I see no difference between Moyes and Mourinho's football. Both pathetic.
Are people going to insist this isn't as bad or worse than the nadirs of LVG and Moyes?
- Thread starter Fortitude
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Managers aside I think the squad is in a worst state now than what Moyes had available.
Many were declining but I'd expect the 13/14 team of say De Gea, Evra, Vidic, Rio, Rafael, Valencia, Carrick, Fletcher, Giggs, Rooney, Van Persie to beat our current best XI which is seriously lacking in quality.
Like mentioned above even Moyes team were capable of the odd big win like Leverkusen because the quality was there despite Moyes.
It says a lot about how average this team is that there's never a sign of a big win where everything clicks. This just seems to be the level for the majority of our players.
Many were declining but I'd expect the 13/14 team of say De Gea, Evra, Vidic, Rio, Rafael, Valencia, Carrick, Fletcher, Giggs, Rooney, Van Persie to beat our current best XI which is seriously lacking in quality.
Like mentioned above even Moyes team were capable of the odd big win like Leverkusen because the quality was there despite Moyes.
It says a lot about how average this team is that there's never a sign of a big win where everything clicks. This just seems to be the level for the majority of our players.
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Under Moyes, there were still games against shit teams I was confident we'd win. Now there's no team on the planet I feel we can win comfortably
Says a lot about the players bought by Jose then.
Champions league winners surelySteady on! Although I have to admit I've always wondered how LVG's third season would have panned out on the back of an FA Cup win?
I’ve gotten to the point where I really don’t care who takes over, as long as someone takes over and I’m just treading water till Jose is giving his marching orders.
It may well have if given the money Jose has spent on players and Rooney moved on.Champions league winners surely
I’ve gotten to the point where I really don’t care who takes over, as long as someone takes over and I’m just treading water till Jose is giving his marching orders.
Moyes would never be able to beat Juventus in Turin or get us out of that group. Comparing Moyes to Mourinho is an insult to the great Portuguese man.
I just want to see some fecking heart in this team. I mean, why can't they at least show that? So maybe they're not good enough. That's fair, it's not their fault. But passion and commitment has nothing to do with talent, it has to do with attitude. And every fecking game they stroll around like they don't really give a shit. You don't see a single one of these players running themselves into the ground for the club. That's the most worrying aspect for me. And as much as I'm Mourinho out (I've probably been one of his most vocal critics since day one) I can't quite convince myself that that part will change with a new manager.
Something drastic needs to change at this club, and the players need to learn that mediocrity will have consequences. They're way too comfortable hiding behind the manager. They seem to view playing for this club as a right and not a privilege.
Something drastic needs to change at this club, and the players need to learn that mediocrity will have consequences. They're way too comfortable hiding behind the manager. They seem to view playing for this club as a right and not a privilege.
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Fine. Let's sack Jose and replace him, but unless the people at the top are gone, nothing will change in the long term. As long as men like Woodward are calling the shots, we'll just blunder on. Van Gaal was a damned good manager in his day. Not everyone's cup of tea but he had a good record and had managed big clubs. He left despising Woodward and wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire. I suspect Jose's relationship with Woodward is somewhat similar and when he does finally up sticks, he won't be shy in dishing the dirt on the poison dwarf and his masters. If the likes of Mourinho and Van Gaal can't make a go of it at United, then who can?Champions league winners surely
I’ve gotten to the point where I really don’t care who takes over, as long as someone takes over and I’m just treading water till Jose is giving his marching orders.
Compare this to what Liverpool had 3 years ago - the difference being Klopp signed right players, Mourinho didn't. So how can it be the boards fault for signing Bailly, Pogba, Matic, Lindelöf, Lukaku and Fred ?
The whole thing is depressing. Not in a bad for your mental health kind of way but in a the football club has lost its way kind of way.
Well considering it is common knowledge that Woodward refused to allow Mourinho to sign Mina, Maguire, Alderweireld (not saying they would be good enough) then it is safe to assume that the board decided on which of Mourinho’s targets to sign.
It is also safe to presume that Bailly, Lindelof, Fred, were all most likely not the managers first choice, maybe not even second choice. The board should be held accountable in my opinion because they are obviously making decisions ahead of the manager.
We have good players that are capable of a lot more than we're seeing which is frustrating.
