 NEW SEASON, SAME AMBITION

by Daniel Cuschieri

At time of writing this, the league match against Leeds United has just finished. A very impressive performance from the team which should stand as a marker for the following season. Due to COVID, people around the world have missed the atmosphere, the intensity and the excitement that a home game brings with it. The simple things that we took for granted, COVID-19 in my opinion has shown everybody around the world that together, people become stronger.

Last season, United finished in a very respectable position. However this club has not been accustomed to enjoying second place or finishing second in a cup by losing the final. Losing the final last year should place a certain amount of determination and experience, and the younger players who have got their first taste of defeat, which will or should be part of the foundation in their career, whereby that experience will help them overcome obstacles in the future which should lead to winning trophies. We can say the same thing happened to the English national team, where an experience in finals has shown throughout the team where they fell short at the final hurdle.

This summer, the club has shown its priorities by recruiting Sancho and quite recently Varane, which are world-class players and are being serviced by the worldclass marketing team working behind the scenes to ensure debt decline from certain revenues, and still not impacting the clubs finances to an extent that recruitment was not carried out. The team appears to be very strong in a lot of areas which one would say that the only light position the club has is the centre forward position. There are a number of forwards, but in my opinion they aren’t the typical number 9. Cavani is still a world class striker but one must agree that age is not on his side, but that does not take away his scoring prowess. That position may be filled next season where I believe the measure is recruiting players for a long term basis, which players who are currently in the squad will have the ambition and mental strength to handle the pressure on a weekly basis and turn out performances that are expected of a Manchester United player, and also maintain an image of being a Manchester United player. These I think that the recruitment this season was done very swiftly by shoring up the back line and also bringing in Sancho to create a strong right-side, which the club has missed for a number of years since the departure of Ronaldo and also Valencia prior to his injury who filled up the role quite well but still Valencia had strengths which complemented the side in that period. This squad is full of youth. One player who continues to raise doubts, not about displaying ability but his commitment, is Paul Pogba. This is his final season whereby he can sign a pre-contract in January and will be free to leave the club next summer while continuing to play this season for our club. What is happening behind the scenes still leaves much to be discussed.

The other teams such as Chelsea have continued to build on their success in the European Cup as they are the Champions of Europe, Manchester City have also beefed up their squad while Liverpool welcome back a number of players from injury notably Van Dijk, who in previous seasons was the cornerstone of Liverpool’s defence and one cannot say that he isn’t a very good asset to Liverpool’s playing squad.

I think that the squad is strong enough to take on the challenge of competing for all trophies that they will be playing in but realistically I find it hard to believe that we are ready to take the title from Manchester City. The issue I see is that United lose points, such as draws, against the lesser teams, which if such victories were attained, Manchester City might have had a tougher challenger to the title. This does not mean

that I am playing down the club’s chances for the title but I am trying to be realistic and taking one game at a time. This manager is receiving a lot of criticism which is unjust due to the fact that he is trying to build something that will last 10 years, whereas our rivals over the same period of time over the last 20 years have built squads and used the same terminology that said Alex Ferguson used whereby a playing squad would last approximately 6 to 10 years depending on the player and start to bring in new blood to ‘service’ the old blood. We have seen this with Chelsea and we have also seen this with Manchester City which if one looks at their playing squad right now, the original purchases made from the first few titles have now begun to retire or being sold off as the younger players have now gathered enough experience to take on the mantle from their predecessors. Unfortunately, once Sir Alex left and also David Gill, that left a power vacuum and also a lack of experience at managerial and also board level which is evident as the club’s performances downturned and also players were purchased on a haphazard basis.

Now we are seeing a foundation being built to last a number of years and patience is required with the manager to get things done right. Right does not mean winning trophies. Right in my opinion means playing to the best of your abilities and ensuring that with the shirt you wear, you do yourself and the club justice. People have the perception that the club is entitled to winning trophies. Unfortunately that is not the case. We can see that there are a number of strong footballing teams in the English Premier League, which not only raises the bar for the product that the Premier League sells, but also raises the level that fans get to get to see and also one must agree that having a number of teams fighting for the same title is more exciting than watching a two horse race or a one horse race, something which is found in other countries.

Now is the time that the consolidation of all areas within the club can help aid the manager to bring home a trophy, which could set the marker for further trophies to come back to Old Trafford. I believe the success of Sir Alex Ferguson has become a legacy for the club, which some will see as a burden but others must see it as a catalyst for the future as that man was a relentless winner and every day in your daily job, you carry out your work by doing it in the best manner possible, which should yield to winning over customers. Fans are the club’s customers and if a strong planting is not there, new fans will want to go and support the new clubs on the block with fancy players and strong playing teams, the same thing that happened to us as we grew up in a luxury of watching our team win countless trophies. The same thing happened to Liverpool fans during the 80s and nowadays you would see the Barcelona, Real Madrid and the emergence of Manchester City, Chelsea and the resurrection of the team playing in the red colour in Merseyside.

Time will pass and as the season goes on we will know what plans are in place already for next season, as it seems the manager already has one eye on the replacements he needs to win the title. I would love to see Manchester United back to how it was at the end of the 90s and also towards the middle of the 2000s, challenging for the European Cup as we have only three triumphs. Other teams have a lot more, while a team built over 20 years already has two titles, and one of ours we won against them.

During my first visit to Old Trafford when the players were introduced onto the pitch you would hear: “Please welcome the Champions of England, the Champions of Europe and the Champions of the World”.

I think it has a very lovely ring to it and we need to get it back blasting through the doors and the speakers of Old Trafford.

Bring it on!

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