We have much bigger "problems" than Mourinho at the club

We've got far bigger problems than Mou. The structure of the club is a mess.

Let's start off with all the other clubs

City - Director of football, have strategy and mimicking Barcas model. Players bought to fit style rather than just signing big names like they did at the start of the Sheikh era. They have even changed their youth model to mimic Barcas so even when Pep leaves they will get a manager that suits the bill rather than just a big name manager.

Spurs - Structured and now Pochettino being there there is a strategy with player being bought to fit a style. They don't really spend much and are playing good football and have the players from their youth system

Liverpool - players bought to fit a style and long term planning

Chelsea - have a structure in place - won the EPl with 2 diff managers in 3 seasons and buy players to fit irrespective of manager. Like Real MAdrid's model tbh but it works because they usually hire managers with different methods but same philosophy Conte, Mou, Ancelotti, Ranieri etc

Arsenal - they were like us under SAf as Wenger was all powerful but that's slowly being phased out, got Dortmund's former head scout, who has made purchases that Arsene doesn't like and they are preparing for a future without him and reducing his power



That leaves us - 3 different managers with different styles

Moyes, LVG and now Mou

buying big name players rather than having a specific style

Woodward isn't a director of football and tbh seems clueless. Still playing Ashley Young as a fb, Fellaini still at the club, managed to get rid of Rooney last year and he should never have signed a new contract after SAF left, too many squad players are sitting on massive wages, an indication of poor wage management tbh.

There was an article about the power struggle and how the old guard didn't want Mou and Woodward's power grew after Moyes flopped

so Now we will go out and splash on big names once again and if Mou doesn't work out we will have another manager with a different style with players he might not like.


We can all sit here and blame Mou for being Mou but we all knew what he was like before he joined. We all knew about him throwing players under the bus, we all knew about his tactics, we all knew about how he imploded.

So what happens if we sack Mou? Who would we get?

Pochettino? Would he even want to come seeing how much of a mess we are?

Simeone? Honestly I never thought I would say this but I would take him in a heart beat atm.

They would potentially be saddled with footballers that won't fit their style, then we would have another fecking rebuild once again. This is going down the same route as Liverpool tbh.

Any Thoughts?

(Mods please move thread if you feel that this isn't worth it's own thread)

What point are you making? That our club structure doesn't work?

City have won the league a couple of times over the last 5 seasons, it's not like it's consistent success which, given how much they spend, it should be. And they have never won the CL. This year will be the first year they win anything with Pep as manager.

Spurs have won feck all under Pochettino. Fantastic to watch, great players, but they haven't won anything.

Liverpool have won feck all under Klopp. Same as Spurs, great players, but they blow hot and cold.

Chelsea win then league then collapse, win the league again then collapse. Who wants that?

Arsenal have won the FA Cup but have never looked capable of winning the league or being successful in Europe.

We've won the FA Cup, League Cup, and Europa League in the past 3 seasons. We're currently 2nd in the Prem and in the semis of the FA Cup. That's far more consistent success then the clubs you state have a better structure. Not bad for such a shambles I'd say.

I don’t agree at all. I find it difficult to believe that we’re behind Spurs and liverpool, given our league standing.

It’s easy to say a club has a structure and a style and players are bought to fit the style of play is etc, but both those managers have had time to develop their teams and style and ethos takes time to ingrain.

Us on the other hand, are 18 months into Jose’s tenure and most of the people on this forum want rid of him because we’re not entertaining enough. The upshot being, we’ll be back in this situation again in 18 months time, having blown another £500m, and still with a morning fan base who want a change in manager, and all manner of conspiracy theories being banded about.

Also seems odd that people seen Mourinho as a “problem”, just don’t get it myself.

Aye.

The one thing we should possibly try doing, is sticking with a manager if there are tangible signs of progress.

Well it's better than being consistently mediocre, to be fair. I'd swap their last four seasons for ours.

The only structure wrong with United is the tactics Mourinho adopts, after two years of LVG's pedestrian paced football we all thought Mourinho would spark life in us.

Whilst he's made us stronger, the football is just as boring and the life is slowly being drained out of all the flair players we invested in. I personally used to love a match day and it would be the highlight of the week, now it's another day with a game that usually disappoints. Mourinho and LVG have ruined us.

The only thing I would say is other clubs seem to be building for the future. With us it always seems to be the here and now, which is why we buy these big names. The trouble is it isn't always working. We seem to be sorting out our academy system which is good. We however need to be building a team that has a certain style, which I am not sure we are, or if this is our style, then god help us. As has been said we need to either stick with Jose or if he is completely losing it we need to find a manager for the longterm and a DOF to help build the future for the club. Think the priorities of the club are wrong at the moment.

Bailly is young, Lukaku is young, Lindelöf is young, Pogba is young. We're playing Lingard, Rashford, McTominay regularly.

