| So then, Mason Greenwood. It’s generally agreed that Manchester United came to the right decision, give or take the rumbles of discontent on the usual Social Media Disgraces. It’s just that it looked like they were heading towards the wrong decision, only to double back and make the right decision once it became clear that making the wrong decision would be a very bad thing. A clean break? Not so much. As Greenwood explores other opportunities, reported to be in Turkey and Italy, the club has taken on more than a modicum of reputational damage. The decision, when it eventually came, followed long months of looking anything but decisive. It could be argued that nobody would come out of such a situation well, that there could be no winners but the Greenwood saga also embodied the malaise that has been at the heart of the club for years now. Power loves a vacuum, they say, and one of the reasons Erik ten Hag has been so popular with many fans is that he has behaved like the type of decisive figure none of his post-Alex Ferguson predecessors could ever be. Even self-appointed hard-man José Mourinho retreated to the sanctity of the Lowry Hotel’s room-service menu when it became clear that the situation was non-fixable. The Glazers remain absentee landlords, give or take a private plane lumped on their expenses bill; club suits running the operation are still doing their bidding. All that summer excitement of a battle for power between Qatari royalty and Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe has ebbed into entropy, and deep disappointment for those that wanted something new, which was roughly 100% of the club’s fanbase. Instead, here’s more of the same … Ten Hag, whom certain fans celebrate with the motto of “bald is best”, has attractive alpha-male qualities. His bombing out of Cristiano Ronaldo was a Ferg-esque, Francis Urquhart/Frank Underwood (delete as applicable to age, nationality and subscription) political coup. It looked at one point he’d done the same to the boo-boys’ No 1 target, Harry Maguire. Except he hasn’t yet. Big H remains in the squad, officially part of ETH’s plans. Within the Greenwood tangle, there was the time-honoured idea that players only remain on the books on the manager’s say-so. Yet Ten Hag remained publicly noncommittal, the final decision painted as a collegiate collective including key stakeholders, nobody given individual responsibility. Has the Greenwood affair cast a shadow? United have started their Premier League season like a team still in pre-season mode, wiping their eyes over a buffet breakfast before a match against the MLS All-Stars rather than actual competitive matches against motivated Wolves and Tottenham opposition. Such an overhanging problem can’t have helped but the conclusion of the issue, as unsatisfactorily as it was arrived at, can only be a symptom rather than a cause of the perennial Manchester United malaise. | 