Are people going to insist this isn't as bad or worse than the nadirs of LVG and Moyes?

Dr. Dwayne

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In terms of football we probably are the worst we've been since SAF retired. But I've been entertained by our football a few games this season. LvG almost made me hate the sport. Man how boring our games were with him in charge.
:nono: bad mouthing LvG and his boring brand of snoozeball means you are a Jose cultist.
 

Foxbatt

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He would bore us to death with it.

Really, there is no need for revisionism with Van Gaal. I appreciate that he had a clear vision, an idea about how to play football and he wanted his team to dominate games and impose themselves on the opponents.

But he was also a gigantic control freak who heavily discouraged flair and expression in favour of positional discipline and careful possession. Not sure when he became like that but people change with age.
I used to watch his Ajax. The hell it was boring. His side was one of the best attacking sides around at that time. His mistake was Rooney. Rooney is no Jari Litmanen. We didn't have anyone who can play like the De Boers, Blind the best CB for me during that period, and also they had Kluivert, and Kanu. George and Overmaars.
All of them would get into this United side. They also had VDS in goal.
LVG tried to get the team to keep possession at first as he did not trust them to play the system otherwise. I felt that he would have let them play more open football the next year. The day we thrashed Spurs was probably the best football we played for a very long time.
I was one of them shouting to get rid of him during the boring football but I felt that in hindsight he would have eventually got us to play much better football.
He was played a bad card by Moyes and not making the CL only by goal average was a hard way to get sacked. I also do not know the role Giggs played in keeping Rooney in the side.
 

shamans

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I believe Moyes was good enough to have us consistently finish top 4 or 5. With Mourinho we risk being 10th pretty soon. Answers it for me.
 

AaronRedDevil

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Jesus some people have some seriously bad memory. And I'm very forgetfull. Are telling me Jose fecking Mourinho is worse then. One shot per game LVG and Moyes one route cross it till you score game plan. Get a grip!
 

André Dominguez

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We could just close our eyes and randomly pick one of them, that the end result is going to be boredom and frustration.
 

Camilo

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Yeah it's pretty awful... But the squad gives me hope - I think we're very close personnel wise to being a force again. There's so much quality just waiting to be exploited, I just hope the next manager is hired in time, before the mass exodus of Manchester.
 

GiddyUp

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We've had 3 defensive minded, short term managers with a defence void of any leadership, or in most cases, competent football. I think we have had 1 game were we scored more than 4. No player has gotten close to a hat trick and outside of that Chelsea game where Hazard grew a Herrera on his back we have failed to dominate anyone. We hardly ever give a keeper a torrid time as our shooting is beyond parody.
We are a fecking joke from top to bottom and if we don't get our shit together soon we could easily be looking at a decade with not a sniff of winning the
league or champions league.
I trust the players to turn it around and achieve top 4 at a minimum every season under a different manager. I also get the feeling that Mourinho would win us the league with a real leader at the back, proper wingers, retiring Young and Valencia and getting rid of Pogba. I just don't trust Ed Woodward though. It all comes back to his stewardship of football matters and total lack of balls to deal with our situation. Regardless of Mourinho's stubbornness with his own signings I believe what he was asking for in the summer was a leader at the back, someone with a bit of authority.
Kind of heartbroken, not because of our shit performances or the comical way the club is being run. It's because I don't get angry anymore. It doesn't ruin my day the way it used to and I refuse to feel sadness or sympathy for a bunch of millionaires, the richest of whom don't even bother to show up. I just don't see any way out unless Mourinho, Ed and half the squad feck off.
 

horsechoker

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Yeah it's pretty awful... But the squad gives me hope - I think we're very close personnel wise to being a force again. There's so much quality just waiting to be exploited, I just hope the next manager is hired in time, before the mass exodus of Manchester.
The players are definitely not performing to the level they should be, for example, Lukaku who was a 25+ goal striker hasn't just become shit.
 

