Manchester United: Post-post-Ferguson
By Sam White
Moyes was the first post-Ferguson manager, and the first post-Ferguson sacking. Van Gaal came in, but his two year tenure still belonged firmly in that stubbornly unmovable post-Ferguson mini-era.
Everything that happened at the club, every signing, success, cock-up and car crash was defined as being inescapably post-Ferguson.
And in the constant reminders of his absence the retired Glaswegian became, paradoxically, increasingly still-present. His absence itself was a presence, a Scotsman-shaped vacuum sucking in energy and looming over even the ego-driven, previously unshakable Louis Van Gaal.
Considering this state of affairs it now comes as a huge relief that something, finally, seems to have shifted. Mourinho has landed. Zlatan, through a fog of dry ice and lasers, with some Euro-trance pounding in the background, has made his entrance. And to top it all off a Stormzy listening, young playmaker called Paul Pogba has just been deposited, creaking under the weight of his own record breaking value and grinning widely, at the front gates of Old Trafford.
Moyes’ and Van Gaal’s stories, in cold contrast to this sudden burst of activity, felt like nothing more than appendices in the Ferguson epic. Although they took place after the great man’s tale was done, they were still part of the same book.
Now though, with Mourinho, Zlatan and Pogba in town it really does feel not like a page has been turned, but that we’ve hit Fahrenheit 451.
Some people have suggested that Mourinho should have been brought in straight after Ferguson, and that the United hierarchy made costly mistakes at that time which are only now being corrected.
It’s a reasonable argument, but I tend to think that not even Mourinho could have entered the stage directly after Ferguson and not forgotten his lines.
There had to be a fall guy and, though it was unintentional, that act of unknowing sacrifice fell to David Moyes.
Two fall guys though? That would be excessive, so I’d suggest from a position of hindsight that Van Gaal has become something else.
Although again accidental, Van Gaal’s appointment now looks like an act of creative destruction. The chains of the past had to be not just broken, but blown away completely, so that whoever came to be in charge would no longer be shackled to Ferguson’s legacy.
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Van Gaal’s time as coach, through its drab gloom and lack of any perceivable direction or meaning, performed exactly such a shattering detonation. He managed to completely eradicate any remnants of the former United. The aggression and pride; the control, intent and arrogance- all were shot to pieces as United came to resemble a deteriorating, melancholy wreckage.
And that, strangely, is exactly what was needed, until the Dutchman’s United bore no resemblance to any team of Ferguson’s. Unwittingly, Van Gaal had performed an act of cleansing, as with grinding, block headed illogicality he scrubbed away any last vestiges of Ferguson’s reign. By doing so, he was allowing the next guy through the door to operate with genuine freedom, relieved of the heavy load of recent history.
So by accident, poor judgment, managerial insanity and something which was beginning to resemble a creeping in-club meltdown, Jose Mourinho and his remarkable first signings have been given a clear run at establishing some new glory.
Mourinho and his signings have a clear run at establishing some new glory
United supporters at home and abroad might like to reflect that the markers are being laid down for a new stage in Old Trafford’s history: the post-post-Fer… that is, the Mourinho-era.