Let's pretend we're doing it right

MisterLupus

New Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2019
Messages
505
Location
Bollocking about fluently.
He definitely has been dealt a bad hand with the current state of the squad. But certain decisions like playing James on right and Andreas on the left still puzzle me. Like you said Fred is another one I wish to never see again in a United shirt. Having said that given the lack of options, I might be saying the same thing about whoever played instead of him.
The most critical thing for Ole is to somehow get a couple of wins to arrest the decline and negativity. Thats what worried me during our run last year and same this year. No matter how poor we are, we should be able to stop these long winless streaks.
Yup definitely. I mean switching up Pereira and James makes sense due to lack of options and the need to alternate - that also justifies playing Young and Rojo - even Mata to some degree (though he too is someone I feel contributes close to zero these days) - but Fred? I pride myself on being reasonable but I have yet to see that guy get a single thing right - even the simplest of tasks proves too big for him. So yeah our coaching staff needs to nut up definitely. I didn't originally have a bar set for Christmas but this latest misery forced me to re-evaluate and consider that maybe we'll be forced to make some changes prior to next summer. Even with our current injury-plagued squad - this is far below what I predicted. It's about time our coaches got angry - genuinely so even - and raise expectations all across. I don't see what's holding them back either their dream jobs are at stake.

I'd start by closing everyone's twitter accounts and take away their phones and video games. They need to focus on improving their game not their image and put business before pleasure :rolleyes:
 

el3mel

Full Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2016
Messages
43,735
Location
Egypt
Unless you have enough funds to buy 6 very good players in the market or so, it's a stupid idea to sell all these kind of players at once. It fecks up the squad and put you in a situation you need a +250m spent in the next market to just be relevant again, a near impossible task for the next manager. That's without saying Pogba will probably push to leave next summer.

Instead, most these players have their value and helped us on multiple occasions, sell 1 or 2 of them and replace them, keep the rest to get you past the current market, then in the current sell more and replace.

Make a constructive play to rebuild the squad without fecking up its balance over the course of 2-3 years. You rebuild and at the same time keep your team relevant around top 4. We didn't do that. We just fecked up the squad in one summer. Now we need giga money spent next summer to just be around top 4, more so if Pogba decides to leave no matter what this time.
 

GaryLifo

Liverpool's Secret Weapon.
Joined
Feb 26, 2001
Messages
10,735
Location
From here to there
How confident are you that potential recruits will continue to buy into your proclaimed ambition once you've finished midtable (or worse)?
Manchester United went 26 years without a title fella, got relegated in that time as well. We were still more attractive to players than most other clubs.

As still the most successful domestic club in England, 20 titles, 10 FA cups, 4 league cups, there's just a chance players might want to join us. A bit like Maguire did and Maddison still does.
 

Bristol_Red_87

Full Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2018
Messages
441
I think that comes under super wishful thinking, or blind faith.

You can't just hope for progress in a year's time, you have to see it happen.
That's why Liverpool could sense something was building, when even in his first season they were putting in some great displays and scoring terrific goals. It took time to piece the team together and get the defence sorted as the final bit.
Is Ole simply not carrying out this process in reverse?

Our team desperately needed shoring up at the back. The amount of chances we have conceded, particularly last season was unreal.

Ole has noted this and probably had designs to operate like the Arsenal team of the early to mid-90's..win but win ugly.

It looks ridiculous now with the predicament we find ourselves in but we've definitely achieved one goal (no, absolutely no pun intended).
 

AllezLesDiables

Full Member
Joined
Aug 24, 2012
Messages
1,791
Manchester United went 26 years without a title fella, got relegated in that time as well. We were still more attractive to players than most other clubs.

As still the most successful domestic club in England, 20 titles, 10 FA cups, 4 league cups, there's just a chance players might want to join us. A bit like Maguire did and Maddison still does.
That was then this is now. This whole we are United entitlement garbage is exactly why United is knee deep in shit and sinking.

Back then there weren’t the insanely lucrative TV deals, the merchandising, FIFA video game series and on and on.

The cost of players and the increase of financial standing for PL clubs makes it impossible to horde all the talent.

All things being equal sure United is a sexier choice, but you cannot create a poisonous atmosphere with atrocious leadership and expect players to come because well it’s United.

