill-fits – Memphis Depay and Antony (whom Murtough was reportedly warned against signing) – and quick fixes: Odion Ighalo, Wout Weghost, Edinson Cavani. Zlatan Ibrahimovic was an anomaly but his later injury problems were not unforeseeable.
There were the signings which were never going to work: the ravaged Radamel Falcao, a declining Alexis Sanchez. Angelo Henriquez, the Chilean striker brought in as a teenager in 2012, never made an appearance.
None carried the weight of expectation like Ronaldo, at once an immense PR coup and for both parties, a sign of how the mighty had fallen.
It would not have happened had Ronaldo not first agreed personal terms with City, but there was some logic to the perseverance with traditional “front man” signings.
United’s data gurus were alarmed by the numbers which shone a light on their lack of goals from set pieces. The evolution of Ronaldo’s role in Italy made him a prime candidate, albeit not one in his prime.
The managers
When Ten Hag arrived, he implemented a system incongruous with that static play. Nor was it the first time United’s recruitment was at odds with their managerial appointments.
Jose Mourinho was making it known that the club should never have sold Javier Hernandez, hardly a glowing review of the strikers available to him, which included £75m Romelu Lukaku, whom he had disregarded at Chelsea.
As early as 2018, Mourinho was content to sell Anthony Martial but with four different managers in that period (including interim Ralf Rangnick) the Frenchman remains. Likewise the uncertainty surrounding Ten Hag’s future has left a door ajar for Jadon Sancho, whose camp believe he could yet flourish under a different coach. There is also a sense that the blame lies, at least in part, with a broken midfield.
Ten Hag wanted Hojlund, who is still only 20, as part of what he has always seen as a five-year project but because he cost an upfront fee of £64m, he took up the bulk of United’s summer budget.
What next?
To fix that, the list of striker targets is extensive – and expensive. They are thought to include Napoli’s Victor Osimhen, Brentford’s Ivan Toney when he returns from his ban for betting offences, and Porto’s Mehdi Taremi.
Equally crucial will be the arrival of a new sporting director, to be ratified when the Ratcliffe deal is done. Newcastle will not entertain an approach for Dan Ashworth and while former Spurs Head of Recruitment Paul Mitchell is the frontrunner, United have also been looking at Crystal Palace’s Dougie Freedman.
That does not smack of a coherent wishlist, but proceedings at Old Trafford rarely make sense anymore. It has been a decade since the Stretford End cried “attack attack attack” and they knew who would respond. But it was easier for the Glazers to throw millions at the problem than to deal with it – especially when the money was never theirs to begin with.
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