Six reasons why Man Utd keep heading into crisis

Jacque Talbot

• 21 Sept 2023 11:20 BST
• 6 min read

There's a meme which is very apt where Manchester United is concerned right now.

It's a two-panel graphic of a dog navigating a PC. "What a lovely day on the internet," the dog says in the first panel. Followed by the second one. "Good Lord," he then says with an aghast expression. This is probably what a majority of Red Devils fans would have looked like stumbling across the latest Man Utd news over the past few weeks.

Even just this week, the stories have been disastrous. Doubts about Erik ten Hag have started to creep in with attacks by sections of the UK press; a former head coach has come out to slam the way in which the club is run, telling all to a reporter, Jadon Sancho was spotted playing FIFA Pro Clubs as his side prepared for their Champions League match against Bayern Munich - a game in which their new goalkeeper conceded that his mistakes were the reason they lost, all while half their squad are either injured or left out the side amid serious allegations from former girlfriends.

READ MORE: Onana is not Man Utd’s big problem – Lisandro Martinez is

Man Utd often seem like a team on the brink of an absolute crisis. Considering their time under Ralf Rangnick, a third-place finish last season and a League Cup win was a solid platform to build upon - but they have desperately failed so far.

Here we take a look at why - and how they can go about turning the ship in the opposite direction.

Media transparency

Dealing with the media is very important for billion-pound institutions. Public perception affects stocks and therefore profit. Man Utd are far too carefree about media briefs, though. There is no degree of holding stuff back or telling reporters just the half-truth for the sake of helping the side. They are more than happy to put out statements and character-assassinate their own players in national papers. While some of their own squad members protect their own necks by leaking stuff too, there is a wider sense of distrust among the staff and players and a lack of unity.

No regard for player personality

There are a number of glaring problems with their recruitment. Man Utd’s recruitment team don't look into the players' character before signing them. This has improved somewhat with Ten Hag through the door, but it's maddening to think they opted to spend £60 million on Mason Mount. The last thing Man Utd needed to do was take a punt on a player who was suffering confidence issues at Chelsea and would only be available for an inflated price.

Furthermore, there are a couple of elephants in the room in the form of Mason Greenwood and Antony. Those ongoing sagas were handled in a way that is not reflective of a big club in the slightest. Man Utd should be leading by example, but their behaviour around the issues has been pretty much as bad as it could've been.

Their size

It's not easy being an elite club. There are pressures at the board level, and commercial deals to consider. Man Utd can't just be Brighton. They don't have the ability to make a net spend of £16 million. But more importantly than that, Man Utd's legacy as one of the biggest teams in the world is often their undoing. There is constant pressure, whether that be against Real Madrid, Bayern, or Leeds. And when they don't it's a complete catastrophe. There is no nuance. We see Gary Neville, Roy Keane, or Paul Scholes tearing into the players and their displays. There is no margin for error, and that forges anxiety which in turn leads to poor displays.

The Glazers’ ownership

What people don't realise is that Man Utd make some of the highest revenues in the world. They can't get their head around the fact that the Glazers don't actually spend any of their own money. They don't put a single dime into the club. The Glazers treat Man Utd as a stream of revenue and nothing more. They do not care much for trophies or allowing the club to become respectable, i.e., sorting the dilapidated stadium and training ground.

Successful football clubs breed a winning culture from the head down, and this toxic aura that the Glazers bestow on the rest of the club absolutely seeps into the dressing room and then onto the pitch. Their decision to drag out the takeover into the second half of this year is a testament to their lack of care for the club they have owned for 18 years. Getting rid of them will allow the club to breathe once more.

Handing the keys to Ten Hag

It seems like Man Utd, after years of failure, decided that they needed a commander-in-chief. Recruitment had been awful - Harry Maguire (£81m), Sancho (£73m), Paul Pogba (£82m). It wasn't working. And so with this new man in charge, Ten Hag, the club was going to lend him almost total control of transfers.

But Ten Hag has got more wrong than he's got right - Antony for £82m might be the worst of the lot, and no - it wasn't the Glazers' fault in this case that they ended up overpaying; the fact is Ten Hag convinced the board that the fee Ajax demanded for the winger was entirely worth it.

Obviously, this has not been the case. Antony's fee meant in January Wout Weghorst had to be brought in on loan as their main No.9. Ten Hag's pursuit of Frenkie de Jong right until the end of the 2022 summer window almost hampered the club from making the right decisions - Casemiro for £60m was bordering on a panic buy. The club is in desperate need of a director of football or technical director to give Ten Hag guidance, allowing him to develop young players like Kobbie Mainoo, something that the coach is excellent at.

Absurd wage brackets

This appears to be getting sorted, in fairness. It was Ten Hag's insistence that Alejandro Garnacho wasn't given a £100k-a-week salary, but instead, a rolling deal of around £30k in which he will earn more as he scores, assists, and makes appearances. Monetary motivation is the way forward. It's bewildering to think that Sancho is on £350k as the club's highest-paid player - why was he offered that much? Would the former England international not have joined for £200k? Antony Martial is on £250k, which is also quite breath-taking. To put these into context, Declan Rice, Arsenal's marquee summer signing, is on £240k, while Virgil van Dijk is on £220k at Liverpool. The trouble is that they have built the foundations of this regime on absurd wage brackets, and it’s hard to undig the root of the problem.