Jose Mourinho is a good manager but he's not a Manchester United manager. Times up and he shouldnt be given anymore money. Having not been backed to buy a defender isn't an excuse for our serious lack of attacking strategy.
Jose Mourinho is a good manager but he's not a Manchester United manager. Times up and he shouldnt be given anymore money. Having not been backed to buy a defender isn't an excuse for our serious lack of attacking strategy.
This 100%.
This season it undoubtedly is, yes. Though his time here in general hasn’t been.
What lowers it so drastically this year is that there are no bright seeds of hope to keep us going. LVG at least brought in a lot of exciting youngsters which allowed us to dream of a prosperous future, even when the football was dirge. And Moyes was still technically playing with a group of Champions.
Jose is not only intent on playing like dirge, but on playing it almost exclusively with his anointed band of favourite cloggers and try hards, at the expense of our few actual good players, whom he seems intent on trying to undermine and alienate at every turn. And who will almost certainly leave if he stays.
I wanted LVG gone, but I never thought he was actively sabotaging the club, or in danger of ruining its recovery or permanently damaging its squad with every day he remained in charge.
What lowers it so drastically this year is that there are no bright seeds of hope to keep us going. LVG at least brought in a lot of exciting youngsters which allowed us to dream of a prosperous future, even when the football was dirge. And Moyes was still technically playing with a group of Champions.
Jose is not only intent on playing like dirge, but on playing it almost exclusively with his anointed band of favourite cloggers and try hards, at the expense of our few actual good players, whom he seems intent on trying to undermine and alienate at every turn. And who will almost certainly leave if he stays.
I wanted LVG gone, but I never thought he was actively sabotaging the club, or in danger of ruining its recovery or permanently damaging its squad with every day he remained in charge.
Ask yourselves this: would this be acceptable at any other big club? Playing like underdogs against the likes of Bournemouth and Southampton. It's absolutely disgraceful. I don't even think Pep would survive if City were in our position. Why do we insist on protecting managers so much? Part of me thinks it's to do with the way we want to be viewed as a traditional football club, especially with the likes of Neville reluctant to say anything in the media against the manager as well. The game has changed.
It's so depressing, Jose has sucked out any enjoyment from football in the same way that Moyes and LvG did. He won us a couple of trophies but ultimately we made no progress.
It's so depressing, Jose has sucked out any enjoyment from football in the same way that Moyes and LvG did. He won us a couple of trophies but ultimately we made no progress.
We had 60% possession today our defence are still passing the ball back and sideways while Southampton sit back waiting for the long ball
Absolutely not, it’s shocking! It totally is to do with us trying to be traditional. But we’ve given him plenty of time compared to what other clubs would have.
Director of football must be brought in ASAP. And then a serious attempt at pochetinno needs to be made. He will get the best out of the youngsters we have with potential.
I don't even particularly rate Herrera all the highly but even to this day the lad would be wonderful for Liverpool who still have a complete rubbish midfield - yet people will talk about us seemingly having a bad squad like no other when plenty have had rubbish
Mourinho must have given the okay
We topped our group in 2014 though, made it past the round of 16 and got a draw at home with Bayern in the quarter finals at least. I hated Moyes as much as anyone, but this season is genuinely worse than that one. This great portuguese man is long past his best days and now is just a shell of that man, and for the purposes of our club right now, is as bad as anyone could possibly be. So that's why he has to be sacked ASAP.
But...but...he doesn't play boring football and he doesn't alienate everyone around him! I swear! Facts!
LVG’s theme was just pure boredom, Jose’s theme is more like letdown... Usually by the third season we should be starting to really reap the benefits of the previous two years but no, we’ve somehow gone backwards and everyone just looks worse.
The Dutch had a plan!!! He just needed more time, and money!
Moyes had no plan.
LVG had a shit plan, but boy had he planned it out well.
Jose has, or had, a pretty good plan, but boy has he totally fecked it up beyond all recognition.
LVG had a shit plan, but boy had he planned it out well.
Jose has, or had, a pretty good plan, but boy has he totally fecked it up beyond all recognition.
I actually feel that with LVG he needed a freer hand without Giggs around. He may have improved our football the next season. Yes I wanted him sacked too in the end but never thought it would get to this with Jose.
