Manchester United: Have fans reluctantly accepted their team's 'B-List' status

ErranMorad

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Manchester United's hopes and ambitions have slipped so alarmingly this season that a routine show of grit that left them eighth in the Premier League drew warm applause from Old Trafford at its conclusion.

Jose Mourinho's side battled back twice to earn a point in an eventful, if scrappy, 2-2 draw against Arsenal - but was the sanguine reaction at the final whistle acceptance this is now as good as it gets under the current regime?

United are eight points adrift of fourth-placed Chelsea, 18 behind leaders Manchester City, and are the only team in the Premier League's top nine with a minus goal difference.

They have taken only three points from their past four games, including draws with strugglers Crystal Palace and Southampton.

And while this was a performance that contained many admirable qualities when measured in grit and character, it showed no signs of being the early stage of development into a team that could claim the big prizes.

It still, however, drew a relatively satisfied response from a remarkably patient United fanbase, who would previously have accepted what they saw as the basic starting point not the major plus.

Mourinho's apparent confusion over his best team meant seven alterations to his starting line-up from Saturday's 2-2 draw at Southampton took the number of changes in the Premier League this season to 46.

And credit must be given to the likes of Eric Bailly, who performed well, and fellow defender Diogo Dalot, who confirmed his promise. Mourinho was right to praise them.

But the brutal truth is, while Mourinho's men were unquestionably fired up and there were flashes of former United and Arsenal clashes with the sight of flying footwear and prostrate bodies that would have been appreciated by heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury - who watched from the directors' box, this was a night that will not linger long in the memory.

Painfully for United and Mourinho, he seems to now accept the obvious inferiority to Manchester City. This is even before he contemplates Liverpool's clear superiority.

He said: "In the last four matches, we didn't lose. Bad results? Yes - but four matches we didn't lose. Before we lost against Manchester City, everybody loses."

If not exactly defeatist talk, it is certainly the language of a manager having to lower his sights as never before.

And judging by the apparent satisfaction with a share of the spoils from an uninspiring display, many United supporters have joined him.

Where is Man Utd's quality?

Mourinho made two huge selection calls in leaving out his biggest signings - Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku.

He wrote in his programme notes: "There isn't space for people who are not ready to give their all."

There is no suggestion he specifically meant these two players, who cost £89m and £75m respectively, but the message had been sent.

It was a brave call by a manager who knew his strategy was high-risk, especially had United lost, although it was hardly a glorious advert for the success of his major purposes.

Pogba is simply too erratic while Lukaku cuts a bulky, muscular figure seemingly robbed of the explosive qualities that were his trademark.

Even goalkeeper David de Gea is having an erratic season by his standards, having to redeem himself with several fine saves after an awful attempt to deal with Shkodran Mustafi's tame header for Arsenal's first goal.

What was not in doubt was the commitment of United's players. They were, despite all the noise swirling around Mourinho, playing for their manager.

No-one can doubt the honesty and character. Those who forged a draw against a team unbeaten in 20 matches gave their all.

The problem in the wider context is this United squad is nowhere near good enough when measured against the best.

United's attack has fluidity in Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard, but this is a stodgy side producing stodgy performances.

The fact this was regarded as a reasonable improvement on recent offerings, despite another draw, is a commentary on United's season so far.

How long will patience last?
Every game carries high stakes for United and Mourinho now - but there are no signs of uprising among the fans.

The team cannot afford to falter against struggling Fulham at Old Trafford on Saturday, but they can at least travel to Valencia for their final Champions League group game with qualification for the knockout phase assured.

It is then that Mourinho faces what amounts to the acid test when he visits a familiar proving ground - the Anfield home of long-time adversaries Liverpool on 16 December.

If he can somehow fashion a result there against a side unbeaten in the league this season, it might maintain some of the old belief in Mourinho's powers. A defeat might just test the patience he is being shown.

But, for now, Mourinho and United's supporters appear to have reluctantly accepted their 'B-List' status.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46463178
 
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ErranMorad

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I actually don't think fans have accepted our "B-list" status. It's all been part of Donald J Moroniho's disinformation campaign that started early in the summer window. Since then every pre & post match conference he has painted himself as the victim and blamed the board or the players for our poor results this season. It's no surprise a lot of people have bought into that bullshit.

