Manchester United's fall from grace - a fan's perspective on managerial myopia
Manchester United were the most successfull teams in the world but has seen a descent into mediocrity for a while - what went wrong?
I have been a fan of Manchester United since 2002. You may call me a glory hunter (aren’t we all? who would sign up to follow Sunderland?) but hey, it was Arsenal who were the league champions back then. This article is about my reflections on some analogies on how not to run an enterprise -especially one that has seen a sustained period of success.
United were the most successful team - commercially and by silverware - in Europe for over 2 decades and an envy of any other team across sports. While this post is more about what went wrong from a managerial point of view, I’d attribute the prolonged period of success on 3 factors :
The managerial genius of Sir Alex Ferguson who had a grip over what was happening both on the pitch and off the pitch
A commercial blitzkrieg which made them the most marketable name in football
A great product (the football itself) with the right mix of homegrown players (Giggs, Beckham, Scholes, Neville brothers etc) and experienced players brought in at the right time in their careers (Cantona, Keane, Schmeichel etc)
Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013 after a reign of 26 years at the club. The 8 years since that moment have been a damning fall from grace and I aim to put forth some sharp observations on why this happened:
Lack of focus on product:
The “product” in this case is the football that was played on the pitch. The board, led by an unpopular CEO and even more unpopular owner, placed commercial success above the quality of football played. This is evident by a lack of cohesive DNA of football that was a trademark during the Ferguson years. Each new manager brought in had distinctly different styles of football where one was too pragmatic (Van Gaal), one too defensive (Mourinho) and another too inexperienced and some would say too naive/nice (Solskjaer). To get new followers you need to attract them with 2 things - one is a good brand of football and the other is…
Success (trophies) not being a primary agenda:
There was a distinct lack of focus on what matters the most in sports -winning trophies. United have won only 3 trophies since 2013 and failed to cross the finishing hurdle at the last second on numerous occasions. This is a clear lack of a “killer mentality”. The board prioritized sponsorship deals over silverware - which was the exact opposite of other deeply funded rivals such as Chelsea FC and Manchester City FC
Lack of accountability:
United’s wage bill is amongst the biggest in football. Some say it is justified since the players are made to appear for innumerous commercial ads. But the players are held to no standards for their performances by the board. Players are protected for their commercial value by the board and by powerful agents. This flows in directly from the owners who are indifferent about performances and standards, in contrast to the 2 rival clubs mentioned above. If you aren’t held accountable, you don’t have enough motivation to put in that extra effort to improve and put in that little extra to get your team over the line. While not treading into a toxic zone, there needs to be a aura of pressure around the players and staff
Poor management transition and management choices:
Imagine if your company (lets say a B2C app) had only a sales director but no product manager? Imagine if this sales director doubled up a a product manager on a need be basis. This is exactly what happened at United where there was a CEO - Ed Woodward - focused on commercial activities occasionally stepped in to make some key decisions which should ideally be taken care of by a director of football - the key decisions can be on who the team manager should be, which players fit into the clubs philosophy and how the club should invest into its footballing infrastructure. Each decision made by Woodward and the board was short term in nature did not fit into any long term strategy/philosophy. The club signed overpriced players throughout (Pogba, Alexis, Maguire etc) with minimal thought on how they would fit into the team and did not invest enough into the clubs youth academy, training facilities and the famous stadium itself.
Lack of adoption/poor transition to a new era:
Football clubs have moved on to different modes of football - be it tiki-taka or the now prevalent high pressing method. The old “United” way - a brand of attacking football, is sadly not in sync with these times and even it it is - United don’t have the system or the plyers to play that way and cover up the weaknesses
Poor recruitment:
I mentioned this briefly earlier - you need to recruit players who fit into a certain “culture-fit” and add something incremental to your team. This means that not only do the players bring in a certain quality but their weaknesses are also covered by other players. Also, the players need to be trained for the long term, just like any employee - else you will only see a merry-go-round with one player coming and another going. If a Pogba can pass the ball well, he needs a partner who does the dirty work beside him. If a Ronaldo can score goals, he needs players behind him to not only put in the extra energy but create some chances which Ronaldo can finish expertly well. If De Gea is a great shots topper, he needs a strong voice and a leader in front of him who covers up for this weaknesses. I still get baffled at how top paid executives fail to make such basic observations. The coaching appointments did not impress at all and gaping issues were not addressed - again something only a director of football is well placed to identify.
There are some more factors you can cite but I’ll skip over those for now. I feel aggrieved at how something which was a key part of my life growing up and a source of joy has been run and if (and when) the glory days will be back.
The more I am in the corporate world, the more I take lessons on how not to run an enterprise from the last 8 years of how Manchester United FC has been run.