The problem(s) with United have never really been seen at any other team, certainly not all at once. It’s unprecedented and therefore difficult to really give an expected recovery time.
Whilst player power appears to be a issue but it’s not the main problem. If it was such a problem it wouldn’t be exclusive to United.
Wages, agent fees, bonuses. This is really your own doing. As hard as it is to reduce these figures, it is possible. United and In particular clueless Ed, really failed to curb the upward trend and it spiraled out of control. He mitigated some of it with some good sponsorship deals but this will take years to clear. All prospective new players will now know they can milk this cash cow for everything it’s got.
Pride and Respect. Your players clearly lack this. Countless times you’ve left the field after a poor performance and it’s fallen on De Gea and not the captain to apologize. This is disgusting. They don’t care and their ego completely blinds them to how you all feel.
Playing ability level and varying playing styles is another issue on top of the pride and respect. You definitely aren’t scouting these players well enough. You lack chemistry and players that can change a game.
It’s intereting getting perspectives from the outside, I thank you for that. You have a good point about wage structure is not unique to United, so it must be something more. The point about changes in coaching styles is also a clear factor, though a club like Chelsea has shown that it is not the be all end all.
I find it intriguing that us who view from the terraces (both United fans and others like you) talk about pride, application, laziness etc, while three experienced football men in a row (notice I didn’t say managers), Mourinho, Solskjær and Rangnik, have been in the locker room and all said it is about confidence. That is, the opposite of entitlement.
In this, I trust them more than us TV viewers. In fact, much more. They all have a tremendous amount of experience with how a locker room, training ground and pitch effort is connected, and they have made the same diagnosis from watching close up, while we watch a player make an off the ball run or not and infer motivation and psychology without being psychologists or even knowing the players.
I’d rather turn it around: Given it is obviously not an excess of comfort, self-content and satisfaction, but rather lack of confidence and self-efficacy - what can have effected that, and which is typical of Man United? Wages wouldn’t lead to that, but what would, is the combination of much attention and negative appraisals. United do have more press, nationally and internationally, than any club in England and almost any club in the world. Which we as fans love. And United players has had more criticism than most - in quantum at the very least. If you look at the players who have receives the most attention+criticism at United, you see find players like Maguire, Rashford, Shaw, Wan-Bissaka, Sancho and Ronaldo. Most of them English, some of them lost two finals in two months on penalty kicks recently. All playing way below their highest standard.
Some might say Solskjærs biggest positive effect was averting the negative attention of a big part of the fan base and a big part of the punditry (aka The Old Guard), and that this explains a few of his successes (wild start, Paris Fairytale, best single season since Fergie).
So what should we as fans learn from that?
And probably Sagna and Clichy. God, they had quite a few shite players at that point, didn’t they?