Do the Strand: the Manchester United haircut guy exposes our lust for content | Jonathan Liew

London – A routine 1-1 Premier League draw between West Ham and Manchester United on Tuesday night will be remembered less for Tomas Soucek’s early opener or for United’s aborted attempt at a fifth consecutive victory than for the follicles of one supporter: Frank Ilett, now immortalised as “The United Strand”.

Since pledging in October 2024 to avoid scissors until his team recorded five straight wins in all competitions, Ilett’s locks have lengthened in tandem with his online following. Kick’s live-stream of the Oxford-born super-fan watching the match drew 250,000 concurrent viewers; cameras inside the London Stadium repeatedly cut to the 23-year-old, whose split-screen agony became a real-time barometer of United’s fluctuating fortunes.

The spectacle migrated rapidly from social media to the professional sphere. Wolves forward Matheus Cunha admitted this week that “the pressure of the haircut” had entered the United dressing-room lexicon, while Bruno Fernandes and Michael Carrick fielded questions on grooming rather than tactics. By Tuesday morning, catalogue retailer Argos had issued a press release confirming Ilett as an “Official Delivery Partner”, promising to rush clippers to his door the instant the streak was achieved.

The episode is, on the surface, a harmless diversion. Yet it illuminates football’s accelerating mutation into a content engine whose currency is attention, not silverware. United’s on-pitch struggles have proved lucrative for an ecosystem of influencers: Ilett, pundit Andy Tate, streamer Mark Goldbridge, even manager Ruben Amorim, whose profile rises with every meme. Liverpool head coach Arne Slot recently framed Champions League qualification in purely financial terms, underscoring a climate in which existence itself—match-day vlogs, viral haircuts, betting-sponsored reaction streams—often outweighs excellence.

Critics dismiss Ilett as a privileged opportunist capitalising on algorithmic reward. Supporters counter that he is merely adapting to a rigged attention economy in which personal agency is reduced to metrics of reach. Either way, the haircut has become a mirror: a reminder that in 2026 football’s most valuable asset is no longer the ball, but the gaze fixed upon it.