What more spooky time of the year for a fog of deja vu to be hanging over the haunted house of Old Trafford.
The ghosts of Halloween half a century past have materialised to foretell the doom of relegation.
The omens of 1974 are rewritten in the statistics cursing the current Manchester United team. No win in the first seven away games. A manager without a victory in nine consecutive matches. Perhaps coming up next, a run of only four wins in 20 league matches to match that of the relegation season 52 years ago.
And so to Gloomy Tuesday. If United fail to defeat Roma in the Champions League, they will equal their worst sequence of results in 75 years. The ominous portent for this one is much more recent. If they could lose 4-1 to lowly Como the other week, what chance of beating a major Italian club, unbeaten so far this season in Serie A? With this rag-bag of players, not much.
United’s class of ’74 included England’s Alex Stepney, David Sadler and Brian Kidd, Scotland stars Martin Buchan, George Graham, Lou Macari, Jim McCalliog and Willie Morgan. Graham recalls: ‘The club was going through a difficult time but we did our best.’
Of the team which self-destructed in defeat at Chelsea this Saturday, that could only be truly said of one man. Harry Maguire has survived more criticism than he ever deserved and once again he was alone in looking like he objected to losing.
Denis Law (second right), then of Manchester City, condemns his old club United to relegation in 1974
Following the 2-0 loss at Chelsea on Saturday, if United fail to defeat Roma in the Champions League on Tuesday they will equal their worst sequence of results in 75 years
One of his team-mates, the typically disgraceful Argentine Lisandro Martinez, made sure of defeat by getting himself sent off. Whether that act was deliberate only he can tell us but he looked as anxious to depart this great though ailing club as he had sounded when he criticised its executives after the Como loss.
As did the so-called captain. I voted for Bruno Fernandes as the Footballer of Last Year. Never again. By adding his voice to that of Martinez, he cheapened this great club in its hour of need. That he tried to recant relegates him to the same league of hypocritical back-trackers as Andy Burnham.
The damage to an already badly wounded Michael Carrick has been done. It became irreparable when he agreed to make the peace.
Sir Alex Ferguson would never have forgiven such a breach of trust. But then we are comparing pears with apples here. Fergie is a genius. Carrick simply an honest man out of his depth.
The unfavourable comparisons with the relegation of yesteryear don’t end there. Fernandes is a talented footballer but the idol of ‘74 was another genius.
George Best electrified not only Old Trafford but the world of football and beyond. Champions League glory, two English league titles, Wembley Cup finals, heroic if inevitably hopeless World Cup brilliance with Northern Ireland and a Ballon d’Or would have only been for starters had he not succumbed to his lust for booze and blondes which not only terminated his career but shortened his star-spangled but ultimately tragic life.
Bruno may become remembered as a footnote to Eusebio and Ronaldo in Portugal’s hall of fame. Besty will shine forever in the pantheon of football’s all-time greats.
Best knew when it was the right, self-destructed time to leave. Having torn himself away from Old Trafford in the summer of ’73 he allowed himself to be talked back by the retired Busby.
George Best (left) knew when it was the right time to leave. Having torn himself away from Old Trafford in 1973 he allowed himself to be talked back by the retired Matt Busby (right)
The damage to an already badly wounded Michael Carrick has been done. It became irreparable when he agreed to make peace with the players who spoke out against the club
After a dozen games he accepted that his best would no longer be electrifying enough to spark salvation and after an away defeat on New Year’s Day he said his last goodbye.
As sharp between the ears, surprisingly to some, as he was undeniably mesmerising on the pitch, he left behind words of wisdom gleaned from watching as boy and man as United fell into the turmoil of finding a manager to succeed Sir Matt.
They are as relevant in this time of crisis as they were those 52 years ago: ‘The fear of relegation starts in the boardroom, comes down to the managers and through to the players. The fans sense it.’
The faithful are, indeed, well aware of the origin of the rot besetting the Reds today. They detest the Glazers who brought their American opportunism and apparent greed to Manchester and have plunged the club into billions of debt. They are disenchanted already with Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
Not least because this penny-pinching Englishman’s cost-cutting has broken the hearts of so many loyal servants by sacking them from jobs they loved as much as they do their team. No matter how badly it is playing just now. And, by the way, he can stick his big-top circus stadium in the proverbial orifice.
Manchester United, like Liverpool, belong to the people. Not some damn Yankees and an English fat cat.
Unless this one reclaims its heart, soul, very reason for existing – and damn quickly – the ruin may take decades to rebuild. If ever.
United were heading this way when they were running mindlessly through managers in the 70s and 80s – Dave Sexton was sacked after finishing second in the league for heaven’s sake – until they got lucky as Sir Matt came briefly out of retirement to find his own successor in Sir Alex.
Manchester United, like Liverpool, belong to the people. Not some damn Yankees and an English fat cat in Jim Ratcliffe (centre)
Alex Ferguson (centre, flanked by director Mike Edelson and chairman Martin Edwards) at his unveiling as United boss in 1986, thanks to the help of Busby
The next Greatest Of All Time may never be out there. Carrick accepts it’s not him but the sympathies of the Red Army for a good man doing his darndest for a club he loves as much as they do may keep him going long enough for the increasingly fearful men in the boardroom to make a proper, lasting appointment rather than yet another shot in the dark.
For this they need to take sensible advice from more experienced football men. Just as they must set aside their misguided belief that they know something about the game itself and let seasoned judges guide them towards the really, really best players in which to invest their millions.
Rather than the rabble among the present first team of whose names neither they, nor more importantly the Stretford End, had ever heard until they ambled into Old Trafford.
As the money men should know, if you buy cheap you end up having to buy again. If they don’t, they should follow senors Martinez and Fernandes out of the building.
