The DNA of Manchester United? Darren Fletcher has joined Sir Alex Ferguson’s list of old players as the club looks back rather than forward | Football news

They chanted for Darren Fletcher. They chanted for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. They chanted for Michael Carrick. Under the lights at Turf Moor, they played four at the back and saw the academy graduate winger go close to scoring a stunning winner.

Squint a little and Manchester United players and fans started to enjoy themselves again even if Jason Wilcox and Omar Berrada appeared in the stands rather stone-faced. Kobi Mainoo and Mason Mount as a midfield two. Thirty shots.

Stories are already circulating about how Fletcher inspired young players at Old Trafford by showing them videos of Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney. We’ve been here before, of course, when Solskjaer had a story for every situation. Fans like it.

None of that should persuade United’s decision-makers to look back for too long. As difficult as it is after a painful – and now largely pointless – misstep under Ruben Amorim, United still have to look to the future.

Nostalgia is a powerful emotion when you win the draw, but despite the next line in the song claiming it will never stop, United are stuck again. This can feel like a football club that is happier looking backwards than forwards.

For now, every match – every conversation about that game – has become a referendum on this club’s path to glory. United are at the second fork in the road. It seems that many are tired of trying to modernize with mimicry. They want to do it their way.

Gary Neville is determined to see the club embrace their DNA and start “playing the United way” again. Paul Parker thinks that means the return of Roy Keane. And only ex-England right-backs. Viv Anderson’s views on this matter are unclear.

Then there are the redheaded former midfielders. Paul Scholes believes Keane’s return would be met with enthusiasm, comparing it to Cristiano Ronaldo’s return to the game – which was clearly a huge success. Nicky Booth thinks there should be a role for Steve Bruce.

Rio Ferdinand is delighted that Fletcher has been appointed as interim manager – which reveals a WhatsApp group of former players agree – and is even more delighted that his compatriot consulted Sir Alex Ferguson before taking on the interim role.

Devotion to the cult of Ferguson may seem like an innocuous reverence for the legend of eight years, but it hints at a longing for what is long gone, which retains a material bearing on what must happen next. United are still looking for that secret sauce.

Perhaps this is to be expected considering Ferguson’s great importance in the club of the great United. Arguably England’s biggest club and certainly the best supported, they have still only won the title under two men since the First World War.

For context, that’s the same number as Burnley. That’s fewer than the number of different managers who led Chelsea to the Premier League title during a seven-year period in the 2010s. Manchester City managed to win it under three different men in just six years.

The culture at United is different and it’s only natural that Ferguson’s former players look to their old guru for lessons, even if Solskjaer’s infamous claim that he didn’t feel comfortable in his training ground car park was a bit of a stretch.

The challenge is that copying him is not as easy as instilling the possession principles instilled in kids at Barcelona’s La Masia or Ajax’s De Toekomst. Ferguson was more malleable, his ideas a movable feast that shifted according to the demands of the game.

The sad truth is that there is no Ferguson coaching school, not a single idea that is passed on to the next generation, only the feeling of a great manager. One who has shown throughout his long and successful career that he can adapt to the times.

What would Ferguson do now? We don’t know. It would most likely look as different as Norman Whiteside did to Carlos Tevez, as different as his Aberdeen team to his late-era United, not some facsimile of the system adopted when John Major was in charge.

Fresh concepts came through an ever-evolving team of assistants. He played with hitting doubles until he didn’t. He played 4-4-2 until he didn’t. He played open and attacking football until success in the Champions League required a different approach away from home.

The myth at the heart of all this is the idea that Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex were incarnated and united, products of some immaculate conception at The Cliff, not the outsiders they were. Both Scots, Busby even played for Man City and Liverpool.

Indeed, Liverpool have been through it all too, bringing Sir Kenny Dalglish out of retirement when they lost their way under Roy Hodgson, and the title has never looked so far out of sight. It took a man with no ties to the city to present the award.

Speaking of Jurgen Klopp, we recall the awkward conversation with Borussia Dortmund boss Carsten Kramer when it was pointed out that, for all his talk of the need for what he likes to call “the Dortmund boys”, it was Klopp who won the last Schwab title.

And yet the idea is still seductive, a consolation for these clubs struggling to regain something lost. How else to explain the turnaround to a man sacked by Middlesbrough in June or a man last at Besiktas sacked by Manchester United themselves in 2021.

This is familiar ground for both of them, of course, Carrick and Solskjaer have stepped forward to pacify an ailing ship before. Ryan Giggs did it before them. Ruud van Nistelrooy has done so ever since. Fletcher now joins that list as United once again try to sort out what comes next.

But this is stagnation, not progress, and cannot be presented as some grand restoration plan destined to make Unification great again. It is the absence of an idea rather than a return to one, a club so burdened by its own history that it is giving up on forging a new future.

By all means, play positive football with the back four and try to bring in young players. This is hardly unique and is the goal of most clubs in the country, ridiculous. As with Busby and Ferguson, you don’t need to be steeped in United lore to do it.

That should be obvious. But when you’re Manchester United and win the draw under one man, the temptation to look back can be overwhelming. Solskjaer behind the wheel? Meet the new boss as well as the old boss. Squint a little and it might even start to make sense.