We are where we are because the board changed its strategy. When Sir Jim Ratcliffe bought into Manchester United, he came with a very clear vision about what was wrong with the club and how he was going to fix it.
The first major issue his team identified was a lack of competent football people leading the club. To this end they sought out a new team of directors with experience in building competitive football clubs. Restructuring how the club was run, and charged with devising a long term plan to turn things around.
The second major issue was infrastructural development. The club’s facilities and stadium were outdated and not fit for purpose. They have made some progress with that too, although the new stadium is still a pipe dream.
The last major issue is probably the most glaring one: The club had not adapted to squad construction post Sir Alex Ferguson.
During the Ferguson era, the squad was constructed by the manager. That’s fine when you have a guy at the helm for decades. Since he retired, however, the club has jumped from manager to manager without changing its approach to squad construction.
We all know what this has resulted in; a new manager comes in with their own system, buys players for this system, gets fired, the next manager comes in with their own system, and wants to bring in players to fit that. We are left with a bloated Frankenstein squad that is in constant need of change, and there is zero continuity when a manager is, inevitably, sacked.
Ratcliffe’s solution was the obvious one; bring in a director of football (DOF) who decides the overarching footballing strategy on the pitch, bring in a head coach aligned with this, and players that fit. That way, if a coach is sacked, the squad doesn’t, in theory, require major reconstruction.
Enter Dan Ashworth, Ratcliffe’s new team identified Ashworth as the man they wanted as DOF. You can see why, he’s a steady hand with proven ability to construct solid squads. In an era of instability, Ashworth was a good choice in many respects. The club wanted him so much that they were willing to pay millions to bring him from Newcastle.
Now, anyone who has a basic understanding of what Ashworth did at Newcastle knows his footballing approach. A compact counterattacking side based around a solid midfield trio, sitting defenders, and fast attackers. Again, given our squad last summer, this made sense. Obviously, the midfield and defence needed to be improved, but ETH’s side was very much in the Ashworth 4-3-3 style. You could even understand why the board stuck with ETH to give Ashworth time to identify a successor.
This time last year is when we get to the problem. ETH is failing, he has lost the dressing room, and the board feel that they need to take action sooner rather than later.
Some directors start pushing for Amorim. He’s young, plays exciting football, and has the charisma that ETH is severely lacking. But Ashworth is the DOF, he’s the one that is supposed to be in charge of dictating the overarching footballing approach. And Amorim doesn’t fit with Ashworth’s chosen system.
The board decide to overrule Ashworth, completely undermining his job, and bring Amorim in anyway. Ashworth is left with no choice but to leave, and we are again faced with a completely new system and a massive squad overhaul.
I get why people didn’t like Ashworth’s purported picks for head coach. Names like Southgate and Potter didn’t fill me with confidence either, but these are managers who fit with what Ashworth wanted to do, and would have been better suited to the squad we had.
A year later, and we have spent another £200m on players to fit Amorim’s system. We still have loads of incompatible players in the squad, and the calls for Amorim to get sacked are getting louder and louder.
Some of the blame lies with the head coach because his system isn’t working, and the players are performing far below what they are capable of. However, the brunt of the blame is with Ratcliffe and his team. They decided to rip up their original plan, ignore the man they decided was integral to it, and bring in a manager that plays a system that has never really worked in the EPL.
This is a lesson in why having a vision for the club means sticking to it. If Ashworth was allowed to do his job, I would probably be moaning about the boring football we would be playing, but I guarantee that we would be doing far, far better in terms of results on the pitch.