‘The only way is down when you leave Utd’... is it bad we had them anyway?

Chairman Steve

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We regularly used to have this mantra during the Sir Alex days. It was kinda linked to Sir Alex’s exceptional ability to know when a player had peaked and got rid, as well as a statement of defiance we made when our best players wanted to leave. It was mostly correct with Ronaldo being the stand out and undisputed exception.

But in current times, this statement can be applied negatively.

I’ve noticed this trend with us since Sir Alex left... It seems like whoever leaves Utd has never really hit the heights again and just spiralled down the metaphorical quality table.

Our two previous managers have a combined employment duration of 6 months between them in the past 3 years or so, i.e. when Jose joined. That six months being Moyes’ short term contract with West Ham where their fans couldn’t wait until he left.

When Rooney left, he went back to his boyhood Everton but even they quickly got rid within the year. A lot of the Sir Alex old boys have spiralled completely since his retirement. Anderson is in the Turkish second tier, Nanis back at Sporting etc... then we have our buys post Sir Alex who have since left... Schneiderlin can’t get into the Everton squad, Schweinsteiger is chilling out in Chicago, Blind back at Ajax, Zaha at Palace, Memphis at Lyon, Welbeck a periphery at Arsenal, Mkhi not pulling up trees at Arsenal etc.

So while the statement is true still... why did we buy them and have them for as long as we have/did?

Are the likes of Smalling, Jones, Valencia, Rojo or Young going to get currently equal teams if they left in January? If not then isn’t it bad we had them for so long in the first place?

As a tl;dr summary, I guess it’s a criticism of our recruiting structure in that we have players playing for us that no one of our level or higher would want, and in reality they shouldn’t be with us... and that it looks bad on us in current times that no one would touch them anyway. Same for managers too... I don’t see Europe’s elite banging down Moyes’ or LVGs front doors to get them in.
 
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bosnian_red

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I know what you're getting at, but Blind and Ajax are currently much better than the shite we are putting out, same with Memphis and Lyon. Zaha would start for us, Mkhitaryan despite all his inconsistencies, I would still start ahead of Lingard or anyone else we have to play on the right (seeing as they're all useless out there). But yeah, to your point, the recruitment has been awful, but they've also been coached awfully and haven't shown anywhere near their best.
 

breakout67

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We kill player's careers by giving them ridiculous wages that distort their expectations and play them in dysfunctional setups that kill their confidence. We also hand over 1st team recruitment to the manager like a pet project, and Woodward loves this because managers will go for the popular names because they aren't scouts which falls perfectly in line with his marketing vision.
 

wub1234

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I think the performances of Mkhitaryan and Sanchez should demonstrate that United aren't getting anything like enough out of their current players.

Some people have said that Sanchez is past his best. This may very well be the case. However, even in his last few months for Arsenal, when he had zero motivation because he was clearly leaving, he scored 7 in 19 PL games, and was still a match winner on a few occasions. Since then, he has scored 3 in 22, and one of those was the rebound from a penalty that he missed, and he has been notably dreadful.

Mkhitaryan hasn't exactly been a world beater for Arsenal, but he has been a better than decent player for them. He certainly merits a place in the first-team squad at Arsenal, and has had his moments. Bear in mind, Mourinho decided it would be a good idea to complete freeze him out of the first-team and criticise him publicly. He is not the most reliable player in the world, but he obviously has talent, as his famous 'scorpion kick' goal would indicate.

Somehow Sanchez has gone from a highly effective player to useless, whereas Mkhitaryan has gone from completely untrusted and considered flaky and unreliable, to a pretty decent PL player. And all that happened is...they swapped clubs. Doesn't that say everything?
 

b82REZ

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We kill player's careers by giving them ridiculous wages that distort their expectations and play them in dysfunctional setups that kill their confidence. We also hand over 1st team recruitment to the manager like a pet project, and Woodward loves this because managers will go for the popular names because they aren't scouts which falls perfectly in line with his marketing vision.
Absolute horseshit.

Last summer shows that is patently untrue.
 

breakout67

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Absolute horseshit.

Last summer shows that is patently untrue.
Apparently saying Mourinho's targets are too expensive and protecting investments in Shaw and Martial is called recruitment. The football heads identified defense as an area of improvement and we didn't get anyone.

The board recruited the square root of feck all last summer, they just twiddled with their thumbs once the manager's list was exhausted.
 

Maticmaker

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Pique did OK at Barcelona, Beckham not bad at Real Madrid, Falcao banging them in for Monaco now, Angel Di Maria seems OK at PSG and even further back Johnny Giles at Leeds United (Captain as well).
 
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AshRK

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We as a club are not ruthless enough. Clubs like barca, Madrid, bayern will never tolerate mediocre players like young,Valencia,smalling,jones to be at their club for so many years. Even our manager appointments has nothing but absurd. We are just a big club by name but act like a midtable one.
 

