The retirement of Alex Ferguson was always likely to have a profound effect on the fortunes of Manchester United on the field, but few could have anticipated just how far the team would fall and how quickly.

Overview

Firstly, because unless you’re able to stay for 20 years and win 38 major honours, you’re never, ever going to do better than he did. Your performance as Manchester United manager will only ever result in varying degrees of “things were better in the good old days under Alex”.

Secondly, because Alex Ferguson was never going to be one of those managers who retires to an island somewhere to enjoy the sunshine and red wine, or even the television studios. No, he was always going to sit there at the back of the main stand next to Bobby Charlton and, implausibly at one particularly hilarious home defeat last season, that weasel faced arse Mick Hucknall, ripe for the television cameras to pick him out whenever a game was lost, a goal was conceded, a pass was misplaced, or the weather turned a bit nasty. Cut to Alex, now back to Moyes, now back to Alex please. Every setback would bring further stories about odds tumbling on Ferguson returning before the end of the season. It was inevitable, however well or badly the replacement did.

Thirdly, because playing for Manchester United and Alex Ferguson at any point during the past 20 years apparently makes you utterly fascinating, and capable of managing any other football team in the country. Ignore the fact that for every Steve Bruce success story there’s three Roy Keane, Paul Ince and Bryan Robson shuttle disasters — Ferguson’s ex-players automatically make great managers. Fact. And media pundits too. We can all appreciate the superb input of the previously loathsome Gary Neville, but the reason for turning to Dwight Yorke for anything other than a good fuck, or Andy Cole for anything at all, is, I’m afraid, completely lost on me. As is the reason for the London (London) Evening Standard handing Paul Scholes - who’d only ever read about London in storybooks before playing for Manchester United and England forced him to visit once a month - two whole pages every week to talk about Manchester United, which is about as relevant to the average London football fan as a report into the provision for milk allowance during break times in South Korean primary schools. Still, all of this meant that around every corner lurked a former Fergie disciple ready to take points from you, and two more to watch it from on high in the television studio and pass judgement on you.

But the fourth, most important and yet least spoken about (possibly because we were all too busy putting together totally fucking hilarious David Moyes Memes and publishing swathes of opinions from the queued up drones in point three) reason is that Alex Ferguson allowed Manchester United to drift in his final few years there in a manner he never would have dreamed of at any other point during the previous 17 years, or if he thought he was actually going to be there long term.

Paul Pogba, currently tearing the place apart for Juventus and France and linked with multi-million pound moves to here there and everywhere — a player who boasts every facet and asset that Manchester United lack — was allowed to leave Old Trafford, disillusioned with a lack of first team chances. He recalls an away game at Blackburn Rovers where Ferguson selected Park Ji-Sung (I know, I know, I’m sorry, won’t mention that waste of flesh again) and full back Rafael in the middle of midfield with Michael Carrick at centre half, instead of him as a final straw. This a manager who'd previously been better than any other at introducing youngsters to his first team early and building a side around them.

He’s an obvious stick to beat the point home with, but there were others. Massimo Taibi and William Prunier used to be the exceptions — Fergie’s signed a bad one, let’s all laugh at Fergie. For every one of those there were five world class additions. In the latter days, Ferguson spoke of a lack of value in the market, and slowly the squad became stocked with Nani, Ashley Young, Anderson, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and so on.

David Moyes was undoubtedly a man out of his depth. A manager highly adept at working tight budgets, through clever scouting, and long term building, when expectations are low, but somebody who struggled horribly when faced with money and big performance targets. His ham-fisted pursuit of Leighton Baines and Marouane Fellaini, which ended with them paying a colossal £27m for the Belgian and missing out on the left back, showed that he simply didn’t get what was required at a club like United. Replacing the entire coaching staff with his Everton backroom team was ill-advised, if only for continuity’s sake, and sure enough soon stories of him telling Rio Ferdinand that he’d benefit from watching Phil Jagielka play more started to “leak” out.

But he was dealt a particularly bad hand, in what was always going to be an impossible situation, by Ferguson. You only need look at the back four, where Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra had all been allowed to grow old together in a way Ferguson never would have allowed earlier in his career — Andrei Kanchelskis, Paul Ince and others all moved on earlier than they needed to be to make way for younger blood — with only Jonny Evans, Chris Smalling and Phil Jones as replacements. Without the Ferguson factor, and with Moyes floundering, these three and others showed what many critics have long said about the middle and lower ranking members of the Manchester United squad when they get picked for England squads remorselessly — if they were playing for Aston Villa/Newcastle/Crystal Palace/QPR they’d be no closer to the national team than you or I, and they’d be exposed several times a month.

For those of us who’ve grown up loathing everything about Manchester United and their fucking megastore, and their coach loads of supporters going to one game a season from Torquay, and their constant presence on our television screens, and Clive Tyldesley’s insistence on mentioning them anyway on the rare occasions when they’re not actually involved in the game on television, and their baiting of referees and “Fergie time” being talked of as a humorous part of the game rather than a tri-annual travesty for clubs like QPR, and Eric Cantona, and the official Manchester United song-book that they sell outside the ground, and their instance on standing at every away game because they’re better and different from the rest of us, and the way their stewards police the away end like the Gestapo used to police the synagogues in Nazi Germany… last season was glorious.

I thought it was impressive that pigs could have an orgasm lasting 30 minutes until I had a nine month one. Each defeat more glorious and farcical than the last. All conducted under those pathetic, muggy “home made” banners that United fix around their ground proclaiming Moyes as the “chosen one”. By the time he was sacked, after a limp surrender at his former club Everton, with Champions League football an impossibility and therefore a clause in his contract permitting less compensation active, I had no more sperm left to give. A costume of a man.

