Lack of Champions League football and Transfers

Frank Grimes

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Think people are underestimating how not having a high profile manager affects a players decision too. Solskjaer might be well known to United fans but the vast majority of foreign players will have no idea who he is.
 

passing-wind

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Think people are underestimating how not having a high profile manager affects a players decision too. Solskjaer might be well known to United fans but the vast majority of foreign players will have no idea who he is.
Pretty much sums up the entirety of the thread it's also something that's going over many fans head the reality of the situation. Solskjaer is nothing managerially. People can use Pep and Zidane as stupid examples but seem to forget the ridiculous quality (inc two world number 1s) both these managers inherited when they became first team coaches. That's excluding the aspects of structural stability within Barcelona / Madrid as clubs, as well as the competitiveness in domestic / european competitions.

In the last few years since Sir Alex was at the helm our current period is one of the worst in recent history to have Solskjaer in charge.
 

Sky1981

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Imo these thigns also matters

1. Who's the manager? Is he good enough to allow me to play in my favorite and most impactful position? Players comes to united and chucked all over the place without a coherent formation

2. What happens if the manager lost his job? Is the club stable enough not to firesale me if that happens? Everytime we change manager we firesale alot of players.

3. Wage obviously

4. Brand. While joining united is good for my exposure, being a deadwood after 2 years is bad for my career and ultimately my brand.

5. City, personal reason, family reason.

Tldr cl matter not because simply it's a cl, but not being in a cl is a culmination of many undesirable factor. Out of cl is the confirmation that one club isnt a very desireable destination. All and all unless there's a bigger pro players wont likely to choose us. All the above is rather inflexible bar wage. Hence we offer more
 

Sky1981

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If we had secured a Champions League place and/or hired a manager like Mauricio Pochettino I do think our Summer Transfer Window would be playing out differently. I believe we would have managed to retain Ander Herrera and other players like Paul Pogba who I think would be more willing to stay. By doing this we could of fixed a lot of our squad issues with just four quality signings which I would like to believe this is the direction we would of followed.

I could of still seen us signing Aaron Wan-Bissaka but with other signings such as Matthijs de Ligt, Jadon Sancho and of course Tanguy Ndombele especially if Pochettino was indeed our manager instead.

Taking all this into account, we could of seen a team similar to this:

(4-3-3)
GK: de Gea
RB: Wan-Bissaka
CB: de Ligt
CB: Lindelof
LB: Shaw
CM: Ndombele
CM: Herrera
CM: Pogba
RW: Sancho
ST: Rashford
LW: Martial
We need to stop with this fanfiction of a lineup. It's cringey.
 

R'hllor

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Wish we have more then 20 IQ and just act like EL doesnt exist, remove first team players from the picture and let kids play it, dont even bring them on travels. Ole should also knock a ref in first game so they ban him and that way he can stay to train first team while kids are on the road.
 

Ecstatic

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If we had secured a Champions League place and/or hired a manager like Mauricio Pochettino I do think our Summer Transfer Window would be playing out differently. I believe we would have managed to retain Ander Herrera and other players like Paul Pogba who I think would be more willing to stay. By doing this we could of fixed a lot of our squad issues with just four quality signings which I would like to believe this is the direction we would of followed.

I could of still seen us signing Aaron Wan-Bissaka but with other signings such as Matthijs de Ligt, Jadon Sancho and of course Tanguy Ndombele especially if Pochettino was indeed our manager instead.

Taking all this into account, we could of seen a team similar to this:

(4-3-3)
GK: de Gea
RB: Wan-Bissaka
CB: de Ligt
CB: Lindelof
LB: Shaw
CM: Ndombele
CM: Herrera
CM: Pogba
RW: Sancho
ST: Rashford
LW: Martial
No Roy Keane instead of Herrera? :(:p
 

Red Keane

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The odd season doesn't matter. When it is 4 out of 6 though, that is when players start asking questions. We desperately need to get back in for next year, League and Europa will be a big focus this year.
If it’s an odd season it does not matter BUT when missing CL football becomes a trend it will absolutely begin to impact the quality and level of players you can sign.
Surely the bigger barrier to ambitious/world class players joining Manchester United is less about how many times the club failed to qualify for the Champions League (although without a doubt it is a factor), but rather how willing this club is willing to get out its current phase and go back to seriously competing for the PL/CL. Because as the examples of Chelsea, PSG and Manchester City show, such players are willling to join such clubs (even when their recent history consisted of Europa League qualification at best) because they all had a plan to properly compete for the major trophies (and put the needed financial resources towards it).

