Manchester United will conclude their worst season in 51 years with Sunday’s Premier League game against Aston Villa. Ruben Amorim’s side will finish 16th or 17th, having shown relegation form since the Portuguese was appointed in November.
On Wednesday in Bilbao, a limp United side lost 1-0 in the final of the Europa League to Tottenham Hotspur and a chance to play Champions League football next season went with it.
The loss of broadcast revenue, prize money, matchday receipts and sponsorship will be in the region of £80 million for next season when the club won’t be playing continental football for only the second time in 35 years.
The mood among United fans is on the floor. The players are hardly buoyant either. An hour after the game on Wednesday, Luke Shaw admitted in a TV interview with India’s Sony Sport that the club had reached a new low.
He said: “That outcome goes with how our season has been. We’re nowhere near good enough and we must take responsibility for that – us as players. It’s nowhere near good enough for a club like Manchester United. We must question ourselves and ask, ‘Are we good enough to be at this club?'. Because this season is nowhere near acceptable.
“I can only apologise to the fans. They’re probably bored of hearing the same things because there has been a lot of apologising this season because most of it has not been good enough. But I’d like to thank them for sticking by us in the worst season ever, even through every bad result we’ve had.”
Shaw pulled no punches, as he continued: “This is the lowest we can get. A club like Manchester United being closer to relegation is nowhere near good enough. There is no room for optimism, the only room is for questioning ourselves. The manager is 100 per cent the right person to take this club back to where it should be.
“He knows exactly what needs to be done. So much must change not just on the pitch but outside it. Inside the club there needs to be so many changes. But us as players need to change: the mindset, the mentality, the belief that in games like this we can win. We lack that at times tonight, we didn’t believe that we were going to score, but Ruben [Amorim] will turn this club around and this club will be successful again. It’s not something that changes in a day or a month or even a year, but Ruben is for sure the right person to do it.”
Amorim is set to be backed this summer. Despite the results, he’s popular with fans. They like his public honesty, the proclamations of what’s needed because they feel the same. But we’ve had these before and the club has already undergone several massive changes of staff and ideas. There was no improvement.
Amorim’s honesty and communication skills will only carry him so far. He has talented players at his disposal and he’s made the team worse, not better. There isn’t a coach on the planet who gets a job on the proviso that he’s allowed to be bad until he gets his own players in.
Amorim was hired partly because it was felt that Erik ten Hag wasn’t getting as much out of his players as he should be. United must improve next season or Amorim will become the latest United manager to lose his job.
United are likely to spend and then sell. If they join, the arrivals of forward Liam Delap (who has many options) and attacker Matheus Cunha should bring goals. United need to get good money for Marcus Rashford and Antony.
Selling academy talents like Alejandro Garnacho or Kobbie Mainoo is attractive financially, but would anger some supporters. But not all, since no United players are immune from the ill-feeling around this squad.
And at some point United must draw a line on overpaying underachieving players and over rewarding young players, a tactic that has not served the club well.
For many fans, losing on Wednesday felt as bad as it has got in their lifetime. United are a 16th place Premier League team, but not in the normal sense. Instead, the eyes of the world are on United, for better or worse, with all the pressure that comes with it.
The club will finish the season as the best supported in the Premier League, with average crowds of 73,000 – the same as the Old Trafford capacity.
United’s decision makers have gone public to say that the aim is to win the Premier League within three years. It seems far-fetched right now and for that to happen, there must be an environment for talented young players to flourish, players like defender Leny Yoro and forward Amad Diallo.
Yet a malaise is still present at the club, with little evidence so far that Amorim and his young coaching staff can improve United.
Staff are still leaving the club, either by choice or as part of two waves of redundancies. Fat needed to be trimmed at a loss-making football club, but talented people are leaving too as it cuts into the meat of Manchester United.
Fortunes can change quickly in football, but United are miles away from where they need to be. The worst Tottenham Hotspur team for decades played United four times this season and won all four games. It’s that bad.
