Manchester United are a football club caught between their hopes and their needs and wondering where to go next.
Disappointing league form has created a gap between them and the country’s best sides, and a difficult financial situation risks turning that gap into a chasm. Internal communications discuss ‘Mission 21’ – a programme designed to build towards United’s 21st league title – hopefully by 2028. The club’s decision to make a further 150-to-200 staff redundant in February came amid calculations that the club need to qualify for (at least) the Europa League for the next four years.
How do you go about winning the Premier League when you have a limited number of world-class players in your squad? How do you go about doing that within the next three years when you have a limited amount of funds to spend on new faces in the summer?
Sunday’s FA Cup tie against Fulham was meant to be a chance for Ruben Amorim’s side to address things. A positive result would help to build team confidence and progression to the quarter-finals would have kept open another route to Europa League football. Instead, defeat via a penalty shootout has pushed United’s 2024-25 campaign into a precarious position.
Now, it’s ‘Bilbao or Bust’. Amorim’s men will have to find a way to win this season’s Europa League — the final is being held in the Basque city in May — in order to salvage a disastrous season.
Bernd Leno saves Joshua Zirkzee’s final penalty in the FA Cup fifth round tie (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Statistics taken before United’s midweek win over Ipswich Town show a team that has marginally improved when playing in their head coach’s 3-4-3 system, but the side makes for anxious viewing at Old Trafford. Simple passes can go astray, players can be too slow when reacting to loose balls and the team can be toothless and timid in front of goal.
To watch the world-famous Manchester United play at home in 2025 is to watch a group of nervous actors stumble through a poor dress rehearsal in front of a patient audience. The team is trying. Players and coaching staff are striving to re-enact the sort of football that brought Amorim so much success across his four and a half years in charge of Sporting CP. But, too often, they end up forgetting their lines.
United were competent for large phases of the first half against Fulham. Christian Eriksen – given his first start in over a month – tried his best to supply Rasmus Hojlund with through balls in the opening 45 minutes, while Bruno Fernandes and Manuel Ugarte again put together a monstrous physical effort in central midfield.
United try, but they are still too often coming up short. Calvin Bassey’s header in first-half stoppage time was the type of deflating goal that has become all too common. A simple set-piece flicked on towards Andre Onana’s back post, seized upon by a hard-running opponent.
Hard running is something Amorim’s team regularly attempts, but rarely masters en masse. Fernandes was there. Again, he was the exception, again the one player who did not shrink under scrutiny of a club that desperately wants to be great in future but has little idea of how to be good in the present. But even his second-half equaliser was not enough.
Rasmus Hojlund’s difficult dry spell continued, again shackled by Fulham’s rugged centre-back pairing of Bassey and Joachim Andersen. He was substituted for teenager Chido-Obi Martin in the 68th minute; a young man having to pass on the goalscoring burdens of one of the biggest football clubs to a boy.
Every United forward is forced to fend for scraps before having to cook their own dinner. Players behind them shine and stumble in equal measure within the same game. The latter stages of the second half and extra time brought opportunities for Chido-Obi and Alejandro Garnacho to snatch a winner. The young duo, along with newcomer Ayden Heaven, continue to show signs of promise. If United are to do anything for the remainder of the season, it will come with help from youngsters.
Chido Obi-Martin had a late chance against Fulham (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Sunday’s 4-3 defeat on penalties means the remainder of United’s season is at risk of forfeit. Amorim would use his post-match interview with the BBC to say the eventual goal for the club is to win the Premier League, only for Wayne Rooney to call those comments “naive.”
This is modern-day United. Hoping for a better tomorrow, but burdened by the weight of its past. Old Trafford is no longer the Theatre of Dreams but a Crucible of Cynicism. United will win the Premier League again… one day, hopefully… but more immediate troubles need to be resolved and now Thursday’s Europa League match against Real Sociedad looms large.
There were small shoots of growth in Sunday’s defeat to suggest not all is yet lost. Matthijs de Ligt was superb at denying space for Fulham’s forwards. Joshua Zirkzee continues to develop as a No 10 under Amorim. Leny Yoro’s recovery pace makes him well-suited to the wide centre-back role in Amorim’s formation.
“It is always hard (losing) because you have the cups when the league is not going in the right direction, but we have to focus on the big goal,” said Amorim in his post-game press conference. “Improving the team. Trying to imagine how we are going to improve the team. Not just in this moment and this season, but for the next season as well. So we have to think, not just in the moment, but the future.”
When the 40-year-old was first unveiled as United’s head coach in November he described himself as a dreamer. His ability to imagine and improve his side’s capacity to solve problems will define his tenure. United remain hoping for the best, but fans may have to start preparing for the worst.
(Top photo: Carl Recine/Getty Images)
