Devil's diary: United's fan witch hunt continues

Last month, complaints over wrongfully cancelled season tickets – some held for decades – came to a head. United released a statement saying that a total of 685 accounts had been banned, with another 464 facing reduced sanctions or final warnings. They’re not done there. The club is now advertising for a so-called Supporter Escalations Executive, who will be tasked with “independently owning a high-volume caseload of complex investigations, appeals and escalations…”Yes, ticket touting is a well-known problem, and yes, it’s good that the club is trying to curb it, but this seems to be more than that. 

Season ticket holders are far from the only group they’re targeting. Most fans – including myself in the past – who want to buy tickets for games and don’t have a season ticket need to be official members. They pay a smaller fee of £37.50 per season for the honour of buying tickets. United have now set their crosshairs on that group.

The brilliantly named @OhCheesesChrist on X is one of the leading fan voices in our community. This week he has made us aware that many official members have had their tickets suspended for Saturday’s game against Spurs. These suspensions landed at 18:00 on Monday and came with a deadline of 08:00 on Wednesday for those affected to send their photo ID. United are violating their own policy on sanctions and appeals, which is supposed to guarantee supporters a 14-day period to contest the restrictions. They have slashed that promise to just 38 hours. 

Cheeses puts it perfectly: “The way you treat us is a disgrace.”

Are you a Beleba?

There is at least some reason for optimism ahead of Premier League action returning this Saturday. Summer signing Carlos Baleba featured in a behind-closed-doors friendly against INEOS-owned Lausanne-Sport last week, bringing his long-awaited competitive United debut another step closer. 

It’ll be interesting to see if Michael Carrick sticks him straight into the team against Spurs, most likely to partner Kobbie Mainoo. Assuming the Cameroonian is fully fit to start, I would want to see him begin to build a partnership with Mainoo. Although Youri Tielemans has made a fine start to life at Old Trafford, he’s a completely different type of player to Baleba. The latter’s defensive coverage and dashing carries through the heart of midfield are something that could help a leaky and erratic United to restore some stability.

Matthijs de Ligt is also edging towards a long-awaited return, although it’s less likely that he’ll be involved from the start on Saturday. He has been out of action for close to 11 months with a back injury. Neither player should be expected to walk back into the side and solve all of our problems, but having more options available can only help Carrick. The international break has given him time to work on the issues that have plagued the first seven games of the season. Saturday should offer some indication of whether that time has been put to good use. We are also playing the team that sits dead bottom in the league table, winless after five matches and goalless in four of them. On paper, it should be an absolute walk in the park. On the pitch, I’m expecting a long old slog, with a scrappy 2-1 win to keep us all at least somewhat hopeful of an acceptable league campaign.