Manchester United & Arsenal – One club trapped by its past, another desperately refusing to let it go

It’s back to the drawing board – again – for Manchester United in this post-Sir Alex Ferguson era, with the sacking of Ruben Amorim and the intense debate about what comes next.

I can’t be the only one watching it all and immediately thinking of the viral clip posted by comedian Michael Spicer…*checks notes* SEVEN years ago. You’ve probably seen it pop up a number of times in the last seven years, as it somehow remains as true now as at any point in that time, and perhaps the best summary of how Manchester United are talked about, and perhaps, by extension, how they even think about themselves.

“This is Manchester United Football Club we’re talking about here, you know, Manchester United Football Club. One of the biggest football clubs, you know, in the world.”

Every football pundit talking about Man Utd. pic.twitter.com/78Pnt5RJjl

— Michael Spicer (@MrMichaelSpicer) November 2, 2019

Why does this ring so true? Because for all the talk of Manchester United ‘DNA’ and needing to go back to their routes, to ‘The Manchester United Way’, it all feels a bit hollow. Am I alone in thinking there just isn’t such thing as Manchester United DNA?

That’s not an insult, by the way, because if you asked most fans around the world which clubs actually have a DNA the two that really stand out are Ajax and Barcelona. It’s no coincidence that these two are connected by the legendary Johan Cruyff, who played for and managed both clubs, and whose philosophy is largely still in place decades later.

There are many great football clubs with plenty to be proud of in their history, and Man United are one of them, but no one else can truly say they’ve stayed true to one philosophy that consistently for such a long time. Outside of the Sir Alex Ferguson era, United are probably on a par with someone like Aston Villa in terms of their standing in English football.

And, crucially, Ferguson himself was not someone wedded to one philosophy – in his 26 years in charge at Old Trafford he went through a variety of playing styles, constantly refreshing his coaching staff every few years to bring new ideas and tactics, and rarely sticking to one game plan even over the course of one season, let alone several at a time.

When pundits talk about the Manchester United ‘way’ or ‘DNA’, they really just mean they want the Ferguson years back, and why wouldn’t they? But at least be honest and recognise that there’s a reason we never hear about ‘Ferguson football’ in the way that we hear about ‘Wengerball’, Pep Guardiola’s ‘tiki-taka’, Jurgen Klopp’s ‘heavy metal football’, or Jose Mourinho’s ‘parking the bus’.

United’s biggest problem is arguably that they’ve allowed one man to define them in a way that he never even defined himself. Ferguson was not a Cruyff or a Guardiola, he left nothing behind when he retired, and now United need to be ready to break away from him too.

Ferguson was one of a kind in his man-management, ruthlessness, and adaptability, and it’s highly unlikely any club will find anyone like him ever again. United need to be able to let go of their past if they are to ever have a brighter future.

And this brings me to Arsenal – where Man Utd are stubbornly refusing to stop clinging to their past, Arsenal are a team trapped in theirs.

You might have heard that Arsenal drew 0-0 with reigning champions Liverpool last night to go six points clear at the top of the Premier League table and it’s an absolute disaster.

Social media is awash with panicking Gunners fans and gloating rivals, with the nervy mood inside the Emirates Stadium perhaps rubbing off on the players as they just didn’t quite turn up in a game that many feel should have been an easy win and an opportunity, perhaps the only opportunity, to go eight points clear and finish the title race for good. Who knew the margins were that fine that two points in January could win or lose a title?

I won’t labour on with my sarcasm any longer – the truth is, Arsenal are a club unable to put their past traumas behind them. Every less-than-ideal result is a disaster, every game feels like make or break, regardless of the reality of the situation, which is that Mikel Arteta’s team has shown time and time again this season that they’re the best in the Premier League, and quite possibly the best in Europe. They are, after all, top of both the Premier League and Champions League tables, with almost all the underlying data pointing to a really complete side that score a lot of goals, concede very few, and who tend to dominate in pretty much every single game, both in terms of possession, and in terms of the high volume of big chances created and low volume of big chances conceded.

But if you repeat something often enough it can become true. Arsenal are bottlers. Arsenal will get your hopes up and let you down. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it’s now possibly Arteta’s biggest hurdle this season to try to calm everyone down, from the fans in the stadium to the players in the dressing room, into believing that, actually, this is a club with 13 league titles (only Man United and Liverpool have more), and countless other major trophies, rather than an institution of genuine bottlers who’ve never known anything but failure.

Manchester United are winners, so their current predicament doesn’t make sense and they just need to go back to being Manchester United, while Arsenal are stuck being Arsenal, so whatever good they do is only leading us up the garden path towards inevitable failure.

Or, perhaps, could 2026 be the year that these two clubs start to re-write their own history? For one of them, at least, the first step is the willingness to change.

But can they? And why should they? After all, this is Manchester United Football Club we’re talking about here.

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