If you don’t believe me look at AC Milan. They’re in shambles.
 

BlueHaze

New Member
Joined
May 20, 2018
Messages
4,453
Unless you have enough funds to buy 6 very good players in the market or so, it's a stupid idea to sell all these kind of players at once. It fecks up the squad and put you in a situation you need a +250m spent in the next market to just be relevant again, a near impossible task for the next manager. That's without saying Pogba will probably push to leave next summer.

Instead, most these players have their value and helped us on multiple occasions, sell 1 or 2 of them and replace them, keep the rest to get you past the current market, then in the current sell more and replace.

Make a constructive play to rebuild the squad without fecking up its balance over the course of 2-3 years. You rebuild and at the same time keep your team relevant around top 4. We didn't do that. We just fecked up the squad in one summer. Now we need giga money spent next summer to just be around top 4, more so if Pogba decides to leave no matter what this time.
Unless we get relegated he can't do that since he has multiple years left on contract. Have you forgot he literally did it this summer and ended up staying? Ed won't let him go unless someone pays £120m or some shit.
 

Beagle

Full Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2013
Messages
1,185
Location
India
Progress needs to come in small increments. Progress can't only be measured by transfer activity. The majority of the season is outside the transfer windows and that's when a manager/coach needs to do most of their work.

You can't just look ahead to the next transfer window while the football being played is of this level and the results are the way they are.
 

el3mel

Full Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2016
Messages
43,735
Location
Egypt
Unless we get relegated he can't do that since he has multiple years left on contract. Have you forgot he literally did it this summer and ended up staying? Ed won't let him go unless someone pays £120m or some shit.
We aren't going to succeed keeping a player who wants to go forever. He stayed last summer because no one offered much for him. I bet things will be different next summer.
 

red thru&thru

Full Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2004
Messages
7,657
Let's stop making up scenarios and demand a change and bring in the much NEEDED DoF!
 

Chairman Steve

Full Member
Joined
May 9, 2018
Messages
6,897
The ideal world is Ed and his marketing posse have very little input in the football, which is ran by a DoF and his band of merry men aka technical directors. Ed just green lights the release of the money to spend on the team. End of.
 

ravi2

Full Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2012
Messages
9,043
Location
Canada
feck ed and his friend Matt Judge who has zero experience in transfers but somehow is now our Chief Negotiator.
We are doing this wrong from every angle.
 

Seb burrow

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Sep 1, 2019
Messages
74
I can only say they are doing this right and have successfully implemented the plan if at the start of 20/21 season we have added following British players in the team.

McGinn
Longstaff
Maddison
Sancho
Kane
Chilwell

Yes this is around 500-550 m pounds of investment, but that's how much we do need to execute the apparent plan well.
McGinn yes

Longstaff only if pogba goes

Maddison won’t happen. Perhaps Bruno Fernandes although it didn’t happen in the summer.

Sancho do whatever we can to sign him

Kane dreamland need to think of someone else Werner

Chilwell won’t happen - digne I think is just as good
 
Last edited:

SparkedIntoLife

Full Member
Joined
May 15, 2013
Messages
1,135
I think it's fair to say that we are years away from being a title challenging side (at least 3) and probably at least 6 to 8 first team players need to either be signed or develop rapidly from our U23s/academy. However, things can change quickly in football. The right Head Coach and DOF can evolve things very quickly. The latter should be Luis Campos in my view. We need someone with lots of contacts, who speaks many languages and a proven track record of buying low and selling high.

It pains me to say it but I believe elite youth prospects like Sancho and Havertz at fairly big clubs are currently unrealistic given how low we've plummeted and the degree to which we need to rebuild. We can't be spending £100m+ on individual players.

I also think it's vital we get the right characters in and the wrong ones out. Namely Pogba and Martial (I realise the last one is controversial but he sulks too much without the work rate to justify it). If we can get in a quality manager before the season ends, hopefully he can get the most out of these players to earn them big money moves away.