GiddyUp

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I believe Moyes was good enough to have us consistently finish top 4 or 5. With Mourinho we risk being 10th pretty soon. Answers it for me.
Where do you get this belief? Moyes has proven himself to be shit time and time again. Never mind the talk of the club being an ass to him, he showed so much disrespect to us when he arrived.
No preparation for the biggest job in football, got rid of a title winning backroom staff, disdain for our players and his insistence in bringing us down to his comfort level which was fecking Everton.
 

shamans

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Where do you get this belief? Moyes has proven himself to be shit time and time again. Never mind the talk of the club being an ass to him, he showed so much disrespect to us when he arrived.
No preparation for the biggest job in football, got rid of a title winning backroom staff, disdain for our players and his insistence in bringing us down to his comfort level which was fecking Everton.
I've argued about this plenty of times but people think I love Moyes when I do. I'll try to explain a little though, I think Moyes is a good manager for top 6 clubs. He recently did very well with a West Ham that was absolutely destroyed and I'm well aware he did shite at Sociedad and Sunderland. Now we may disagree on this but I thought he did extremely well at Everton with the funds at his disposal. This was evident to how Everton was after he left (disregard the current big investment). Not to mention before Everton he showed signs of a good progressive manager as well at (I believe) Preston North End.

So I do think we would have been shit with Moyes but I think he would manage top 4 or top 6 quite easily. Our best signing till this day are Moyes era signings: Fellaini, Shaw (basically scouted under him), Herrera and Mata.

I don't think he has any more disdain for the club that sacked him than any other manager that gets sack. That's football. Have you listened to LVG interviews? He shits on our club all the time. It's the same with 90% of managers. They think they're the best and shit on the club when they get sacked. Who cares?

Also getting rid of that backroom staff was a good decision. Rene Mulensteen is a fecking joke and I'm so glad he got rid of him first. You gotta manage a team your way and start fresh.

To summarize, Moyes would be shit for us and overall Mourinho is a class (5 classes probably) above David Moyes. They are leagues apart... however, Mourinho has gone into full self destruct mad man mode, is stuck in his ways and is toying with this club.

Moyes was just a shit manager trying his best but ultimately not good enough for a top, top club. But like I said, I think Moyes isn't bad for a top 6 club if you're being generous.
 

GiddyUp

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I've argued about this plenty of times but people think I love Moyes when I do. I'll try to explain a little though, I think Moyes is a good manager for top 6 clubs. He recently did very well with a West Ham that was absolutely destroyed and I'm well aware he did shite at Sociedad and Sunderland. Now we may disagree on this but I thought he did extremely well at Everton with the funds at his disposal. This was evident to how Everton was after he left (disregard the current big investment). Not to mention before Everton he showed signs of a good progressive manager as well at (I believe) Preston North End.

So I do think we would have been shit with Moyes but I think he would manage top 4 or top 6 quite easily. Our best signing till this day are Moyes era signings: Fellaini, Shaw (basically scouted under him), Herrera and Mata.

I don't think he has any more disdain for the club that sacked him than any other manager that gets sack. That's football. Have you listened to LVG interviews? He shits on our club all the time. It's the same with 90% of managers. They think they're the best and shit on the club when they get sacked. Who cares?

Also getting rid of that backroom staff was a good decision. Rene Mulensteen is a fecking joke and I'm so glad he got rid of him first. You gotta manage a team your way and start fresh.

To summarize, Moyes would be shit for us and overall Mourinho is a class (5 classes probably) above David Moyes. They are leagues apart... however, Mourinho has gone into full self destruct mad man mode, is stuck in his ways and is toying with this club.

Moyes was just a shit manager trying his best but ultimately not good enough for a top, top club. But like I said, I think Moyes isn't bad for a top 6 club if you're being generous.
Yet no top 6 club would ever dream of hiring him. He was the beginning of our downfall. We also overpaid for Fellaini, Shaw and Herrera were more club signings then his and I very much doubt he had a say on Mata. Also, in no way are Steve Round and Phil Neville more adept at coaching then Mike Phelan and Rene Mulensteen.
I can see where you are coming from with his Everton tenure but was really found out when he came to us. The guy was a fecking joke and an ignorant one at that.
 

sullydnl

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In terms of football we probably are the worst we've been since SAF retired. But I've been entertained by our football a few games this season. LvG almost made me hate the sport. Man how boring our games were with him in charge.
Aye, LVG's philosophy was terribly sterile and we adopted that approach well enough for our performances to be terribly sterile too. So plus points for getting us to play the way he wanted, minus points for making our eyes bleed watching it.

