RIO Ferdinand’s endorsement was immediate. Manchester United had only fired Erik ten Hag a few minutes earlier – an eventuality as delayed as it was predictable – and already Ferdinand had weighed the claims of the dozens of candidates to succeed him and come to his conclusion.
“Man like Ruud,” Ferdinand wrote on the social platform X, followed by a fire emoji. It should be pointed out here that Rio Ferdinand is 45 years old.
The Ruud in question, of course, was Ruud van Nistelrooy, employed most recently as an assistant coach in the dying embers of Ten Hag’s reign but most famously as a striker of rare pedigree and remarkable productivity at the very peak of Manchester United’s glory years around the turn of the century.
It is entirely possible, of course, that Ferdinand’s assessment was based on a thorough analysis of Van Nistelrooy’s senior managerial career so far: a spell in charge of PSV Eindhoven that brought victories in the Dutch Cup and Super Cup and a creditable second-place finish in the Eredivisie but did not (quite) last a single full season.
Or, though it might be unfair to suggest it, Ferdinand was swayed by the fact that Van Nistelrooy had been his teammate at Old Trafford for five seasons – before van Nistelrooy moved, with just a touch of rancour, to Real Madrid – and is therefore swaddled by the afterglow of United’s golden past.
All clubs are illuminated and trapped, in almost equal measure, by their history. It might manifest, as it does at Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, in a level of expectation, a belief that all is right with the world only when they stand on the very top of the podium at the end of any given season.
Players toss Sporting’s head coach Ruben Amorim after winning the Portuguese League on May 11, 2021. — AFP
It might demand, as it does at Arsenal and Barcelona, that the team should play in a certain way, with a certain style.
Or it might act, as it does at Ajax, as a template for how the team should be constructed, where they might source they constituent parts. It might even be something less tangible, more ethereal: At Liverpool and at Napoli, a manager is required to share a certain communion with the public.
History can weigh heavily on those clubs, and those managers and players who are unable to meet the standards of their predecessors.
David Moyes delivered a trophy at West Ham but his emphasis on caution alienated the club’s fans; his successor, Julen Lopetegui, might have ushered Ten Hag toward Manchester United’s exit door last week, but he seems fated to go the same way.
Few places, though, does the past exert quite so much pressure as at Manchester United. In part, that can be attributed to the likes of Ferdinand, one of dozens of players of the club’s greatest era that can now be found gracing both the legacy media and a raft of digital-first alternatives.
Talking about Manchester United – how great they were and how they might improve – is one of Britain’s last boom industries. Ferdinand, Paul Scholes, Peter Schmeichel, Owen Hargreaves and many more are staples of domestic and international television coverage of the league, their every utterance picked up by newspapers, websites and social media aggregators. Ferdinand, in fact, owns and operates his own platform, a less successful version of the media empire established by the apogee of the trend, Gary Neville.
The latter’s various outlets seem to churn out at least one item every week reflecting on what Manchester United used to achieve, used to represent, used to be.
There is, clearly, not just an audience for that content but an almost insatiable appetite for it. It does, though, come at a cost.
Amorim playing for Benfica during the Europa League final against Sevilla on May 14, 2014. — AFP
It not only illustrates to Ruben Amorim, the 39-year-old Portuguese coach tapped to replace Ten Hag, the precise standards he is expected to meet, but highlights the machinery that can be arrayed against him should he even start to fail. There is, after all, always another Van Nistelrooy waiting in the wings.
What makes that inescapable shadow more pernicious, though, is the context in which it is happening. United’s history is especially dangerous because it is so recent, because the faces discussing it feel so current, because it does not feel as if it belongs to another age, like Tottenham’s or Everton’s or even AC Milan’s. The problem is that, in many ways, it does.
In the years since United last claimed a Premier League title – in 2013, Alex Ferguson’s swan song, already more than a decade ago – the Premier League’s landscape has changed irrevocably.
The full power of Manchester City’s benefactors in Abu Dhabi has been brought to bear.
The Premier League’s wealth, combined with deft leadership, has turned both Arsenal and Liverpool into cutting-edge superpowers.
Chelsea own 43% of all footballers in existence. Newcastle are backed by Saudi Arabia. Aston Villa have acquired a managerial hierarchy of proven European quality. Brighton spent more money on players last summer than any team in continental Europe.
It is inevitable, of course, that at some point relatively soon Manchester United will win the Premier League title again.
Their wealth alone guarantees that they will challenge for one, even with the sundry shortcomings of both of their current ownership groups.
Perhaps Amorim will be the one to end the wait, but if it is not him, it will be whoever comes next, or whoever comes after that.
But as United have toiled over the last decade, a whole raft of teams have emerged who preclude the possibility that the golden years – the ones that Ferdinand, Neville and the rest cannot help but hark back to – will ever return.
The summit of English football is too busy, now, for United ever to reclaim their status as the country’s default champion, their undisputed great power.
The same thing happened, a quarter of a century ago, to Liverpool, and it took three decades for United’s great rival, somewhat uneasily, to accustom themselves to their new place in the pecking order.
United will not, in all likelihood, have to wait that long to stand on the top of the podium again.
It is another matter entirely whether doing that once, or even every so often, will be enough to satisfy the roiling United comment industry, or whether the present will always find itself in the shadow of a retreating past. — NYT
