THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT
Among the deluge of postmortems devoted to Manchester United’s all-too-predictable humbling by their noisy neighbours at Old Trafford, was a piece on the Sky Sports website headlined: “All of Man Utd’s many, many problems analysed.” It was an ambitious endeavour and it is a testament to the author’s talent for keeping things succinct that it only stretched to a mere 1,144 words. In his post-match reflections on the “cultural toxicity” enveloping his former club, Gary Neville joked that Manchester United “need Daniel Radcliffe, not Jim Ratcliffe” to help whip things into shape. And while not even Football Daily would dare open with that one [we would if we’d thought of it first – Football Daily Ed], we suspect a truly comprehensive analysis of United’s current failings would fill far more volumes than the seven meaty tomes in which JK Rowling chronicled the adventures of the famous boy wizard to whom Gary alluded.
