At the final whistle at Elland Road the TV cameras cut to a lingering shot of Manchester United chief executive, Omar Berrada, looking down pensively from the stands, deciding, it is to be hoped, on a little clemency, a re-sheathing of the managerial shotgun. Here we have the man who hired the man. The man who fires the man.
The man who also hired or rehired the previous two men he had to fire. Berrada was poached from Manchester City on the basis of his ability to grow commercial revenue (yes, OK, stop laughing), and appears, like everyone else with any actual reach around here, to exist in a strangely consequence-free bubble. How do you solve what is, on revenue versus results, the worst-run club in world football?
By changing the name of the latest patsy on the touchline, of course. For now a hard-fought point is perhaps enough to stave off that pre-programmed emergency response. Stand down the cowboy cops.
Call off the blue and white saloons. Although with a run of Bournemouth, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Liverpool next up in the league it will no doubt soon be time to go out there and arrest Lee Harvey Oswald again. OK, well, dig him up again.
Someone has to stop these lone gunmen, these managerial magic bullet merchants from derailing the Manchester United supremacy. This was a dual-track football match between Leeds and Manchester United, on the face of it a good, even game between two teams of well-matched players. A 1-1 draw was fair in the end, although Leeds played well and probably should have won.
But of course they won’t be the story. Instead this game had already been billed as that familiar thing, a referendum on the future of Michael Carrick. A stay of execution for a week or two.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