Whereas whatever Mourinho's philosophy is doesn't seem to have translated at all, so we're a bit of a dumpster fire. Which means plus points for less sterile performances, minus points for making the team fundamentally more inept.
 

GhastlyHun

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Jesus some people have some seriously bad memory. And I'm very forgetfull. Are telling me Jose fecking Mourinho is worse then. One shot per game LVG and Moyes one route cross it till you score game plan. Get a grip!
Look at the results and numbers. In the current season Jose is on track to end up worse than either of Moyes and LvG did.
 

shamans

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Yet no top 6 club would ever dream of hiring him. He was the beginning of our downfall. We also overpaid for Fellaini, Shaw and Herrera were more club signings then his and I very much doubt he had a say on Mata. Also, in no way are Steve Round and Phil Neville more adept at coaching then Mike Phelan and Rene Mulensteen.
I can see where you are coming from with his Everton tenure but was really found out when he came to us. The guy was a fecking joke and an ignorant one at that.
Anything to back that up?
 

Sterling Archer

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Since Sir Alex retired we hired three managers with almost no pedigree of playing the kind of exciting, expansive and attacking football this club has built it's success on.

How in the feck am I supposed to look at those green-eyed suits running our club and expect them to make the next managerial successor a good choice let alone help him or her be successful here?!

Hire a DOF.

The rest will start to fall in place. That likely means selling Pogba, replacing Jose. But they're all moot points. I don't want the Glazers, least of all Woodward , making any more football decisions for us . That's our biggest problem.
 

Born2Lose

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Yet no top 6 club would ever dream of hiring him. He was the beginning of our downfall. We also overpaid for Fellaini, Shaw and Herrera were more club signings then his and I very much doubt he had a say on Mata. Also, in no way are Steve Round and Phil Neville more adept at coaching then Mike Phelan and Rene Mulensteen.
I can see where you are coming from with his Everton tenure but was really found out when he came to us. The guy was a fecking joke and an ignorant one at that.
We overpaid for Fellaini? £28m for a guy whose scored some very important goals for us, don't think so personally. Christ even this season he changed the game against Juventus away and scored the winner against Young Boys.

I get the reason why people hate him and that he's a nightmare for hipsters, but compared to some of our other buys he's been pretty good value.
 

AaronRedDevil

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You keep burying your head in the sand mate.
What part was my post incorrect? Literally everything I said was 100% true. Yeah we are not in a position we'd like to be but Jose played the team way better then those two. Looks like you need to pull yourself out of the sand.
 

T_Model101

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We overpaid for Fellaini? £28m for a guy whose scored some very important goals for us, don't think so personally. Christ even this season he changed the game against Juventus away and scored the winner against Young Boys.

I get the reason why people hate him and that he's a nightmare for hipsters, but compared to some of our other buys he's been pretty good value.
Completely agree with this.
However, if we wish to get pedantic, and well, this is Redcafe after all :lol:
I think Fellaini had a £23M release clause that expired because of Moyes dilly-dallying in that same window we got him

Nothing was worse than LVG and I can't imagine anything ever will be, 90 minutes of passing the ball from centreback to midfield and back only to lose 1-0 anyway.
I have no doubt that Mourinho will probably leave in the summer when we don't make the top 4, but we could potentially win two trophies by the end of the season. He's been infinitely better than the last two clowns
 

Kag

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Chipping into to reaffirm that this has been the case for a long time now. Particularly considering the quality at his disposal.

Van Gaal at least valued possession and decided that when we played our rivals, we would be the team that pressed and sought control. It often worked. His attacking and midfield players were nowhere near up to standard (which was his fault) and he paid the price for that and his inability to beat smaller sides. At the very least he acted with a degree of enthusiasm and appreciation for the job. He also won an FA Cup, which will be remembered fondly.

