fans directed abusive chants at the club’s owners as they marched on Old Trafford to protest against the Glazers.
Some supporters chanted ‘we want Glazer out’ and ‘Joel Glazer’s gonna die’ as they made their voices heard before United’s Premier League clash against Norwich City on Saturday.
In a protest organised by fan group The 1958, supporters met at the Tollgate pub in Manchester before marching to the stadium with anti-Glazer banners, merchandise and flares.
A large number of the fans then boycotted the first 17 minutes of the Norwich fixture – one minute for each year the Glazer family have run the club – and in doing so missed Cristiano Ronaldo’s early opener at Old Trafford.
The organisers estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 joined the protest march, with numbers swollen by others who were making their way to the match along the same route.
‘It’s been amazing,’ said a spokesman for The 1958 fans’ group. ‘The fans have had enough.’
They added in a statement: ‘Nothing will change until the head of the snake is removed. It’s rotten and starts from the top down like any business. The club’s a mess so we need to act and raise awareness again.
‘This is the start of constant, relentless, peaceful and legal protests and actions against our owners.
‘We know the challenges ahead of us and we will not waiver or detract from these goals. Bring your colours, flags, banners and flares.
‘We need you, we need each other, we need everyone to put aside their differences. Some things are worth fighting for.’
Manchester United are one of the biggest and most successful clubs in the world but have stagnated in recent years, going five years without a trophy.
Some fans also protested at United’s Carrington training ground on Friday before Ralf Rangnick held his pre-match press conference.
Asked about the protests, Rangnick said: ‘We all know football is a game of passion and emotions.
‘I think we can all understand, I can understand, that our supporters being disappointed both with our standing in the table and the performance we showed against Everton, at least after we conceded that first goal.
‘But I still believe our supporters are one of the best, if not the best, in England and as long as they do that protest in a peaceful way, and as long as they still support the team in the stadium, I think they have a right to express their opinion.
‘Emotionally, I can understand their disappointment.’
A Manchester United spokesperson, meanwhile, said: ‘We respect the opinions of fans and remain committed to strengthening our engagement with them.’
Former United and England defender Gary Neville has been an outspoken critic of the Glazers and recently outlined a four-point plan to turn the club around.
‘They’ve [Glazers] got to do four or five things,’ Neville said last month.
‘They’ve got to stop taking the dividends out of the club if they want to reset the culture, because when the owners are pulling money out of the club at the expense of the fans, at the expense of the project, at the expense of a successful team.
‘Number two, they’ve got to pay off that debt, and they can do that by selling £500million in shares to the fans, not take it out of the club and pay off that debt.
‘They can then rebuild that stadium with £1billion, and it does probably need knocking down to be fair.
‘They then need to build a new training ground and they need to put £100-150million a year into a proper sporting project, along with those four things, and then you can say the Glazer family have reset the culture from the top.’
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