Did the rot set in when Ronaldo left?

Grande

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Ronaldo papered over a lot of cracks, the rot started much earlier.

We were slow to react to Chelsea's dominance in the early stages of the Roman era - they were beating us to signings, scoring amazing goals, and defending incredibly too.
They built a formiddable team instantly.
Their scouting was better, they bought much better players, their tactics seemed like a breath of fresh air - and every time we faced them I genuinely thought we would lose.

If we didn't have Ronaldo then I think we would have struggled to compete in the way we did.

By the time we left we were already far behind the likes of Bayern & Barcelona, it just compounded.
Since then we've made a few quick fixes (RvP for example) but we still seemingly don't have a long term plan in place, or any real strategy.
I completely disagree with this. 2003-2005 was a period of transition after the class92/treble era. The defence was being rebuilt around Rio Ferdinand, slowly settling when Vidic, Evra, VDS were slotting in. Keane was being phased out, and a suitable partner for Scholes was at last found and developed in Carrick. Up front the wise decision was made to drop a brilliant Van Nistelrooy and give time to two of the best prospects around in Ronaldo and Rooney. As this took place, we were weaker for a few years, but the team from 2005/6 to 2009 was the best United team in history, I’d say one of the best teams in football history. Ronaldo was a worldie, but the team was absolutely magnificent in every department, and the age of players was nicely varied. Ferguson himself has described well the need for transitioning periods for great teams, but unfortunately, he didn’t manage to transition from that team in the same way.
 

davidmichael

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I wouldn’t say a rot set in until Moyes took over and basically had no control over the squad from an authority standpoint or idea on what we needed and tactically BUT I would say we didn’t strengthen from a position of power in 2009.

We’d lost the Champions League final to arguably the greatest club side ever and was about to sell our best player for a world record few but instead of replacing quality with quality we went with a bigger squad and signed players that weren’t any better than we already had.

Robben was available and I’m positive Real would have still given us £80 million on top of Robben for Ronaldo if we’d asked for that because Real wanted shot of Robben and his value was at an all time low, with £80 million added to whatever we had as a transfer budget initially and Robben as Ronaldo’s replacement we’d have been able to buy anyone and as the biggest club in England and Champions League runners up that year whilst winners the year before we were a HUGE draw.
 

villain

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I completely disagree with this. 2003-2005 was a period of transition after the class92/treble era. The defence was being rebuilt around Rio Ferdinand, slowly settling when Vidic, Evra, VDS were slotting in. Keane was being phased out, and a suitable partner for Scholes was at last found and developed in Carrick. Up front the wise decision was made to drop a brilliant Van Nistelrooy and give time to two of the best prospects around in Ronaldo and Rooney. As this took place, we were weaker for a few years, but the team from 2005/6 to 2009 was the best United team in history, I’d say one of the best teams in football history. Ronaldo was a worldie, but the team was absolutely magnificent in every department, and the age of players was nicely varied. Ferguson himself has described well the need for transitioning periods for great teams, but unfortunately, he didn’t manage to transition from that team in the same way.
Again - i'm not saying we didn't have a great team, we did.
I'm saying that our long term contingency plan should have been better, as a result our transition periods took a very long time, and we didn't do as well in Europe as we should have done. Plus we wasted a lot of money on players that weren't good enough, and our academy has been lagging for far longer than it should've been.

On the pitch we were great at times and we also had some fantastic players like you listed - but could we have done more?

In my opinion yes.
I believe the likes of Bayern, Barca and Madrid began to build their foundations around the same time that we did, but they managed to do a better job of it and now their systems are geared in such a way that means that they will enjoy a suitable amount of success regardless of who’s in charge.

I think in contrast, we had the greatest manager ever and we leaned on him to do a lot of things at once. So of course he wasn’t able to do everything.
However, if we began building for the future after the first time Fergie considered retiring (2001 I think it was) that could’ve meant that he was left to focus on football, while the club reinvested in the academy, and scouting network etc.

It all worked out pretty well while he was here, but the seeds were sown earlier on, and that’s all I’m saying.
 

antohan

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Actually we won the league twice since Ronaldo left (2011,2013) so we won the league twice in 9 years since he left if you include this season, which is not good reading really.
Any Liverpool fan would give his left bollock or even both for just one of those.

