The Athletic’s Laurie Whitwell on the realities of reporting on Manchester United this season
Manchester United would have to win all their remaining seven league games to avoid finishing the season with their lowest ever points tally in the Premier League era. That was under Ralph Ragnick in 2021/22, when the Red Devils ended the campaign on 58 points.
With a trip to Newcastle on Sunday, it seems inevitable that United will fall at the first hurdle, handing this unwanted record to Ruben Amorim in his debut season.
Last term, United finished 8th under Erik ten Hag – the club’s lowest league finish in the Premier League. Currently sitting in 13th, Amorim will likely lead United to an unprecedented bottom-half finish, as the club continues to plummet to new depths.
They are still competing in the Europa League, and lifting a major trophy that also secures Champions League football would salvage a truly miserable domestic campaign.
From Gary Neville calling Amorim’s approach in United’s loss to Spurs as “absolute madness” and “awful,” to fans staging multiple protests against the ownership, much has been made of the state of the club both on and off the pitch.
But what have the journalists of major publications tasked with covering United this season made of it all?
Reporting on Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazers
I asked Laurie Whitwell, The Athletic’s Manchester United correspondent since 2019, how this season has compared to previous years.
“It has been pretty chaotic,” he said. “There’s new ownership in place, they’re appointing people, getting rid of people, there’s a new head coach. There are so many different pressures being exerted by different people at the moment.
“Man United is a club where people want to read about them, even when it’s pretty serene,” he added.
Since Whitwell has been at The Athletic, the Glazers have provoked continuous unrest and turmoil. Things haven’t got any quieter with Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s arrival, with the INEOS chairman’s reign already littered with controversy. This includes brazenly disregarding the club’s women’s team, and contemplating cutting the club’s disabled supporters association’s £40,000-a-year payment in half.
Whitwell feels a responsibility to call out the ownership in these decisions. He said: “Ratcliffe has shown he doesn’t put too much effort into these areas. He just sees it as a business decision, and some of the offhand comments expose his view on these areas.
“As a journalist, if you challenge somebody, they will often have some respect for you. You can’t just be a pushover and agree with everything they say. They’re in power, so you absolutely hold them to account, and then there can be dialogue.”
Ratcliffe made around 250 club staff redundant in the autumn, with plans to cut another 200 jobs this year. Whitwell emphasised the importance of being sensitive in his reporting, while not shying away from the issue. “People are very emotional about losing a job at a club that they’ve worked out their whole lives and have a deep affection for. It’s more than working for a company, for many people.”
Ruben Amorim’s dynamite quotes
Amorim was appointed by Ratcliffe in November, replacing ten Hag, and has regularly made headlines with his honest and transparent dialogue with the media. In January, the Portuguese said his side was “maybe the worst Manchester United side in history,” before admitting he regretted how he said this.
“I certainly think you’ve got to have a regard for people speaking a second language,” Whitwell answered when asked how he handles language barriers and taking quotes out of context.
“But at the same time, if he says it at a press conference, then we have a responsibility to report exactly what he said,” Whitwell continued. “I suppose you might want to be sure that he knows what he’s saying. But he is the one saying it.”
After United played Fulham in January and before Marcus Rashford’s loan move to Aston Villa, Amorim was repeatedly pressed about the Englishman’s future, who was left out of multiple match-day squads. Speculation was mounting over a departure from Old Trafford, and Amorim was entertaining questions from the press on the topic.
The ex-Sporting manager eventually came out with a line about putting Jorge Vital, United’s 63-year-old goalkeeper coach, on the bench before a player who doesn’t meet his standards.
“In isolation, he’s talking about all of the players,” Whitwell said. “But in reality, he was talking about Rashford, because that was the line of inquiry.” Whitwell felt he should frame the quote by putting it in context, using his journalistic judgement to accurately reflect what the manager meant.
Social media presence
When Whitwell joined The Athletic from the Daily Mail, he didn’t have much of a following on social media. Since covering England’s most supported club for a renowned publication, he has garnered over 400,000 followers on X, many of whom are hungry for exclusive and instant United news.
Despite such a large following, Whitwell doesn’t tend to experience the toxicity that too often plagues social media, particularly for people in the public eye. “I don’t see the replies all that often,” he said. “If I do an eye-catching news story, it’ll get re-tweeted a lot, but the replies tend to be about the story rather than me.”
Whitwell acknowledged that it’s helpful to have a high profile on social media when it comes to promoting articles or advertising tickets for live shows of his Talk of the Devils podcast.
When I spoke to Whitwell, it was during an international break. Despite no first team matches to report on for United, he still had a packed schedule, with youth games, transfer stories, and live events to attend.
With millions of people worldwide desperate for a constant drip feed of United content, Whitwell rarely has a dull day in the job.
