United’s future can be bright if they build around Sancho, not Ronaldo | Jonathan Liew

Youngster’s goal sealed Manchester United’s Champions League victory in Villarreal and he can thrive under a top coach

Shortly after half-time the Villarreal fans broke into their customary rendition of Yellow Submarine, the song from which the club takes its nickname. Naturally, being English people abroad, the Manchester United fans at the north end of the ground decided to drown them out with their own version. “Number one is Georgie Best,” they sang. “Number two is Georgie Best.”

How many other fanbases sing about a player who has not played for them in almost 50 years? It’s easy to ridicule United’s veneration of its past, the interminable appeals to nostalgia, the decision to appoint an episode of Premier League Years 97-98 as its full-time manager. But there’s something really rather touching about it, too: the sense of a lineage, an unbroken thread, roots and origins. Singing about George Best in 2021 says: “We don’t really know where we’re going. We don’t really know who we are. But we know who we were.”