And Arsenal... And Spurs... Hell, even the bestest team ever with their superlative policies and planning are only about to make it three and one was on feckin' GD :mad:

Moyes was rotten. Incapable of identifying or attracting what was needed, incapable of inspiring the better ones from the old guard to scrape the barrel for an indian summer like SAF drew time and again... Gill left, the entire backroom staff was disposed off.

Stupid Davey Big Bollocks dismembered us, LVG moved sideways and only now we are rebuilding. Rebuilding takes time... and patience.
 

Slimcharles69

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Ronaldo? I think you mean sir Alex. We were still very successful even after Ronaldo left, more so even than Madrid were at least for the first couple of years there. We have been left in shambles since 2013 because of the departure of both sir Alex and David gill which left us with no experienced leadership whatsoever. Ronaldo means feck all.
 

The Outsider

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In my lifetime, I have only heard of two managers that brought a lot of success to the club, Sir Matt and SAF.

With the latter he was close to getting the boot in his third season and then you won the FA Cup and the rest you know already.

Does that mean with the odd exception most will under-perform?
 

Abhinav

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I agree that failure to invest in our squad and replace not only Ronaldo, but Scholes, Giggs, Rio, Vidic and Evra were major reasons why we struggled after Fergie retired. However, we would not have taken so much time towards recovery if we had appointed a competent manager instead of Moyes and Van Gaal.

The first one didn’t take immediate action and the latter squandered money on largely poor buys. On top of that, Van Gaal decided to sell off whatever little quality we had in the squad by getting rid of the likes of Nani, Di Maria, Kagawa, Welbeck etc. Which in itself wouldn’t have been so bad if he had invested better.
 
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edgar allan

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I agree with the idea that 2nd place in the league and still in the Champions League is not a rot.


The following season Ronaldo left. It happens. But look at Barcelonas reaction to losing Neymar - they used the money to sign Dembele, Semedo and Coutinho and will likely sign Veratti and maybe Griezmann as well next summer. We used the Ronaldo money to sign Obertan, Owen and Valencia in a summer players like Robben, Sneijder, Benzema, Ozil. David Silva, Villa, Yaya Toure and Ibrahimovic were all attainable.
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Rot is the wrong word for sure but this was when the great opportunity was missed at our club to continue to be one of the top 3-4 clubs in Europe.

For all the success that Fergie gave us this was where he ( and the glazers) let down the legacy. The names signed prove the point.
 

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Ronaldo was probably the best individual we had in all of Sir Alex's years. He is the best individual to play for Real Madrid in modern history as well. Of course after him there will be a decrease in quality. There is a reason players like him are called a one off and unique, they provide something nobody else can. If anything, our quality in those years 2007-2009 should be viewed with the consideration that we had such a one off X factor over our rivals the same way Real Madrid enjoyed after us. Before him we were a weaker team and after him we were always going to be weaker no matter what.
 

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I think we were a bit unlucky as well. There was a lot of prospects from our youth sides that ended up being only almost good enough. We won the FA youth cup in 2011 (I think) with Lingard, Pogba, Morrison maybe Keane 2x was there and Drinkwater too maybe?

With a slightly different outcome, many of those could've been first teamers today.
 

Vialli_92

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Man United have had only 2 world class players in that time, RvP and DDG

Di Maria was world class but he wasn't world class for Man United so was a failed trasnfer imo

DDG is the only player I could see getting into Barca or Real team as a regular starter, Pogba is not at that level yet where he would bench Kroos or Modric

Recruitment has been mediocre and when you compare it to the top teams it's been very poor at United overall
 

IBleedRed

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I don't this a lot of you guys understand what "rot" means. I'm guessing that rot = lack of investment after Ronaldo. This, with the appointment of moyes, is a fairly accurate reasoning as to why the team has declined, post SAF. Sir Alex was the greatest manager ever and didn't need to invest to win at that point, however he probably should have, to help create a better platform for the severe underachievers that followed him (Jose seems to be doing alright).
 

