What the blazes is a Manchester United???

Didn't Manchester United use to be good once upon a time? I look at the current table and it certainly isn't impressive that they're 10th (of 20 teams) below such non-powers as Bournemouth, Watford and Wolves. Plus they just lost at home to Juventus. I don't remember any of Sir Alex's teams sucking that badly, although I doubt their supporters are receiving much sympathy.

Goes in cycles, although with no salary cap in the EPL and the European leagues it often comes down to a case of who has the most money.

I have a confession to make. I am an American who enjoys watching a soccer game more than a football game because soccer games are not always stopping the clock and taking forever to play!
Likewise basketball. And referring to a comment about female athletes wearing baggy shorts, when I was in high school back in the Mesozoic both boys and girls basketball players wore shorter shorts. The girls' were almost as short as volleyball shorts now though not quite as tight. Spandex had not been invented, they were of a satin material.
Then again, the cheerleaders' skirts were much longer than now!

To tie in with the wonderful resurrected thread regarding what divides English from English; how on earth is it possible to refer to football as soccer when 194 out of 195 nations in the world know it by its real name and instead reserve the name football for a sport where you 99% of the time hold the ball in your hands?

Glagla
Because that's its name!

I don't know if you included Australia in your 195 nations or New Zealand, but in both those countries, what most of the rest of the world refers to as football, we call soccer. In Australia football generally means Aussie Rules, unless you're from Queensland or New South Wales where it means rugby (usually league) and it will mean rugby (usually union) in NZ.

Segee... you are too influened by the big nation to our west, your east...

True; Leicester City came out of nowhere to win it all after a massive infusion of cash from their owner (Malaysian?) although they've slumped back to mid-table ever since then. Just read today that Liverpool made 72 million pounds for making it to the final of the Champion's League; that's a pretty healthy chunk of change to help them stay competitive with the other big spenders.

Viewing the world from the southern tip of Africa it appears to me that anything north of us that calls itself 'united' seems to be anything but united:

Manchester ......
...... Nations
...... Kingdom
...... States

As strange as it may seem Manchester United got their name just after the United States became a nation. My Revised History states that Manchester United was the proposed name for the 13th State in the American Union until it was discovered that some guys kicking around a ball and each other's shins had already taken the name. And now you know the rest of the story. RK