He started preparing everyone for our impending failure much before the season started. I think he knows that Pep is on another level to him and he cannot compete with his genius. So, he started with this nonsense where he has moved from taking him or City head on to castigating anyone and everyone internally knowing fully well that Eddy the idiot won't fire him unless and until we are mathematically out of the top 4. At this moment he is simply waiting for his huge payoff while washing his end of his failure to achieve anything significant with us.

He said: "In the last four matches, we didn't lose. Bad results? Yes - but four matches we didn't lose. Before we lost against Manchester City, everybody loses."
He is clearly taking the piss with lines like this. No way Eddy is not seething inside hearing stuff like this. However, he still let's this moron continue with this nonsense. It beggars belief that this sham continues.
 

Red_toad

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Fans showing appreciation of a game where we actually had a good and played some decent stuff. Is that wrong now? Keep seeing posts where people want good attacking attractive football over dull effective football. I enjoyed the game immensely. For me United will never be a B list anything.
 

Keeps It tidy

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Fans showing appreciation of a game where we actually had a good and played some decent stuff. Is that wrong now? Keep seeing posts where people want good attacking attractive football over dull effective football. I enjoyed the game immensely. For me United will never be a B list anything.
Our performance was not good, attacking or attractive. It was a helter skelter match where us and Arsenal took turns kicking each other and the goals conceded from both sides were comical. It was a match of very little quality. And getting a draw against Arsenal is nothing to write home about considering how terrible their recent record has been at Old Trafford.
 

Varun

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No, it just so happens that a lot of the fans are still stuck in the SAF era where the manager was god and someone to follow even if he asked you to jump off a terrace. To make things worse, we now have a manager who'll throw his own mother off a terrace if it suited him. It's a match made in hell.
 

TsuWave

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Fans showing appreciation of a game where we actually had a good and played some decent stuff. Is that wrong now? Keep seeing posts where people want good attacking attractive football over dull effective football. I enjoyed the game immensely. For me United will never be a B list anything.
you thought we played well?
 

Gopher Brown

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Just because a lot of Man Utd fans are realistic about our chances this season doesn’t mean anyone has accepted being second best.

Otherwise, what been the fecking point of any of this?
 

Raees

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No, it just so happens that a lot of the fans are still stuck in the SAF era where the manager was god and someone to follow even if he asked you to jump off a terrace. To make things worse, we now have a manager who'll throw his own mother off a terrace if it suited him. It's a match made in hell.
They’re more deluded than Liverpool fans. I would much prefer we have white hankie waving Madrid fans - at least they have high standards and put the club first above the worship of a manager.
 

Theonas

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Our performance was not good, attacking or attractive. It was a helter skelter match where us and Arsenal took turns kicking each other and the goals conceded from both sides were comical. It was a match of very little quality. And getting a draw against Arsenal is nothing to write home about considering how terrible their recent record has been at Old Trafford.
It's a semantic issue isn't it? The word entertaining is used for both expansive performances where a team shows high quality football, and helter skelter games where chaos prevails ensuring a roller coaster experience that can be admittedly very fun. Both are indeed entertaining technically, but only one is indicative of quality that can be built on. That's the problem with language though, you keep using the same word and before you know it, mediocrity is mistaken for quality.
 

Bojan11

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Yes, Mourinho at any other club would be booed to death. Yet our fans boo Pogba rather than the manager who has us behind Bournemouth and Everton.
 

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Yes, Mourinho at any other club would be booed to death. Yet our fans boo Pogba rather than the manager who has us behind Bournemouth and Everton.
At the likes of Real, Barca or Bayern he would have been sacked after Sevilla.
 

Minimalist

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Fans showing appreciation of a game where we actually had a good and played some decent stuff. Is that wrong now? Keep seeing posts where people want good attacking attractive football over dull effective football. I enjoyed the game immensely. For me United will never be a B list anything.
You’re on fecking drugs if you thought that was a good performance. It did have elements of good entertainment for the neutral though given how low quality it was.
 

Judas

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Fans showing appreciation of a game where we actually had a good and played some decent stuff. Is that wrong now? Keep seeing posts where people want good attacking attractive football over dull effective football. I enjoyed the game immensely. For me United will never be a B list anything.
No idea what game you watched.

Seems a bit of frantic scrappy play is enough to win people over. You'd love The Championship, give it a watch.
 

Santoryo

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These fans clapped at the final whistle when Tottenham humiliated us in our own backyard. Are people even suprised.

I mean they get to feel good about themselves for scoring top reds points while all I see are a bunch of guillible sheep embarrassing themselves.
 

