The NBA playoffs are here, and I'm getting my bets in on FanDuel. Talk to me, Chuck GPT. What do you know? All sorts of interesting stuff. Even Charles Barkley's greatest fear. Hey, nobody needs to know that. New customers bet $5 to get 200 in bonus bets if you win. FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook.
♪♪♪
Hello and welcome along to the latest episode of the Samuel Lucker Show from the Manchester Evening News. My name is George Smith and alongside me of course is our Chief Manchester United Writer Samuel Lucker. Samuel, how are you? It's only a couple of days since we last spoke but how are things?
It is, yeah, it is. I'm very well, thank you. I'd be better if it was a little bit more news to get stuck into. I think we've done a pretty decent job this week in terms of unearthing stories and doing some original pieces around it. But it is that usual time where late June it all of a sudden becomes quite quiet, particularly with United. And I think the whole PSR situation has had a big bearing on that.
as well with this looming June 30th date, the cut-off for the financial year. So I hope for all our sakes that these are the last fallow days, these last days of June. And then July, I can see it picking up again, really, and getting a bit more energy about it.
Fingers crossed. But as always, before we dive into today's podcast, we must offer a shout out to our new podcast sponsor, Saley, which is a brand owned by NordVPN. That is a new eSIM service app that you can use abroad if you're in desperate need of an internet connection. You can download Saley in your app store and use our code Manchester at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase. For more information, please go to our description box below.
With that out of the way, Samuel, you've just mentioned there about how quiet it's been. There's not really been any sort of major news developing the last couple of days since we last recorded a podcast on Wednesday morning. So we are going to do something a little bit different in the second half of this podcast, where we're going to talk about what it's like to cover United from a journalist's point of view. But in the first half, we are going to have a little talk about Nick Cox, who...
He's going to be leaving United to join Everton as their technical director. He joined United in 2016 and became the figurehead of the academy three years later. Some incredible moments have happened during that time in terms of debuts, FA Youth Cup victory in 2022. And he's going to leave a big void in need of filling, but it must be stressed that he is going to oversee a transitional period before departing.
He is. He's going to stay on and whether they'll have a new face in the building to take over by that point remains to be seen. But he is a significant loss. I remember my earliest at the MEN match,
It was strange with the United Academy because its reputation was still held up by a couple of players who'd come into the first team under Louis van Gaal and had been over-promoted, frankly. I can think of Paddy McNair being one. And this was, I should stress, this was van Gaal's first season, not his second season, when, of course, the two breakout players from the Academy were Jesse Lingard and, most memorably, Marcus Rashford.
But I think during this time, Van Gaal gave debuts to something like, it was between 12 or 14 academy players. And there was a bit of a grey area as to whether you, I think it was Regan Paul and it might have been Rhys James, whether they actually were defined as academy players because you had to have played for the youth team. And Regan Paul only played for the under-21 team, essentially the reserve team.
But Van Gaal had obviously given prominence to these players and a lot of them had come in his first season. You had the incongruous sight of Tyler Blackett actually starting a season for United because he was a centre-back and he was left-footed. That was literally the only reason why he came into the team.
And of course, there were some really quirky success stories in that McNair on his debut was excellent against West Ham. And then the following week, he was probably even better against Romelu Lukaku. After that, he looked like, I think he was found out to say the least, to the point that he came on away at Southampton.
because of an injury, and then he was actually substituted because he was just a complete liability. And there was a stint at right back that some people got ahead of themselves over, as is the want with academy players. But the reason why I'm saying all this is that, and James Wilson, to a lesser extent, was another player who got some exposure in that season. But at the time, the academy was in a real dire state.
And in 2015, Brian McClare left as the academy head. And for the best part of the year, that role was not replaced. The academy was jointly run by John Alexander, who was the club secretary at the time.
and was not a particularly popular figure at Old Trafford with staff. He was a Liverpool fan. Remarkably, he was still quite present at Old Trafford as recently as last season. He's also the uncle of Trent Alexander-Arnold, hence the surname. But he was jointly running the academy with John Murtagh,
who was not as well known then as he would become at United and was, I think, a far more credible figure to actually oversee the academy at the time. And it wasn't until 2016, early 2016, that Nicky Bart came in and was starting to oversee the academy. And at that point, they did become
2016 was an important year for the academy. You saw a lot more aggressive recruitment going on. I'm thinking of Tahith Chong, who was a real big name, certainly at academy level, to come in from Thionord. I think there were some others like Nishan Burkhart. I'm really testing my knowledge here. Joshua Bowie, who
was quite relatively... There were headlines about these kids when they were joining the United Academy and that hadn't happened for a while. And of course, the academy was still, its reputation was still held up by what Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard had done. I mean, Lingard scored the winner in the FA Cup final that year. But beyond it, it had been neglected. And I remember...
the red issue editor at the time even though the fanzine had since folded it still stressed it still expressed its absolute um disgust really that this role one of the most important roles of the club was not getting the um the attention that it deserved and it was a difficult time for the united first team because they were planning on sacking vanguard for marino
And the team were not doing well. They finished fifth that season, which sounds like heady days now. But it was a bad season. The football was unwatchable. There were issues with fans threatening not to renew their season tickets. But the fact of the matter is that the academy should have got a lot more tender love and care than it did. And of course, 2016, that was the year that Nick Cox joined the club.
