When will Manchester United just be accepted as a poorly run club whose great years are behind it?

Why do Manchester United get all the attention? Should we not just move on and talk about other football clubs?

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When do we move on from Manchester United?
So Manchester United – a club that hasn’t won a league title in the best part of a decade – remains far and away the most talked about in the media, and on this esteemed website. I don’t think even the savvy, media-aware writers in your hallowed halls can make it three days without writing a feature article on something Manchester United. That changes to daily if you’re any of the major papers, it seems. Just saw an article on the Daily M**l about a United player holding a GUN(!)…at a legal shooting range on his holiday. That is apparently ‘news’.

The question I have is just…why? Is it the age of journalists? Why is there this deep trauma amongst the entire British media about painting a club that has barely touched a trophy in a decade in such a bad light? Only one club is having daily articles written about the lack of transfers, despite about three-quarters of the Premier League teams having made the same number this summer. Only one club where I’ve counted about half a dozen articles about a player MAYBE not choosing them as a sign that the club is a wasteland. And I bet if that same player does sign for them, there will be a similar number of articles making fun of United for signing a 30-year old free transfer last playing for Brentford.

United is a poorly run football club. There is no shortage of those. It is not particularly successful in recent times. Most of the fans are pretty sanguine about the position it’s in, and cling to hope for change. But even when United finished second, there were no fawning articles about overcoming the great Liverpool. When Chelsea finish sixth every other season, there are not dozens of journalists saying this is the end of an era. Barely anyone seems to even know where Spurs or Arsenal finish if it’s not in the top four.

I guess my question is: when will Manchester United just be accepted as a poorly run club whose great years are behind it?
Ryan, Bermuda

…I agree with Dave Tickner on the nonsense coverage around Man United’s transfer dealing so far this summer. There are unrealistic expectations levied onto the club with a guarantee they won’t be met, it’s a good way to get traffic because watching United fail has become a sport in itself with fans…