We need a Qatari-owned Manchester United because the Premier League needs a villain

magine Silence Of The Lambs without Hannibal
The Premier League needs a club we can all passionately hate.

It needs an all-powerful villain that people actually care about. Whether loving or viscerally hating. A villain whose triumphs actually cause rage and whose defeats feel like sheer joy.

That’s not Manchester City, because literally no-one cares about them. At all. They fraudulently stole titles and players but no-one really cared because it was so transparently false and tainted. When they fail it’s mildly amusing, when they win no-one cares. Even Aguerrrrooooooo was entirely about United losing, not City winning.

It’s not Liverpool, because if they were a dog they’d be trembling and shivering on ancient stick thin rickety legs, pleading with clouded painfilled eyes to be taken behind the wood shed and mercifully shot. That’s not hate, it’s mildly disgusted pity.

It’s not Arsenal. They’re London Napoli, they might win an occasional title on an upswing but they’re not going to be a long-term force to hate and fear.

It’s not Chelsea, they’re just a more dislikeable Man City. No-one cares except Fulham fans and any minority group sat next to John Terry.

It’s not Newcastle, an actual football club with actual fans that just happens to have the absolute worst choice in controlling boyfriends/owners/pimps. They aren’t ever going to win titles in any case, every other Premier League club also has money and no other Premier League has to try and persuade players to live in Newcastle rather than London or Manchestpool. They aren’t a threat, and their fans make them fun rather than scary.

It’s really not Spurs.

It’s Manchester United, that’s the supervillain.

The problem is, it’s difficult to hate this Man Utd. You feel that under Ten Hag and with Rashford, Eriksen, Varane, Casemiro and Martinez they’re.. likeable. They’re charming rogues so even if you want to hate them you can’t help but sneakily enjoy them, like Liverpool under Benitez and then Rodgers.

With the Glazers sucking the life out of the club they also generate reluctant sympathy.

This cannot stand. The Premier League needs a powerful club we all passionately hate or passionately love, with no neutrality. Where every match against them feels electric, whoever you support, where you desperately want their opponent to smash them and you know that if they somehow do, millions of United fans around the world will genuinely be furious and upset.

Where when they smash you, those millions of United fans being smugly happy fills your heart and soul with a dark rage and nausea so that when you do beat them it’s like a thousand years of repressed pent up rage erupts out of you like a volcano, leaving nothing but joy behind.

The Premier League needs a super villain to hate. The Premier League needs Manchester United to be that villain, and currently they’re.. likeable.

We need to all hate them, to make the league better.