Re-United: here we go again
Welcome to the apathy of a post-World Cup pre-season
Allow me to start with a disclaimer: I’m not feeling up for the club season ahead. Sorry. It may be sacrilege to say as a sports journalist and avid follower of Manchester United, but I currently find myself plagued by football fatigue, likely the after-effects of an emotionally draining World Cup, both from a work perspective and as a live-and-breathe-every-ball England fan.
The notion of United playing pre-season friendlies in Scandinavia just days after England’s agonising World Cup exit to Argentina, on the heels of that crazy 6-4 France game and the schadenfreude of watching Argentina disgrace themselves in the final defeat to Spain, felt odd to me. This is a different kind of football altogether and fair play to the United die-hards who are able to drink in every last drop. It just feels rather flat after the turbulent highs and lows of watching England trying to win football’s biggest prize.
Pre-season has always been this way, in fairness. There’s a nagging sense that none of it matters at all, even as social media accounts, influencers and aggregators search forensically for any microscopic detail that might tell us something, anything about the league campaign to come.
Who can forget Andreas Pereira tearing it up in July friendlies, earning the nickname the Pre-season Pirlo? It’s not a place you want to be as a player. You’d rather bomb every single time you played in pre-season if it meant you would hit the ground running when the real stuff commences.
Perhaps this is where I currently find myself as an observer. I’ve had an arduous World Cup and I need a break before I can get my necessary minutes in the tank. It all feels like a slog but, make no mistake, I will be fully engaged for the Premier League opener away at Hull on August 22nd.
Even the transfer news at United this summer has felt fairly pedestrian. Yes, Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans have arrived as much-needed midfield reinforcements, but another one or two big deals would seriously whet the appetite and build excitement over the coming weeks. Another midfielder, obviously, is required. A left-back and a left-winger would be signed in an ideal world and some intriguing names have been proposed in all the aforementioned positions. Manu Kone, Lewis Hall and Crysencio Summerville? Probably not, but these are the transfer dreams that help us wade through the pre-season sludge.
Until then, it’s a case of watching cricket, occasionally scrolling through transfer tidbits and waiting patiently for the cogs to whir into gear once again. United’s World Cup contingent are now returning in fits and starts; when they’re all fully back and firing is another sign that things are getting serious again.
During the season, I will endeavour to write a weekly blog post. As you may have deduced from reading the previous paragraphs, it will be a scattergun approach until then. UTR.
Dominic Booth