Opinion | Jose Mourinho points out Old Trafford has lost its voice but atmosphere across English Premier League is out of tune

Manchester United fans stood sombrely in the persistent rain close to the Munich clock before Saturday’s home game against Huddersfield Town. Fans from across the world, from China and Japan, from Ireland, from Scandinavia and from all over England mingled with more local accents. 

Tourists on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Old Trafford had their photos taken by the statues of club greats George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton or underneath the neon lit ‘Manchester United’ sign. The statues of legendary managers Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson stood tall over selfie snappers grabbing a shot of the stand decorated with memorials ahead of Tuesday’s 60th anniversary of the Munich air disaster. 

One leading United executive, courting then Borussia Dortmund manager Juergen Klopp, described Old Trafford as ‘Disneyland for adults’. United’s appeal is vast and something that the club are rightly proud of, but the comparison with Disney can have more negative connotations. The Old Trafford experience, once raucous and ear-splitting, has become more respectable, even sanitised.

On Saturday, manager Jose Mourinho described the stadium as “quiet” and questioned the enthusiasm of the crowd. He’s done it before and he’ll do it again. He’s managed at clubs where the noise level is far louder than for a typical United home game. That’s not difficult: there are far louder places to watch football than Old Trafford, or for that matter any of England’s big Premier League grounds.

All-seater stadiums, introduced following the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, have not helped. Nor did the surging ticket prices of the ’90s and early noughties. A generation of working-class supporters, traditionally the game’s lifeblood, found it harder to afford tickets in those shiny new stadiums. The buses to the ground carrying local supporters emptied.