There's a long term plan there, but Mourinho has been here just 20 months, we'll never have long term planning if we keep crying for every single manager to get binned after two seasons.

OP is completely right, we are missing an overall concept on how to develop the club post SAF area and it shows mainly in the mess we have made of our manager signings.

Wonder how long untill someone will come out and say Jose is the biggest problem we have

Well if you're happy with a merry-go-round of managers that's up to you.

At the beginning of the season we were banging goals in for fun. We're not as prolific now, but we've still scored more goals then last year, and are averaging 2 goals a game. Boring to watch, but winning games and scoring goals. So what do you want? To win every game? To score 4 goals a game?

I'm old enough to remember that it was the same pre-SAF era. Take SAF out of the equation and we chopped and changed our managers regularly, without winning much. The chances of finding someone else like SAF are slim, and every manager is now going to be unfairly compared to him.

You don't have to score four goals a game to be entertaining. If you are entertained enough by our style of football, fair enough. Personally, I think we've swayed away from the traditions of our club, we always entertained the fans and took the game to teams. We're now struggling for chances against the likes of Brighton and Huddersfield when we're playing at home.

I'd be happy with two league titles instead of zero. If not changing the manager is more important to you, that's up to you. We had a similar merry-go-round, by the way, without that whole 'winning the league' part. Chelsea have been more successful than us in recent years.

Theres some shite that gets posted on this site sometimes

Think most of us want it not to be boring tbh.

And we didn't chop and change before Fergie. We gave docherty four years (he would have had more had he not been shagging the physio's wife), sexton four years and Atkinson over five years. That's fairly patient I'd say given none of them won the league.

Not really. We've got a very good squad of players that Mourinho is doing his best to convince the wallies amongst us otherwise. The club generates and supports its manager(s) aggressively in the transfer market and the club is in a fantastic financial position.

We need to continue to invest in the squad (which we will) and employ a manager that can reinvigorate United's footballing identity. I used to hate that word, but after Van Gaal and now Mourinho, I just want to see some football played the right way.

We didn't win the league then, but it cost Atkinson eventually. SAF won it regularly and now the aspirations are a lot higher than the odd cup win, which is what we are going back to.

Aye, we've the second best squad in the league and we're second.

We've still got a few gaping holes, not least that we have to play 2 failed wingers as fullbacks because of the shite investments earlier managers made there (Darmien, Shaw). 2 summer transfer windows has simply not been enough, such was the sorry state of our squad in Summer 2016.

Thats not true. Doc got 5 years and got sacked only because he was fecking the physios wife. He was playing some lovely football with some good young players in. Sexton got 4 years, and Atkinson got 5 years. Hardly the same as post Fergie.

Sorry I have just put the same as you lol. Read the original posting first

This.

Spurs and Liverpool have won 2 trophies between them in a decade,they are both behind us in the league right now....Arsenal aren't even rivals anymore....Chelsea are all over the place,jumping from one extreme to the other....So no thanks,I wouldn't want the "structure" of any of these clubs.,,.We are 2nd in the league,behind one of the all time great PL teams....Lets not kid ourselves into believing that there's something fundamentally wrong with our structure....Just give Jose more money and time,he will make us champions again...

Would you be happy being 2nd to City for the foreseeable future? Just asking.

We have not managed to score 2 goals or less only two times in 10 league games in 2018. Beating Pool and Chelsea might be boring for some but definitely not for me.

Why would Klopp and Poch leave though? They have improved their teams no end. Especially Poch. Under him they are regular top 4, unlike before him. Klopp has turned Liverpool into an exciting attacking team, and both have spent a fraction of what we have in the same periods.

Mourinho has had three transfer windows to buy a left back. Guardiola picked up a squad with similar holes (I've outlined this view before as many people choose to deny this), which was completely unsuitable for the football he wants to play. Mourinho had work to do, absolutely, but the quality of football is simply unacceptable irrespective of the full backs. That's undeniable.

Drama much.

Would a manager want to take over a club second in the league and have a massive transfer budget and team of very talented players at his disposal? Are you serious?

Trying to make out we're in a worse state than Arsenal

You'd think we were West Brom with this thread...

He doesn't have an unlimited budget sadly and other areas were obviously more pressing. He's stated clearly on the record that he was miffed at not getting the final player he wanted last summer.

ooooh come on @Kag, Guardiola had:

No keeper

No RB No CB Otamendi NO LB

Fernandinho
KDB Silva
Sterling NO LW
Aguero
​

That is 6 of his current first team at the club, hell, no Kompany is back it's SEVEN.

Mourinho had:

DDG
NO RB NO CB Smalling NO LB
NO CDM
NO CM NO CM

NO RW Martial/Rashford

NO STRIKER

​

What World are you living in? Guardiola had to rebuild his defence, Mourinho has had to rebuild his entire side. Guardiola couldn't get it to work last season, but with 20 months working with the same midfield and attack (Sane aside) it's top drawer now and oozing in confidence.