Thus the bigger problem is more to do with the fact those who run this club (Woodwood) and those who own this club (The Glazers) simply have neither the ambition, the know-how nor the willingness to invest to push Manchester United towards major trophies.

Because seriously; if you where someone like De Ligt or Sancho, why would you want to join a club that struggles a name a decent captain among its squad, who give far too much game to the likes of Smalling, Jones & Rojo (despite all of them betraying the club on far too many occasions), whose more talented players more often not feel the lack of need to fight for their places (because they know that the alternatives to them are even worse) and whose propsects of winning the Premier League and/or Champions League in the next 5 years seem very distant indeed. Why do that when you have clubs like Man City, Barcelona, Real Madrid & Juventus who do not have any of those problems (or at least of of them)?

Liverpool have got back to challenging, not by signing the likes of Sancho, De Ligt etc, but scouting and buying players that suit the style they want to play! None of the likes of Salah, Firminho and Mane were heralded but have turned into world class players! This is what we need to replicate, not galactico types
Except that neither De Ligt or Sancho are "Galactico" Type Players in the first place, not when both of them are not even 20 and only have 1-2 seasons (at the highest level) under their belts (in contrast to lets say the likes of Ramos & Bale). Rather they are still (despite their recent fine form) players that have the "potential" to be great and thus are the sort of players Liverpool would be signing (and wholm Manchester United should be signing). That is if Klopp had not decided (on the basis they have won a single Champions League) that Liverpool's rebuilding job is finally "completed", despite the fact they still have too many players like Lovern who are simply not good enough to play for them while also lacking in the squad depth needed to continue competing at all fronts (not good when the El Classico Clubs & City are spending to upgrade their squads), but alas that is for another thread.

Anyway the reason why those sorts of players now command "Galactico" sized fees (despite not being such players) is because clubs across the board have wised up in terms of the true value of these sort of "potential" talents and charging them as such (Unlike what was the case with many of those being bought by Klopp, Allison & VVD excepted). So if we are going to go down that sort of road, we are still going to have to spend more than what the Glazers are willing to invest into this club.
 

Judas

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Ole and the general mood and noises coming out of the club are as big an issue as no CL football. I've no doubt in my mind if we'd had a world class manager in place for the upcoming season we'd have got some higher profile transfers across the line. The truth is, playing for Ole isn't attractive, it's a complete gamble, and that's what joining Utd looks like at the moment.
 

Scroto Baggins

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Think people are underestimating how not having a high profile manager affects a players decision too. Solskjaer might be well known to United fans but the vast majority of foreign players will have no idea who he is.
It doesnt take long to build a bit of a reputation. Look at Pochettino, he was at Southampton a couple years ago. Now you have players like De Jong coming out and saying Pochettino is a great coach who he seriously considered working under. And clubs like RM being linked with him, Perez is a huge Pochettino fan.

Ole needs some time to get his squad how he wants it.
 

Eric's Seagull

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Agree that not having Champions League football has fecked us over and made us miss out on potential targets who are top quality players.

I still have hope that we can sign some potential decent players. I base this on that some players may not see our potential state as a negative, they may see it as a challenge. They might want to come to us and want to help us become great again. Then they can down our history as being one of the players who made a significant contribution in getting us back to challenging for the top honours.
 

Frank Grimes

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It doesnt take long to build a bit of a reputation. Look at Pochettino, he was at Southampton a couple years ago. Now you have players like De Jong coming out and saying Pochettino is a great coach who he seriously considered working under. And clubs like RM being linked with him, Perez is a huge Pochettino fan.

Ole needs some time to get his squad how he wants it.
Pochettino is a class above Solskjaer. It took him years of consistently getting Spurs into top 4 before he could turn the heads of players like Ndombele. Solskjaer couldnt train ivy up a wall.