Chris Bradley

Manchester United Football Club. A football club only works when the sum of its parts is greater than any one human. At Manchester United that worked ruthlessly well for 20 years. You can then trace when the rot started. 1. Calling Moyes "Everton". Big time players started to call the shots. That Moyes wasn't up to it is irelevant, the sum of the parts mantra was broken. 2. Ronaldo return. Always about 1 player in pressers, never about the team. 3. The piano playing decadence of Alexis reveal. City announce Haaland in a bland statement. United went full Liberace to "prove" how big they were. Clubs on top don't need to prove anything. They just do. 4. Numerous managers, sporting directors, organisational changes. Villa gave Emery the key to Villa Park and Bodymoor Health and said "you're the expert, we'll bring in your guys". 90% worked, 10% didn't. The 10% exited without fuss. United? Every name is a part of the circus. 5. Leaks. If you're supposed to be the worlds biggest club, you don't leak to Partridge type YouTubers or local journos. Chose players and their character carefully. 6. Fergie. Liverpool ruthlessly moved Shankly well away from Anfield, to the dismay of many. Romantics rightly said " WTF, it's him who started this!". Liverpool board and Boot Room said, "Move him out, he's only ever going to be a distraction". Proved true. The cameras panning to Fergie every game did United no favours. Why? Nobody could compete with that man. 7. Owners. When you allow owners in who only want to use you as collateral ( Hi Mr Big Banker, we own Man United so we're good for the fucking huge loan we want for something else) in a transaction, you're fucked. A lesson that even the biggest clubs are prone to chasing the dollar from anyone and everyone. Time to protect all of our clubs from rogue ownership. 8. Four four fucking two. Attack attack attack. Sometimes, in order to find yourself you need to go back to your roots. United play attacking, swaggering football. Buy two great wide men. Two mobile and aggressive midfielders. One ball playing, one aggressive central defender. Two fullbacks who only defend and a keeper who commands his box. Basics. United do that and even now all the people, characters, noise can be boiled down to basics that at first grind out badic results as the mess above gets dealt with. Basics. Painfully simple ones. Manchester United Football Club are one of the world's biggest acting like a lost army after a great General left the batallion. Find your General , on the pitch, in the dugout, at the head of the company, then green shoots will follow. Sometimes, simplicity is everything and complexity is ruinous. The club believed its own hype instead of following its own DNA.