Foxbatt

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Pique did OK at Barcelona, Beckham not bad at Real Madrid, Falcao banging them in for Monaco now, Angel Di Maria seems OK at PSG and even further back Johnny Giles at Leeds United (Captain as well).
Pique did Ok at Barcelona? You must be joking. It was a huge upgrade for him. He did very well going to Barca. He has won everything to be won with Barcelona and being a regular player in their first eleven.
 

Eric's Seagull

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We regularly used to have this mantra during the Sir Alex days. It was kinda linked to Sir Alex’s exceptional ability to know when a player had peaked and got rid, as well as a statement of defiance we made when our best players wanted to leave. It was mostly correct with Ronaldo being the stand out and undisputed exception.

But in current times, this statement can be applied negatively.

I’ve noticed this trend with us since Sir Alex left... It seems like whoever leaves Utd has never really hit the heights again and just spiralled down the metaphorical quality table.

Our two previous managers have a combined employment duration of 6 months between them in the past 3 years or so, i.e. when Jose joined. That six months being Moyes’ short term contract with West Ham where their fans couldn’t wait until he left.

When Rooney left, he went back to his boyhood Everton but even they quickly got rid within the year. A lot of the Sir Alex old boys have spiralled completely since his retirement. Anderson is in the Turkish second tier, Nanis back at Sporting etc... then we have our buys post Sir Alex who have since left... Schneiderlin can’t get into the Everton squad, Schweinsteiger is chilling out in Chicago, Blind back at Ajax, Zaha at Palace, Memphis at Lyon, Welbeck a periphery at Arsenal, Mkhi not pulling up trees at Arsenal etc.

So while the statement is true still... why did we buy them and have them for as long as we have/did?

Are the likes of Smalling, Jones, Valencia, Rojo or Young going to get currently equal teams if they left in January? If not then isn’t it bad we had them for so long in the first place?

As a tl;dr summary, I guess it’s a criticism of our recruiting structure in that we have players playing for us that no one of our level or higher would want, and in reality they shouldn’t be with us... and that it looks bad on us in current times that no one would touch them anyway. Same for managers too... I don’t see Europe’s elite banging down Moyes’ or LVGs front doors to get them in.
Know this is going off on a bit of a tangent but how about the players that have (argually) become worse since the came to United. Matic, Lukaku and Sanchez.

Dont know if we keep players so long to show the world how loyal we are by sticking with players or if we are being stubborn and don't like to show the world we bought a player who is not quite up to scratch.

I think we should keep a player as long as we need to for him to iron out his weaknesses, if this doesn't happen get rid of him.
 
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VorZakone

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We as a club are not ruthless enough. Clubs like barca, Madrid, bayern will never tolerate mediocre players like young,Valencia,smalling,jones to be at their club for so many years. Even our manager appointments has nothing but absurd. We are just a big club by name but act like a midtable one.
True. Club isn't ruthless enough.
 

Gopher Brown

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That was always just a sound bite to make us feel better about ourselves as a club.
 

Maticmaker

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Pique did Ok at Barcelona? You must be joking. It was a huge upgrade for him. He did very well going to Barca. He has won everything to be won with Barcelona and being a regular player in their first eleven.
Yes, bit tongue-in-cheek that one... but didn't he come to us from Barcelona's Youth squad initially, so they knew a lot about him before he returned?
 

Sandikan

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Mkhitaryan hasn't exactly been a world beater for Arsenal, but he has been a better than decent player for them. He certainly merits a place in the first-team squad at Arsenal, and has had his moments. Bear in mind, Mourinho decided it would be a good idea to complete freeze him out of the first-team and criticise him publicly. He is not the most reliable player in the world, but he obviously has talent, as his famous 'scorpion kick' goal would indicate.

?
He's been pretty much the same wet lunch he was for us.
It's still a toss up who did better out of the deal between us and Arsenal. Mhky has been fairly "fair weather" for both teams, and while Sanchez just hasn't got going for us, he was Arsenal's best player. So arguably they've still done worse out of it.
 

haram

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Even Arsenal fans think Mkhi is shite. Why do people keep bringing him up.
 

wub1234

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He's been pretty much the same wet lunch he was for us.
It's still a toss up who did better out of the deal between us and Arsenal. Mhky has been fairly "fair weather" for both teams, and while Sanchez just hasn't got going for us, he was Arsenal's best player. So arguably they've still done worse out of it.
This is a bit of an understatement!

Sanchez was Arsenal's best player, but I'm not sure how United benefit from having Arsenal's best player play really badly for them, while they pay him a vast salary in order to do so.

There is little doubt, in my opinion, that Mkhitaryan has been better for Arsenal than Sanchez has for United. But bear in mind that United moved heaven and earth to get Sanchez, and it was a much trumpeted signing. Mkhitaryan was just a makeweight who Arsenal were willing to take in order to salvage something from a bad situation.

If I'd have said at that time, "18 months from now, Mkhitaryan will have scored 75% more goals for Arsenal than Sanchez has for United, and Arsenal will be ahead of United in the Premier League" then it would have been treated as a laughable statement.

There is no disguising the fact that Sanchez's performances have been extremely poor, and his signing has been disastrous. The question would be why.