Given all this, here's a possible future squad -

GK: De Gea, Henderson, (youth or freebie veteran in the mould of Grant)
RB: Wan-Bissaka, Dalot/Laird
LB: Bradaric, Shaw/Williams/Laird/Dalot
CD: Maguire, Tuanzebe, Lindelof, Mengi/Fish
CM: Roca, Camavinga, McTominay, Garner, Mejbri/McCann/Levitt
AM: Olmo, Gomes/Lingard, Haygarth/Mejia
RW: Chukwueze, Chong, Shoretire/Elanga
LW: Rashford, James, Shoretire/Elanga
ST: Greenwood, Mateta, Haland, Emeran/Hoogewerf

Proper FM stuff I know but the profile of players signed is realistic and more affordable than the standard wonderkids. Maybe there's far too much inexperience there but it's hard to sign quality, experienced players and teams like Ajax and Monaco have done very well recently with a similar composition of players.
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
52,710
Is Ole simply not carrying out this process in reverse?

Our team desperately needed shoring up at the back. The amount of chances we have conceded, particularly last season was unreal.

Ole has noted this and probably had designs to operate like the Arsenal team of the early to mid-90's..win but win ugly.

It looks ridiculous now with the predicament we find ourselves in but we've definitely achieved one goal (no, absolutely no pun intended).
We have to be perfect defensively to get a win though, as our attack barely looks like they can get a shot on target a game, let alone a goal.

If we'd gone big on the attack, perhaps we wouldn't have had to defend so much.
 

Revaulx

Full Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2014
Messages
6,031
Location
Saddleworth
Manchester United went 26 years without a title fella, got relegated in that time as well. We were still more attractive to players than most other clubs.

As still the most successful domestic club in England, 20 titles, 10 FA cups, 4 league cups, there's just a chance players might want to join us. A bit like Maguire did and Maddison still does.
Sorry but it’s exactly this sort of complacency that’s got us where we are right now.

Sure we can attract players, by paying them salaries well over market rates. Not because they have United DNA or any such sentimental bollocks.
 

simplyared

Full Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2017
Messages
4,349
Location
somewhere ouside the UK
Nothing wrong with this thread and nothing wrong trying to dig out something positive. However comparing us with Liveroool lacks relevance imo. What we are producing at present is far worse than anything Liverpool dished up. You'd have to go back a bit to find a weaker line-up than we put on the field against Newcastle. Yes I'd like to think 4 or 5 new additions, fewer injuries to key players and a positive development of our younger players could put us back on track. That said, the reality is we're lacking quality in every department. Middle table teams are now leaving us behind in terms of coaching and player material. Leicester being a good example. Chelsea also a team in transission have more potential than we have and are improving whilst we're going backwards. So no there's nothing I can see right now that would make me share the optimism coming from the OP.
 

Fosu-Mens

Full Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2016
Messages
4,101
Location
Fred | 2019/20 Performances
I can only say they are doing this right and have successfully implemented the plan if at the start of 20/21 season we have added following British players in the team.

McGinn
Longstaff
Maddison
Sancho
Kane
Chilwell

Yes this is around 500-550 m pounds of investment, but that's how much we do need to execute the apparent plan well.
People needs to stop with this Brexit FC dream.

Sancho will never come here under the current circumstances.
Spending £100m+ on Kane with his ankleproblems is risky.
Maddison and Longstaff are overrated. Could find better players in other leagues for a lower price.
Chilwell would be perfect for a possessionbased team like City. Not us and our attempt at "football".
McGinn is Milner anno 2010. Ideal squadplayer that will do his duty every game but not for the price AV will demand, but we need starters and players to build a team around.

If we are going to spend big on british players we should go after McNeil, Reece James and Tomori if we can lure them away when Chelsea implodes and we are hopefully on the rise.
 

SER19

Full Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2008
Messages
12,478
Nothing wrong with this thread and nothing wrong trying to dig out something positive. However comparing us with Liveroool lacks relevance imo. What we are producing at present is far worse than anything Liverpool dished up. You'd have to go back a bit to find a weaker line-up than we put on the field against Newcastle. Yes I'd like to think 4 or 5 new additions, fewer injuries to key players and a positive development of our younger players could put us back on track. That said, the reality is we're lacking quality in every department. Middle table teams are now leaving us behind in terms of coaching and player material. Leicester being a good example. Chelsea also a team in transission have more potential than we have and are improving whilst we're going backwards. So no there's nothing I can see right now that would make me share the optimism coming from the OP.

