Before anyone starts downvoting, I come in peace.
The entire English football media today is based around extorting United for clicks and attention. In the last decade of United pretty much dwindling with very little trophy success, I’ve heard Gary Neville go on and on about United. So much so that I’ve heard him(and some other English pundits) say that it would be best for English football for United to return back to trophy success - why exactly?
I’m not English so maybe that’s why I don’t understand it but why is it so hard for the English media to accept that United existing without trophy success is not some atomic bomb to English football?
Eras come and go: Chelsea, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Everton, Arsenal, Nottingham Forrest. United or any other club should not be exempt from what I perceive to be the natural law of the English game.
The term midtable is used way too freely these days. Midtable is 7th -14th imo. United haven’t historically finished in these places - even in their poorer current state since 2013. Liverpool and Spurs have all had multiple legitimate midtable finishes in the last twenty years. United, bar the Moyes season, have not.
Mid table is 9-14 IMHO. 8th place is only 1 spot behind European qualification most seasons, and there’s many clubs for whom a top-8 finish is a great achievement. Mid table refers to the clubs who had no real bearing on anything - European spots or relegation. Source: Tottenham fan since the 90’s. We were the definition of mid-table until 2006
9-14th sounds fair. Although when people talk about ‘mid table mediocrity/mid table obscurity’ I feel we can extend to 15th or even 16th if they are far removed from the relegation scrap.