One of the annoying things about being older, apart from death being ever closer, is that almost everything that’s said about almost everything, including football, you’ve heard said before for many years. All the hot takes by bright-eyed young things who think they’ve discovered the motherlode of wisdom, you heard 55 years ago when Sam Leitch presented Football Focus and it was called Football Preview.
I say this not to pretend to be a font of knowledge but to illustrate the folly of thinking anything is wholly original.
So you have to be careful not to patronise or be sneery. We were all young once and did the same thing. We’ve all been there.
It does drive you crazy though when someone spells out something incredibly simple like it’s the most original thinking that you must have ever heard. This is doubly the case when they assume, wrongly, that you are a type that they’ve invented for themselves that they think defines your generation and that you must inevitably align.
An example concerns Manchester United being relegated. Seen it, done it.
I was 13 the last time Manchester United were relegated and though young Johnny had other pressing trouser-based concerns at that age, I remember how apocalyptic it was thought to be at the time. In fact the reality was it was all pretty painless. Next season they lost just seven games and won the second division easily by three points in front of Villa and Norwich; but what would happen now that they’re in even worse shape?
The way Sky talk about relegation you’d think it was one of Dante’s seven circles of hell, at least until they want to show all their matches in next season.
It’s all part of the ongoing project to establish the Premier League as an island of irresistible brilliance worth paying for.
Fewer and fewer believe this, of course and they’ve had to play their last hand of cards of showing ever more games to try and shore up the creeping realisation that it’s just football and the fun doesn’t match the hyperbole and daily dance, no matter how many games they show. Imagine the hysteria which would accompany relegation this time? This is Manchester United we’re talking about, Kelly.
Let’s say next season is a disaster too. It’s far from unlikely. Things are dire. Ruben Amorim is released from his waking nightmare at last when he’s sacked in November and Malky Mackay is surprisingly appointed by Airhead Jim as an interim manager because he’s Scottish, cheap and swears like a Poundshop Sir Alex.
His seasons at Ross County were thought to be a good grounding for the United role. But he’s obviously hopeless and they finish 19th on 26 points. What next?
On the plus side relegation means they are now the big turd in a smaller bowl, financially dominant over everyone and at some point money must matter.
We all know winning a lot, even in a lower division, is much more fun than losing a lot in a higher division. Obviously life is just better when you don’t play in the Premier League too.
United get back to winning ways and storm the title. On top of that, they shed almost everyone on more than 50k a week, make a fortune selling off the failed ‘stars’ all of whom will be brilliant for someone else. They fill the squad with a mix of academy players and Championship grafters.
The ridiculous bioform that is Scarecrow Jim finds out he hasn’t actually bought a biscuit business in Nice and leaves football in embarrassment, saying he is unable to associate his self-appointed undoubted brilliance with such failure. Similarly the Glazers decide second tier life is not for them and release the club from their icy death grip and let it be run by a fan’s trust. After a season out of the Premier League, they return refreshed and renewed, run on a different, less arrogant model.
But on the other hand.
It could all go wrong. The players are on long expensive contracts, no one will buy them and they won’t leave while they’re paid a million per month.
Sponsors back out en masse, not wanting to stain their hard-earned noodle business’s reputation by being associated with a by-word for a poor brand.
The academy has been denuded of funds over the years because the hollow-eyed ghoul just thought they’d buy talent in. Easy this football thing innit? And it is now rubbish and provides no new talent. Scarecrow Jim, anxious to prove he’s not actually a stupid, useless cu*t, stays on but sacks all remaining staff and saves enough to pay Bruno Fernandes’ wages for three days. Astute business. The Glazers continue to pay themselves millions in dividends, regardless, so much so that by spring 2027 the club is actually declared insolvent.
So which way will it go? Relegation would likely be beneficial, as long as it alters the ownership and executive model and they are able to stop paying Antony’s wages.
Go down and stay the same and worse will follow. It’s clear they are on a spiral of decline and that to break out of it, something radically different has to happen. With dreadful ownership, managerial performance and playing staff, it has to be imposed on them because they can’t be trusted to make a single good decision.
Relegation would do that. If they don’t go down, they might be in the bottom six for a generation and be living proof of the stupidity of treating a club like a normal business and chasing money at every turn. When I was a kid Sheffield Wednesday, Derby, Stoke, WBA and QPR were big, top flight clubs but haven’t been for a long time now. There’s your lesson, right there.