MANCHESTER, United Kingdom — As Manchester United's owners, the Glazers may never get it right. They were rewarded with a Super Bowl title at the first attempt when they signed Tom Brady for their NFL franchise, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but despite Cristiano Ronaldo's goals and star quality, the best they can hope for this season is Europa League qualification, such is the depth of the malaise at Old Trafford.
In Thursday's 1-1 home draw against Chelsea, Ronaldo increased his Premier League goal count to 18 with a second-half equalizer two minutes after Marcos Alonso's volleyed opening. Only Mohamed Salah of Liverpool has scored more goals this season, with 22.
Even Ronaldo's tremendous contribution since his return to Old Trafford from Juventus last August has only been good enough to put United in sixth place in the table, five points behind fourth-placed Arsenal, who have played two games less. Manchester City and Liverpool, the league leaders and United's two main opponents are 25 and 24 points ahead of United, respectively, and are still on track to meet in the Champions League final in Paris next month.
While Ronaldo has done precisely what he was supposed to accomplish when he arrived for United, scoring eight of their last nine goals, the rest of the squad has been so bad this season that his heroics haven't been enough to lift the club to glory, or even close to it.
In the sense that two of contemporary sports' most iconic personalities play very different ballgames, the comparison between Ronaldo and Brady is a stretch, but signing both of them demonstrates how the Glazers run the dice as owners. They place a high value on individual star names, thinking that their personality and notoriety can help turn a losing team into a winning one while also increasing commercial income.
After signing Brady for the 2020 season, the Buccaneers won their first Super Bowl in 18 years, but Ronaldo is the latest great personality to realize that United cannot be inspired by athletic marvels. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Radamel Falcao, Angel Di Maria, Alexis Sanchez, and Paul Pogba — who will leave Old Trafford as a free agent this summer after six disappointing years — have all tried and failed to replicate Brady's success with Tampa Bay.
The supporters blame United's American owners for years of stagnation, as anti-Glazer rallies in and around Old Trafford before and during the Chelsea game demonstrated. Since their leveraged buyout of United in 2005, the Glazers have been a source of discontent. After seventeen years, the success of Sir Alex Ferguson's reign is now a distant memory, and the club hasn't won a trophy in five years.
The failure of managerial appointments and the squandering of transfer funds are to blame for the team's poor performance. Mismanagement in the boardroom and on the training ground has left United with a severely underperforming team and an interim manager in Ralf Rangnick, who is set to take the post of Austria coach, putting his future as a consultant at Old Trafford in jeopardy.
Rangnick has only managed one win in his last seven games, following the draw against Chelsea. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, his predecessor, was sacked in November after winning only two of his final seven games, so it's reasonable to assume United won't be begging the former RB Leipzig coach to disregard his Austrian exit path.
Rangnick has gained popularity among United supporters in recent years for his honest appraisal of the club's players and hierarchy's decision-making, but he has also deflected attention away from his own faults in man management, tactics, and selection. This is Manchester United in the year 2022: everyone is seeking someone else to blame and trying to preserve their own image, while the supporters continue to demand that the Glazers sell up and go.
Everyone is waiting for Erik ten Hag, the new coach from Ajax, to start the process of rebuilding confidence and belief, as well as restoring some hunger and pride to the players, to finish this season of upheaval.
Ten Hag will be saddled with a plethora of issues, but Ronaldo isn't one of them. The Glazers are because the fans will never accept them, but ten Hag can only address this issue by establishing a winning club that offers the people something to cheer about.
However, based on the performance of the current United club, he'll need to combine the skills of Brady and Ronaldo to bring the good times back to Old Trafford.
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