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Watching Manchester United trip, stumble and struggle in English Premier League football is compellingly appealing, satisfying and almost comical for those of us who witnessed their golden age.
Frankly, like many others, I am thoroughly enjoying watching the once great club become nothing more than a mid-table player, capable of a decent win, yet laced with obvious internal strife and a lack of quality in a squad that has been expensively built.
Despite wage commitments estimated at somewhere near $380 million, the highest in the league for 2023/24 and close to ten times the amount spent by battlers Luton Town, United are a shambles when it comes to delivering what their self-entitled fans expect.
You see, the problem with Manchester United fans is that the majority of them can still remember the Alex Ferguson years and the unprecedented levels of success of what was arguably the greatest English team ever built; certainly the most winningest.
A total of 20 domestic league titles, twelve Football Association Cups and six league Cups stand proudly at Old Trafford. In a more modern context, when the Premier League began in 1992/93, United held the inaugural trophy aloft before finishing in the top three 21 years straight.
2013/14 was the first year in EPL history that the red side of Manchester had not been in the top trio of teams and since, life has been far from routine for the once-dominant club.
Not a championship has been won since and just four appearances in the top three at season’s end have been achieved. Meanwhile, cross-town rivals Manchester City have spent big, dominated the league and enjoyed their fair share of continental success.
The Citizens have won six championships since United last conquered the domestic landscape and only once finished outside the top three on the final day in May.
Quite frankly, it is wonderful. Not the City dominance of course, that sucks too and the sports-washing 101 from the City Football Group should make them ineligible to participate, if the world actually stood for something even near morality, integrity and justice.
Yet, that is now the world we live in and the Melbourne and Manchester City’s of the world will continue to exist as long as football maintains the cowardice it displays every day of the year when it comes to holding people to account, as opposed to profiting endlessly from the involvement of those with endless and offensive streams of money.
(Photo by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
With that reality firmly in place and jettisoned to the side as something of an inconvenient truth, it perhaps is best to merely sit back and enjoy the pain and suffering of the most entitled group of supporters I’ve observed in world football.
For quite some time, Manchester United have been non-entities in the title race and 2023/24 looks like being a new low-point for the club.
Seeing Alex Ferguson squirming in his chair and eating historic words that disrespected the now far more successful side of Manchester is simply heart-warming.
Watching self-absorbed pundits like Gary Neville wax lyrical and undertake an endless diatribe of commentary and analysis around a team that matters little in the current context is wonderfully enjoyable.
When Roy Keane and Neville buddy up and critique performances that will hardly matter come the end of the season, the sheer insulated and entitled views held by supporters of the club are exposed.
Rather than discuss a superb Fulham win, a Burnley triumph against the odds or a brave effort from Nottingham Forest or Luton, the two ex-players seem more intent on excruciating post-mortems of their own club’s performance.
Like many others in the media with United ties, they are utterly bereft of ideas as to why their team is not winning. We always won, why aren’t we winning now! WHY? It’s not fair!
I say welcome to the world of the majority of EPL supporters. Everton fans, West Ham fans, Crystal Palace fans, Fulham fans and the most pained of all, Tottenham fans.
These folk enter each and every season with moderate hopes, and a stunning title win like Leicester managed in 2015/16 is merely a pipe dream against the backdrop of the unfortunate uneven reality of the EPL competition.
United fans are spitting through teeth like little children and we should all be enjoying the pain considering the suffering inflicted on others for an extended period of time.
The most appealing part of the downfall is that Manchester United pays more in weekly wages than any other EPL club. Frankly, they should be far better than they are. However, the fact that they are not remains incredibly satisfying.
Watching their self-entitled fans suffer is simply heaven.