This is the most harrowing thing for me. While it's more frequent under ole, its been there for years now. Even a casual viewer of many other games can see better coached teams with clear combinations and patterns of play. Eg Bournemouth, Leicester, West ham this season, wolves, and while these teams lack the consistency or overall strength to finish above us they are better 'teams'. This season the lighter squad might show the extent
 

GaryLifo

Liverpool's Secret Weapon.
Joined
Feb 26, 2001
Messages
10,735
Location
From here to there
Sorry but it’s exactly this sort of complacency that’s got us where we are right now.

Sure we can attract players, by paying them salaries well over market rates. Not because they have United DNA or any such sentimental bollocks.
In my view, what got us into this mess was a series of poor strategic decisions. Firstly the club being in a position, largely due to Sir Alex Ferguson falling out with the horse people, where it was vulnerable to a leveraged takeover by people who have little interest in on field success and a track record of leeching money out of a sports franchise in the US. Secondly we allowed our brilliant outgoing manager to pick his successor on a whim. Third, we allowed our highly experienced chief exec to leave at the same time as our brilliant manager. Fourth, we allowed the new out of his depth and unqualified manager to gut the backroom staff and bring his own team of out of their depth coaches. Fifth, we did all this with zero forward planning regarding a recruitment strategy for new players and then failed to back the new manager properly, eventually panic buying Fellaini last minute for more than his buyout clause when three or four new players were needed to freshen up the squad.

We then brought in a suitably qualified coach, LVG, but then bought a series of random players who either weren't good enough, Rojo, Scneiderlin, Blind, Shaw or were big names who didn't really want to be here, Di Maria and Falcao.

We appointed Jose arguably three years too late and then, having appointed such a manager who is known to be a spender to achieve success, stopped backing him halfway through his project after finishing second in the league.

Lastly, we bring in a caretaker manager with the claim it's mainly to buy us the time to make the right appointment this time, only to abandon that idea for absolutely no good reason, given we could easily just wait until the end of the season and still give Ole the job full time then after a much longer period of evaluation. He would hardly have fecked us off for another club had we made him wait.

Very little of all of this was about arrogance in my view, but rather more due to incompetence from a long chain of individuals.

The root cause though are owners who only need us to be in the top half of the table to make a huge profit while leaving the club in huge debt because they don't need to pay it off to be hugely wealthy in the long term.
 

VP89

Pogba's biggest fan
Joined
Dec 6, 2015
Messages
31,121
Always buy the players you want first, then sell the deadwood. We are a weird club.
 

MikeKing

Full Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
5,125
Supports
Bournemouth
Always buy the players you want first, then sell the deadwood. We are a weird club.
The problem is Ed. While he has some qualities, he just really sucks at buying players. He really do. We have been shit at it consistently since he came into the club. He fails, then buys some big name in the last minute only to avoid criticism. This time around, he didn't even bother to do that:lol: All under the disguise of rebuilding, protected from criticism due to his sacrificial lamb, Ole.

I don't think it is all about not spending money, it is just that he in fact sucks at buying players. Imagine doing a rebuild with him. It will take years, and years. Then players age and we have to do it again, and it'll take even more years.
 

lex talionis

Full Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2017
Messages
13,615
I’ve always been an optimistic when things we’re looking bad and I don’t want to write our season off just yet, but we have to see our current condition as the worst it has been in the post-Ferguson era.

We still generate solid revenue but as a football product — both in terms of results and quality of play — we are truly fukked.

There’s no simple answer, but the answer begins with recognizing reality.
 

JSW Devil

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Oct 4, 2019
Messages
37
The problem is Ed. While he has some qualities, he just really sucks at buying players. He really do. We have been shit at it consistently since he came into the club. He fails, then buys some big name in the last minute only to avoid criticism. This time around, he didn't even bother to do that:lol: All under the disguise of rebuilding, protected from criticism due to his sacrificial lamb, Ole.

I don't think it is all about not spending money, it is just that he in fact sucks at buying players. Imagine doing a rebuild with him. It will take years, and years. Then players age and we have to do it again, and it'll take even more years.
‘Get a top manager in and you will be more likely to get the players you want, if Ed approaches Sancho and says would you like to come and play for Manchester United and be managed by Ole’ the manager relegated with Cardiff but did quite well in the Norwegian league, what do you think his answer would be? As this is a thread based on hypotheticals, if Ed were to approach Sancho with Pep or Klop as our manager you would stand a far better chance of success. Also top managers would open up a far greater pool of players because players will want to come play for them as they may have played under those managers already.
 

