Man Utd’s Banter Era: 2013-2022
Daniel Edwards
- Updated: 20 Sept 2022 19:37 BST
- 5 min read
The Sir Alex Ferguson era at Manchester United was notable both for its longevity and unparalleled success, as the Scotsman and his team cast a long shadow over English football.
But what followed was somewhat less distinguished for the Premier League giants: 2013-2022, the Red Devils' Banter Era.
United were already arguably on the slide during the final years of Ferguson's tenure, in spite of taking the title in 2012-13 to send the venerable manager off in style.
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Few, though, could have predicted just how quickly things would fall apart in his absence, or just how steep - and, for rival fans everywhere, hilarious - the slide would be.
Ferguson's anointed successor David Moyes was the one who set the Banter Era in motion.
A decent enough manager at the right kind of team, Moyes found himself hopelessly out of his depth at Old Trafford. Nor was the fellow Scot aided from the boardroom, with Maroune Fellaini the only big signing afforded to him at the start of his tenure to renew a tiring team.
Symbols of the Banter Era
Moyes was shown the door at the end of his first season after finishing a lowly seventh, but United's problems were only beginning.
Fellaini became one of the symbols of this new era, his lumbering gait, giant hair and ineffective football indicative of a team that was transformed from fearsome competitor to a bit of a joke.
But he was not the only banter standard-bearer. There was Alexis Sanchez, proudly snatched from under the noses of Manchester City only to turn into one of United's worst signings in history and ultimately shunted off to Inter 18 months later.
Angel Di Maria too was expected to bring the glory days back to Old Trafford but instead flopped spectacularly amid clashes with Moyes' successor, Louis van Gaal - the "worst coach I've ever had", he would claim years later - and has since rarely missed the chance to emphasise how miserable life in Manchester was before he rediscovered his best form at Paris Saint-Germain.
Romelu Lukaku, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Radamel Falcao, Memphis Depay, even Paul Pogba, who eternally flattered to deceive under a succession of bosses: the list of top talents who failed to live up to expectations goes on and on.
And then there is the ultimate banter hero, one Phil Jones. Only three times in his decade at Old Trafford has the hapless defender been trusted to make more than 20 Premier League appearances in a single season, the last coming all the way back in 2017-18.
But he is still going strong, drawing the giant contract which was inexplicably extended three years ago and waiting patiently for the chance to play a game, any game, this term.
No surprise, then, that a succession of managers have failed to bring back the glory days. Two second-placed finishes in nine seasons and one win a piece in the FA Cup, Carabao Cup and Europa League represent the entire list of achievements over the banter era, scant reward for a net spend that this summer reached £1.1 billion for the past decade.
Money has never been the big issue at Old Trafford, of course, but rather using it sensibly.
And whether it is handed out big contract extensions to untested Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, only to sack him barely a year later, or break the bank on 36-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo and in the process destroy a promising team, the missteps are almost beyond count. No wonder Ed Woodward, erstwhile vice-chairman and transfer guru, left United as probably the most hated man in Manchester thanks to his years of mismanagement.
A new beginning?
Fans of the Banter Era were thus licking their lips this summer when the Portuguese headlined the latest installment of the tragicomedy with his petulant, public crusade to force a move.
That was all promising, as was United's disastrous start to the year with back-to-back defeats to Brighton and Brentford and the bewildering number of players linked to the club in a familiarly chaotic transfer window.
Whisper it quietly, though, but there is hope the worst may be over. Against all odds Erik ten Hag is managing to impose at least a semblance of order over the club and, with four straight league wins and Ronaldo safely confined to the bench, the Reds are finally looking like a football club again and not a cabaret act.
Is this the end of the Banter Era, then? Perhaps, or perhaps not. False dawns, after all, under Mourinho, Solskjaer and now the Dutchman, have been a staple of the last decade, and only time will tell if normal service will eventually resume.
But wherever Ten Hag leads his newly confident charges, the memory of the past nine years of underachievement and implosion will remain as a shining example of how not to run a major football club.
