From scapegoats to heroes

Let’s kick off by saying that this season has been absolutely thrilling so far. Yes, we have had unbelievable lows against MK Dons and Leicester. But damn me if we haven’t played better football than we have done since 2009/2010. The play is at times dynamic, organized (but with a twist of freedom), quick and with flashes of technical brilliance. I am happy with all our new signings, as they have improved our squad depth but also the quality of our starting XI. I am also delighted with how our youngsters have dealt with the new system, manager, a new level of competition in the Premier League and with the injury situation at the club.

What delights me more than all this, however, is to see – yet again – the scapegoats from earlier becoming our new heroes. We have seen this time and time again, but people keep bashing, trash talking, and keep making insulting statements. And we see them rise back up again. In some cases, it seems like our fanbase does its best to destroy any confidence a player has, and I wish it would stop. It does not fall in lines with what I define as what a football supporter is. It is all in the words, isn’t it? Supporter. Now, there is a difference between being critical and being nasty. We are entitled to the first, while we should abstain from the latter.

This might be a history lesson for some of you newer fans of the club, but you will recognize how this mirrors what is going on in this exact season, as well as last year. A few years ago, two young lads broke through the ranks of MUFC. Coming from different parts of the United Kingdom, John O’Shea and Darren Fletcher were both signed to our academy from Ireland and Scotland. Seing as both were rather young, and our team was already playing well, they got time on the pitch for the first team when we had massive injury problems. O’Shea had a stellar debut season at left back, and Darren Fletcher got his playing time vacating for various players in different positions. Mostly at right wing. He did not set the world on fire with his performances, and neither should he have been expected to. A holding midfielder which qualities emphasized work-rate and intensity does not make for the world’s most exciting winger. The important part was, as Ferguson put it, to give the youngsters match time at the highest level. This so that they could adjust to the tempo of the game. And he did just that for a long time. As time went on, O’Shea vacated at pretty much every single position possible for us. From the wing, the central midfield, centre back, goalkeeper, striker. You name it. He always put in a decent performance, despite being a natural centre back from an early age. Still, he was the focus of a lot of hate from our fanbase. Visit any Man United-related forum from back then, and you will find insulting comments regarding everything from his body, size, way of running, attitude, sexual orientation and so on. At Old Trafford, I remember him being booed a few times in his early years before earning the trust of the Stretford End. Darren Fletcher was struggling with injuries while trying to break through. He got a lot of minutes from Ferguson, who repeatedly spoke of him in great words. Now, people were still mad up until the season he found his world class form for us. He dominated top level teams on his own in midfield, as Hargreaves was injured and Darren filled in that spot. A work rate matching that of Ji-Sung Park, defensive positioning like a Roy Keane and the attitude of a Gary Neville on the pitch. He finally “made it”.

Fast-forward to last year, and think for a minute about the way fans were treating the likes of Smalling, Fellaini, Cleverley, Young, Valencia and Ferdinand. Or how fans, this season, already have managed to take the piss out of the same players, but adding Januzaj, Jonny Evans and Robin Van Persie to that same list. And all of them, in one way or another, consistently put these fans to shame. I do not need to remind you of how parts of Old Trafford sarcastically cheered every time Fellaini touched the ball in a pre-season friendly this summer. Nor should I not have to remind you that Evans played one bad game coming off a longer injury, and suddenly is deemed not good enough to play for us. Or that one silly red card from Smalling makes him a bad player. Have you all forgotten how many red cards Nemanja Vidic got for us? Or how bad his first season with us was? Or for how many dozens of games Jonny Evans has been our best defender in the past three or four years? Or how good Fellaini was at Everton when he was not injured for a whole season? Where this is getting at, is that the constant scapegoating of our players serve no good purpose. Nor does it make any sense at all. As football fans, it is easy to get caught up in the short-term, as the game is emotional in is nature, and the act of supporting a team comes from within. But try to zoom out for a bit and look at the long-term perspective. For some of our players, it is apparent that they need love from the stands. Van Persie is a great example, and he seems to do better with every “Oh, Robin Van Persie”-chant. He seems happy, and his game reflects that as well. For others, it can be a factor that helps break them as players, and send them packing out of Old Trafford. Tom Cleverley is gone, and we could have done much better for him. This is not to clear him of his own responsibility to perform, but you can see how the support, or lack thereof from the stands play a part in all this.

As we have seen so far this season, players like Fellaini and Smalling have been among our top five performers. Januzaj and Van Persie have both been rusty, but please give it some time. Look at how others like Young and Valencia are now performing in Van Gaal’s system. Surely two brilliant players like Adnan and Robin can catch up and match that when they get going and find a good form?

A rollercoaster of a season

Frustration, hope, anger, joy. Being a Manchester United fan for the past 20 years has been easy. Since the 1992/1993 season, we’ve brought home 13 Premier League trophies. And that is not even counting our cup victories, the Champions League trophies, or our many semi-finals and finals in Europe. It would be fair to call ourselves spoiled. With the best manager of all time behind the helm, with players popping out of our own academy, with a few world class signings and playing every single game with the Manchester United ethos in mind, it has been a pure joy being a United fan. In my lifetime, Manchester United has been like a favorite movie that never ended. An everlasting Django: Unchained. It has been lovely.

 

Some Man United fans follow their local team as well. In my case, I watch games that do not collide with United games when my local team, Bodø/Glimt plays. I used to play at the junior department of the club and have ties with the inside. I’ve suffered. My local club has been relegated twice, gotten a second place in the top division in Norway, lost two cup finals, seen all our good players been picked up by the bigger clubs in Norway. It has been painful. But it has really come in handy this season. I know how to deal with pain that I can not do anything with, such pain that in fact Manchester United’s performances has forced on me.

