Manchester United will always be the team which lost a European final to Spurs and that ‘stain’ is eternal. There is no ‘escape out of this doom spiral’.
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The INEOS brains trust can only be trusted with one more decision
As a United fan who didn’t even bother watching the Europa League final, I’m not the least bit surprised by the outcome. Manchester United are in complete shambles right now. The arrival of Ratcliffe has been so disastrous that even Ed Woodward starts to look like a footballing genius in comparison.
United’s problems are numerous, but the most glaring issue is this: we can’t even decide what’s worse — the players or the managers. When it comes to both Erik ten Hag and Amorim, it’s safe to say that, as poor as the current squad is, the managers have been even worse. And therein lies the root of our troubles.
We have no Director of Football. Our scouting network is non-existent or laughable at best. This leaves the manager (the one who can’t do their own jobs) to also do the scouting, resulting in hundreds of millions wasted on signings who have consistently failed to meet expectations. Under Ten Hag, huge sums were spent chasing his priority targets, yet almost every one of them has proven to be a disappointment. In contrast, Amorin is still demadning players for a system that has shown no evidence of working in the Premier League.
The reality? United are expected to finish this season with 39 points — just above the relegation zone. In many other seasons, that would have meant relegation. Remember the outrage when United finished 7th under David Moyes, and that was without the financial backing ETH was given for instance.
So what’s the solution?
Unfortunately, the current management structure is unlikely to be fixed anytime soon. There will be no Director of Football appointment, no meaningful improvement to the scouting network, and no overhaul of the training facilities. The people in charge simply don’t seem capable of making the right decisions.
This leaves us with only one viable option — one that comes with the caveat that it has not worked out too well in the past but is the only realistic path forward now. We need to hire an experienced, truly elite manager. Someone with a proven track record of winning titles and the full backing of the club. This manager should be entrusted with all football decisions — from which players to buy and sell, to upgrading facilities, restructuring the medical team, and establishing a reliable scouting and data analysis network.
Most importantly, this manager must be given complete autonomy, no matter how much resistance or dissent there may be from players, he must be backed to the hilt season after season. Because the only thing the current board and management can be trusted with is one decision only, hiring the manager. And that too out of sheer necessity. Beyond that, let the only adult at the club (read: new manager hopefully) make all the decisions from thereon. Because, this United board and management have proven repeatedly that to allow them to make even a single more decision would be folly of the highest order.
Adeel
So, for the third season in a row, United found themselves in a cup final looking to salvage their season, only this time, they went to the well and they found there was nothing left for them.
You can’t keep putting off the inevitable. This is a large scale rebuild. It will involve gradually shipping out 10 players and trying to bring in 10 who are an improvement on those going out. That’s a 3, 4, 5 year project. There is no quick fix. There are no shortcuts. The last two years have been sticking plasters, but you can’t keep putting plasters on open fractures. Sooner or later you have to accept that you require more advanced help.
As I have said previously, the problem with United is that are yet to confront their reality. They may have the most Instagram followers in Kenya or whatever, but that is worth absolutely nothing on a football pitch. They need to accept where they are and what they are. Until they do, they will continue to go backwards.
Andy H, Swansea.
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RIP Manchester United
The coroner pronounced Manchester United Football Club officially dead at 21:57 BST on the night of Wednesday 21st May 2025. It was 147 years old.
Dramatic? Perhaps. But if the Europa League final really was “do or die”, well, United didn’t “do”. It feels like a death knell and I expect a lot of black worn at Old Trafford on Sunday for the blessed relief of the season finale. We didn’t deserve to win the Europa and certainly do not deserve Champions League football in 2025-26.
You know things are bad when rival fans have (mostly) stopped laughing and are expressing sincere concern. I guarantee Spurs will be nowhere near the bottom 3 next season. I wish I could express the same confident claim about my own club, but I for one just cannot see an escape out of this doom spiral.
Our best players are likely to be moved on (for tuppence ha’penny, natch); our once-coveted manager looks like he’s hating every single minute of his life and our tight-as-a-gnat’s arse part-owner is similarly regretting his life choices, whilst looking for all the world like a child’s doodle of a medieval king magically made flesh.
The Championship is beckoning. Money can only insulate you from failure for so long in football. The last time we were relegated in 1974, it was only six years after becoming England’s first champions of Europe. With greater finances involved in modern football, it has insulated us for longer, but not for much longer, at this rate in any case. I will never stop loving my club and all its glorious (and inglorious) history, but I am really not looking forward to more of the same next season.
A good start would be to stop losing to Spurs! Nothing against them, but four defeats to Tottenham in the same season? Four?! That’s insane. I’m pleased for big Ange, a man often luckless, scorned and derided. But to actually deliver on his pre-season pledge to “always” win a trophy in his second season? Gotta admire the man’s Tottenham Chutzpah. Just wish he didn’t have to do it at our expense!
