What links Jack Robson, Lal Hilditch, Herbert Bamlett and Ruben Amorim?
They’re the only permanent managers in Manchester United history with a career negative goal-difference. Other than Amorim, the other three worked between 1914 and 1931. Sunday’s FA Cup exit against Fulham, admittedly, did not contribute to that. It was possible, even, in the aftermath of a penalty shootout defeat, to argue it had been one of United’s better recent performances. They’ve only lost two of their previous eight games. But it’s also just 3 March and United already have no chance of winning any domestic competition this season.
Manchester City aside, the FA Cup is now pleasingly free of superclubs; any of the other seven quarter-finalists would relish a rare trip to Wembley in May. None of those other seven have won anything since Villa won the League Cup in 1996. This is a season in which the competition will have a real sense of meaning something, which might be a sign of the strength of the Premier League’s middle, or of the struggles of the elite, or a one-off caused by a combination of draw and calendar.
For United, all that remains is the Europa League – and Real Sociedad will provide stiff opposition in the last 16 on Thursday. But to this United, so would anybody. The club now also has the task of closing a 10-point gap on Brighton and Bournemouth that might get them into at least the Europa Conference League for next season. Winning the Europa League, quite apart from the emotional boost of a trophy and a night of celebration in Bilbao in May, would also bring qualification for next season’s Champions League and an injection of about £160m, desperately needed for a club that lost £113.2m last year, and which over the last three years has lost almost three times the £105m permitted under Profit & Sustainability Regulations. Certain aspects of that can be discounted for PSR calculations which means United are unlikely to be in breach in this window, but the situation is far from healthy.
A year after buying a quarter of the club and taking over management of the football side of the business, Jim Ratcliffe’s reign has been notable for job losses and penny-pinching that has devastated morale, removing minor perks from staff, upping ticket prices and withdrawing concessions, while at the same time indulging in costly reshuffles of the directorial classes. The executives get huge salaries and payoffs for turning the richest club in England into a laughingstock; the ordinary worker lives in fear of the sack and sees their lunches turned into fruit or soup and bread while the office is being warned over its excessive use of tape. Welcome to modern capitalism.
As United sank to eighth last season, their worst league finish since 1990, the FA Cup offered rare cheer. There was the absurd 4-3 victory over Liverpool in the sixth round, with Amad Diallo’s 120th-minute winner, and an almost equally ridiculous penalty shootout win against Coventry in the semi, coming from 3-0 down and then seeing their opponents have a late winner ruled out for a marginal offside. Then there was a far better performance in the final, a controlled 2-1 win over Manchester City that offered enough apparent reason for optimism that, despite the club interviewing various potential replacements, kept Erik ten Hag in the job until October. That was also a decision that cost £14.5m in paying off his contract and the loss of the sporting director, Dan Ashworth, plus an additional £180m in transfer fees for players who may or may not – mostly not you’d have to say at this stage – fit how the new manager wants to play. But, you know, mind how much tape you’re using on that.
At least any decision on Amorim’s future can be made without the emotional complications of a euphoric afternoon out at Wembley – although frankly it’s very hard to know what it can be based on. Sunday may not have been too bad by recent standards but it wasn’t good. United were reduced to playing on the counter at home against Fulham, while conceding from a corner for the 13th time this season. Chido Obi showed promise from the bench, but already there was the sense of the familiar United cycle beginning: an exciting 17-year-old burdened with the expectation to be overplayed and broken in the way so many possible messiahs have been over the past decade.
There was a widespread acceptance that in learning an entirely new system under Amorim, United would have to get worse to get better. The first part of that, at least, has been achieved. But United are 14th in the league, which would be their worst finish since they were relegated in 1974. Is there any sign things are getting better? Is there any reason beyond blind faith and the lack of an alternative to think this will end well? And, perhaps most pertinently of all, would you trust Jim Ratcliffe and his politburo to be able to discern it if there were?
On this day …
Nottingham Forest v Manchester City, 3 March 1990. Gary Crosby, the Forest winger, made a run in from the left flank, hoping to get on the end of a cross from the right from Garry Parker. But Andy Dibble, the City goalkeeper, claimed the cross and Crosby’s run was for nothing. His momentum took him off the pitch and, crucially, out of Dibble’s eyeline. Dibble waited, letting everybody get up field before he launched a long kick into the Forest half. Thinking his box was empty, he relaxed, holding the ball on the palm of his right hand. But Crosby was still jogging back. As he passed Dibble, he leaned in, nodded the ball off his hand, and knocked it into the empty net.
The referee Roger Gifford allowed the goal, determining that Dibble no longer had it under control. The convention was that, once a keeper had taken it in two hands, it was under his control until he had cleared it – essentially to prevent players trying to nick it off him as he tossed it up to drop-kick. Dibble’s act fell into a grey area – although it’s almost certain the goal would not be allowed today. Forest won 1-0, but both teams finished in midtable.
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This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.
Article by:Source: Jonathan Wilson