HowieC

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Sep 4, 2019
Messages
164
This.

It’s amazing seeing how praised he is for the transfers as if he discovered Cristiano or Salah, FFS Maguire and AWB were obvious options there’s no merit in there.

James has proved nothing yet to consider him a complete success, he’s only been here for a couple of months and while his start was impressive his performances have slowed down, so there’s no warranty he’ll make it here.
Precisely.

Its not like maguire and AWB are bargains. Its just that we expect all pur players to turn to insta shit the moment they join and they didn’t.

James was a good buy.

The standard of his coaching is abominable though.
 

Revaulx

Full Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2014
Messages
6,031
Location
Saddleworth
In my view, what got us into this mess was a series of poor strategic decisions. Firstly the club being in a position, largely due to Sir Alex Ferguson falling out with the horse people, where it was vulnerable to a leveraged takeover by people who have little interest in on field success and a track record of leeching money out of a sports franchise in the US. Secondly we allowed our brilliant outgoing manager to pick his successor on a whim. Third, we allowed our highly experienced chief exec to leave at the same time as our brilliant manager. Fourth, we allowed the new out of his depth and unqualified manager to gut the backroom staff and bring his own team of out of their depth coaches. Fifth, we did all this with zero forward planning regarding a recruitment strategy for new players and then failed to back the new manager properly, eventually panic buying Fellaini last minute for more than his buyout clause when three or four new players were needed to freshen up the squad.

We then brought in a suitably qualified coach, LVG, but then bought a series of random players who either weren't good enough, Rojo, Scneiderlin, Blind, Shaw or were big names who didn't really want to be here, Di Maria and Falcao.

We appointed Jose arguably three years too late and then, having appointed such a manager who is known to be a spender to achieve success, stopped backing him halfway through his project after finishing second in the league.

Lastly, we bring in a caretaker manager with the claim it's mainly to buy us the time to make the right appointment this time, only to abandon that idea for absolutely no good reason, given we could easily just wait until the end of the season and still give Ole the job full time then after a much longer period of evaluation. He would hardly have fecked us off for another club had we made him wait.

Very little of all of this was about arrogance in my view, but rather more due to incompetence from a long chain of individuals.

The root cause though are owners who only need us to be in the top half of the table to make a huge profit while leaving the club in huge debt because they don't need to pay it off to be hugely wealthy in the long term.
An excellent summary. The bits I don’t agree with are so minor they don’t detract from the full picture. I’d add one other thing: I’m absolutely convinced that the apparent randomness of our signing “policy” is down to Ed being guided not so much by the manager’s or scouts’ advice, but by pressure from available players’ agents.

I didn’t say any of this was the result of arrogance though; the word I used was complacency. The leveraged buyout may well have happened anyway; there’s nothing unique about United to shield it from falling into the hands of bad owners.

For a supposedly ruthless merchant banker, Ed Woodward seems to have some unexpected failings. Cronyism: he surrounds himself with his University mates, rather than bringing in people who can do the bits of the job he can’t. Nostalgia: believing that what worked for Sir Alex all those years ago will work today if we can just stumble upon an ersatz Sir Alex. His signing of Pogba was done to put right a past “wrong” of Sir Alex. The latest report of him thinking the manager is doing a good job but at the same time wondering if he should sack him to appease critics on social media is hardly the the mark of a ruthless and single minded leader.

If the Glazers are happy simply to see the value of their investment increasing and aren’t bothered that the increase is almost entirely do to being in the right market, rather than any special merit in the way the investment is being managed, then Ed is safe to carry on. If the current shitshow really escalates and the club becomes mired in a load of bad publicity, some sort of change may become unavoidable. Whether it’s the right sort is unlikely, given the previous history of cockups you recall so neatly :nervous:
 

Raw

Full Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2013
Messages
25,396
Location
Manchester, UK
It's all well and good thinking we'll sign all these players but when we're playing like shit, they're not going to perform to our standards.

I feel that all these young players are having their development hindered because of how absolutely shit we are in attack, what are they going to learn under Ole? How to run about faster?

There's no use in buying all these players if there isn't a good system for them to thrive in.
 

