A decade ago today, Manchester United’s team and staff were in Yokohama, Japan, to compete in the World Club Cup. Severely jet-lagged, Sir Alex Ferguson looked rougher than anyone at Old Trafford had ever seen him. His staff didn’t know what time of day it was and described themselves as the grumpiest group of people you could imagine.

Coaches and players would take a bath at 4am overlooking the lights of the Yokohama funfair – and think it was 10pm. Several thought they were hallucinating and felt that the only thing that got them through that trip was a few beers each night.

In the bars of Yokohama and Tokyo, hundreds of travelling United fans were also on the Japanese beer.

“It’s a long way to Yokohama,” they sang to the tune of “A Long Way To Tipperary”, a song written in Greater Manchester, “It’s a long way to go. It’s a long way to Yokohama, where all the good teams go. So goodbye Man City and goodbye Liverpool too. It’s a long, long way to Yokohama...”

One fan had stayed in his room. Mike Dobbin who went to more games than any other – even if that meant flying back from Pretoria from a preseason game to attend another at Oxford, then another in Nigeria within three days – was feeling rough. He didn’t know he had cancer; he’d be dead within a month.

United beat Japanese side Gamba Osaka in the semi-finals 5-3.

Ten years after, United have slipped a long, long way from where those good teams go

“Fucking hell! They were running around everywhere, so quick,” recalled Anderson, one of the three South American players Ferguson selected for the final against Liga de Quito alongside Carlos Tevez and Rafael.

But, in the cold of Yokohama, it was Wayne Rooney who stood out. When Nemanja Vidic was sent off, the United players felt they saw the real Rooney. United’s Scouser was everywhere and scored the only goal. The players thanked him after the game, but knew what had driven him was a desire to be a world champion.

“When Rooney was angry he played amazing,” Anderson told me later.

“Ob la di, ob la da, Man Utd, champions of planet earth,” was the fans’ new song before they flew back for a game at Stoke. United won again. Tevez. They were the best team in the world and training sessions were played with the intensity of a European Cup final.

Ten years after, United have slipped a long, long way from where those good teams go, especially in the post-Ferguson years. England’s biggest club are currently 19 points off England’s top club, Liverpool, after only 17 games. How did it come to this?

Liverpool was the venue for José Mourinho’s last match as United manager on Sunday. As the players rested in the city’s Titanic Hotel and 3,000 away fans prepared to travel to a game few of them thought their side would win, Mourinho was more isolated than he’d ever been since joining United.

Two weeks earlier in Southampton, the city the Titanic had sailed from on its first and last voyage, he’d raged at his players in the dressing room and singled out Paul Pogba for being a malign influence on the rest of the squad. He’d done the same at Brighton earlier in May and told them he had no interest in being their friend and that if they wanted to leave then they could leave right that moment. He applied that to his staff, too, most of whom he’d fallen out with. Mourinho’s assistant Rui Faria moved on a month later.

The fans continued to support him well at games, but even their support was waning. They last sung his name with gusto after the late, great win in Turin on November 7th. Mourinho amusingly cupped his ears to wind up the Juve fans who’d taunted him for 180 minutes.

Mourinho had a tough job too and he did it well for the first 18 months before things began to slide

But by last weekend the players noticed a change, even before he texted them for private meetings in the Liverpool hotel. He wasn’t the same. Resigned and thoroughly miserable, perhaps he knew what was coming and felt limited in his power to stop an eighth United defeat of the season.

Still, he didn’t expect to be sacked. He’d been miserable all year so little had changed, except that the atmosphere around the club and among the fans was starting to get more toxic. This was not the environment in which a successful football team operates.

His side weren’t scoring enough goals and were conceding too many. He was frequently at loggerheads with Pogba – a signing he felt was foisted on him when he arrived in 2016 and one he felt pressured to play (United strongly refute both these points). This is the Pogba who is so proud to play for Manchester United that there’s no reference to it on his Twitter profile.

Other players were starting to despise their boss and felt their careers were being hampered. They believed they were being used wrongly and played out of position. Although some made their feelings clear to Ed Woodward when he gauged their opinions on Monday, several honest players admitted they weren’t covering themselves with glory, just as they had done before Moyes was sacked.

The blame was to be shared, but it’s far easier to sack a manager than a team. Staff were also consulted. Woodward did the same before he sacked David Moyes and Louis van Gaal. With one difference – this time he was determined the sacking should be handled properly, unlike when Moyes and Van Gaal found out they were gone through the media. That wasn’t the United way, but what exactly is that these days? The team isn’t close to United’s attacking traditions. Activity in the transfer market is profligate. Fred cost £52 million. There were serious eyebrows raised among his former teammates when they found out he was going to United and would become the fourth most expensive player in the club’s history.

Eyebrows stayed level when Alexis Sanchez joined, but like Angel di Maria before him, a world-class reputation can quickly diminish when you flounder at United. Can the finger be pointed solely at José for their unhappiness and lack of form? Players choosing to be treated for injuries away from the club illustrate how there are issues that won’t be quickly resolved just because Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has arrived.

The Norwegian is hugely popular among United fans and the club. He was a fantastic player who scored the most important goal in the club’s history, the one which won the treble. A very good coach too with the youth and reserve teams.

When Solskjaer signed for Manchester United in 1996, he looked like he was 14 and described United as “the biggest club in Norway”. He’d known how United compared with Liverpool, the next most popular team, for Solskjaer was a paid-up member of the Liverpool supporters’ club as a child.

He has a tough job as caretaker manager. Mourinho had a tough job too, it must be said, and he did it well for the first 18 months before things began to slide. His concerns about United being over-commercialised to the detriment of the football are not isolated.

But Solskjaer’s presence while United look for a permanent manager will bring some calm to the corridors of Carrington. Everyone at the club wants him to be a success, which wasn’t the case with his predecessor towards the end. In Mick Phelan, he’ll have an experienced, respected coach alongside him, someone who remembers what it was like when United were kings. Someone who was struggling to sleep in Yokohama a decade ago today as he sat watching a big wheel spinning round.

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