 

We started the season on a high. An average pre-season ornamented in minor issues such as players resting after the international friendlies in the summer, players not returning from injuries and a new manager and management coming in had us left with average results in Asia. Wilfried Zaha, Fabio, Cleverley, Anderson, Januzaj and Lingard all looked great while the rest of the team was a huge disappointment. Moyes tied up both Rooney and Nani on long term contracts and won the Community Shield against Wigan. Everything felt like it was back to normal. The Premier League season was coming up and we looked strong, confident, decent. The opening game was a convincing 4-1 win in Wales against Swansea. Were we going to steamroll this season too? Van Persie, Welbeck and Valencia all played a fantastic game and we looked solid at the back. Following that, we faced a strikerless Chelsea in a 9-1-0 formation at home. We were the better team, but were not precise enough in front of goal. A boring 0-0 draw that had me gasping at half time. Mourinho lining us up as if we were Barcelona at home. Still, we had 4 points from our two first games. Things were looking good.

 

Then, Liverpool at Anfield, City away, West Brom at home. Three defeats in five games. And in the middle of that we crushed at the time second place in the Bundesliga, Bayer Leverkusen. Watching United from game to game was like talking to a girl in the middle of puberty. One day, great. One day, fuck off. How to deal with this? I don’t know. Out of the next 15 games or so, we won a huge number of them. From mid October to New years, we were the in form team in the league. Back to normal? It left us feeling alright, though our play was often static and lacking precision in attack. We played like we did for huge parts of the 2012/2013 season – not beautiful, but gathering points. I was alright with it, but was afraid we might get punished against better opposition. Good opposition was coming up.

 

Now, from Janury to March, we lost 9 games. And that not only against good teams like Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City, but also to teams we should be beating. Tottenham, Swansea, Sunderland, Stoke and Olympiacos. We looked in shambles. Fan forums in all directions were calling for Moyes’ head. Not only were we losing a lot, but the way we were losing. Uninspired, barely scoring, half of the team out injured. Never being able to field a similar XI two games in a row. Signing just one player in January. Discussions were directed towards the possibility of hiring Jürgen Klopp, Louis van Gaal – anyone! Fans all over the world voiced their concern for the club and wanted to see heads rolling. David Moyes! Phil Neville! Steve Round! Damnit, sack them all! Even Sir Alexander Ferguson got shit thrown in his direction. How could he leave an aging, poor team for the next guy to take over? Did he hire Moyes purely based on his origins? A few cool heads argued that we were transitioning from the greatest manager of all time for a lifetime, that a lot of players weren’t performing up to par and that he simply wanted to give the entire squad a chance to prove their worth and willingness to be part of this new Manchester United era. These optimistic fans, also known as the Pro-Moyes camp or called ”high horse-glorified fans” by the Moyes-out camp were taking a lot of heat in that period. And to be fair, they still do. A toothless performance at Liverpool at home and Olympiacos away does not seem to be games that most fans are able to look past. These games are being pointed out as the epitome of the new Moyes-era. The main point here is that, not only were the team performing poorly. The fans were being terrible to one another. Dividing into camps, using foul language in discussions, wanting blood. Very much uncharacteristic of our fan group in my lifetime, and very surprising to many of us. Everyone is in this together, we all want the club to succeed. We all want the team to play better football. Throwing axes at eachother is not going to solve anything.

 

Now, we managed to fight our way back into the Champions League by a wonderful performance at the Theatre of Dreams. 3-0 against the Greek. We were through. Bayern followed. We were good. We played with heart, soul, gut. We held them to a draw at home, but we could have won. Despite of a very disappointing result at home against our city rivals, Manchester City, we beat West-Ham, Crushed Aston Villa and a few days ago, walked all over Newcastle. Our attacking play seems to have sorted itself out a bit. Three attacking midfielders behind a mobile striker, two holding midfielders. It seems to be our recipe now. And it looks to be working out rather well.

 

Tomorrow, Bayern at the Allianz Arena awaits. We are massive underdogs, but Bayern are struggling a bit. For the first time in two seasons. They’ve lost to Augsburg. They drew against us. Drew against Hoffenheim. Drew against Arsenal.  All in the past 30 days. If there ever was a good time for us to knock them out, this is it. We have everything to gain, they have a lot to lose. If we take the fight to them. Show them that Phil Jones heart, the Wayne Rooney will, the Danny Welbeck physique. We can do it. We need to play a 10/10 game, and that is something that we know that we are able to. Playing our best, we can challenge anyone. I can not wait.

 

Regardless of how the Bayern game ends up, we have a good chance of finishing the season on a high. Everton, Norwich, Sunderland, Hull, Southampton. Can we manage a 5 game win streak? End the season on a high? Go into the summer with some momentum. I think we can. I hope we do. 13 points from those 5 games would be very impressive. If that involves a lot of Kagawa, Büttner, Welbeck and Chicharito, I would be even more happy. Looking back at the season, it has obviously been a massive let down. Not only have we been poor. We seem to have been parked behind a handful of teams in the league when it comes to playing style, goal scoring ability, defensive performances, winning points. Consistency, where have you gone? We have a massive job to do. As many as 10 players could be leaving the club in the summer if you include reserve team players. Our youngsters are dominating on loan. Our young core in the team in De Gea, Rafael, Jones, Adnan and Welbeck are all looking good. I am positive and encouraged for the next season. I just wish for the United fans to treat eachother better. This is the time to, as the name implies, unite. Not to break apart. Manchester United fans have to stand together, in the good times and in the hard times. And we’ll get through this slump and come out on top. I am sure of that.