Diminishing self-belief and winning mentality is the real problem at Manchester United

Robin van Persie, Juan Mata and Wayne Rooney

Well, if you look at United’s play recently, the most alarming factor has been the lack of spirit, effort, attitude or in the other words – the winning mentality – that they had been imbibed with over the last two decades. They have lost the winning habit. Forget scoring late in the matches, they instead concede. They easily accept defeat. They don’t get hurt after a poor display. They have stopped believing that they can win.

Ever since David Moyes took over the reigns at Old Trafford, it has been said worldwide that Manchester United will now take at least 3-4 years to re-build and will struggle during this transition period. True, transition does take its own time and United have faced such situations even before as well, but not at the cost of what United is currently paying right now when European football looks a distant dream for the next season.

What got United through during previous transitions under Sir Alex was their mentality and belief that they can still win trophies and challenge anyone at the top even though they lacked the necessary resources to achieve the same. Yet, their belief always got them through.

However, this season they have taken it for granted and accepted that it’ll take time for them to reach to their usual levels and lost that belief in themselves and are already looking beyond the current campaign. As a result, there are flat displays week in week out on the pitch. David Moyes has to take the full responsibility for not maintaining that belief, mentality and motivation within the squad.

It’s the mentality of the leader or the manager that the team portrays on the pitch. And to make matters even worse for United, if Moyes hasn’t been able to inspire the team enough, they have also lacked the presence of a natural leader within the squad this season.

In the previous United teams, if Sir Alex was himself off someday, they still had leader on the pitch like Bryan Robson, Roy Keane, Eric Cantona, Gary Neville etc who took the entire team together with them over the tipping line.

However, this season the senior players like Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra all have uncertain futures at the club. Vidic has already stated he is off in the summer. Rooney’s future was uncertain too until he signed a new long term contract last week. Robin van Persie has already criticized his teammates in the public.

In an ideal world, players like these, especially Vidic, leader and captain,would be inspiring the dressing room. But trying to convince some of the younger players – like Tom Cleverley or Chris Smalling – that “we’re all in it together” might sound a little hollow when everyone knows he’s off in the summer.

Therefore, those of you calling for splashing the cash in the market, or applying some astute tactics, changing the formation, team line-ups or for that matter, even playing an extra man wouldn’t help United much until they solve this basic problem of re-storing their belief in themselves and regaining that winning mentality that they had once so much made their own.

And it has to start from the manager, David Moyes, himself and the team will automatically follow. If he himself doesn’t believe that he is not suitable for managing a club of the stature of Manchester United and he cannot turn the fortunes of United over the remaining fixtures, then he should be the first one to meet the United board with his resignation in his hand.

I’d rather suggest him a much better alternative – just look at the underside of the collar of the United jersey where a golden word is imprinted which has been the club mantra, mosaic and motto over the last few years. The word simply says, BELIEVE!