I understand and share your concerns and frustrations about United, I think we are just approaching them from different directions. It’s in the nature of football that you win some and you lose some. In this country if you want to win considerably more than you lose you support a team like Man Utd. I support United because I’m a Sheffielder and my family have always supported United, a club which has a generally very loyal, patient and good humoured bunch of supporters who collectively put a significant amount of money into the club each year. It is also a club which has, in general, consistently underachieved given its level of support.
I thought that Danny Wilson did a very good job with the resources at his disposal in his first year but many home performances last year were like watching paint dry. More significantly, the coaching staff seemed to be completely incapable of doing anything meaningful about the inability to score at home. For that reason, we are told, he was sacked. This is presumably what you are referring to when you talk about “McCabe Fall Guys”, where managers are used as a human shield to protect the Chairman.
All this wasn’t helped by a combination of bad luck on the club’s part (e.g. Evans, Miller etc) and a lack of bravery on the Board’s part, e.g. selling Blackman. In defence of the Board I would say that it is easy for people like me to make such statements when it’s not our money that’s being spent, but the Board have to take their share of the blame for United’s persistent underachievement even allowing for the recession.
Having said all that, the reality is that the club is a commodity belonging to the McCabe’s, at least in the commercial sense, so our choices as supporters are either to give up all together and go home or keep moaning about the past or see next season as yet another opportunity and get behind what the Board says and, at this very early stage, appears to be trying to do. What frustrates me is the thought that the Board thinks that we are all stupid and that we fall for their rhetoric each year. I go to watch United primarily because it is my club in a sociological sense, nothing to do with the Board or the quality of football.
The key people in this for me are David Weir and his coaching staff, the players and the supporters, who can either, destroy players and managers psychologically with their criticism, or lift them with their support. Young players in particular are very sensitive to this so this year it will be more important than ever. What we don’t want to see is players being harassed and bullied by people who purport to support the club. I’m thinking of players like Stephen Quinn who was persecuted for long periods by a certain section of the crowd. Now he was a terrible player wasn’t he? I am sure that Mr Weir will quickly be aware of what he has and hasn’t got in his squad, if he isn’t already. He may even get more out of some players, but I agree that there is quite a bit of deadwood which will take time to sort out.
Finally, if we are to believe the testimonials that have been doing the rounds about how intelligent and well respected David Weir is , and I am sure they are correct, then surely he would have no problem in finding another job should he ever want one. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility therefore that if our Board doesn’t keep its promises to him he may be the one getting rid of them. In the meantime I remain cautiously optimistic for the medium term provided everybody, the Board included, do their bit.
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