How do you fix a club like Manchester United?

Before the start of the 2019/2020 Premier League season, Sky Sports, as they always do, aired their latest montage in an effort to launch the upcoming football campaign. These high-octane and sometimes stirring promotional videos are designed to get adrenaline coursing through the veins of football fans in anticipation of the new season ahead. In this particular one, the message was simple but hugely compelling: new season, new hope.

The Odds Are Back In Town

This is, in essence, is what keeps supporters coming back season after season, even if a decaying trend has set in at their club. Indeed, there is always a chance that the good times are just around the corner once more, but until such a time, fans will be fueled by faith and faith alone. In Manchester United’s case, for example, that faith has been all but extinguished after just one game with the latest Premiership winner odds listing the Red Devils at +7900 to win the league.

Down and Out

Essentially, it only took ninety minutes during a loss against Brighton at Old Trafford to remind the world that this is a club that is fundamentally still broken and on its knees. How then do you fix a club like Manchester United?

You may argue that these barren times were always going to arrive at Old Trafford after the glory years under Sir Alex Ferguson when United racked up an unprecedented 13 Premier League titles. To some degree, that is true given that the greatest sporting dynasties always come to an end. However, that doesn’t mean that a club has to become unrecognizable whilst they plot their way back to the top.

As far as the Red Devils go, they’re a shadow of the club that dominated English football, despite spending in excess of $1 billion on new players since Ferguson retired in 2013. If anything, with every new player that arrives at United’s Carrington training ground, the club loses a bit more of its identity, which indicates that the recruitment is drastically out of sync with the traditions of an institution like Manchester United.

Put another way, the personnel in the building are incapable of carrying the club forward or indeed returning it to a place where they are able to compete with England’s elite once more.

With this in mind, you could say that the way out of this limbo is for the club to begin building a new squad whilst conducting a wholesale clearout. That, however, is a lot easier said than done with uninterested players on long and lucrative contracts not prepared to leave. In reality, this means that the same level of underwhelming performance will persist which will ultimately fall on the incumbent manager’s head.

In this instance, Erik ten Hag is already feeling the pressure owing to his side’s loss on the opening day of the season and you feel that this cycle is in danger of repeating itself. Indeed, a highly talented and driven manager could once again be sacrificed in favor of an unmotivated squad. As initially alluded to, how do you fix a club like Manchester United when there is so much that is broken? There are no easy answers but perhaps time is the eventual answer.