Now, because we don’t really talk about point number four, and we prefer instead to ridicule David Moyes, we laud Louis Van Gaal. Since he was confirmed as the new Manchester United manager the coverage has ranged somewhere around seven or eight in the sycophantic scale. Have you heard that story about him showing the Bayern Munich players his balls to prove they were big enough to manage the club? You have? Would you like to hear it again?

Then, during the World Cup, he took a flyer on changing his goalkeeper just before a penalty shoot out — against the global superpower of Costa Rica it should be said, although apparently we don’t question why Van Gaal’s all conquering Dutch team needed penalties to beat Costa Rica — and came up smelling of roses when Tim Krul, the replacement, saved two spot kicks. This elevated the coverage to little short of a blow job. Respected, experienced, considered, broadsheet journalists were on Twitter saying unbiased, carefully thought out, not-at-all-reactionary things like “Van Gaal is the Premier League’s superstar signing of the summer”.

Holland didn’t win the World Cup by the way. Or get to the final.

And now Van Gaal is finding what David Moyes found: that United have under invested in talent, and allowed their team to drift. They’re playing catch up now, with colossal transfer fees being paid, but the team remains hopelessly lopsided and while it will almost certainly hammer QPR into the ground this weekend, that will represent a first win in any competition so far this season. Van Gaal has so far been beaten by the mighty Swansea and MK Dons by an aggregate score of 6-1, and tempered that only slightly with a 0-0 draw at Burnley and another fortunate 1-1 at Sunderland, who QPR beat 1-0 last time out.

They’ve rushed to bring in Daley Blind, Radamel Falcoa and Angel Di Maria close to the transfer deadline — potentially three of the top ten players in the league — and cannot help but improve. But given Chelsea and Manchester City’s progress while they were topping up Malcolm Glazer’s will and Ferguson was talking about value in the market, they’re rather like that scare story 29 year olds like me with no pension get thrown at them — if you start saving when you’re 30, how long will it take you to catch up with the amount you’d have saved if you started when you were 20? Answer: you can’t.

To read a more informed, less ranty, opinion of the current state of Man Utd, click here for the thoughts of our regular United contributor Mike Glasgow.

Scout Report

Yes, just as he did in the World Cup, Van Gaal is playing 3-5-2, and yes, just as happened in the World Cup, it’s producing wildly inconsistent results.

Judgement should certainly be reserved. In the initial games Van Gaal has used Jesse Lingaard (striker), Antonio Valencia (winger) and Ashley Young (diver) as his wing backs, which all rather reminded me of the time Harry Redknapp led into a transfer window by picking two goalkeepers on the bench because “wewll that’s awll I’ve got”. Rough translation: get the cheque book out Mr Chairman.

United, despite their recent regression, certainly haven’t been shy of spending. What they’ve assembled though is a somewhat lopsided squad — certainly good enough to make light work of QPR this weekend, but lacking in certain areas moving forwards. For a start, they now have Luke Shaw (£27m), Marcos Rojo (£16m) and regular partially sighted-themed newspaper Daley Blind (£13.8m) in their ranks, who would all seem suited to the left wing back role. Expect Rojos to play on the left side of three centre backs and Bind to move into midfield, once Luke Shaw has moved back to “muscular” (as we had to refer to him last season) from “fat and unfit” as Van Gaal says he is now.

Up front, they have Wayne Rooney, Robin Van Persie and Radamel Falcao. How they fit them all in will be interesting, and potentially terrifying for clubs like QPR. With Angel Di Maria, Adnan Januzaj and Ander Herrera to slot in behind them, and Blind to accommodate, it could well be that Juan Mata is, in time, going to be squeezed out through little fault of his own, and certainly no lack of ability.

The weaknesses are at centre back, and the right side of the defence in general. Jonny Evans has made an appalling start to the season, Chris Smalling is bang average and Phil Jones remains a jack of all trades and master of nothing other than pulling ridiculous faces. They remain weak (relatively, of course) at right wing back.

Despite their recent troubles, this is likely to be a damage limitation exercise for QPR, although they may be heartened by Swansea’s success here in the opening weekend which was achieved playing a very similar shape and system to the one Redknapp used against Sunderland last time out. The Swans played one up top and two wide, just as Rangers did previously with Austin flanked by Phillips and Hoilett, and both their goals came from quick switches of play from one flank to the other, and getting those wide players into the space behind the wing backs. On that occasion, for the first goal in a 2-1 away win, Juan Mata was guilty of not tracking back enabling the Welsh side to isolate a wing back.

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Burnleyhoop added 23:31 - Sep 12 Brilliant diatribe Clive, but haven't heard a peep out of any journo's including frikin sky sports, about the potential appearance of new QPR signings. I hope and pray the combination of Fer, Sandro and Mutch decimate their midfield and Caulker puts Falcao in row Z after 5 mins. Come on boys, make them hurt some more.
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TacticalR added 14:37 - Sep 14 Yes, you can't beat a good anti-Manchester United diatribe. That's an interesting point about Ferguson allowing United to drift. That was hidden to an extent by Ferguson's managerial nouse, the purchase of Van Persie and the brouhaha about Man City. And let's not forget that Ferguson was the man who installed Moyes. Also a good point about the ubiquitous Manchester mafia, which has supplanted the formerly ubiquitous Liverpool mafia.

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