As an outsider looking in it is clear to me and many others that there is something very wrong at your club.
Firstly, playing staff. Half your squad or perhaps more, simply arent good enough for a team like United.
Your recruitment has been atrocious (thanks for the 40 mil for Matic) and not well thought out at all. There is a lack of synchronicity and chemistry as all your players have very different play styles.
The age profile of your team is also very wrong. Ole likes to point out your team is young but your squad is either at the beginning of their careers or the end. Pogba and De gea aside, who else is mature and at a peak level befitting your club? Jones, Fred, lingard are not the right level.
It also has a clear lack of leadership in your team. The more experienced pro's seem to have a lot of personal issues with the club and outside the club and often seem too distracted to lead your younger players. Having Ashley Young as captain, with little to no previous captains experience really says it all.
Second obvious problem is pitch side staff and their level of coaching ability.
I said it yesterday about Jones and I'll say it again. Your recent history of developing young players is horrific. Jones was a solid up and coming centreback who was messed about playing in 3 or 4 different positions and is now jack of all trades. Macheda, Januzaj, Fosu-mensah have all showed promised and disappeared. Rooney never became World class, was allowed to smoke, eat burgers and get over weight and never quite got over that line from elite to world class.
On match days, your coaches all sit there very glum and bored and say very little (Carrick I'm looking at you).
Ole has admitted he doesnt get too involved in the training side.
Who is leading this team!?
Finally Ed has to go. I cant think of one good thing he has done for your club besides getting a ton of sponsorships. On the footballing side it has only gone downhill since his arrival.
While it's unfair to pin everything on Ole, he also hasn't helped the situation and he sanctioned the departure of players that would have at the very least, bolstered your paper thin squad. His CV is nothing to write home about and there are serious reservations he is capable and qualified to get you back to where you need to be.
I’m not really sure how this post got a like by
@JPRouve
There ‘’was“ something very wrong with the club but if you look at what we did recently we are actually going to the opposite of what we did since what we did in the past wasn’t working and proven to be “very wrong”.
I would like to point out some of your point where I disagree and also where there is slightly improvement.
Recruitment, what we did in the past was disaster. However, our recent summer signings show some changes & improvement compared to what we did in the past. Three of our signings (James, Bissaka & Maguire) easily settled in with the team and have performed very well, three of them are not short term ageing signing, & instead of wasted our money on attackers again this time we have a faith in Martial & Rashford because we believe we can improve & develop them.
I'm not really sure what's your point about this
age profile, not sure what is very wrong with that, in term of age profile our squad is not any different to yours. Our squad is full of young age players, the young squad is filled in with mix of young players with good or decent experienced in international or top competition level like Rashford, Martial, James, Bissaka & McTominay & teenagers who just recently graduated from academy and supported by more mature or proven experienced players like Maguire, Pogba & De Gea.
Are you telling me that the likes of Abraham & Mount are not at the beginning their career while the likes of Azpi & Willian aren't reaching to near the end of their career? Just to remind you that United have field the youngest XI this season in the league not Chelsea. I'm not really sure why do you even mention Lingard & Jones. Both of them barely starting for us this season.
The lack of
leadership is not something we can fix easily but it's something we are working on ever since Ole in charge. We are in rebuilding process from zero where our ex true leader like Vidic, Rio, Giggs, Neville, Evra have long gone from the club. People need to be realistic that the only way to add leadership into our squad (given the situation that we are starting this from zero) is by develop the young players with leadership talent or signing players who has potentially good leadership talent & captain material. That's why we signed Maguire and trying to develop young players with good leadership talent like Rashford & McTominay. Unlike previously, our signings (Matic, Sanchez, Mkhy, Fred & etc) are not type of players who has the talent of captain material and we never have a single clue who should be our captain. But now we have a vision who can be our permanent captain and also for the future one.
Staff & Coaching ability
You cannot use Jones as an excuse because he's an injury prone. Players who hit injuries, no matter how talent he is, the player will not be developed properly, I also think both Brown & Evans were a talent centre back in his younger days but due to injuries they struggled to develop.
You also need to understand we have changed our manager multiple times & each of them have different standard or philosophy in the way how they expect from the players, how they develop the players & how the players will suit the manager's philosophy. Januzaj is a good example of victim of manager who can't develop the player due to player doesn't suit the manager's philosophy. Van Gaal loves possession football and it doesn't suit Januzaj who is more direct.
I'm not really sure where did you get the info of Ole doesnt get too involved in the training side. However, compare to other coaches he's not a coach or head coach, he's a manager, his job is being a manager not just full time coaching. So of course he's leading the team.
To conclude this, basically;
I can't predict the future whether what Ole & the club are doing will give us future success but recently we have shown changes of our management and there are sign of positive or improvements in them.
Our latest recruitment have been a sign of improvement & positive, we have a good young talented squad which the manager's aim is to develop & improve them to be superstar and so far that's what he is doing having faith in the likes of Rashford, Martial, McTominay, James, Bissaka and etc and slowly giving minutes to teenagers like Greenwood, Garner, Williams and etc. We started to see some players in our squad now who can be the next United captain, compared to before we aren't even sure about it show that we are working on this leadership issue right now. Results have been inconsistent but at the same time when you look at the injuries we got & also the amount of young players we have, you will expect up & down.
Ed will not go in shortly from now, so in reality is we are stuck with him and need to find a way to make it work. What keep changing manager can do if Ed is still in charge? changing manager now might be potentially getting rid the sign of positive & improvement that we have made recently.