Two years in and Mourinho has bought an entire new first team and has no discernible way of playing football. We don’t win games and we still don’t score goals. Tosser.

I’ve written off football until next season when the club has pulled out its finger and decided to bring in somebody else.
 

AlecHDR

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LVG's system could work with the right players. He needed a proper striker and never had one, neither did he have a good right winger. It could've been very different if Di Maria worked out and one of Falcao/Rooney/RVP wasn't shit. He knew how to control games, how to impose ourselves on others like a proper big team.

Mourinho on the other hand is better suited to a team who is a perpetual underdog. He is a rich man's Allardyce. Relinquish possession, sit deep, hit on the counter, be strong and big and physical. I don't see how his football can be a blueprint for a big team in 2018.

Moyes was just confused and just the wrong appointment.

I now think of both Moyes and Mourinho as ultimately bad fits, for different reasons. Whereas LVG could've been a good fit if we had a DOF because his transfers let him down.

Ask yourself this, if we had a DoF and talent coming from the youth system, and we just needed a coach to set up the team and the tactics, who would you trust with that, Moyes, LVG, or Mourinho? Who would you trust LONG term?
 

r3idy

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What evidence are you seeing to say Mourinho is turning it around? We have gradually got worse, 8th in league, lost to Derby in the League cup at home, drawn our last 3 games, haven’t beaten a top six side, negative goal difference, the manager has fallen out with any player that has quality which he bought, and longest he has stayed in a job is 3 years.

So much evidence to suggest it will improve.
I didn't say he was turning it around, I said I think he CAN turn it around. He has won wherever he has gone so in my opinion he has got more about him then LvG and Moyes to turn it around. Whether he will or won't, only the future will tell us. Not going to disagree about him falling out with the players he has bought I think that is plain for everyone to see.
 

Keeps It tidy

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At least with Van Gaal his apologists kept saying that our players lack the technical ability and Football intelligence to play his style. They were wrong but, that is a lot more bearable than Mourinho apologists talking about passion and intensity like we are Burnley or something. Mourinho really has some of them believing that a lot of our players who are in the top 1% suddenly can not be bothered playing Football.
 

Dinghy

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Biggest failure in football at the moment. We're a joke, and every week he proves it.
 

sugar_kane

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In LVG's 2nd year the football was insanely dull.

There are shades of it now (the side to side play, the lack of runs) but it's nowhere near as bad and we at least try and create chances - at least in Mou's first two seasons.

In LVG's final season it felt like we barely got out of our own half some games.

He was a complete madman.
 

Xixak17

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Van Gaal's main problem was transfers. His style of football actually worked, the problem was he didn't buy good enough players for it to work against the parked buses of lower table teams. This is why we regularly thrashed the other top teams under him and then would lose a jammy 1-0 to Stoke.

Van Gaal with a DOF in place to handle the transfers would've worked well. Then when his contract was up we could have seamlessly moved to a younger, attacking, possession based manager.

But no we sold our soul to the devil and hired Jose because he "delivers titles" and he hasn't delivered shit (if one of you fecking cultists brings up the mickey mouse EL or league cup I'm gonna lose it). The man needs to get out of this club immediately.
 

noodlehair

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I think we are still better than under Moyes. The team has a fighting spirit and character about it still. Under Moyes we lost at home to Man City after 1 minute, because we just gave up the second they decided to try and beat us. You'd never see that with this team. They've at least had it drummed into them that you can try not to lose a game BEFORE sulking about it.

Although, other than that I don't think there's much left to defend. None of our players play with any confidence or hunger, despite clearly having character, which is pretty damming. When you see a performance like the one against Arsenal, where players prides are clearly hurt and they come out fighting, yet still struggle to play with any real belief, then it's hard to put all the blame on them. Particularly when a number of them struggle to get games despite lazy, crap performances from people who play in their place.

There are some rotten apples but Mourinho seems to have no plan or idea how to either integrate them into the team and turn their form around, or do without them, and as the manager you have to do one or the other. Moyes did neither which was his downfall, and now Jose has been doing neither for some time and it's started to create the same problems. At least LVG would make a decision one way or the other.

