And Manchester United Are The Chief Con Artists
DATELINE: HELL (Old Trafford) — Look, let’s stop pretending, shall we? You woke up this morning, you scratched your backside, you drank your mediocre instant coffee, and you checked the football scores. Why? Because you are a masochist. Because deep down, in the reptilian part of your brain that evolution forgot to scrub clean, you enjoy suffering. And today, the gods of football have served up a banquet of misery so exquisite, so perfectly rancid, that we must pause to admire the sheer architecture of the incompetence.
We need to talk about Manchester United. Again. I know, I know. Talking about Manchester United being bad is like talking about the sky being blue, or water being wet, or politicians being lizards in human skin suits. It is a fundamental constant of the universe. But today’s revelation from Ruben Amorim—that the club is "underachieving"—is a masterpiece of understatement so profound it belongs in a museum of sarcasm.
Ruben Amorim, a man who looks increasingly like a hostage recording a proof-of-life video, stood before the press yesterday and admitted the obvious. "We are underachieving," he said. No s**t, Sherlock. You’ve spent half a billion pounds on players who run like they’re wearing divers' boots filled with custard.
Let’s analyze this "underachievement." It implies there is an achievement level they are falling short of. But are they? Are they really? Or is 14th place simply the natural habitat of a team whose defensive strategy is "vibe and Inshallah"? Watching Harry Maguire try to turn quickly is like watching an oil tanker try to perform a U-turn in the Suez Canal—painful, slow, and likely to cause a global supply chain crisis.
And let’s talk about the fans. Oh, the United fans. The "glory hunters" who haven’t seen glory since the invention of the iPhone 4. They sit there in their polyester shirts, screaming at the referee as if the man in black is the reason their £80 million winger has the first touch of a trampoline. Wake up, you muppets. The referee isn't biased against you; the universe is. Sir Alex Ferguson made a pact with a dark entity in 1993, and now the bill has come due. The devil wants his soul back, and he’s taking it in the form of endless draws against Luton Town.
But wait! Before the United fans start crying into their prawn sandwiches, let us pivot to North London, where Tottenham Hotspur are conducting a fascinating social experiment to see how much hope can be legally extracted from a human being before they spontaneously combust. Thomas Frank, the man who looks like a mad scientist who just drank his own failed serum, is failing. Shock horror.
Spurs losing as many games as they win isn't a "slump"; it's their heritage. It is the "Spurs DNA" we hear so much about. That DNA is composed entirely of the element "Bottle-ium." They faced Nottingham Forest—a team named after a collection of trees—and looked about as threatening as a damp napkin.
The pundits, those lobotomized mannequins in expensive suits, sit on the BBC and stroke their chins. "Frank needs time," they say. Time for what? To teach grown men not to pass the ball to the opposition? To explain to his strikers that the big white rectangle is the target, not the corner flag? Football is a simple game complicated by idiots. Spurs have perfected the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of a throw-in. It is almost beautiful, in a tragic, car-crash sort of way.
Then we have Erling Haaland. The Cyborg. The Norse Meat-Shield. He scored two goals yesterday for Manchester City. Two. And people are disappointed. Think about that. We have reached a point where a man scoring a brace in the Premier League is considered a "slow day at the office."
Watching Man City win is like watching someone play FIFA on Beginner difficulty. It’s not sport; it’s an administrative procedure. They turn up, the Robot activates his targeting protocols, the ball enters the net, and Pep Guardiola rubs his bald head like a genie trying to summon more tactical fouls. It is soulless. It is rude to the very concept of competition. Crystal Palace didn't lose; they were processed. They were fed into the woodchipper of state-sponsored excellence.
Haaland runs like a glitch in the simulation. He doesn't move like a human; he moves like a terrifying Nordic folklore monster coming to steal your livestock. And yet, City fans—all twelve of them—will tell you this is "beautiful football." It’s not. It’s algorithmic brutality. It’s the death of joy. I hope his batteries leak.
We cannot have a conversation about modern football without addressing the elephant in the room: VAR. Or, as I like to call it, "Video Assisted Robbery."
Somewhere in a dark room in Stockley Park, a group of men are staring at screens, drawing lines with MS Paint, and flipping coins to decide the fate of millions of pounds. "Is his toe offside?" they ask. "Is his armpit in an unnatural position?" Who cares? It’s a game where men kick a pig's bladder into a net. Stop measuring armpits you absolute perverts.
The implementation of VAR has ruined the one pure moment of joy in football: the goal celebration. Now, when a goal is scored, we don't cheer. We pause. We look at the referee. We wait for the man in the ear-piece to consult the Oracle of Incompetence. We hold our breath while they check if a player’s nose hair was beyond the last defender. It is rude. It is disrespectful to the fans who paid £60 for a ticket and £15 for a pie that tastes like cardboard and regret.
Honestly, look at yourself in the mirror. You spend your weekends stressed about eleven millionaires chasing a ball. If your team wins, your life doesn't change. Your boss still hates you, your rent is still due, and it’s still raining outside. If your team loses, you let it ruin your entire week. You shout at the TV. You tweet abuse at a 19-year-old left-back. You are a clown.
Football is the opium of the masses, but at least opium makes you feel good. Football just makes you feel angry and poor. The players don't care about you. They care about their image rights and their Instagram followers. When they kiss the badge, they are checking to see if the embroidery is scratching their designer moisturiser.
Ruben Amorim says United are "underachieving." I say they are achieving exactly what they deserve. They are a content creation company that occasionally plays football. They exist to sell tractors in Asia and energy drinks in America. The match is just the commercial break between the sponsorships.
So, here is the news. Man United are rubbish. Spurs are Spurs. City are boringly good. And you are going to watch it all again next week. You are going to renew your season ticket. You are going to buy the new kit that looks exactly like the old kit but with a slightly different shade of red.
Because you are trapped. You are addicted to the pain. You love the abuse. And frankly, that’s the rudest thing of all. You have zero self-respect.
Now go away and support a real team, like Millwall. At least they know they’re villains.