OLD TRAFFORD could become more suitable for zombies than Red Devils within just two decades.
That’s the post-apocalyptic vision predicted by AI images – unless Manchester United fix all their creaky, leaky stadium problems.
Luckily, United’s minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has identified the issue as a vital part of his plans for a massive revamp on and off the pitch.
But the “Old Trafford falls” – the taunting new moniker for the club’s sieve-like roof – has symbolized the Red Devils’ plight this season.
“You must be soaking” might be another way of expressing the damp squib of a campaign for Erik ten Hag‘s squad.
And Arsenal fans chanted “Old Trafford is falling down” as the Gunners triumphed 1-0 in a stormy deluge last Sunday – with water cascading through the roof at what could now be called the Theatre of Streams.
AI’s doom-laden vision of how the country’s second-largest stadium could look in the mid-2040s is the worst case scenario – and surely unlikely.
Nonetheless, the images are another alert for Ratcliffe of how dramatic, expensive – and arguably urgent – the refurbishment must be.
The pictures look like scenes from a horror movie – perhaps to be titled “The Night of the Living Red”.
Despair and disrepair dominate the gloomy representation of a do-nothing nightmare future.
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The patchy roof has gone to rack and ruin in the desolate depiction, and the pitch is littered with debris.
Meanwhile, the surroundings of the stadium look more like a bleak industrial site than the setting for one of football’s most grandiose venues.
However, before any stadium re-build, Ineos CEO Ratcliffe and United’s new board must decide whether to keep under-fire manager Ten Hag.
So for now the priority is sorting out the reign rather than the rain.