Ramshock

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I mean in terms of how shambolic our recruitment has been ever since. We sold the best player in the world and invested the money that season in Antonio Valencia, Michael Owen and Gabriel Obertan. Look at a comparable moment now for Barcelona who sold Neymar but have invested the money in Ousmane Dembele and Coutinho...
rot? wtf? other clubs would love the rot we had since Ronaldo left
 

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'Rot' is an over the top way to describe it but there was a definite decline post-Ronaldo. We weren't particularly bad in 09-10 and the fact it ended up being one of our poorer seasons (relatively speaking) under Fergie in the PL era is more a reflection on his success than anything else, but losing Ronaldo definitely made us a lot more vulnerable in an attacking sense, especially coupled with the loss of Tevez. We went from having one of the world's most potent attacking forces to being very reliant on times at Rooney...who was obviously world class in his own right and excelled in 09-10, but he was still a considerable distance away from what Ronaldo offered us at his best. Nani was capable but frustrating and his only consistently really good season (as in, one of our best players) was 10-11, while Berbatov was extraordinarily gifted with a football at his feet but not the sort of player a top side could build their club around.

The 09-13 period was weird in that sense insofar that we were quite spoiled by what we were continuing to achieve, but were also frustrated at the decline that'd occurred when compared to the 06-09 period. But still...I'd say that decline was somewhat natural, to an extent. Ultimately all sides, no matter how good they are, tend not to be able to sustain CL winning form over a number of seasons, and a lull in those years afterwards where we were still either winning titles or losing out on them by a literal single goal wasn't so bad. The problem was simply that when Fergie left his replacement couldn't keep that up. Sometimes people lump blame on Fergie for the squad he left Moyes with but I tend to disagree with that. Fergie could've left him the 07-08 side and we'd have probably still been in a battle for a top four position at best.
 

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I honestly believe Fergie was tight with the cash in his later years for 3 reasons..
1) He didn't want to overpay for players he didn't feel were worth the hype despite most on redcafe having a raging one for at the time, he was proved correct with a good few like Lucas Moura, Mangala, Cabaye, Rodwell, Walcott, Fellaini, Stewart Downing, Gaitan, Fernando etc
2) He knew there was some kids in that team that were good enough if given time and some of the players deemed not good enough by Moyes and Van Gaal were actually more than good enough
3) He wanted to leave a monster chunk of cash for the next guy

If Fergie was still here we'd look something like this and we'd be rivaling city at the top

De Gea
Valencia M.Keane Evans Shaw
Wanyama Cleverley
Deli Alli
Bale Welbeck S.Mane​
 
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Irish Jet

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First in the league? We are Manchester United after all...
Not a single United side in history would be top of this league statistically speaking given the standard set.

I think Mourinho has stopped ths rot. Standards probably dropped after Ronaldo/Tevez left and I think before that we didn’t appreciate how difficult it is to attract world class talent.

It was still a decent foundation for success with some decent investment which never really came until last season. The signings from 2012-2016 and the handling of those squads are what really set the club back. I’d include Rooney’s contract extension in that too.

Although you wouldn’t think it with the media coverage or even this place - The trajectory is finally upward after some dark years.
 

Richrip

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The lack of investment after Ronaldo left and pretty much up until Fergie left.

2 that come to mind.....Bale and Hazard both made to play for United moved and for whatever reason didn’t come here. 10 years earlier Fergie wouldnt have let them slip by.

The lack of forward planning and vison has seen Utd with a scattergun approach with managers and players has left us playing catch.
 

Grande

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Again - i'm not saying we didn't have a great team, we did.
I'm saying that our long term contingency plan should have been better, as a result our transition periods took a very long time, and we didn't do as well in Europe as we should have done. Plus we wasted a lot of money on players that weren't good enough, and our academy has been lagging for far longer than it should've been.

On the pitch we were great at times and we also had some fantastic players like you listed - but could we have done more?

In my opinion yes.
I believe the likes of Bayern, Barca and Madrid began to build their foundations around the same time that we did, but they managed to do a better job of it and now their systems are geared in such a way that means that they will enjoy a suitable amount of success regardless of who’s in charge.

I think in contrast, we had the greatest manager ever and we leaned on him to do a lot of things at once. So of course he wasn’t able to do everything.
However, if we began building for the future after the first time Fergie considered retiring (2001 I think it was) that could’ve meant that he was left to focus on football, while the club reinvested in the academy, and scouting network etc.

It all worked out pretty well while he was here, but the seeds were sown earlier on, and that’s all I’m saying.
I think i agree with the points of what you’re saying, but not with the timeline. Rebuilding slumps are inevitable, and Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern have had them too in the period you’re talking about. And neither of those were any better at bringing players from their academies into the team than United 2003-2009. Nor at buying top class talent. Off the top shelf, Rio, Ronaldo, Rooney, Nani, Anderson were among the most exciting young talent there was. Hargreaves, Tevez and Berbatov were top of the line established players, presumed to be entering their best years. Up until around 2009, United did as well as any in refurbishing, refreshing and refining both the fruit and the undergrowth of their team. It was after that something changed. Not a ‘rot’ certainly. But Valencia and Young weren’t aquisitions at the level of Tevez and Berbatov. Smalling wasn’t anything like Rio in talent, Obertan was far from Ronaldo and Welbeck and Cleverly, although at times impressing, couldn’t fill the gaps. They were, if you will, ok Pavones who were asked to be Zidanes.

Not until DdG, Van Persie and Kagawa did the club start to pick up speed again, but from there it wasn’t a congruent building process anymore. The effort in aquiring top players rose, but the quality in the work dropped. All in my less than humble opinion, of course.
 

Lennon7

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I don’t see how our player recruitment during 2009-2013 would be affecting us now? Yes we played catch up a bit in terms of signing talent but we’ve still spent a fortune, so any issues were having now are completely unrelated to that period and can only be attributed to management decisions in the past 3-5 years.

In terms of immidiately after Ronaldo left, we were still class. Rooney stepped it up immediately, even Nani upped his game. A lot of the success we had has to go down as the Fergie factor but we certainly weren’t beginning to rot. And it most definitely doesn’t account for any problems in 2018.
 

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The lack of investment after Ronaldo left and pretty much up until Fergie left.

2 that come to mind.....Bale and Hazard both made to play for United moved and for whatever reason didn’t come here. 10 years earlier Fergie wouldnt have let them slip by.

The lack of forward planning and vison has seen Utd with a scattergun approach with managers and players has left us playing catch.
Bale was set on Real Madrid. We were always going to miss out on him same way we missed out on Shearer or Gascoigne. Hazard was a kid from Belgium playing in France, how many players during Fergie's reign were signed with that profile? I think some people forget that with we signed very few continental stars during Fergie time. Most of our big profile signings were always from England. Veron is probably the only big name Latin or Mediterranean player we ever signed before Queiroz was a big part of our staff. During his time we had some links to Portuguese football which meant we signed Ronaldo, Nani, Anderson and Bebe but that was more of the exception rather than the rule. The point is that our signings post Ronaldo were nothing unusual, it's just the fact that City and Chelsea were buying more continental players that highlights the conservatism of our transfer activity.
 

Theonas

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I don’t see how our player recruitment during 2009-2013 would be affecting us now? Yes we played catch up a bit in terms of signing talent but we’ve still spent a fortune, so any issues were having now are completely unrelated to that period and can only be attributed to management decisions in the past 3-5 years.

In terms of immidiately after Ronaldo left, we were still class. Rooney stepped it up immediately, even Nani upped his game. A lot of the success we had has to go down as the Fergie factor but we certainly weren’t beginning to rot. And it most definitely doesn’t account for any problems in 2018.
That's because some fans would like to genuinely believe that the Manchester United job is the toughest ever job any manager has ever had in the history of the game. That's why there is this tendency to see problems everywhere from as far back as 10 years ago. Of course every action has consequences but those consequences as you say are not so dire that they cannot be fixed by now.
 

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It's about adding more quality when your on top, Fergie was amazing at getting the most out of a player. He built many great sides but the side that he left us with needed to be rebuilt and was in decline. He never planned his retirement much in advance, can't be harsh. It's just the way it worked out. Rooney, Rio, Evra, Vidic, Carrick and even Rvp were all on the down. His recruitment was poor in later years in certain areas(mainly CM), addressed poorly by Moyes, Lvg and maybe even Jose. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but in the summer Ronaldo left so did Tevez. We brought in Michael Owen, Obertan and Valencia as the replacements.

It was depressing but we were spoilt then. Now we want to challenge, then anything but 1st was a disappointment. I'll never say anything bad about Ferguson though, he is the man. I just think if we outspent rivals every summer with the best players years ago, we would still be far ahead. Then again, United were always more about buying and developing younger players to be the best. My personal opinion is that Glazers did not have proper planning for when Fergie left, we are paying the price for it still. People get giddy when we buy Pogba one summer and Lukaku the next. We needed top players for years and one or two aren't going to fix a squad, we should have been doing that for years. This season Valencia and Young are the full back's, top professionals but still think about it? They were both winger's and are in there 30's. Why have we not cracked it since 2013. Jose is doing his best but there is still much to be fixed in that squad.
 

bleedred

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Rot?

I am guessing we would still be top of the trophies list than any other team in England after 09.

Hell, even in the last 3 years we have had 3 trophies.

Spolit much???
 

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I think our team came together at a point during 06-09, reignited by Fergie's desire to be back on top.
But without Fergie I don't think we would have enjoyed similar success because the foundation wasn't there, he was the key difference imo.

The likes of Bayern, Barca, and to a certain extent Chelsea can operate with a great manager and not experience any real periods of painful transition because they have a foundation and the manager adds his own personal tactics, staff and player recommendations to it.

Right now we don't have that, if Jose walks away or is fired we're far more likely to go through another painful transition period, we're still in a transition period as far as i'm concerned, and it's been how many years now?



Out of that list only Rio, Ronaldo, Rooney, Vidic, Evra, VDS, Carrick and Tevez were consistently good. Saha was injury prone, Heinze was acceptable, Smith was inconsistent, Park was acceptable, Anderson & nani were inconsistent and Berbatov was an anomaly. (imo, you don't have to agree)
That's about 8/22 which is 33% success rate, so 1/3 which I said earlier. That list doesn't have Rafael & Fabio either does it?

It would be good to see the player's we've bought from 2010 on.
Well, I m sure if we compare it to other teams as well, they would also have similar rates of success.

Also the criteria for success is just arbitrary as it’s just an opinion.


For example, you say park as just acceptable. But many including me would consider him a success cause of the numerous big match games he performed in!
 

InfiniteBoredom

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We reached the Champions League final and won the league 3 more times.

What I wouldn't give for that rot now.
2 more times.

Arguably, had we been willing to invest just a tad more, it could've been 4, given that we lost 2010 by a single point and 2012 on goal difference. Didn't need to be much either, a creative midfielder to shoulder some of Carrick's burdens, and an attacking forward/winger.

Instead we went for value and while some of the signings worked out for a season or two, most flopped.
 

JeffBoomTetris

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No.

The "rot" or whatever you want to call it started with the appointment of Moyes. Even if you gave him Messi or Ronaldo he wouldn't know to use them. Van Gaal was equally bad and hurt us in more ways than Moyes. José is more competent but even he is not doing his job correctly. Instead of focusing on the football, he's calling for more money to be spent and he's engaging in classless feuds with fellow managers.

Cr7's departure left a visible effect on our performances. However, we were still winning things. We only lost titles to a strong Chelsea side of Ancelotti and a City side on goal difference.

Just for perspective

09/10- 2nd - 85 pts.
10/11- 1st - 80 pts.
11/12- 2nd - 89 pts. (lost on goal diff.)
12/13- 1st - 89 pts.

13/14- 7th - 64 pts.
14/15- 4th - 70 pts.
15/16- 5th - 66 pts.
16/17- 6th - 69 pts.
 

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For me, the decline, not rot, rot is irreparable, set in when SAF lost his power-battle with the Glazers over Wayne Rooney, SAF rightly wanted him out, the Glazers thinking image-right money didn't back the greatest Manager of the last two generations, and the rest is History.
 

Mr Smith

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It certainly does. We appear to have deserted the standards set by Alex Ferguson and a large swathe of our support feels that merely finishing in the top four is good enough for this club. We are another few barren years away from becoming the new scousers.
You say we've deserted previous standards, but the fact is the context has changed. The top 4 has become a top 6, and we have two financial juggernauts to compete with. Our purchasing power has decreased due to the market's inflation, and to top it all off, no one else could do what Fergie did in any era, let alone this one. It may seem like the right thing to do to refuse to accept a different standard for success, but in truth its naive. We will still compete, and still win things, but we will never again experience the dominance we did under Fergie.
 

tony54

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I mean in terms of how shambolic our recruitment has been ever since. We sold the best player in the world and invested the money that season in Antonio Valencia, Michael Owen and Gabriel Obertan. Look at a comparable moment now for Barcelona who sold Neymar but have invested the money in Ousmane Dembele and Coutinho...
Nah, the rot set in when the Americans came, they have been milking the club.
When Ferguson left all the nucleus left too, because they saw what was going to happen.
 

Richrip

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Bale was set on Real Madrid. We were always going to miss out on him same way we missed out on Shearer or Gascoigne. Hazard was a kid from Belgium playing in France, how many players during Fergie's reign were signed with that profile? I think some people forget that with we signed very few continental stars during Fergie time. Most of our big profile signings were always from England. Veron is probably the only big name Latin or Mediterranean player we ever signed before Queiroz was a big part of our staff. During his time we had some links to Portuguese football which meant we signed Ronaldo, Nani, Anderson and Bebe but that was more of the exception rather than the rule. The point is that our signings post Ronaldo were nothing unusual, it's just the fact that City and Chelsea were buying more continental players that highlights the conservatism of our transfer activity.
Agree that Bale was always going to be tough to sign....... would have stood more of a chance with Fergie as manager rather than Moyes. With his injury record he wouldn’t have been so great for us anyway.

Hazard I disagree although I take on board your point about Latin players but hazard was Young Europe a winger with world class potential. We ended up signing Ashley Young and Obertan around the same sort of time. He was the perfect replacement for giggs and as we speak still hasn’t ran off to Madrid/ Barca. Think he would of lit up OT and carried our attack like he does for Chelsea. At the time I thought Fergie was right not to pay the agents fee but look at what we supposedly paid the agent for Pogba!! Missing out on Hazard wasn’t the be all and end all but it has proved costly.
 

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I think i agree with the points of what you’re saying, but not with the timeline. Rebuilding slumps are inevitable, and Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern have had them too in the period you’re talking about. And neither of those were any better at bringing players from their academies into the team than United 2003-2009. Nor at buying top class talent. Off the top shelf, Rio, Ronaldo, Rooney, Nani, Anderson were among the most exciting young talent there was. Hargreaves, Tevez and Berbatov were top of the line established players, presumed to be entering their best years. Up until around 2009, United did as well as any in refurbishing, refreshing and refining both the fruit and the undergrowth of their team. It was after that something changed. Not a ‘rot’ certainly. But Valencia and Young weren’t aquisitions at the level of Tevez and Berbatov. Smalling wasn’t anything like Rio in talent, Obertan was far from Ronaldo and Welbeck and Cleverly, although at times impressing, couldn’t fill the gaps. They were, if you will, ok Pavones who were asked to be Zidanes.

Not until DdG, Van Persie and Kagawa did the club start to pick up speed again, but from there it wasn’t a congruent building process anymore. The effort in aquiring top players rose, but the quality in the work dropped. All in my less than humble opinion, of course.
You’re focused primarily on the players we bought, I’m talking more about the infastructure of the club, which of course leads into how we scout, profile and sign players.

Ultimately what I’m trying to say is that we were more reactionary, rather than strategic (imo) and I think came primarily from the threat of Chelsea, but also things like Glazer takeover that caused disruption within our hierarchy.
I also think that we depended on Fergie & Gill to do everything, rather than building the infrastructure around the manager, that way he can focus on football.

An improved academy, and a more sophisticated scouting network should have been improvements we made 15+ years ago, it looks like we're making improvements to both now, but that's partly why I say the seeds were sown before Ronaldo came.

In comparison in 2000-2006ish - Bayern Munich promoted approximately 3/4 youth products each year including Hargreaves, Lahm, Schweinsteiger.
And in 2003 their youth academy partnered with I think about 8 other German clubs in partnerships that are beneficial for both parties
Barca's policy was slightly different, but in the same time period they were signing established stars (ronaldinho, davids, eto'o etc), as well as promoting from within (xavi, iniesta, messi) and they had a policy of loaning out some of their players with the intention of getting them back (saviola, pique, fabregas)
Both of these teams still largely follow this blueprint because it's tried and tested, plus over the course of time they've developed their network and built relationships with various clubs also.

These are example of strategic planning, with a sustainable long term vision in mind.
Madrid obviously followed the Galatico route and found instant success but went through a barren period in Europe as well - so i'm not suggesting we're the only ones who haven't realised our potential - but at least for me I think these are when Barca & Bayern began to pull away from us, and they continue to reap the rewards to this day, in the transfer market and at youth level.
Now with the market the way it is, it's going to be much harder for us to establish our own route, I still don't think we have a player profile, or transfer strategy - but rather we react to the market, and react to the players who are available.

Maybe "rot" is too strong a word for what i'm suggesting.
 

TheRedDevil'sAdvocate

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Rot? No, but stagnation? Yes. Stagnation and a lack of attention to the signs of steady decline. But then again, when you're winning it's much easier to sweep any problems under the rug. It's the course of human nature and, besides, everyone despises the perennial moaner during the good times. But, even then, it was quite easy to tell that Ferguson's last United side (the one that won our last two PL titles) was rather lacklustre compared with the treble-winning one, with the '06-'09 juggernaut or even with the one that ended our draught by delivering the first two PL titles in the early nineties.

In hindsight, of course, the 2011 & 2013 league titles look quite similar to the last two titles Liverpool won (1988-1990). It wasn't the overall quality that made the difference but the habit of winning which was embedded into the minds of the manager and certain players who, in their turn, transmitted it to the others. In its full force, it created the famous fear factor. The sad fact is that many of those players were past their prime and/or reaching the sunset of their careers (Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, van der Sar, Neville, Giggs, Scholes, Fletcher, Park etc.). Ronaldo's departure was the cherry on the top of the cake but, at the time it occurred, Fergie believed that we would miss his numbers more than we would miss his leadership. And, truth be told, the old gaffer always knew how to make the numbers add up.

This doesn't mean that there wasn't a plan. There was but it was one that, ultimately, failed miserably. We can now say with certainty that De Gea is probably the only one who provided us with an almost seamless transition in a position on the pitch from one world class player to another. In the centre-half position, too much faith was put on Smalling, Evans and Jones to replace Rio and Vida (Ferguson believed at one point that Jones had the potential to become one of the best English players). In the full-back position, too much faith was put on the twins to stay fit too. In the midfield, Cleverley was supposed to develop into something more than a midtable CM and Anderson was also supposed to mature a bit and eventually replace what he had inside his head with some brains. Unfortunately for us, none of these things happened. In the winger role, there were hopes for Nani (25, then) to pick up the baton from Ronaldo and take on a more leading role but his inconsistency plagues him until now and has hindered his career overall. On the other side, Kagawa never managed to replace what Park brought to the table for us and we also failed to get from Kagawa the qualities he had shown at Dortmund. Up front, Welbeck never looked like a natural goal scorer. On the top of all that, RvP failed to replicate his magnificent12/13 season. And the only player who was assessed 100% correctly by Ferguson who wanted to ship him off, Rooney, was given a hegemonical new contract.

But Ferguson always knew how to take the best out of his go-to men on the pitch while retaining a strict discipline at the same time. Rio and Vida's leadership skills were kept for the difficult matches mostly. Evra was playing, more or less, as a wing-back with the LCB or a midfielder keeping an eye on his spaces during the defensive transition. Giggs/Scholes were rotated smoothly in order for their experience at setting the tempo to not miss from our team. And I believe that both RvP and Carrick were allowed to follow personal training (meaning less intense) in order to stay fit. The big names were being taken good care of and the job was being done. And that's probably why Ferguson advised Moyes to keep the backroom staff intact but Moyes had other ideas.

Since then our biggest mistake has been the fact that we fail to realize just what we're missing so dearly. We sign players whose best footballing years are ahead of them/are in their prime (Fellaini, Mata, Rojo, Blind, Herrera, Darmian, Schneiderlin, Mkhitaryan, Lindelof, Pogba, Di Maria, Matic, Lukaku) and we also buy/promote youngsters (Januzaj, Depay, Martial, Lingard, Rashford, Shaw, Bailly) and we burden them we responsibilities that they never had before. We ask of them to come here and lead the pack to glory. And when they fail, we come on this forum and we wonder if there's more deadwood to ship off or if the young prospects are as good as we think. Out of this squad only DdG, Matic and Mata seem able to lead the team. Pogba is getting there but he's not quite there yet. With Matic/Mata Mourinho was spot on: to buy the former and to keep the second in the team. We need to see this and start addressing it. Otherwise, when we reach midpoint through every season, we'll keep finding ourselves resorting to the Valencias, the Youngs, the Smalling/Jones/Rojos to steer the ship. And we'll keep rendering these useful but not great players as useless every time we fall out of the title race.


You don't need anyone to tell you that what we lack is proven quality, the 'been there, done that' kind. Fergie had Robson and then he brought Ince to the side. When the latter became a mainstay in the midfield, we signed one of the biggest talents in Keane. And it was next to Keane that Scholes flourished as a footballer. Then Carrick was signed to do the job next to Scholesy. It doesn't matter whether you buy them or you promote them from the academy because true talent can be found everywhere. What matters is to have at least one player in each line to whom the rest will look up to (and of course able to perform at the highest level). And you can't always expect to create these players for your side out of promising youngsters/great players but with supporting roles in their previous clubs/past it greats out of which you hope squeeze a few good years. Sometimes you just have to keep knocking at the door until you get what you want.
 
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Beagle

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We have relied on individuals a lot during and after Ronaldo. People like him and Van Persie hid a lot of other problems we had started to have. Carrick had a similar effect on our midfield. We did not replace these key players effectively.

We did not invest in CM under Fergie and Moyes. We didn't bring in a top defender after Rio and Vidic. We didn't account for the fact that Valencia was not going to be a great right winger and we needed an upgrade. We continued to build our play around Rooney. The only areas we tried to strengthen long term were GK and LB.

It was unreasonable to expect any other manager to get out of that group of players as much as Fergie did.
 
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JK-27

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While there has been a lot of talk about players who've not been good the last few years, we should also look at backroom staff too.

Plenty of top quality Managers have been available in the time since SAF left, yet it took us three years to appoint someone decent. Pep, Pochettino, Simeone, Ancelotti were all get able as managers yet we went for Moyes and then LvG. Standards across the board dropped when SAF left and it starst from the top and filters down. I think we've had the players to do a better job but the backroom support has been the real let down.
 

red_devil83

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We messed up in the few years at the end of Fergie’s reign by losing out in the race for the best young players in world football. DDG is the one exception and look how he turned out. If you look at those years and who was signed by the best teams in Europe, and then us. It’s where the gap basically started. Hazard, Aguero, KDB originally by Chelsea, City even had Boateng at one point.

This was then exasperateds by the panic under LvG/Moyes.
exacerbated
 

Ducklegs

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I wouldnt say rot, but our myopic scouting network and inept/ stubborn managers have let some of the best players in the world slip through their fingers when they could have been had for relative peanuts.
 

siw2007

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There are a few reasons why we have declined as a team over the years which unfortunately do go back to those post Ronaldo years.

Firstly, we let the spine of the team grow old together post 2010. Transfer window in 2009 aside (it was a poor one) we still had a very strong side that could have won a lot more with a bit more luck. One of our biggest wins was against AC Milan, who only 3 years prior had been crowned champions of Europe. We hammered them really, but the striking matter was that it was a club that could boast talents like Pirlo, Seedorf, Nesta, Cafu, Gattuso etc over that period of time (not necessarily that year). In many ways they had far more individual talent than us, but they could just not handle our intensity because they were simply a bit too old, not to say you cant have experienced players but the backbone of that team were a good number of years past their best. As a pretty experienced side ourselves, we must have been hoping that our team doesn't go the same way, but alas it did happen.
Post 2010 our team or more specifically our spine didn't really change too much. As a team we were still heavily reliant on Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Scholes and Giggs, and despite them still having some successful years after, it was clear their powers were fading, and with little replacement, I feel we did very much become that AC Milan team that grew old together.

Secondly, which links in with the previous point, we did fail in the transfer market over this period. I want to get one thing straight, it is incredibly difficult to replace the players mentioned above. All of them and perhaps some others would stake a claim to be in the all time great United 11 and thus we were left with a task of replacing club legends. Fergie has admitted in this period they got their transfer strategy wrong but we really didn't help ourselves. I did feel we tried to replace our ageing stars, and some of them were successes and maybe still at the club, they weren't the world class talents we had hoped would become the stars of the team.
We also were punished by failing to aggressively pursue the very best young players in the world. Where we were first in line for Rooney and Ronaldo, we passed up on David Silva, Sergio Aguero and didn't get Hazard or Sanchez. Our rivals improved while we stood still.

Im not going to mention the Moyes debacle as thats a different discussion. But recruitment was the key reason we are where we are now. But some of these issues we just can't control, football is cyclical and we can't help it when our players age and perhaps have to hold our hands up when our richer rivals can attract the best talents to their clubs, so like Liverpool, it was perhaps a forgone conclusion that it would eventually happen.

Obviously this is just all my opinion and could be total waffle to some people, but that is my 2 cents.