To Jim French, thayden, Jon, Lincoln et al: savour that warm afterglow of a cup final victory. Our Gooner friends haven’t felt it in years 😉 Barry Fox has clearly had a few too many celebratory “bottoms-up” poured beers. A decade of dominance? Best not get carried away now, Baz-lar. Best to walk before you can run, no? After all, it was “only” Man United.
Yours pessimistically,
Lee, wondering if there’d be a lot more Champo content on F365 should we ever go down?
Manchester United (1878-2025) is over. I was thinking earlier this season, as a Liverpool fan, that if somehow they got relegated I would quit watching football or caring about the Premier League altogether (not the Champions League of course….) because it would be meaningless to entertain a rivalry when your biggest rival has been destroyed beyond repair. Of course, they didn’t get relegated -but gave it shot- yet United being United, they managed to produce an outcome just as humiliating and unbelievable; lose a European final to Tottenham. (To add insult to injury, without Maddison, Kulusevski, Bergvall…. basically, their best attacking options) 🤯
Lost a European final to Tottenham… (try not to laugh reading that over and over again). They will have to live with that stain forever now. The last European trophy Spurs won was against Anderlecht, a club which fittingly has disappeared from the world stage. How do you live past that as a “proud football club” when Tottenham was the perennial butt of jokes for a reason?? Even hours before the match Paul Scholes was asked to revisit on TV the “lads, it’s Tottenham” pep talk Fergie gave them in the dressing room which became a meme, running joke, soundbite whatever to exemplify the complete helplessness and failure inherent to Tottenham. And yet, you’ve become their b****, Spurs beat them 4 times this season!!! 🤣
In the end of the day, level at league titles and with twice as many European cups, the history books will tell the story that Liverpool beat Tottenham in a Champions League final but Manchester United lost to Spurs in a Europa League final. There are levels to this game. Liverpool has to find a new “biggest fixture” to look forward to because the English Derby no longer is. We may have to manufacture a rivalry with City going forward because United died this season. They’re just the gift that keeps on giving, having perfected the art of failure. You could not script a better season ending from a Liverpool fan’s standpoint.
Raúl H. García (Number 7 next season and I’m done) LFC-YNWA 1892
I was reading bits of the mailbox and Man Utd fans thinking out loud about how to forge a path ahead. Youth was mentioned an awful lot but here is the thing: if you were a talented player under 16 you would not sign for Man Utd right now.
To protect kids and not disrupt families most clubs have to recruit within a geography but that means that Man Utd are competing with Man City and Liverpool for top youth players. Which team would you rather sign for if you were 12 years old right now?
There’s no class of 92 that’s going to be emerging any time soon in my opinion. And the class of 92 had top professionals like Cantona to learn from; who would a kid in the youth team look up to right now other than Bruno?
The club has cancer and it’s been allowed to persist so long that it’s infected almost everything. That combined with a disgruntled feeling from all the staff who Genius Jim has screwed to save £58 a week means that the morale couldn’t be lower.
I don’t see Amorim as the answer and this £100m summer war Chest won’t go far when so much is about to be spent on Cunha making a step down.
I’m obviously enjoying this malaise rather a lot. The summer of optimism will also be great before it comes crashing down on opening day when you lose at home to Fulham.
Minty, LFC
We do talk about Bruno
I was really glad one of your 16 Conclusions on the final picked up on the double Bruno Fernandes turnover in the Spurs half prior to the goal. This gets glossed over so many times, especially when United play well or get a result. The amount of times he gives the ball away unnecessarily is astonishing.
It got me to thinking after the game. If Fernandes were the talisman he is reputed to be. If he’s such a great goal scorer, creator, leader, why have none of the big clubs not come in for him? At the very least, why has there not been the odd rumour at the end of a non-disastrous season, linking him with Spain, Italy or Bayern?
I think the answer to this is that they don’t want him. Is he a good player? Absolutely! But he’s not good enough to be constantly forgiven his wasteful passes, Hollywood balls, whining and moaning at the ref and team mates? I can’t understand how the 6 managers (interim included) he’s worked under since joining United have all deemed him undroppable. Not just that, he’s rarely subbed off
United are in a very precarious position right now. There was talk earlier this season of a relegation battle. I shrugged that off, thinking there’s no way the quality of the teams at the bottom of the table would threaten a side of full internationals. But watching the game last night I could honestly say that I wouldn’t put a tenner on United to beat any of the 3 relegated sides if they were to meet in a week’s time with full strength sides. I don’t think the teams coming up this season from the Championship will be as bad as the 3 going down and I think Leeds and Burnley will have learned their lessons form previous bounces and prepare better for the upcoming top flight season.
So if United want to keep doing the same thing, with the same players, then I genuinely feel next season could be worse than this. And if Bruno Fernandes is still the captain, playing 90 mins every week, no matter how bad his performances are, then they can have no complaints if next May they find themselves in must win matches to avoid dropping to the championship.
I would like to clarify that I’m not laying all the blame for the current sh*t show at his feet. There are a number of players not fit to wear the shirt and the managers have to take a lot of blame too. But this is one area that seems to be constantly ignored and needs to be debated. Are United better off with Fernandes or without. Some fans might see Fernandes leaving as the last finger pulled from the dyke but I think his removal from the team would allow others to step up with an increased focus on in-game tactics. Just look what happened PSG when Mbappe left and the team became less of a one man show.
Mick, Newcastle
Tinpot
I’d like to address the concept that because of the finalists poor league performance and the poor quality game that the Europa League is now a tinpot trophy and shouldn’t get CL qualification.
What about Denmark or Greece winning the Euros? Not the biggest teams nor the best football which would make that competition tinpot now as well.
Do we really want to post decide the value of a sporting success based on the winner’s performance in a separate sporting competition? Is it worth nothing unless one of the big successful teams win it?
But far worse than the subjective, post-rationalised logic is the inhumanity. The denial of one of the most nourishing, heart warming stories that sport brings so wonderfully to life. The plucky underdog who – against all odds – finally gets to the top of the mountain and lifts that trophy aloft. That perfect moment that can never be taken away from them. Shining glory!
Oh no. Wait while VAR team Moses and Wenger check for ‘entertainment and league performance’ offences.
Moving on. You’re my most annoying team – because you always beat us in the most annoying ways – but I’m really pleased for Spurs.
And totally stoked for palace. That’s the stuff football’s about.
The competitive league; Newcastle: it’s been a season where the joy has been spread around and I think that’s much better. The product feels fresher, more filled with possibilities. I think this should mean more engagement, more eyeballs and therefore more value.
Honestly it’s become ‘yeah chuck it on the pile’ when City win a domestic cup for me. Which sounds, and is, wildly entitled and that’s the problem. Even Tiramisu becomes boring after the fifteen bowl. Probably. The rewards being divided between the wealthy few is bad for everyone so I make this a good season.
This City fan needs to get his hunger back to really enjoy winning again. If it ever happens.
That said – Come on Club World Cup!
Big love,
Mansour out!
Hartley MCFC Somerset (being a Utd fan must be like living in a wooden house and discovering your new landlord is a termite.)
Stunningly awful
That’s 90 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. No skin in the game, but the only thing on, so why not. Err, that’s why not.
When the commentator said the game was getting scrappy, two thoughts crossed my mind. One, a disservice was being done to the word scrappy. Second, how could he tell.
Is it now “c’mon lads, it’s only Utd”?
Absolutely dreadful from both sides, poor, misplaced passes, players not making runs, awful positioning, running into dead ends. Both teams devoid of ideas or any kind of cohesiveness; showing why they thoroughly deserve to be 16th and 17th in the EPL.
Credit to Matt Stead who must have had to work overtime come up with 2 conclusions let alone 16 -other than complete and utter dross.
Paul McDevitt
Unbridled joy
Watching Spurs win on Wednesday, Palace at the weekend, Newcastle earlier in the year, and (to a lesser extent) Liverpool (first win the league in front of fans since 1990), reminded me why we were all love football. It has the power to bring so friends and strangers together to share the experience of overwhelming joy.
Over the last week I’ve seen more grown men cry with joy than over the course of the last 10 years. And that’s a good thing.
Well done Spurs. Who cares about the quality of the football. You have played better and lost in the past. Today is about basking in utter joy of winning.
Rob
As an Arsenal fan with many Spurs supporting friends (consequence of growing up in North London), can I just say congratulations and don’t let anyone p*ss on your chips. You won a trophy after 17 years, a European one at that, and you’re now in the CL next year. That’s like an extra £100 million that Levy won’t spend. My group WhatsApp was popping off, and if anyone deserves some joy after a season of misery, it’s them, they took a lot of heat after league games.
Yeah we’re rivals, yeah we love it when the other loses, but ultimately, they won a trophy. They should be able to celebrate without joyless chuds coming out the woodwork to say it means nothing. Phrases like ‘tallest dwarf’ are not helpful, at this rate only the CL will matter, and then you might as well form a Super League if you believe that. There’s something poetic about Palace, Newcastle and Spurs winning this season, perennial under dogs coming good.
Roll on next season. Should be larks!
John Matrix AFC
Lifelong Gooner here, born in 1983. I’ve tried my best to rustle up any interest or anger at Spurs winning a trophy, and I honestly can’t find any. So genuinely, well done Tottenham. What do I care? Not having been born in North London, I don’t have any local animosity. It has always felt like a joke on Arsenal fans to include Tottenham in the same sentence as us. Geography has created this rivalry, not talent or history.
I was talking to a fellow Arsenal fan the same age as me about who we’d rather win the Europa League and he summed it up perfectly: “Tottenham have never hurt me. Never. Man Utd have many, many times. I want Utd to lose.”
Tom
Relegation rules
So with the bar getting lower and lower for staying in the EPL, is it about time we revisited the rulebook?
Imagine this: Bottom three auto relegated. Anyone else with less than 40 points at end of season – into a playoff for your place with the next best championship team.
Absolute Cinema.
Thats all.
Barry
Chelsea birds
Good idea, John L, West Ham (nothing in brackets).