Revaulx

Full Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2014
Messages
6,031
Location
Saddleworth
Precisely.

Its not like maguire and AWB are bargains. Its just that we expect all pur players to turn to insta shit the moment they join and they didn’t.

James was a good buy.

The standard of his coaching is abominable though.
Yeah I was delighted when he was signed, and even more delighted when he was sticking it to his detractors (“the runner from the Championship”).

It will be absolutely criminal if he gets subsumed into the morass of cluelessness that is United’s attack right now.

AWB is an absolute monster of a defender, but needs to add more to his game to become a top player. I’m certain he’s capable of that, but fear that the best we can expect at United is that he doesn’t go backwards.
 

WR10

Correctly predicted France to win World Cup 2018
Joined
Jul 19, 2009
Messages
5,644
Location
Dream
Now let’s pretend we have been in relegation form since March. What would you do?
 

Treble

Full Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2008
Messages
10,550
If we give solskjaer the benefit of the doubt that he can identify the right players (as his signings have been good) does anybody have any optimism at all, that despite the disaster that is this season, that we might actually be on a path to a decent squad?
This is quite vague. A decent squad might challenge for the PL, top 3, top 6, top 8. I'm sure Leicester have a decent squad, no? So, United fans are going through the pain of sitting in the bottom half with a squad that is among the most expensive in the world, because we might have in 1-2 years a decent squad?

People were saying about Mourinho that his signings were good and that even if he failed to win something, the next manager would have a better squad to work with. Who is to say that those supposedly good signings won't be declared for deadwood by the caftards or the next manager?

That said, it's true that the club (and the fans) might have to go through a serious crisis in order to get strong again. Ole might be doing something right. At the same time, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. All those intentions of selling the deadwood and injecting youth are good. But the results might be catastrophic. Only time will tell.
 

passing-wind

Full Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2013
Messages
3,041
You will never see Solskjaer and the word success in cohesion of one another while he's manager of United. Ole for me is part of the problem, the players aren't good enough 100% but neither is he. He's spent 10 years as a manager doing nothing.
 

GaryLifo

Liverpool's Secret Weapon.
Joined
Feb 26, 2001
Messages
10,735
Location
From here to there
An excellent summary. The bits I don’t agree with are so minor they don’t detract from the full picture. I’d add one other thing: I’m absolutely convinced that the apparent randomness of our signing “policy” is down to Ed being guided not so much by the manager’s or scouts’ advice, but by pressure from available players’ agents.

I didn’t say any of this was the result of arrogance though; the word I used was complacency. The leveraged buyout may well have happened anyway; there’s nothing unique about United to shield it from falling into the hands of bad owners.

For a supposedly ruthless merchant banker, Ed Woodward seems to have some unexpected failings. Cronyism: he surrounds himself with his University mates, rather than bringing in people who can do the bits of the job he can’t. Nostalgia: believing that what worked for Sir Alex all those years ago will work today if we can just stumble upon an ersatz Sir Alex. His signing of Pogba was done to put right a past “wrong” of Sir Alex. The latest report of him thinking the manager is doing a good job but at the same time wondering if he should sack him to appease critics on social media is hardly the the mark of a ruthless and single minded leader.

If the Glazers are happy simply to see the value of their investment increasing and aren’t bothered that the increase is almost entirely do to being in the right market, rather than any special merit in the way the investment is being managed, then Ed is safe to carry on. If the current shitshow really escalates and the club becomes mired in a load of bad publicity, some sort of change may become unavoidable. Whether it’s the right sort is unlikely, given the previous history of cockups you recall so neatly :nervous:
Thanks. I agree with your additional points. It's nice to have a reasoned debate with someone on here :)
 

Lentwood

Full Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2015
Messages
6,783
Location
West Didsbury, Manchester
This goes against my genuine feelings and I feel nothing much actually matters while Woodward remains.

But for the sake of trying to find a glimmer of optimism amongst the appalling football and years of decline, what if we consider this.

The overhaul and cultural change needed at United is astronomical. The closest example of a failure to manage it is Liverpool who are coming up on 3 decades without a title. They had glimmers of returns to good football under benitez and Rodgers and even had fair success under houllier but never felt like anything other than a team in transition until klopp came. We look so much like Liverpool did for so long it's painful.

