So as the season ended in 2005, we'd just lost our last home game to Millwall, warnock was being followed by a tv crew filming him for a fly on the wall sky documentary about him and us. It was the final part in the documentary which eventually ended with United missing on the top 6, albeit in the championship. 'Destination premiership' was again hitting the brakes and the locals weren't happy. Warnock having stabilised the rot in several years had little to spend, his methods not always everyone's cup of tea. Yet he survived the summer which followed and he took us up the next year. It's not been good since.
Warnock had his doubters, he generally had a good season followed by a poor rebuilding season. He was the last manager to stay longer than two seasons. Two full seasons. Blackwell, Wilson and Clough all reached and lost out in the play off lottery, Wilson made it almost a full season after his loss, Blackwell managed the summer and Clough just weeks. Warnock somehow, after two semis and a play off final in the same season, kept his job.
Going into the 10th anniversary season since our last promotion season, we find ourselves managerless again, sure we've got the summer to bring in a new manager, let him sort out the squad and push us into another promotion season or so we'll be told. We've been told this approximately every other season since Warnock left and we look exitedly ahead to a promotion push! The consistency of the inconsistent United, sacking managers when we've not reached that goal.
So are we setting our targets too high? Certainly not, big club, big resources, big expectation and big names coming in. We should be the first side that the bookies shorten the odds on over the summer for promotion. It's not arrogance, we'd expect nothing less than to be in the running. It doesn't work like that though.
4-4-2, 4-5-1, short passes, youth, experience, long ball, managers with their arms folded, animated managers... We've tried the lot. So we're told that we need to take a different direction, get the new manager in, that's the way we'll do it. But we've tried everything in the last ten years. We lost Derek Dooley not long after that promotion to the Premier League and since then we've lost the 'footballing man' at the club, the voice of reason, the man in the managers corner.
What have we learnt in 10 or even 20 years? We've learnt that the two managers that took us to the top division did so with time. This is not a cry for Bassett or Warnock, far from it, but giving time.
Right now I've lost faith in Phipps et al. They're no doubt desperate for success and profits from United, but like the McCabe era before, they find simple solutions in paying off and binning managers. Whilst I like Phipps, Baki and the prince, the focus seems to have been pleasing the empty vessels on Facebook and Twitter, perhaps I'm being harsh.
So if we've learnt one thing in ten years, perhaps it's that we need stability. The next manager whomever it may be, must firstly be that right choice, it's too late for Clough, but we need to set out the club ethos, have a plan and stick too it. But most importantly - get some fucking stability into the club and stick with the manager. It's the one thing we've not tried in ten years, so please, please let's give it a go.
You never know it might work....