Nope,I"m not happy being 2nd in the league right now....But I can clearly see signs of progress,We finished last season with 69 points,we are well on course to finish this season with 80-84 points....That's definitive,substantial progress in my view...As long as we keep progressing and as long as we keep improving,I"ll definitely keep supporting the manager...

If we finish 2nd next season with 90 points and if City win the league and end up with 94-96 points,then I would still back Jose because it's not sensible to sack a manager who gets 90 points in the league.If we sack Jose,is there any manager who can hit the ground running and defeat Guardiola in a season?Its highly unlikely,we may end up taking a backward step again...So it's better to keep supporting the manager as long as we keep improving....

Why did you have to go and render this thread redundant so quickly

I think it's disingenuous to include the likes of Sterling and Fernandinho and then omit the likes of Valencia, Herrera and Mata. The former pair are playing better in a better team although there isn't really much between that lot as players. Form is so much more than player x > player y. You know that. De Bruyne even: he has come on leaps and bounds. Would he be playing like that here? I'm not having that.

We had more to work at, but it doesn't escape the reality that the current football is not good enough relative to personnel available. If you think that merely replacing Valencia and Young with shiny, new toys is going to significantly change our approach to attacking football then then you're at best naive and at worst a little daft.

It’s a wonder we sacked Van Gaal if we only had 4 players worth a damn.

Pretty certain the main reason we sacked him was because it was believed his methods weren’t getting the best out of our players.

Might as well have stuck with him if it was all about crap players.

Me (Alex), @Rood (Nik), @That'sHernandez (Ed) & @Schmiznurf (Craig) spoke about this on this week's episode of the podcast. Starts at 1:05 if you want to skip ahead.

I had similar thoughts to the OP - there should be some sort of strategy that filters down from the top and is consistent throughout both our manager selections & our purchases - they could do this with a Director of Football but it isn't necessary and is achievable without. If there is a strategy filtering down from the top at present, then it's to get the biggest, most marketable names and to utilize them as a springboard for commercial sponsorship deals.

Ironically though, it is Mourinho who has had a big hand in bringing about changes in how Manchester United operates as an entity.

It's long been reported that when he took over, the club did not operate in a way that he had come to expect of top European clubs and that as well as making matters right on the pitch, there was a great deal of work for him to do off it. By all accounts, Woodward, Arnold and the Glazers have been impressed with the impact he has made. Far from being seen as the problem, Mourinho is considered part of the solution.

We had one manager for a quarter of a century, you can't underestimate what impact that has on the structure and operations of a football club. As a club, we are far more traditional than our counterparts and that is to our detriment sometimes. The club do appear to be making changes in all areas in order to try to find the consistency of Barca, Real, Bayern and Juve - that's not just about having a successful team, it's about everybody within the club being on the same page and working towards a common goal.

Mourinho has never worked in an environment like United. At Chelsea, Abramovich would watch over him. At Inter, Moratti. At Real, Perez. There is nobody like that at Manchester United. Nobody to undermine him, no political volatility or internal wrangling. He clearly retains the full support of the key figures within the club - Woodward has tasked Mourinho with returning Manchester United to the top and whilst financial obligations and stakeholder objectives must be met, you get the sense that Mourinho has far more leverage at this club, than he has ever done before. He's calling out the players, because he knows the trigger will be pulled on them, before it turns to him.

Essentially, the club know they have fallen short in a number of departments, but hope Mourinho can be the man to point them in the right direction. Whether that proves a wise decision, only time will tell.

We botched SAF's retirement badly and we're still paying for it today. Look at the operational changes Arsenal have made over the last 12 months, you can bet they look upon United as evidence of how not to handle the departure of a long-serving manager. That's not to say they'll get it right, but rather they are making every effort to ease the transition.

At this moment in time, I'm inclined to trust Mourinho and Woodward to make the necessary changes in order to achieve what we all want. Stability and competitiveness.

There is no playing strategy. You just have to compare the U-18's to the U-23's and first team. Who are they being prepared for?

I just don't get what's so wrong with United at the moment, if truth be told, most people (who are realistic) will have been happy with 2nd place and CL QF.

So we had one very poor 2nd half to cost us that 1 round of the CL, is that really such a huge issue that suddenly the whole season is awful and the manager should be sacked?

Ok, I'll buy that first line, 100%.

But can you seriously tell me that Pep could be playing a team filled with 7 of the players Mourinho inherited (and 4 of his own) and have them playing remotely like City are now? If so build that team @Kag:

7 Mou inherited United players + 4 Pep signings.

The best I could do:

DDG
Valencia, Smalling, Laporte, Mendy
Gundogen, Hererra, Mata
Rashford Martial Sane​

And that doesn't look a good side to me. At least 4 of them would still need replacing.​