I think we're at a similar stage it got to with LVG overall though, where I'm more worried about what more damage keeping Mourinho will cause, than i am hopeful of any improvements. Like with LVG, he'll get something right, but you just know he'll follow it up with something completely counter productive.

With LVG it was down to insane random mismanagement or tactics, such as chqnging everyone's positions around for no reason, or bringing on Fellaini too often. With Mourinho it's his ability to pick apart his own team or just manufacture negativity where there's no need for it. For example by constantly inferring his own players are shite, or by bringing on Fellaini too often.

I really don't want us to waste yet another second half of a season almost challenging ourselves to see how bad it can get. When the manager has a plan fair enough...when he's just waffling random nonsense and not showing any consistency with any kind of decisions or direction, what exactly is anyone at the club expecting to happen?
 

Borden

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In LVG's 2nd year the football was insanely dull.

There are shades of it now (the side to side play, the lack of runs) but it's nowhere near as bad and we at least try and create chances - at least in Mou's first two seasons.

In LVG's final season it felt like we barely got out of our own half some games.

He was a complete madman.
*Absolute madman.


I do kind of miss the crazy bastard though.
 

sullydnl

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*Absolute madman.


I do kind of miss the crazy bastard though.
I certainly liked Van Gaal more than I like Mourinho. Shame he served up such eye-scorchingly dull football.
 

Josep Dowling

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I didn't say he was turning it around, I said I think he CAN turn it around. He has won wherever he has gone so in my opinion he has got more about him then LvG and Moyes to turn it around. Whether he will or won't, only the future will tell us. Not going to disagree about him falling out with the players he has bought I think that is plain for everyone to see.
Van Gaal had won everywhere he had been as well and nearly got a poor Netherlands team to the final of the World Cup. It doesn’t mean it will be a success everywhere.

Never thought I’d say it but our biggest issue is everyone at the club is too patient. So many people seem to live in this fantasy land that we will find another Ferguson who will manage the club to glory for 20 years, it just isn’t going to happen.

The sooner the board and fans realise this the sooner will we find the right man for the job but we need the system built around it for longevity. Ferguson had a dictatorial style over the club, he controlled everything. That is why it was a disaster once he left. Modern football has moved on and we need a DOF and things in place to hire and fire managers without it affecting the performance on the pitch.
 

Siorac

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I used to watch his Ajax. The hell it was boring. His side was one of the best attacking sides around at that time. His mistake was Rooney. Rooney is no Jari Litmanen. We didn't have anyone who can play like the De Boers, Blind the best CB for me during that period, and also they had Kluivert, and Kanu. George and Overmaars.
All of them would get into this United side. They also had VDS in goal.
LVG tried to get the team to keep possession at first as he did not trust them to play the system otherwise. I felt that he would have let them play more open football the next year. The day we thrashed Spurs was probably the best football we played for a very long time.
I was one of them shouting to get rid of him during the boring football but I felt that in hindsight he would have eventually got us to play much better football.
He was played a bad card by Moyes and not making the CL only by goal average was a hard way to get sacked. I also do not know the role Giggs played in keeping Rooney in the side.
Yeah but his Ajax was two decades ago. People change, they lose their touch, they often can't adapt. The man was fired from Bayern when it looked like they wouldn't even qualify for the CL. Then his Dutch team looked great against Spain but in their subsequent games at that World Cup they struggled to break teams down and create chances... so we shouldn't have been surprised, really.
 

BluesJr

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LVG would do better with these players than Mourinho. He would never have signed Lukaku though.
 

Maciej

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I can see that some of you haven't seen my thread.

Here's the picture that shows how it's been.

 

Denis79

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Aye, LVG's philosophy was terribly sterile and we adopted that approach well enough for our performances to be terribly sterile too. So plus points for getting us to play the way he wanted, minus points for making our eyes bleed watching it.

Whereas whatever Mourinho's philosophy is doesn't seem to have translated at all, so we're a bit of a dumpster fire. Which means plus points for less sterile performances, minus points for making the team fundamentally more inept.
Well said. exactly how I feel.