Skills

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No, it just so happens that a lot of the fans are still stuck in the SAF era where the manager was god and someone to follow even if he asked you to jump off a terrace. To make things worse, we now have a manager who'll throw his own mother off a terrace if it suited him. It's a match made in hell.
Basically sums it up. Weak minded individuals under a manipulative leader is always a recipe for disaster. See Brexit, Trump etc.
 

JoaquinJoaquin

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I don't know about accepting B-List status, but alot of fans standards have certainly slipped.
 

Classical Mechanic

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He's right. Its amazing there's no pressure on Mourinho. The bloke was OK to stablise the club but he's not a Manchester United manager in character or style. We should not be allowing him shape this squad any longer.
 

JoaquinJoaquin

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As soon as we saw supporters still defending Moyes in March/April of his reign, that fact was obvious.
That is true. When I seen Moyes still being clapped down the tunnel in March of the year he was sacked I couldn't believe it.
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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Keep feeding people shit, some will learn to tolerate the taste. Human nature.

I would have rather we lost last night, because the season is dead and a draw just prolongs the Mourinho nightmare. Worst outcome in my opinion. We will never turn the imaginary corner under him.
 

Godfather

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I agree with that article. A season like Mou has at any other top club would see him getting hounded by the fans.
 

C3Pique

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Applauding the affort that the players put in on the pitch last night does not proclude one from being dissatisfied with the manager, board, or £170m of substitutes that looked more fatigued than those who had run for 75 minutes already.

At one point after Lukaku came on he was slowly ambling forward to press inaffectively, when Rashford sprinted past him to track back half the pitch. There is no doubt that some of the players are trying harder than others, and deserve praise for it.
 

Escobar

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Standards have dropped immensely. The fans are happy with very little. There was nothing positive about last night's game, yet some "enjoyed" that because some players showed effort? Wow
 

Escobar

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I agree with that article. A season like Mou has at any other top club would see him getting hounded by the fans.
You really wonder why this is not happening and why the board just stands there looking like clueless amateurs
 

JoaquinJoaquin

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Standards have dropped immensely. The fans are happy with very little. There was nothing positive about last night's game, yet some "enjoyed" that because some players showed effort? Wow
Effort is the barometer for some United fans now. Tragic really.
 

Keeps It tidy

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Effort is the barometer for some United fans now. Tragic really.
Yeah I really do not think "giving 100%" should be the standard we judge our players. We are not Millwall. Our aim should be one of the elite sides and that is not the standard you rate elite sides on.
 

Godfather

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You really wonder why this is not happening and why the board just stands there looking like clueless amateurs
Well the second question is quite easy to answer. We are a shitty run club.
feck knows why OT going fans are not turning on Mou though
 

Adisa

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The club's spirit is broken. What do you want fans to do?
Fans can't even agree on if a manager that has just 8th with a negatiations GD after almost half the season should go.
That the club's criteria for scaling a manager is when is cheap to do so is a disgrace.
 

Sultan

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Mourinho has done an exceptionally good job of lowering expectations. He's been slow dripping us with negatives since the Summer. Blaming everyone and anything. I suspect it's because he knew we couldn't compete with the likes of Cty and Liverpool and this was a ploy to safeguard his footballing reputation. He's now making fans go against certain players.

I also think there's an issue with Raiola clients. Mourinho and his agent Jorge Mendes are major rivals with Riola.
 

JohnnyKills

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There's nothing wrong with applauding when the team does some good things, and trying to be positive. When City were awful 20 years ago, their fans barracked the players relentlessly. Went to a few games and it was terrible.

But the fans singing Mourinho's name need to give their head a wobble. Unless they genuinely think he's doing a good job, their only motivation is looking like a great fan for the TV cameras. They're part of the problem, not the solution.
 

12OunceEpilogue

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Phil McNulty is such a melodramatic fanny.
He’s spot on for what it’s worth.
I think you're both right. There's nothing he says that's wrong as such but what else does he expect rational fans to do? Every United fan I speak to is deeply displeased at where we are and seem to be heading but what does repeating 'we're Man United, this shouldn't be happening' over and again get us? McNulty writes like a bloke who wants to see the rending of clothing in the stands and has been left disappointed.

Idiot article. The fans havent accepted anything. They are however plain powerless
There could be more booing, there could be more empty seats, there could be more banners. Those are things other fan bases have done when their club has hit the skids, but because we're trying to support our team through it we've somehow accepted our place on the 'B-list'.