And the thing is that I'd argue any defence of a manager on this basis should generally be when they're slightly under-performing, or doing just a little bit less than expected. Look at Wenger - it'd been obvious for years it was time for Arsenal to move on, but so long as he continually got top four there was at least some justification for keeping on someone who'd been immensely successful at the club, even if that success had dried up.
What we're witnessing here is different. Mourinho's managing a club with one of the world's largest transfer budgets and wage budgets and has us barely performing at a mid-table level. In spite of the fact his team contains two top ten world transfer record signings, a GK that's been widely recognised as one of the best in the world for years, and a whole host of other players who were signed for significant amounts of money. Even in the good old days where managers got time, anyone producing this sort of stuff would've probably been on their way out, especially with the added hostility between Mourinho and the club as a whole.
Indeed. 2013-14 was dreadful but by the end almost became fascinating in a macabre sort of way - every pessimistic prediction about Moyes had come true, and so once our season was killed off you could almost detach yourself and watch it as a car crash which would serve as a blip once things were corrected. LVG was always going to be a stopgap anyway, and so once things turned to shite there was disappointment but also recognition he'd just been temporary, and again the feeling that things would soon improve. In a weird way though, the fact Mourinho actually seemed to be building something decent in the past couple of years is what makes this so grim. Even if plenty saw it coming in the summer.
Just because they (potentially) weren’t his first choices, doesn’t mean they weren’t still his choices. They would’ve been on his shortlist. There are lots of reasons why a first choice might have been unattainable. Woodward, for all his faults, has managed to close deals for the likes of Pogba, Zlatan, Di Maria, Falcao - even fecking over Chelsea for Lukaku & Matic etc, so it’s not as if he’s incapable of landing big targets. But sometimes you can’t. Obviously. Real life isn’t like Football Manager. So it seems utterly bizarre to me to instinctively blame the board for the performances of players the manager has suggested and coaches every day! It’s also something I’m never aware of seeing before (was Gil the one accused of fecking up when we signed Valencia & Owen to replace Ronaldo?) and it only seems to have become a thing in the last days of Mourinho ... because he needs excuses. There’s always excuses!
I don’t think Ed is a remotely good footballing CEO, for what it’s worth, but people seem to have a very weird idea of what he does if they’re intent on blaming him for player performances, or our ongoing on-field calamity. Especially as those same people will invariably also claim that we masked all these hideous cancerous boardroom issues under Fergie for so long, only by virtue of....erm.... having a really good manager!
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I genuinely feel this way. There is worse to come. Brace yourselves for it. Our manager and owners are past it, especially our owners and board. Jose was never going to work. Absolute idiots.
Look at the managers at other clubs. Nearly every other manager are on there feet throughout the entire match. Kicking every ball with the players, challenging every decision, celebrating every goal, bemoaning those conceded.
Look at Mourinho. Sat on the bench hating every minute of it. Yesterday against Southampton, united came back from 2 goals down to get a draw. Even when the second goal went in, Mourinho just sat there, totally and utterly emotionless.
Klopp, Pochettino, Guardiola, Emery, Warnock, Hughton, Howe, Dyche in fact pretty much ALL the other managers would be giving encouragement, offering support or tactical advice. Not Mourinho.
He is a fraud. I remember when Liverpool had a good chance of winning the title, when Mourinho brought his chelsea team to anfield. He deployed the lousiest tactics he could. Right from the first minute he was time wasting, diving, every man behind the ball, he used every lousy tactic he could. And at the end he was lauded as a tactical genius.
Yes he has won trophies, but he has many times deployed his tactics to destroy the beautiful game, and now he is being found out. Coaches are adapting to these tactics, and they are adapting in a progressive way. Mourinho isnt. He still insists on playing everyone in defence in games. Defence first then nick a goal. However as I mentioned, coaches are adapting to these tactics and finding ways to get the goal needed. Mourinho however isnt, in fact you can date his tactics back to the Wimbledon days, long ball up to Fashanu and go from there, get free kicks and stick all the big men in there. Why has Fellaini got so many games under mourinho? thats why.
Mourinho is a huge negative in todays game, and I dont think its only Man United who would benefit with him gone, I think the game in general could do without him.
Look at Mourinho. Sat on the bench hating every minute of it. Yesterday against Southampton, united came back from 2 goals down to get a draw. Even when the second goal went in, Mourinho just sat there, totally and utterly emotionless.
