Manchester United fans have had to put up with some difficult viewing this season on the pitch, and are now in a situation where everybody is patiently waiting for Louis Van Gaal to get the sack.
The Dutchman's time at Manchester United has not gone to plan at all, but when it comes to the analysis of what is going on at the club, the pundits, former players, and TV presenters have also been underperforming by directing all of their criticism at Van Gaal, without looking at the bigger picture.
Paul Scholes is as bad as anyone. When asked for his opinions on what is going wrong, the best he can muster up is:
It's boring. It's just... Boring.
Thanks for that, Paul.
Louis Van Gaal's style of play is crippling these wonderful players, who wish to unleash their swashbuckling, total-football upon their opponents but simply can't because of the big scary Dutchman in the dug-out. That's what you would believe from listening to Scholes' view, but it is becoming more and more obvious that the players, the squad as a whole, just aren't good enough.
While Louis Van Gaal certainly has underperformed and has to take a large part of the blame for the state Manchester United find themselves in, the problems that he is facing are almost identical to the ones faced by David Moyes, and there are other people who are failing in their duties too.
Player recruitment at Manchester United is an absolute embarrassment, and has been for a number of years. All accounts by the journalists who have direct access to Old Trafford paint a picture of a chief executive who is chasing big name signings like Neymar, Paul Pogba, and Sergio Ramos, and is neglecting the less flashy deals that a club like Manchester United had always made so as to avoid situations like the current one where Donald Love is needed to start for the first team. Yes there have been injures, but every single year Manchester United face an injury crisis, and the fact that it is not being prepared for like the absolute certainty it is, is a joke at this stage.
Ed Woodward has as much to answer for as anyone. While he has secured some extremely lucrative business deals for the club, his job requires far more than that, mainly a knowledge of football that many are starting to question whether he has at all. Watching Owen Hargreaves last night on BT Sport, he was the first pundit I have seen actually question whether there was a bigger problem going on at Old Trafford.
Fair play to him.
Recently Manchester United were linked with Atletico Madrid's sporting director Andrea Berta, and I outlined why I thought it was exactly what the club needed, because look at what that club has done in recent years. Atletico Madrid are forced to sell their best players regularly, yet there is a constant stream of incoming talent who keep the club challenging for a La Liga title with Real Madrid and Barcelona. That is a well run club.
Ed Woodward should not be 'sacked', as his business sense is incredibly useful and he has managed to keep the club performing well financially despite an extremely turbulent spell on the pitch, but from the outside looking in, it seems as though Woodward and the United board have no direction in which they want to take an absolute giant of a club that has become the laughing stock of Europe.
He gets a lot of stick for his co-commentary, but at least Owen Hargreaves is asking relevant questions and trying to spark some debate, as opposed to reminiscing on the glory days when Manchester United beat everybody by three goals every single week, never passed the ball backwards once, and left the supporters leaving Old Trafford every week with a sore throat from shouting in excitement for a full 90 minutes.
Because that happened, didn't it?
