An open letter to Manchester United

The Red Devils are set to appoint the fourth manager in five years but amidst all the turmoil, those who have suffered most are the fans.

Dear Manchester United, we love you. These last five years have been hard, ever since Fergie left. It has been hard seeing manager after manager stand where he stood and fail to deliver. It has been hard to see the Premier League title go across the city so very often. It has been hard.

But we know it is not your fault, we know that you are having your soul sucked out of you by the Glazers. They are turning you into a profit-making machine. But here’s the thing, they just don’t get it. They don’t get that we’re so much more than a football club. They don’t understand where we come from. How the blood, sweat and tears of the railway workers who birthed Manchester United is still embodied in the hearts of every fan, all over the world.

It hurts to see you suffering and not be able to do anything about it other than childish banners on planes. But it does hurt to see the hallowed Old Trafford turf that was once the stomping ground of Rooney, Ronaldo, Cantona, Scholes and so many more, now become a ground that we are taken apart by mid-table sides. It just isn’t right. We are Manchester United, we are the biggest club in England, it just isn’t right.

A lot needs to change, not just the manager. No matter what we say about Jose, he is a winner. He has won titles at every club he has been at but he didn’t come close here. It was the same story with Van Gaal.

The issues with our club go all the way to the top. Ed Woodward is a fantastic businessman., there is no doubt about it but he simply cannot be put in charge of the day to day at Manchester United or have the final say over whom the clubs bring in or sends out.

Manchester United - A club in the turmoil 

Now that Jose is the latest manager to be given the axe in their experimentation, something surely has to change. The board has to realise that the buck, in this case, does not stop with the manager.

Our cries for a change of ownership have fallen on deaf ears for almost 10 years now and nothing looks like it is going to change there. But at the very least, we need a Director of Football. We need someone who will act as a buffer between the club’s business side and its true footballing side. Let Woodward focus on the business and leave the football to someone who knows the game.

Yes, we have spent a lot in the last five years but we have hardly spent wisely. We have been raised on watching the likes of Ronaldo, Giggs and Scholes make names for themselves out of nothing for the club. They weren’t bought for astronomical sums but they still got it. They got what it meant to pull on that famous jersey every day.

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At the club right now, we have a batch of the world’s biggest talents. Rashford, Martial, Pogba, Shaw, De Gea and Dalot. They have so much potential to become a spectacular side, but something is wrong. Yet another change in management is not going to change things in the long run.

We need a fresh start. We need to rediscover the strength on which this great club was built. The strength that got us through the Munich air disaster in ’56, the strength that pulls the team through the toughest of games. We need that back.

Jose Mourinho's last press conference for Manchester United

What the Glazers, the board and anyone in charge of Manchester United right now fail to understand is that the club is so much more than just 11 men on a pitch. Manchester United lives in the hearts of every one of the 75,000 fans who flock down Matt Busby way to Old Trafford every week and sing till their voices are no more. It lives in the hearts of the millions of fans all over the world who look to the club as a beacon of hope.

We are tired of waking up with fresh hope and expectation every matchday morning and going to bed feeling empty, after seeing the team put less than their best into a game. We don’t expect to win every game but we do expect the hearts of every player, coach, manager and anyone associated with the club to beat as red as ours do.

Dear Manchester United, we love you and we always will. We do not know where we go from here, who will take his spot on the touchline next, who can save our club. All we can pray for is that the spirits of the Red Devils never die, that they stay alive in the hearts and minds of all the fans. 

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One day, maybe not this year or the next but one day Europe will be red again and Manchester United will reach the promised land once more.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are those of the writer and Khel Now in no way supports or disapproves of the opinions expressed.