We can't afford 30 years of it. What if the size of the task is so big that it simply warrants another season or 2 of this rubbish. We all talk about needing a drastic overhaul but what if that's what's happening? And maybe we're not appreciating the task.

If we ignore oles clear lack of coaching the team to a good level, his transfers have been good, but its the ones he didn't make that are costing him. We left the squad too thin to cope with injuries to the core of the team (bissaka pogba Shaw martial).

But we've removed

Lukaku, sanchez, Fellaini, darmian, herrera, Smalling, Valencia. All players we could use in this crisis but not players we needed longer term.would anybody still want these players here for the sake of a few more points these months? They had to go. Or at least most did. Not replacing them was the problem


If we did the same on January and next summer and lost
Young
Fred
Matic
Pereira
Mata

And brought in, the likes of (though not neccesarily) maddison, longstaff, sancho, or a top striker, even accounting for losing pogba, surely we might be closer to success than it feels?

12 months from now a squad of (insert your own additions)

De Gea, Henderson, romero

Wan Bissaka, maguire, tuanzebe, lindelof, Shaw, Dalot, Left back

McTominay, Midfielder, Midfielder, Midfielder, Gomes, James, Lingard

Rashford, Martial, Greenwood, Striker


If we give solskjaer the benefit of the doubt that he can identify the right players (as his signings have been good) does anybody have any optimism at all, that despite the disaster that is this season, that we might actually be on a path to a decent squad?
This is exactly the right way to look at it until we have reason to doubt it

As I have pointed out to the moronic NuFootball fans a million times - Ole is not intellectually sub-normal or 6yrs old - Ole would have known full well that allowing Lukaku, Sanchez, Valencia, Herrera, Fellaini and Valencia to leave would weaken the squad. Absolutely no doubt about it.

Imagine the Newcastle XI, plus Herrera, Fellaini, Pogba, Martial, Sanchez, AWB, Lindelof and Shaw - doesn’t actually look too bad and we likely win that game

However! Clearly Ole (and many of us fans) have identified that some of our players MIGHT have been top 6 standard but they were not top 2 standard. We also clearly had problems with attitude, motivation, ego and inflated wages.

I do sincerely believe that the club is nowhere near as far away from top four as people think. Yes, we’re terrible right now but our already threadbare squad has been ravaged by injuries and we don’t really have any senior attackers at the club

Fast forward 12 months. Sell Sanchez, Smalling, Rojo, Bailly, Fred and Matic. Keep Pogba, sign Rice, Sancho and a CF - now you’re suddenly looking at a very strong XI with good options from the bench. Will it be perfect? No...but it’s a great base to build a title winning side on

I think much of this comes down to what you want as a Manchester Utd fan. If you want regular top four battles, we could have delivered that with the old bunch.

If we want to get back on our perch a “rip and replace” was undoubtedly needed.

Little tip for staying patient - don’t read the papers, don’t listen to TalkSport. It’ll never be as bad or as good as they like to make you believe. Soon as you stop with all the tribalism and getting upset, you start to relax, see more clearly and understand the big picture
 

romufc

Full Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2019
Messages
12,554
Keep Pogba, sign Rice, Sancho and a CF
I want some of what you have been smoking.

Keep Pogba - without top 4 this is impossoble
Rice - West Ham would want £80m minimum - not worth that
Sancho - Why would he want to come here? He is playing first team football and will probably have a chance to go to ANY club.
 

Bilbo

TeaBaggins
Joined
Sep 27, 2004
Messages
14,207
I want some of what you have been smoking.

Keep Pogba - without top 4 this is impossoble
Rice - West Ham would want £80m minimum - not worth that
Sancho - Why would he want to come here? He is playing first team football and will probably have a chance to go to ANY club.
At this point I suspect we'd be better off selling Pogba and reinvesting that money into 2 midfielders. He is obviously world class at his best but we aren't seeing it and likely wont again.
 

romufc

Full Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2019
Messages
12,554
At this point I suspect we'd be better off selling Pogba and reinvesting that money into 2 midfielders. He is obviously world class at his best but we aren't seeing it and likely wont again.
Agreed, I don't think he can be counted as a flop either. I would rather sell him next summer when his transfer fee is high get 2 players and then we can all stop talking about how to unleash Pogba.
 