Klopp, Pochettino, Guardiola, Emery, Warnock, Hughton, Howe, Dyche in fact pretty much ALL the other managers would be giving encouragement, offering support or tactical advice. Not Mourinho.
He is a fraud. I remember when Liverpool had a good chance of winning the title, when Mourinho brought his chelsea team to anfield. He deployed the lousiest tactics he could. Right from the first minute he was time wasting, diving, every man behind the ball, he used every lousy tactic he could. And at the end he was lauded as a tactical genius.
Yes he has won trophies, but he has many times deployed his tactics to destroy the beautiful game, and now he is being found out. Coaches are adapting to these tactics, and they are adapting in a progressive way. Mourinho isnt. He still insists on playing everyone in defence in games. Defence first then nick a goal. However as I mentioned, coaches are adapting to these tactics and finding ways to get the goal needed. Mourinho however isnt, in fact you can date his tactics back to the Wimbledon days, long ball up to Fashanu and go from there, get free kicks and stick all the big men in there. Why has Fellaini got so many games under mourinho? thats why.
Mourinho is a huge negative in todays game, and I dont think its only Man United who would benefit with him gone, I think the game in general could do without him.
Disagree with that. LVG had to go because we were failing and mind-numbingly dull.
With Moyes, we were just awful and the players lost all confidence. With LVG, there was slightly more competence but the football produced was almost deliberately poor.
I don't know if this is worse than LVG or Moyes though. It seems like a 'grass is greener' thing to me. LVG was talked about as being much better than Moyes, then he was seen as worse when results turned poor. The same has happened with Mourinho. The next manager we have that fails will be talked about as being worse than Moyes, LVG and Mourinho. I do think Mourinho has had more money and has a better squad than the other two though so you could argue he's doing a worse job even if the performances are just as poor.
Indeed. Fergie never always got everyone he wanted either - throughout the 2000s we lost a string of first-team players to Real (albeit some more willingly than others) and on several occasions lost out on players we'd have otherwise liked to sign. Indeed the situation now in regards to our transfer budget is almost identical to a decade ago in that we were largely outmatched financially by Chelsea. The difference, then, of course was that we were just off the back of a league and CL double. Whereas now top four seems like a laughable prospect to even consider.
Disagree with that. LVG had to go because we were failing and mind-numbingly dull.
Agree with this. He's right that we need stronger defenders but that has been the case since Moyes left. That isn't an excuse for how crap we are offensively and for him refusing to let the team attack which is when they're clearly better.
It's also worth saying, despite both tenure's being car crashes, both Moyes and LvG also gave us a glimmer of hope for the future even if they haven't all turned out quite as we'd hoped. Moyes gave us Januzaj who carried us for the season and for a while looked brilliant and LvG gave us Martial and Rashford, we don't have anyone like that with Mourinho, that's what makes it even more depressing for me personally.
Mourinho's failure sort of signals the end of a chapter for United in my eyes, each manager on paper looked better than the last and I really thought Mourinho was going to be the one to eventually have us back with the elite, seeing exciting players like Pogba and Ibrahimovic join made me believe it even more, it almost seemed like something out of a story.
Looking back, it was a lot easier convincing players a few years ago to join the exciting Mourinho project, we were able to say that this fallen giant version of United was just temporary and we'd be back on top in no time but now some more time has passed it looks really unlikely we'll be title challengers any time soon.
With that being so, we'll have no chance convincing M'bappe's, De Jong's and De Ligt's of the world to come and play for us which for me kills a lot of optimism for the future.
"4-0 Jose" was better than anything produced by Moyes or LVG. However, Jose as of Nov-Dec 2018 is now worse than Moyes and LVG's worst performances.
I'll keep saying it, this is the Chelsea Xmas debacle all over again. He needs to be sacked now.
I'll keep saying it, this is the Chelsea Xmas debacle all over again. He needs to be sacked now.
Typical "Careful of what you wish for. They may come true."
On another note, the beloved Jardim who plays "attractive football" has departed to Arab already.
Jose Moyesinho
We played some great stuff towards the end of 2014-15. We could have stuck about 6 or 7 past City at Old Trafford.
Mourinho's first two seasons were better than anything Moyes or LVG gave us.
This season it's all fallen apart and he does need to move on, but let's not pretend that Moyes or LVG really did better.
This season it's all fallen apart and he does need to move on, but let's not pretend that Moyes or LVG really did better.