Is the Man United Era begining to Wind Down?
By: Rob | January 20th, 2010
All great Empire’s must eventually come to an end. Alexander The Great wept as there were no more worlds left to conquer. The British Empire slowly melted away after two world wars. Liverpool stopped winning every league title ever as the 1980s became the 1990s.
All this might sound slightly premature after Man United lost a league cup semi final first leg (which they dominated for large portions) to monied rivals Manchester City. But it isn’t just that. This season there have been signs that perhaps the Man United era in the Premier League won’t be lasting forever.
In the league this season, they may still be well in the title race, but they’ve looked unconvincing. If Arsenal beat Bolton tonight they’ll go to the top of the league, with Chelsea second, and Man United third having played a game more then Chelsea.
Finance isn’t the carte blanche it once was. Even after selling a player for £80m, Fergie wasn’t entitled to spend a great deal of it – indeed without the Ronaldo sale, United would have been in the red this financial year.The financial difficulties have meant that United have put up Carrington, the training complex, up for sale.
Of course there is also the Fergie Factor. He might talk up being around forever, but there is going to come a time, surely, after so many threats where he has to walk away from United. Some United fans have been asking him to for political reasons, but they’re wasting their breath. Fergie will go when he’s ready – but surely this is the last United team he’ll build?
That isn’t to say that whoever takes over from him is not going to have success. But its certainly going to be a great deal for any manager to live up to. And it does make you wonder, if by the end of this decade, United will have quite the stranglehold over English football they have enjoyed for the past 15-20 years.
They can have no complaints if it does come to pass – they’ve enjoyed an incredible run at the top of English Football. I don’t want to sound like I’m writing the last rites here either – writing off Man United is a very dangerous game, especially in January. But even if they do win the title this season, I can just see things out of their control conspiring to take them down a a peg or two.
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Category: Manchester United
Comments
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One can only hope…
The finances are certainly troubling, but frankly, they’re not that much worse off than a lot of other of Europe’s big clubs. They’ll always be successful, but it’s going to be relative–remember that prior to Alex Ferguon’s first league triumph in 1992-93, it had been 26 years since ManU won the top domestic trophy. There were periods of years at a time, including 9 years between 1968-1977, when ManU was trophyless. Current ManU fans, who piss and moan about their club when they’re all of 1 point off the top of the table and when they “only” won the double last season would do well to remember this, and ruminate on the fact that they do not, in fact, have a divine right to win trophies every season.
All things are cyclical, and while ManU will always be a big club, the combination of Fergie’s getting on in years, their deteriorating financial situation, and the rise of some other clubs does, I think, mean that we won’t see United dominate English and European football the way they have over the previous few seasons.
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Hey Rob. F**k off
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Hey man, no need for that. I don’t mean any disrespect to United, anything but.
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I can surely hope so, as a chelsea fn, united seems to be waiting for us at every corner, and with liverpools blatant collapse, all there is left are the gunners, and the blues are quite excellent in crushing north london
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Carrington isn’t up for sale. There are discussions (primarily in the media), that the ground could be transferred to a holding company controlled by the Glazer family and leased back to the club… but it certainly doesn’t have a big for sale sign on it…
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No danger of a wind down while Ferguson is at the helm. Ups and downs yes , and Man city will be a force to reckon with from this point forward. Transfer money might be an issue as they try to unload Nani, Anderson and maybe Wellbeck.
They badly need a big, target front man to help Rooney as Berbatov is not up to it and Owen cannoy play with Rooney.
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