And certainly for a few years, I think the academy, you could see progressive strides were being taken. They had a couple more campaigns in the UEFA Youth League. You saw more good players come into the first team. It felt like it got a little bit more prominence under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as well. Of course, under Mourinho, his academy legacy was Scott McTominay.
I suppose you could say Axel Tunzibi to a lesser extent didn't quite go to plan with him when he had the potential to be, I thought he had the potential to be a very good defender for United, but the stars never aligned there. And then there was that summer of 2019 where Nick Cox was promoted to the academy. And I remember when we were, when we got that news, we were in Shanghai on the pre-season tour and Cox was not a name I'd heard of. I think at the time, because Nicky Butt had taken on
I think it was a head of first team development or something like that. I think it was almost as if they were almost jointly running the academy, but Cox was seen as the academy head. And Buck was clearly content with that because they had a working relationship for the best part of two years. And I'd sit downs with both of them at various points in that third season, but
And I think that was the season 2019-20. So it was Cox's first season as the head of the academy. They got to the semifinals of the FA Youth Cup, which would have been for the first time in eight years, which felt like a big leap forward, a big stride forward, because United, their record in the Youth Cup in recent years had been really poor. They'd had some really, really wretched results. They got thumped, I remember,
in the third or fourth round in 2016, 5-1 by Chelsea it might have been. I think it was 5-1 or something like that at Altrincham. Marcus Rashford was in the team. It was about five, six weeks before his debut. Louis van Gaal was in attendance. It was a very prominent match, of course, between Manchester United and Chelsea. And there were a lot of stories, pieces about
Crikey, look at the state of the most fabled, famous academy in the country. They're getting annihilated. They're getting pummeled by City. I think there was one particularly horrendous defeat to Manchester City for one of the age groups at that time, where it was almost double figures from memory.
So there were a lot of high profile things going on at academy level that really reflected badly on United around 2016. So fast forward three or four years and Cox's first season as the head of the academy,
and it looked in it looked in good nick again all of a sudden and nikki but did a lot of good work with that and of course in 2019 the summer that cox joined the club you also had a very very high profile academy signing of hannibal meshbury who costs i think 10 million euros and although they'd been recruiting quite aggressively under bar that was taking it to a whole new level with meshbury and cox in fairness to him had the foresight
to know and I think Nicky Butt deserves a lot of acclaim as well. With the Brexit regulations coming in, clubs were not going to be able to go and sign players from abroad under the age of 18, which was a massive hindrance when you think of, you go back to 2004,
Two big signings for Manchester United that summer, and they did get headlines back then, even in this pre-social media age, were Giuseppe Rossi and Gerard Pique. And I think they might have been 16 and 17 at the time, or I'm pretty sure both of them were under 18. And so United were doing it as far as back then, buying players who went on to have, in the case of Pique, a great career. Giuseppe Rossi had a pretty good career as well. Both were internationals.
albeit after they'd left United, but still United played a big part in their development. So not having that possibility to go for these players, they knew this was going to come in, this legislation from 2021, would it have been, I think, in terms of affecting Premier League clubs. So then you go to 2020,
And I remember at that time, of course, because of the pandemic, you know, any kind of news you can get, it's a bonus. And the fans, the season had restarted and football was underway again. But there was a hell of a lot of interest and a hell of a lot of attention on these kids coming in from Spain. Marc Gerardo from Barcelona, Alvaro Fernandez from Real Madrid, and of course, Alejandro Garnaccio from Atletico Madrid. And with Garnaccio, I spoke to Cox last year and he told the story that
He was holding video calls with Garnaccio and his family through a translator on Zoom because of the situation we were in at the time in 2020. And he remembered outside his office, his two lads were having a dispute over some video game that they were playing on the Xbox, I think it was.
and he heard this going on the background while he's pitching to this 16 year old kid why he should leave madrid to come to manchester at the height of the pandemic when he's he can't speak any english at the time
Clearly, the pitch worked. Garnaccio came to United. He was the star in their first ever FA Youth Cup win since the class of 2011. He scores in an FA Cup final in 2024. This time last year, he was deemed untouchable. We know it's likely to end on a sour note, unfortunately, because of what happened last season.
But has he been a good player for Manchester United? Absolutely. And that will probably be, you know, when people talk about Cox's legacy and his impact,
Garnaccio will be the lead image on it because look what he did in the Youth Cup final, look what he did in the FA Cup final, what he's contributed to United. It makes it even more of a pity that his United career will effectively end after five years. But to have been able to have convinced a very callow 16-year-old at that time when there's a pandemic going on, when naturally his comfort zone, you might have thought,
clearly, even though he wouldn't have been, and his family wouldn't have been as remunerated as well had they stayed in Spain or stayed in Madrid as they were in Manchester, it's still a big ask. And, you know, Garnaccio was having to train
I think at the cliff with this big marquee because they had to have all these temporary training methods in and all these almost gazebos, if you like, for COVID testing. And he would be given essentially a lunchbox for his meal plan to take away with him.
because you couldn't eat in a canteen in the communal environment, again, because of COVID-19 protocols. And that first season for Garnaccio was, although he came in at a very young age, he was younger than Gerardo and Fernandes by a year, it was just a season of adaptation. His impact on the academy that season was a footnote. But United had also had a couple of other highlights
high-profile domestic signings that summer in 2020, which were, of course, Charlie McNeill switching back from Manchester City
And Joe Hugel coming down from Sunderland. Hugel, unfortunately for him, his professional career, it's hit the skids a little bit after a couple of unsuccessful loan spells with Wigan and Carlisle. But academy level, he was wanted by Tottenham, he was wanted by Arsenal, he joined United and he was excellent that first academy season. And I think a bad injury in his second season, that seems to have had a really detrimental impact on his career.
on his development and his growth as a player unfortunately for him charlie mcneil was seen as a particularly significant signing because he was in united's academy at a very young age but he joined city's academy because city's academy was a lot better
When you look at the facilities that City have still nearly 11 years on from opening the CFA, it's still better than Manchester United's. And that's something that United are going to have to eventually address, even though the stadium is going to take priority. People at the club know that Carrington is not fit for purpose, effectively. So they need to have a shine. They can't just trade off the history with the academy.
Yet they've got the academy to a level where young players want to go to United again, which wasn't the case before Cox came in. So Hugo was an example of that. McNeil was an example of that. Chido Obi, defecting from Arsenal last year, was an example of that. People at United this week were even adding in Aidan Heaven, which you can kind of count because although he'd played for Arsenal's first team,
It was only one substitute appearance. He was, in fact, he left for a compensation fee. When you talk like that, it's, of course, you're talking about someone at youth level and Aidan Heaven is 18. The Fletcher twins in 2023, who'd spent a long, long time in Cities Academy, nearly 10 years, I think it was. I think they joined Cities Academy in 2014.
They wanted to go back to United and I've spoken to Darren Fletcher about this and he wanted to take as much of a backseat as possible. He did not want to be having a bearing on it. He didn't want it to seem like nepotism whatsoever. And I think you look at those two players and how they've gone about their careers at United, I don't think you can level that accusation if anyone's actually dealt with Darren Fletcher and has come to not necessarily know him a little bit, but certainly understand
have the privilege of speaking to him you know how well grounded those two lads are and how well they've adapted to United despite some significant setbacks as well Tyler had a big injury in the first season Jack Fletcher's had an injury that had an impact on his second season
But again, it was still seen as a coup and United thought it was a revenge move by City to take Harrison Parker from their academy to offset the loss of the Fletcher twins moving defecting to United.
And I'm only talking about recruitment at the moment, but it is a reflection of how appealing the Manchester United Academy has become again. And the academy building at Carrington has been expanded as well. The last time I did an interview with Cox, it was in that building building.
where the facilities have expanded. There were a few players in the building using the gymnasium when we were just being shown around it. You go into that building and the images of players are stenciled onto the walls who have been great players for United or bit part players for United. For example, Dean Henderson is stenciled onto that wall.
which some people might think, well, he's not exactly a United legend. No, he isn't. But he's having a brilliant career. And if you're a goalkeeper at Manchester United, the chances of you making it as Manchester United number one are so, so slim. I think Henderson was the first number one and it was a very brief stint as number one.
since Gary Walsh and his stint as number one was extremely brief as well. Yet there's a player on the wall who's left Manchester United as a goalkeeper, has become an England international. There's talk of him possibly supplanting Jordan Pickford as England's number one. He's going to be playing in Europe next season. He won the FA Cup. He was man of the match in that FA Cup final. Why wouldn't you have him on the wall? Because he is an academy success story, even though United botched him last
as a possible first team number one. And I think you can't say all of this is to Hampton and Cox, obviously, because Dean Henderson embarked on his first loan in 2016. That was, sorry, it was 2015. I think it might have been midway through 2015-16 season, I think, when he went to Stockport.
And of course, you've got Les Parry, the former loan manager, checking in on players who'd have had a huge input and deserves huge credit as well for the role he played in Dean Henderson's development. And it can be easy to attribute certain players' successes to Nick Cox when it's probably he's played a small part. But I think he would say himself that he's played a small part in it.
But when you look at the body of work from 2019 to 2025, and then winning one FA Youth Cup, you look at the players who've come into the first team. I think I counted it at 27 the other day. And of course, again, you can't attribute all that success to Nick Cox. And I don't think he would want all that as well. But he has done a hell of a lot of great work plotting, discussing, planning,
dozens hundreds maybe of youngsters career parks and quite rightly people at the club see his uh impending departure as a loss because it has been a really successful period for the academy and you can't always measure that just by how many fa youth cups have they won um i think you'd be remiss to to do that but you have to essentially you have to look at the state the academy's in
And even though Ruben Amrim's use of the academy has been curious at times, shall we say, you'd see
a 16 year old added to a match day squad then days later a 20 year old will be starting um for example there god will kukonki and then um tyler frederickson coming in making his debut but i didn't mention harry amas among the recruitment um coups but he's another one and of course in that 23-24 season it was it was pretty much a triple crown wasn't it from
the United Academy in terms of everything. They won almost everything at youth level apart from the Youth Cup where they froze on a night at Swindon Town and lost 2-0 which was bizarre because they swept all before them before and after that and had a near perfect season at youth level and that was the season where you had the 250th Academy graduate in the even weekly coming on against Sheffield United. Largely
last season they probably should have done a lot better in the youth cup as well losing to Aston Villa in the semi-finals but they've become a lot more competitive at that level and
And even during trying times during COVID, where it was unpleasant for us for various reasons, just as people living with their families and us being a lot more grown up than teenagers at football clubs. Are they living in digs? Are they living with their families? Some of them having to quarantine, as was the case with the lads who came over from Spain.
But you look at the players who've come in on Cox's watch and United are starting to become better at selling some of those players as well in terms of Alvaro Fernandez should clearly deserve a chance at some point in the first team. Didn't happen, but he's now playing at the Club World Cup for Benfica, playing the Champions League for Benfica. Cox can say, look, that's...
I mean, that is a personal success for Cox. Absolutely. Even though Ten Hag inexplicably didn't give Alvaro Fernandez a chance. So Everton, it'll be fascinating to see how he gets on at Everton because technical director is obviously a big step up. But,
He's shown, certainly at youth level, that he has got an eye for a player. And when it comes to actually overseeing the academy side of a big football club, and Everton are a big football club, I think that should stand them in good stead. And it will be a big, big task for the next man who comes at United who replaces him.
Most definitely. He's earned his stripes, hasn't he? He's done excellent work, as you've mentioned there. Samuel, he's recruited countless promising youngsters, whether they've enjoyed good careers at United or gone on to have them elsewhere. And as you mentioned, the 2024 FA Cup final with Garnaccio scoring in that. Koi Mainu, another one, not recruited, of course, come through the academy from a very young age, but Nick Cox playing a key role in forging his way to the first team. And it's players like Mainu and Garnaccio that will be the mark on Nick Cox's legacy, isn't it, at Old Trafford?
It has to be. And, you know, that, I did rumble on for quite some time there and it was quite, there was a,
where I was focusing quite heavily on the recruitment. But of course, the essence of United as an academy is local lads. And sometimes you get lads who come through and they're seen as practically adopted Mancunians, even though they're not from the area. I mean, David Beckham is a classic example of that. And it has become more cosmopolitan where they have been signing players from abroad,
and they've had some very high profile, they had some very high profile arrivals under Cox and okay, Chido Obi, he came from Arsenal, but he is, he's a Denmark youth international and he's making strides there. And for him, although last season was an absolute disaster for United, for Chido Obi, it was, it could hardly have gone any better. The only way it could have gone better probably for him on an individual basis was if he would have
Scored his first competitive goal in football. But he still ended the season scoring a couple of goals in a friendly for the first team and having the privilege to lift whatever the name that cup was in Hong Kong. And already people were quite rightly excited by him. Again, I think fans in particular, they tend to get ahead of themselves and they do overhype
young players and that can definitely be unhealthy and there are certain accounts out there, I think social media accounts that really don't do the players themselves any favours because the players will see the adoration they get and they'll start to believe their own hype and that's where United have got to come in and really temper that a little bit at times.
You can't always say it's been perfect over a period of someone being at a club and obviously that's the case with Cox. I think the one area where United as a whole clearly let themselves down was Mason Greenwood and the reaction to that and the intention to reintegrate him into the squad that was abandoned after fans expressed their uproar over it.
And I really thought that, I mean, it was badly handled anyway, so that kiboshed any notion of this happening. But they should have been, from the outset, absolutely intent on allowing, trying to find a new club for Mason Greenwood. But they also, I thought, should have announced a mandatory educational programme for academy players that they would take on. And of course, they educate the players properly.
in various ways anyway, but that was such a serious situation given what happened before everything came out that the club were going to, they were planning to reintegrate Greenwood. It just felt like that needed, that was a point where there needed to be a line drawn there.
and they they you know that's not on nick cox obviously because it was football football leadership group it was eric ten hard wanting greenwood back in his squad it was somebody at the club described it as a tragedy that greenwood wasn't going to be able to play for united again i thought that was the most histrionic use of the word tragedy since the bgs after in in a song several years ago so
That's something where, and look, people at the club have said about the social media and young kids, you can't police it, absolutely. And you wouldn't want to police it either because youngsters have got to have that independence. But you also want to, and in the majority of cases, Manchester United obviously do develop, they don't want to just develop good footballers, they want to develop good human beings as well because they know, they recognise that they have a huge role in
to play in the development of youngsters, not just as footballers. They want them to be polite. They want them to be humble. They want them to be good personalities. Everyone's going to be a different personality, but there has to also be a common thread with the way they conduct themselves. And you do see it from time to time, like,
I can't tell you which one the Fletcher twins it was because it's difficult to tell them apart but I held the door open for them at Carrington and sometimes you think through your head are they actually going to say thank you here and whether it was Jack or Tyler they couldn't have said thank you more politely so I thought well it's not a surprise it's not newsworthy as such because they've been brought up very well by two very caring parents anyway and
you've also got those United ethos drummed into you as well. But occasionally you will come across and we see it at first team level. It's not necessarily the academy players, but you do come across some, some aloof players, but some of them have come through the academy and sometimes you can't, you're not going to get it right every time. It's not always going to be on you every time in terms of,
hot housing that youngster or overseeing that youngster's maturity. The parents have to, of course, take the bulk of the credit or the bulk of the blame, depending on which way it's gone. But ultimately, I think as we probably covered earlier in the week with just reflecting on Cox's departure, you think of the Youth Cup win, you think of Garnaccio and Mainu scoring in the FA Cup final.
And also probably it was on his watch, even though it was going to happen. You had the 4,000th game, the 4,000th successive game where an academy player was in the first team squad against Everton in December 2019. And the 250th academy graduate where, again, although I think there was an acknowledgement at United that
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in particular was very prone to just you know padding the stats in terms of how many lads from the academy he could give a debut to most infamously in Astana where it'll probably become a quiz question in
probably should be a quiz question already like who would the academy dave since that day and even though i was there i wouldn't back myself to be able to to name all of them even though damani meller is someone who does uh immediately spring to mind which uh probably you know says a lot about my memory and some of the useless information my memory stores but the academy has to be able to provide players who are going to be under consideration
to play for the first team and the academy has been in ship shape in the last six years. It's impossible to deny that. Well, there was six in total actually, Samuel, from that game in Astana and one of them will be coming up against United in the Premier League next season. If that rings any alarm bells for you, putting you on the spot there? No, it won't be James Garner because he'd made his debut by then. So it's not Damani Mela, who's at Macclesfield, I think.
It won't be Dylan Levitt. This is what I mean. It's not Deshaun Bernard, who's your beloved Shepard Wednesday still, I think. Lee Grant was in goal, so it's obviously not him. Crikey. Did Ethan Galbraith play that night? He did. He made his debut that evening, yeah? Yeah. So it's two more. I'm going to be kicking myself. Because I think the big story going into it was that Max Taylor was in the squad and then unfortunately for him, Max Taylor didn't make his debut.
God, put me out of my misery, please. The man that you're missing is Largi Ramazzani, now of Leeds United. Of course, Leeds, yeah.
When he was released, it was seen as a bit of a surprise because United did want to keep him, but he went to Raul Zaragoza, I think it was. But yeah, I don't think he'll even get booed if he plays at Old Trafford next season. I'm not too sure United fans' memories have memories. I don't think there'll be that many anoraks in the crowd to make the booing audible.
No, most probably not. And on that note, we will move on. How you've obviously mentioned there about the information that your mind stores and your memories and all the other things. You obviously are our chief United writer. You've been with the MEN for a number of years. And now we are going to talk a little bit about basically what it's like to cover Manchester United from our point of view.
You've obviously been covering this club a lot longer than I have. Samuel, when did you start covering Manchester United? Was it first for the MEN? Was it elsewhere? And just how have you found covering the club throughout your career so far? For the MEN, I joined the MEN in October 2014. Before that, I was living and working in London at the Huffington Post. But I was...
Certainly the first season I was properly covering football and going to press boxes was the 2013-14 season, which was, of course, a fascinating season for a myriad of reasons. You have Moyes at United, Mourinho back at Chelsea, Liverpool's unlikely title charge, an absorbing title race with City winning it, Arsenal were...
A really good story that season in terms of what was going on there, where they threatened to win the title, but then they also got wallets. 6-0 by Chelsea, 6-2 by City and I think 5-1 by Liverpool. And they ended their trophy drought that season. Tottenham that season sacked a manager and it was the half season of Tim Sherwood, which was also eye-opening, going to Spurs games that season.
but in terms of united in a properly dedicated capacity it was from from 2015 primarily so it's 10 years dedicated doing united i've done every pre-season post-season tour since 2016 my first was
was that infamous one in China where I was, you know, couldn't wait to go there. It was like, great, go to China, you know, see what Shanghai is like, haven't seen it in Skyfall, Mourinho and Guardiola at the bird's nest. And it could hardly have gone any worse in terms of just how,
To have a friendly cancelled, go all the way to Beijing for a friendly between the two Manchester clubs that is then cancelled on the day of the game is absolutely worse than is possible for the MEN desk. I remember getting a message back home from our editor saying,
So now how grumpy the MEN's editor was that this game had been cancelled. So not the best of tours, to say the least. Certainly the worst, my first pre-season tour was the worst, so at least I got it out of the way. But that Moy season, I did do quite a few United games in London and coming up to Manchester as well. I mean, I was, the strange thing about the season that's just gone is
is that even though it was the worst United season in 51 years, it was also strangely one of the calmest seasons covering them because the managerial change happened so early in late October. So you never, ever got the sense, and thankfully it was never in the offing, that they were going to change manager again, that Ruben Amring would get sacked.
And Amrim almost felt sorry for us in a way that he would decide to say, we're the worst club, one of the worst, we're maybe the worst team in the club's history. We're not a massive club anymore necessarily. You know, maybe I will just leave without compensation. It was almost if he thought, you know, because you're not going to get another managerial sack in, you know, I'll happily, you know, give you all these quotes and possibly give you that jeopardy. It was almost, I mean, he is a new, he is a journalist's dream in that sense.
But we absolutely did not want another Manjaro Sakhin to deal with. And so there was this strange calmness about him that he was always going to rightly be safe. The team were never going to get relegated, but they were going to lose a lot of games. But they lost games to the point where it became a shrug of the shoulders, which is strange when Manchester United ended the season in 15th, the lowest position since they were relegated.
But the shock factor was so much greater in previous seasons. The second ten-hug season, the shock factor was so much more because you had some... Losing 3-0 at home in such a short space of time to three teams was... We hadn't really seen it happen that frequently before.
But it did remind me, of course, of the Moyes season when they lost within a few space of weeks. They lost 3-0 at home to Liverpool and lost 3-0 at home to City. And I was in the press box for both those games. And that's why I say the Amarim season, the shock factor, it doesn't even compare to that because, of course, Manchester United were champions back then.
And when you've got that happening and you've got some supporters giving Sir Alex Ferguson a stick because he chose David Moyes and some supporters actually trying to rip the Moyes banner off the Stretford end, you think this is almost apocalyptic. And United have got considerably worse since then. They were more than doubly worse last season. They ended that season under Moyes and Ryan Giggs in seventh. Last season, of course, it was 15th.
But certainly that Moy season, even I think the Mourinho-Solskjaer season, where I think where Solskjaer had such a great caretaker stint and then it turned so badly after he was managed on a permanent basis and particularly with that biblical Easter Sunday defeat to Everton where they were horrendous and walloped 4-0, that was genuinely shocking.
Whereas last season, watching Manchester United lose, it wasn't a shock. And I've seen, you know, I've been present for United losing, what, 5-0, 4-0. I don't think there's been a 6-0, but there's been a 6-1 and a 6-3, obviously, to Tottenham and City, 7-0 to Liverpool.
But that 7-0 to Liverpool, it's not the worst I've seen United in person. Because I think people probably remember, it was relatively recent, they were quite good in the first half. And certainly looking at the players' body language when they came out for the second half, you could tell that they were quite bullish and fancied their chances of salvaging the game. But then the second half was just...
One of the worst cases of disintegration by a football team you could ever see. Yet it's that performance and that result is offset by the first half performance, weirdly. I maintain still that the absolutely worst performance I've seen from United was the 4-0 at Brentford in Ten Hag's second game of charge. I think partly because it was so early on in a new manager's reign and the transfer window was going so, so badly and there was...
just this idealistic way of going about it, where he thought he could play Christian Eriksen and Fred playing out from the back with David de Gea. And of course, Brentford very, very memorably informed them that, no, you cannot do it that way. So that's why... And also the Solskjaer-Ragnik season with some, again, some utterly appalling results. And again, with Ronaldo back in the team and always being...
as a topic of immense interest and the Greenwood situation midway through that season, that was a far more shocking season than seeing United finish 15th. And they finished sixth that season and qualified for the Europa League, which is bizarre to think that that could be a more eventful and fraught season watching and covering United, but it genuinely was. And one of the, the old director of comms, Charles Brooks,
He admitted that that weekend,
the Greenwood story at that point he decided he he had to get out of there he told me and I couldn't blame him because he thought he'd seen it or he he he joined in I think it was October 2018 and about early December I asked him how how's it going and he said it's like the opening of safe and private Ryan where they're about to they're on the sea they're approaching the beach
And then if anyone's seen the save in private Ryan, when the doors open and it's just machine gunfire coming down. And he said, it was like that. It's just that, that is a constant bombardment that you're faced with at Manchester United. So it was quite a, it was quite a gruesome analogy to, to draw upon, but it, even for someone who works at Manchester United, it gives you an idea of, of how hectic it can, it can be covering the club. And as I've said before, it's, it's not,
They're not the biggest football club in the world. As far as I'm concerned, it will always be Real Madrid because I think any great player, the absolute mecca for them is to join Real Madrid and in some cases Barcelona.
But Manchester United are absolutely the most scrutinised sporting institution on the planet. You go on a pre-season tour, you see the fans who turn up for their games, the amount of journalists who cover the club. A pre-season tour, there are always a minimum 10 journalists from England, sometimes a dozen.
travelling to cover Manchester United you do not get that many for Real Madrid and of course I've done pre-season games where United have come up against Real Madrid in San Jose and Miami and even Miami which has of course got a huge Latino community there were not as many Real Madrid players
specific journalists there as there were Manchester United specific journalists and that's you know I think in some ways in in recent years where United have had these where it's been this doldrum decade if you like of of not winning a title they have become a the rubbernecking team of the Premier League and that clearly a lot of opposition fans are morbidly curious about how it continues to go wrong at Manchester United as frequently as it does and
That will only change, of course, if United become successful again. And the truth be told, I remember reading when I was at university, Daniel Taylor, when he was at the Guardian, who is one of the best. He's been one of the best correspondents on United that there's ever been in Manchester football correspondence. And he did his he did a book called This is the One, which was on sent on cover in United under Alex Ferguson.
And it was like a diary book. And it covered two seasons, 2005-06, 2006-07. 2005-06, Anas Fariblis, United end the season with Ruud van Nistelrooy being told to clear off. Roy Keane is sat midway through. They're out in the Champions League at the group stage. They actually end the season second and win the League Cup. But fans actually want Sir Alex Ferguson to go. There's so much unrest after the Glazer takeover.
Following season, they somehow win the league for the first time in four years. But reading that book, it was apparent to me that Manchester United are a more interesting, fascinating club. And this must apply to other clubs as well. They are a more interesting, fascinating club when things are not going well. But they are a much easier club to cover when things are going well.
And unfortunately for me, during my time in Manchester, there have been very few occasions where things are going well, where it has been calm, quiet, where you can just get by writing pure positivity. And that's something that I think a lot of people, a lot of people conflate negativity with effectively just realistic and matter of fact negativity.
coverage, people will probably perceive our coverage of being so negative. You look at Manchester United at the time that I've been covering the club, how often has it been positive? It's very rare. And as I said to someone at United quite some time ago, in terms of writing, just by virtue of my position, my role, nobody is more positive about them when things are going positively, when things are positive.
And nobody is more critical of them and more negative about them when it's negative. And that's just the way it has to be. And the media landscape is always evolving, of course. And you've got this new trend of online videos where people will look at a camera and talk to it. And if people want to look like
one of the Riddler's followers and the Batman going on camera and having a go and moaning about this, that and the other, they're more than welcome to do it. That's of their generation. That's not my generation. And you do have to adapt with a lot of things. And obviously, you know, podcasting has been quite a significant part
aspect of media for probably the best part of 20 years, I would say. I know there was a former football presenter who tried to give the impression that he was almost the inventor of podcasts. I don't think he's missed from TNT screens these days. But podcasting has been going for pretty much 20 years, hasn't it? And I think that is very useful. We have to be wary and conscious of how younger people
younger people do consume news but ultimately there are two things that make the world go round as far as I'm concerned one is physics and one is news and there'll always be an appetite for news and ultimately people at school you have to learn to read and that is why there'll always be value in newspapers in online websites providing that find that coverage and that's what we have to do on a daily basis
Yeah, we do. And I've been on the Manchester patch since 2021. So four years now into this role. And like you said, Sammy, you've been on it for just over a decade and there's not been an awful lot of positivity in that time.
But I've seen it all already in four years. Nothing prepared me for what could possibly, possibly could happen on this patch. But to end on a cheerful note, Samuel, you've mentioned about how there's not been an awful lot of positivity during your time covering the club. But there will, of course, be a few standout moments. There's been a few trophy wins in that time. What is your standout moment, your most treasured memory of covering this football club?
Until the FA Cup quarter-final last year, and that's almost a highlight and a lowlight because I think I did say it on a podcast before, I was really unhappy with my piece that day. I really did struggle to keep up with that 4-3 extra time win against Liverpool.
And I remember a journalist who doesn't do news stories and hasn't for several years. He once said that when it was that Barcelona PSG game where Barcelona had the 6-1 comeback, he was in the press box and for the final minutes he said he just closed his laptop. Now, 99% of journalists are not in a position to do that because you're providing news. And I think this whole thing of,
being given 20 hours to write a piece after a game that you've attended, you're missing out on the raw emotion of it and you have an audience to service. And that Liverpool game
I did, it was a struggle to take it all in. And sometimes when a game is deadlocked and extra time is possible or looming, as a journalist, you want it to go to extra time because you've got more time to fine tune your piece, sort things out. The Liverpool game was an absolute nightmare because it was toing and froing so, so drastically. Like when Anthony equalised, it looked like United were going to win it. And they possibly should have with that chance for Rashford.
