Former Manchester United midfielder Nicky Butt has launched a blistering attack on his old club, describing the current situation at Old Trafford as a 's**tshow' and claiming the team is 'rotten from the bottom up'.
A Stark Warning from a Club Legend
Butt, a key member of the famed 'Class of 92', has painted a grim picture of United's future prospects. He believes that even the greatest managers in the world would struggle to turn the club's fortunes around quickly. Speaking to FourFourTwo, Butt stated that not even a prime Sir Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola, or Jurgen Klopp could enact an immediate fix.
The root of the problem, according to the former England international, lies in the quality of players being recruited. 'The players we're buying and the players that we're able to buy aren't at the level we used to have,' he lamented. This fundamental issue leads him to a sobering conclusion: 'It's going to take five to eight years in order to get the club back to anywhere near winning the Premier League.'
A Decade of Decline Under Amorim and Predecessors
Butt's comments come against a backdrop of sustained underperformance. Since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013, United have cycled through managers David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and Erik ten Hag with no lasting success.
The appointment of Ruben Amorim in 2024 was meant to herald a new dawn, but the Portuguese coach has so far failed to inspire a significant revival. The club endured its worst-ever Premier League season in the 2024/25 campaign and made a similarly poor start to the current 2025/26 term, despite a recent minor recovery.
Club Ambition Clashes with Harsh Reality
Butt's bleak eight-year timeline stands in stark contrast to the public ambition set by the club's hierarchy. United CEO Omar Berrada stated in the summer of 2025 that the club is targeting a Premier League title by 2028.
Berrada acknowledged the scale of the challenge, admitting the team had just finished 15th, but insisted on setting a bold target. 'Can the team win the Premier League title by 2028? Of course,' he said. 'We have two or three summer windows to build a team to start competing to win the Premier League.'
This public divergence of opinion between a revered former player and the current executive leadership underscores the deep uncertainty surrounding the direction of one of football's most storied institutions. With the team currently sitting sixth in the Premier League, the path back to the summit appears long and fraught with difficulty.
