When David Moyes sat in front of the assembled media like a rabbit in headlights and admitted he was shocked to be offered the United job, the warning signs that life post-Sir Alex Ferguson was going to be difficult were bigger than Cristiano Ronaldo’s ego.
Moyes inherited a team that were the reigning Premier League champions yet by the time he left a mere eight months later, United weren’t even good enough to qualify for the Europa League.
It was a shambles and the United board having seemingly learned the lessons of appointing someone who treated the Old Trafford hotseat like a lottery win and decided to employ a manager with enough top level experience to fill a bookshelf full of CVs.
The issue with Louis van Gaal wasn’t that he didn’t know how to win, it wasn’t that he wasn’t handed transfers that Moyes wasn’t and arguably should’ve been afforded, it wasn’t that he didn’t have the right attitude towards giving younger players a chance. No, the problem with LVG was that his football was so mind-numbingly boring to watch that when the results didn’t go his way, there was little sympathy for a manager churning out not just dross, but relatively unsuccessful dross to boot.
Jose Mourinho seemed like the perfect mix of Moyes’ Premier League experience and Van Gaal’s trophy-winning arrogance, the man who could build on his predecessor’s FA Cup win and be the manager the Reds had been crying out for since Sir Alex called it a day.
Unfortunately for United, Mourinho was no longer the Special One, more ‘the manager formerly known as the special one’ and despite a couple of trophies in his first season and a second placed finish in his next one, never really looked like being fully happy at Old Trafford, nor in all honestly did the players.
Solskjaer’s caretaker spell which turned into a permanent job, gave us fans plenty of semi finals, one final and another second place finish, not to mention a brief dalliance with the top of the table but it would be pushing the realms of truth to say United looked like winning the title under the former baby faced assassin.
The Ralf Rangnick ‘era’ was so disastrous, that press conferences aside, there’s no redeeming factors of his time in charge and much like Massimo Taibi or William Prunier, the Austrian National manager is likely to be best remembered as a quiz question for future generations.
Now we have Erik ten Hag a manager who like three of his predecessors has won trophies, like one of them is Dutch, like another has worked under Steve McLaren but like none of them was actually up-and-coming when offered the job.
The signings have been consistently positive, the results have been comforting, the performances impressive and the manager’s actions understandable. United go into the Manchester Derby on a run of eight successive wins, through to the Carabao Cup semi final and within touching distance of the top two Premier League spaces. Even a pessimist like myself can’t help but feel buoyed by the job Ten Hag is doing at United, the scary part is trying not to get carried away.
While United are enjoying a dominant run, Rashford is in the form of his life and the team is full of confidence, the Manchester Derby can change all that, especially if – as has happened far too often – we allow City to take an early lead.
But with Ten Hag in charge, there’s a weird feeling I’ve not experienced for quite some time following United – hope.
The beautiful bald bastard has got me believing again and I’m almost too scared to admit that.