And then into extra time, Liverpool get a bit of a fortuitous goal with Harvey Elliott's deflection. But then United equalise and then you've got that FA Cup quarterfinal winner for the ages with Ahmad scoring. And before then, I think in terms of like a press box experience highlight,
it would have been Anthony Marshall's winner against Everton in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley. Now, Wembley is a really good press box, but it's not good for atmospheres. But that day, the atmosphere from the United supporters was tremendous. And it was the first time they were playing at Wembley in nearly three years.
Because the previous appearance there was the Community Shield under Moyes. So they'd been away from Wembley for such a long time. It was an FA Cup semi-final. It felt like they'd brought the atmosphere of a Villa Park semi-final or a Main Road or Hillsborough semi-final to Wembley that day.
And Marshall, of course, scored an added time winner. And I wasn't writing the match report, which also made it easier for me to actually take it in. And I was doing a colour piece and the colour piece really did centre on the support that day because it was so impressive. And some fans stormed the press box singing the Anthony Marshall song. And until that Ahmad moment, that was, in terms of the press box experience, that was my highlight covering the club.
and then woe and behold what barely a year later leon happened and i can confidently say i was happy with my piece that night i clearly learned from the previous year and as a one of the pieces of advice are they always impart on someone when it comes to intros if you can do an intro where it stands depending on the score whether you just omit a few words or add a few words
you're all right there. And that was something I learned. I think Matt Dickinson said about, I can't remember the journalist who did it, but it was their intro for the Champions League final in 1999. And that's how he effectively avoided a heart attack covering that game because his intro, it just needed a couple of two or three words added to it to go from Bayern Munich winning the Champions League final to Manchester United somehow winning the Champions League final with three goals and added time. And
That's always stuck with me as a really, really good piece of advice. Unfortunately, when it came to that Lyon game, I was in a much better position to salvage something where six minutes before whatever it was, United were, what was it, 4-3 down?
Was it 4-3 or 3-2 down? Honestly, I'm still struggling to keep up with the scoring from that evening. No, they were 4-2 down, weren't they? They were 4-2 down. There you go. But I'm pretty sure I got the scoring all right that night. And that was an occasion where...
you i did have to you have to take it in some time you don't want to just be head buried in a laptop type in type in type in you've got to take it in and glean it because certainly the day after a game or the monday after a game i'll i'll do what i i've kind of like described as the the dust settler piece you know the dust is settled and
It's not as raw and it's a bit more considered and you've leaving the ground and taking in the atmosphere and what the mood is like and certain things that you've seen. You can add it into a new piece on top of it. But that Lyon game was, it is comparable with the, in terms of the sheer levels of improbability, it's comparable with Barcelona in 99. So just for that experience, that and the sheer,
audacity of United to do that really that it's I don't think it's just recency bias it was that remarkable to see them go from that
go from that extreme to that extreme and obviously on the monitors we saw the the young lad who was in tears at them 4-2 down then you see the image of him uh after Harry Maguire scored and as as you probably did as well you empathize with that because yeah I think we all remember as kids how when our team was losing it feels like feels like the world is ending and you know we you know I've I've
I'm not ashamed to say whatsoever when I was a child, you know, there were defeats that my team had where I would cry about it. There were probably three or four occasions. And, and then when you're a little bit older, I think you, you know, you probably, you shed tears of joy, really. It's probably more appropriate as an adult to,
I certainly have no time for adults crying in defeat. I think it's absolutely fine for a kid. It's completely understandable for a kid to be upset about their team losing, but an adult crying over a defeat is ridiculous. But shedding tears in celebration and joy at victory, that is perfectly permissible. And you could understand... So seeing him also took me back to when I was a kid as well. And you do want to...
You never always want to be, although we're in a press box and it's crawled and dark, you never want to be detached from matchgoers because you do empathise with them. You have been a matchgoer. I still...
I still go to, you know, games, not United games, obviously, because everyone I'm spending in the press box, but I'll go to the occasional non-league game as well and, you know, pay my money, go through the turnstiles because it's, you know, there is still an enjoyment factor that comes with that. And it's, you know, we are, it's important for us to, you know,
reflect and shine with supporters as well and channel their frustrations and really echo what messages they're trying to convey a lot of the time. And of course, ultimately, Samuel, we're both football fans ourselves. We come into this job because of the love for football. We live and breathe it. It's what we do. So I think that was a really interesting list and I was really interested to hear that story, so Samuel, so thank you very much for that.
And that does mark the end of this episode of the Samuel Lucker Show. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel or wherever else you get your podcasts from. Make sure you leave a like and maybe a comment as well. Myself and Samuel will be back again next week, so make sure you subscribe for when that drops. Have a great weekend, and we'll catch you again soon for another episode of the Samuel Lucker Show.