MikeKing

Full Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Messages
5,125
Supports
Bournemouth
‘Get a top manager in and you will be more likely to get the players you want, if Ed approaches Sancho and says would you like to come and play for Manchester United and be managed by Ole’ the manager relegated with Cardiff but did quite well in the Norwegian league, what do you think his answer would be? As this is a thread based on hypotheticals, if Ed were to approach Sancho with Pep or Klop as our manager you would stand a far better chance of success. Also top managers would open up a far greater pool of players because players will want to come play for them as they may have played under those managers already.
I disagree. He just sucks at buying players.
 

Sad Chris

New Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2014
Messages
1,641
In my view, what got us into this mess was a series of poor strategic decisions. Firstly the club being in a position, largely due to Sir Alex Ferguson falling out with the horse people, where it was vulnerable to a leveraged takeover by people who have little interest in on field success and a track record of leeching money out of a sports franchise in the US. Secondly we allowed our brilliant outgoing manager to pick his successor on a whim. Third, we allowed our highly experienced chief exec to leave at the same time as our brilliant manager. Fourth, we allowed the new out of his depth and unqualified manager to gut the backroom staff and bring his own team of out of their depth coaches. Fifth, we did all this with zero forward planning regarding a recruitment strategy for new players and then failed to back the new manager properly, eventually panic buying Fellaini last minute for more than his buyout clause when three or four new players were needed to freshen up the squad.

We then brought in a suitably qualified coach, LVG, but then bought a series of random players who either weren't good enough, Rojo, Scneiderlin, Blind, Shaw or were big names who didn't really want to be here, Di Maria and Falcao.

We appointed Jose arguably three years too late and then, having appointed such a manager who is known to be a spender to achieve success, stopped backing him halfway through his project after finishing second in the league.

Lastly, we bring in a caretaker manager with the claim it's mainly to buy us the time to make the right appointment this time, only to abandon that idea for absolutely no good reason, given we could easily just wait until the end of the season and still give Ole the job full time then after a much longer period of evaluation. He would hardly have fecked us off for another club had we made him wait.

Very little of all of this was about arrogance in my view, but rather more due to incompetence from a long chain of individuals.

The root cause though are owners who only need us to be in the top half of the table to make a huge profit while leaving the club in huge debt because they don't need to pay it off to be hugely wealthy in the long term.
Isn‘t hindsight beautiful...you can blame individuals for an outcome that nobody (could have) predicted at the time individual decisions needed to be made.
 

Sad Chris

New Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2014
Messages
1,641
Little tip for staying patient - don’t read the papers, don’t listen to TalkSport. It’ll never be as bad or as good as they like to make you believe. Soon as you stop with all the tribalism and getting upset, you start to relax, see more clearly and understand the big picture
Fully agree and need to add: stay the hell away from the Caf, the place where Utd supporters go to die (or cry)
 

GaryLifo

Liverpool's Secret Weapon.
Joined
Feb 26, 2001
Messages
10,735
Location
From here to there
Isn‘t hindsight beautiful...you can blame individuals for an outcome that nobody (could have) predicted at the time individual decisions needed to be made.
Except, some of us, including me joined shareholders United before the Glazers took over. Lots of fans quit United altogether to start FC once the Glazers took over, I didn't join them but I understood and became a founder member to help them in their way.

Thousands protested outside the ground or wore green and gold.

In the end we were passing into the wind but we and they tried.

As for the other decisions, when Moyes was appointed I tweeted something like 'Is this a joke?' The tweet is still in existence and I'll happily point your toward it if you want proof.

We've all slated the minimal transfer policy going as far back as selling Ronaldo and replacing him with the likes of Bebe and Obertan.

Some of the other things, yes I personally didn't spot ahead of time. But many others did. Loads didn't want Jose or Sanchez, or Ole to be made permanent.

Not all of it is hindsight and I think you do many a great disservice with your rather patronising post
 

JSW Devil

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Oct 4, 2019
Messages
37
I disagree. He just sucks at buying players.
While I agree Ed would always be capable of noncing up any deal or the Glazers putting their thumb down on the little fart and saying no, I would still bet there are far more players who would rather play for Pep or Klop than for Ole’ and this would hopefully diminish Ed’s involvement in the deal and we would be more likely to get better quality players in.
 
Last edited: