Turning on Rangnick

[Drizzle]

He also failed to convince Carrick or McKenna to stay so there was no continuity. He bought in coaches way below the level needed.

That wasn't on him at all. That's a club failure.

But for a squad that finished 2nd last season...

This is the reason why coming 2nd was a bad thing ultimately. It gets used lazily in tired arguments like this. I watched every second of every united game last year, and let me tell you - we were not good. Not good at all. Granted we hadn't collapsed at that point, but the squad was complacent, unbalanced and beginning to rot from the inside.

 

[Decomposing In Paris]

I see Ralf has managed in his genius to position himself where if ETH does a great job it will have been mostly down to Ralf behind the scenes… & if he doesn’t, the board don’t listen to Ralf anyway. I have never seen PR like this in football… except maybe Lampard in the Gerard/Lampard/Scholes debate

 

[mctrials23]

This is the reason why coming 2nd was a bad thing ultimately. It gets used lazily in tired arguments like this. I watched every second of every united game last year, and let me tell you - we were not good. Not good at all. Granted we hadn't collapsed at that point, but the squad was complacent, unbalanced and beginning to rot from the inside.

Yeah but everyone knows that performances are irrelevant and the only thing that matters is league position. Liverpool and City were utter dross until suddenly it just clicked and they were magically world class. They looked like they were uncoached for years and then bam, it all came together and we saw their masterplan.

I sometimes think United deserve to be in the mess we are in with the delusions of our fans. No team in world football that was winning competitions and meaningful trophies has no identity or plays erratic and crap football most of the time. No team in world football that wins competitions and trophies gets outplayed by most of the teams they play. There is a a reason our chickens finally came home to roost. Our "success" under Ole was built on a bog foundation.

I see Ralf has managed in his genius to position himself where if ETH does a great job it will have been mostly down to Ralf behind the scenes… & if he doesn’t, the board don’t listen to Ralf anyway. I have never seen PR like this in football… except maybe Lampard in the Gerard/Lampard/Scholes debate

He really hasn't. If ETH does well I think Rangnick can take some credit for laying bare the issues and allowing ETH to hit the ground running without losing a season to truly appreciate the trash at the club but hes not going to be hailed as some sort of messiah. RR is not a top manager. I think most people have accepted that. He is however not anything like as bad as these players are making him look. There is a reason why most sane people aren't pinning a lot of blame on RR for the current situation. The players have finally thrown themselves under the bus.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

To my mind, that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what I hope his role is.

What a sentence.

 

[romufc]

I am in the middle on this.

Firstly, Ralf came in and talked about how we were so open under Ole and that cant happen, 7 months later, we are just as bad, only this time we dont look like scoring goals, so what is Ralf doing on the training ground? These were the questions asked on Ole.

Yes, he may not be the best manager, he is meant to have coaches who can coach.

On the other side, I would rather go into a summer with open wounds for the new manager than what he have done in the last 2 years which is plaster over the cracks and hope for certain players to come through.

In the last few years, jury been out on every player, now there is no jury. I will feel sorry for no player if they are sold.

 

[LawCharltonBest]

I knew it would go wrong straight away, when he hired a couple of coaches with no experience of top level football.

He underestimated the Premier League and the task at hand.

 

[RiqCantona]

Well... he's gone in 2 weeks. Whether we like it or not. I don't think purely performing on the pitch was the reason we appointed him in the first place.

 

[pawanraj]

The good thing with Ralph is that he is not afraid to call out the BS publicly - he's talked about and continues to talk about the issues we have in a very straightforward manner, be it on the admin side, or on the player side. He is the "consultant" who Murtogh will use as a voice (or an independent assessor) to make changes at the club. He has nothing to lose, and therefore, no cows are sacred for Rangnick. Therein lies his utility.

He has already stressed the need for 6-8 players, he is not afraid to call out the disconnect between instructions and actions on pitch. We've seen departures of Lawlor, Bout, and Judge so far... We're seeing signs of change in the philosophy of "giving contracts to protect asset value" ...

Whether this is by design or by default is unclear. But I'm inclined to think it is by design. Hence the consultant contract.

Whether or not everything Murtogh does by utilizing this consultant will help or hinder us remains to be seen. But hey, one can hope.

 

[Decomposing In Paris]

Yeah but everyone knows that performances are irrelevant and the only thing that matters is league position. Liverpool and City were utter dross until suddenly it just clicked and they were magically world class. They looked like they were uncoached for years and then bam, it all came together and we saw their masterplan.

I sometimes think United deserve to be in the mess we are in with the delusions of our fans. No team in world football that was winning competitions and meaningful trophies has no identity or plays erratic and crap football most of the time. No team in world football that wins competitions and trophies gets outplayed by most of the teams they play. There is a a reason our chickens finally came home to roost. Our "success" under Ole was built on a bog foundation.



He really hasn't. If ETH does well I think Rangnick can take some credit for laying bare the issues and allowing ETH to hit the ground running without losing a season to truly appreciate the trash at the club but hes not going to be hailed as some sort of messiah. RR is not a top manager. I think most people have accepted that. He is however not anything like as bad as these players are making him look. There is a reason why most sane people aren't pinning a lot of blame on RR for the current situation. The players have finally thrown themselves under the bus.

So Ralf has “exposed the players”, he’s exposed the board, he’s trotted out his feels every week & treated club press conferences like his personal vlog… and that’s the wonderful thing we need to be grateful for. He’s also exposed himself, & everyone at the club. Let the red half of Liverp… sorry, Manchester… rejoice!

 

[flappyjay]

So Ralf has “exposed the players”, he’s exposed the board, he’s trotted out his feels every week & treated club press conferences like his personal vlog… and that’s the wonderful thing we need to be grateful for. He’s also exposed himself, & everyone at the club. Let the red half of Liverp… sorry, Manchester… rejoice!

Literally could have came out after the last game and run his mouth about his assessment. Didn't need to be during the season.

 

[georgipep]

Yeah but everyone knows that performances are irrelevant and the only thing that matters is league position. Liverpool and City were utter dross until suddenly it just clicked and they were magically world class. They looked like they were uncoached for years and then bam, it all came together and we saw their masterplan.

I sometimes think United deserve to be in the mess we are in with the delusions of our fans. No team in world football that was winning competitions and meaningful trophies has no identity or plays erratic and crap football most of the time. No team in world football that wins competitions and trophies gets outplayed by most of the teams they play. There is a a reason our chickens finally came home to roost. Our "success" under Ole was built on a bog foundation.



He really hasn't. If ETH does well I think Rangnick can take some credit for laying bare the issues and allowing ETH to hit the ground running without losing a season to truly appreciate the trash at the club but hes not going to be hailed as some sort of messiah. RR is not a top manager. I think most people have accepted that. He is however not anything like as bad as these players are making him look. There is a reason why most sane people aren't pinning a lot of blame on RR for the current situation. The players have finally thrown themselves under the bus.

So, you are saying that both our performance and problems were very much obvious last season with Ole, but Ralf has now somehow exposed them and saved Ten Hag the time to find them on his own? Well, how does that work?

 

[RiqCantona]

Since SAF, we (Glazers, Woodward and Co.) clearly had no clue how to manage a football club. From managerial appointments, to signing high-priced low return players, to internal structure - our decision making has been a disaster. After the board decided to sack Ole, we understood that our entire process and strategy has been flawed. And before starting another rebuild with another manager (be it ETH, Poch, or Conte) - we had to fix all the problems around it because none of our so-called rebuilds in 9 years has worked. We cannot have a repeat of this whole situation.

But how exactly do we start that process? Sure, changes were going to happen internally with Woodward leaving and Arnold stepping in, as well as appointing Fletcher and Murtogh. That was a start. But I don't think we actually had a clue what needed to done as a club. We had no idea about modern club structure, poor recruitment and scouting departments, and we also had no idea of whether or not this squad was good enough despite spending hundreds of millions.

In comes Rangnick - the builder of clubs, father of gegen pressing, modern coaching philosophy, etc. etc. Through appointing Rangnick we essentially had 3 objectives to fulfill:

1. Steady the ship and hopefully finish 4th
2. Give a solid evaluation of the squad in line with modern football
3. Point out issues within the club which has hampered our performance for 9 years

Yes, he has failed in the first and was exceptionally poor. Call it inability or pure bad luck (with the Greenwood issue and all) - he's failed. No 2 ways about it. But to me this feels like a small price to pay if we can actually build a solid foundation.

This brings me to the 2nd and 3rd point. RR has been hyper-critical of the squad and by now knows which players are good enough to play for United and who have the right set of skills to be successful in the Premier League/UCL. Hence, we are expecting a massive clear out in June. Apparently RR also has a dossier on each individual players which he might have already handed over to the board and maybe even to ten Hag. I don't think the board had any idea about which players were good, which were ok, and which were bad. They had previously relied on each manager's evaluation and acted accordingly without a long-term vision, which is a big reason for the mess we find ourselves in right now. This was step one. A thorough and very objective squad evaluation can only be done by an expert who is neutral and not afraid to lose the job. Would you actually trust Ole to give a proper assessment of the squad? Even till his last day he said, "this is a great bunch of players"! Would you have trusted Carrick? Or an interim manager who would only be after the main job and be as patronising as possible while sugar-coating the issues? I think not.

No.3, fine RR has evaluated the squad and we know which players need to go - but what next? Whom do we hire as permanent manager? Even if we hire him, how do we make sure that he has the right support? We have already spent more than a billion but hardly have anything to show for it. We have been going around in circles for ages. How do we stop this whole spiral? In comes the internal assessment and structural problems. This RR has been able to do along with Murtogh - and I believe both have worked in tandem. They have pin pointed the major problems within the club and have already started making those changes with Lawlor, Bout and Judge leaving. Getting in Mitchell would be the icing. Because one thing is for sure, Rangnick knows the structure of a modern football club and the model that needs to be in place to ensure long-term success. And that is step 2 to laying a solid foundation.


This is the only explanation that makes sense to me. To me, the club has shown long term vision with RR and all that has happened since on and off the pitch. The downside, our football has been shit. But as I said, its a small price to pay in the short term. I just hope this works.

 

[SuperiorXI]

He was never going to be the manager, the plan was for him to move upstairs. I feel he has done his best, I place the blame on this season solely on the players, they have quite obviously phoned it in, it's clear as day.

 

[Forevergiggs1]

I see Ralf has managed in his genius to position himself where if ETH does a great job it will have been mostly down to Ralf behind the scenes… & if he doesn’t, the board don’t listen to Ralf anyway. I have never seen PR like this in football… except maybe Lampard in the Gerard/Lampard/Scholes debate

One thing Ralf has done is to bring to light just how big the job is on rebuilding the whole club which will help ETH in the short and hopefully the longer term so just by taking the pressure slightly off the next manager is a plus on his side. People that want to give him zero credit are continually failing to look at the bigger picture.

We've been waiting for years for someone to tell it how it really is and now we have that someone it's a PR stunt? He's been a disaster as interim for whatever reasons but could prove to be one of the best things to happen to the club in a long time.

Just by hiring him has taken the club forward. If a lot of people got their wish and we hired Conte it would set us back even longer because our players would of downed tools on him as well due to the work ethic his system requires. Instead we're getting in one of the hottest properties in football. The club are finally moving forward and Ralf is a part of that and I find it hard to understand why people have completed written him off considering the experience he has in (re) structuring clubs.

 

[Forevergiggs1]

Since SAF, we (Glazers, Woodward and Co.) clearly had no clue how to manage a football club. From managerial appointments, to signing high-priced low return players, to internal structure - our decision making has been a disaster. After the board decided to sack Ole, we understood that our entire process and strategy has been flawed. And before starting another rebuild with another manager (be it ETH, Poch, or Conte) - we had to fix all the problems around it because none of our so-called rebuilds in 9 years has worked. We cannot have a repeat of this whole situation.

But how exactly do we start that process? Sure, changes were going to happen internally with Woodward leaving and Arnold stepping in, as well as appointing Fletcher and Murtogh. That was a start. But I don't think we actually had a clue what needed to done as a club. We had no idea about modern club structure, poor recruitment and scouting departments, and we also had no idea of whether or not this squad was good enough despite spending hundreds of millions.

In comes Rangnick - the builder of clubs, father of gegen pressing, modern coaching philosophy, etc. etc. Through appointing Rangnick we essentially had 3 objectives to fulfill:

1. Steady the ship and hopefully finish 4th
2. Give a solid evaluation of the squad in line with modern football
3. Point out issues within the club which has hampered our performance for 9 years

Yes, he has failed in the first and was exceptionally poor. Call it inability or pure bad luck (with the Greenwood issue and all) - he's failed. No 2 ways about it. But to me this feels like a small price to pay if we can actually build a solid foundation.

This brings me to the 2nd and 3rd point. RR has been hyper-critical of the squad and by now knows which players are good enough to play for United and who have the right set of skills to be successful in the Premier League/UCL. Hence, we are expecting a massive clear out in June. Apparently RR also has a dossier on each individual players which he might have already handed over to the board and maybe even to ten Hag. I don't think the board had any idea about which players were good, which were ok, and which were bad. They had previously relied on each manager's evaluation and acted accordingly without a long-term vision, which is a big reason for the mess we find ourselves in right now. This was step one. A thorough and very objective squad evaluation can only be done by an expert who is neutral and not afraid to lose the job. Would you actually trust Ole to give a proper assessment of the squad? Even till his last day he said, "this is a great bunch of players"! Would you have trusted Carrick? Or an interim manager who would only be after the main job and be as patronising as possible while sugar-coating the issues? I think not.

No.3, fine RR has evaluated the squad and we know which players need to go - but what next? Whom do we hire as permanent manager? Even if we hire him, how do we make sure that he has the right support? We have already spent more than a billion but hardly have anything to show for it. We have been going around in circles for ages. How do we stop this whole spiral? In comes the internal assessment and structural problems. This RR has been able to do along with Murtogh - and I believe both have worked in tandem. They have pin pointed the major problems within the club and have already started making those changes with Lawlor, Bout and Judge leaving. Getting in Mitchell would be the icing. Because one thing is for sure, Rangnick knows the structure of a modern football club and the model that needs to be in place to ensure long-term success. And that is step 2 to laying a solid foundation.


This is the only explanation that makes sense to me. To me, the club has shown long term vision with RR and all that has happened since on and off the pitch. The downside, our football has been shit. But as I said, its a small price to pay in the short term. I just hope this works.

Good post

 

[FrankDrebin]

I dont know why United couldn't employ a interim manager and have Ralf work alongside him while primarily focusing on , what seems to be the case, his stronger capabilities as a figure who's recently renowned for restructuring a clubs foundation.

Personally, I feel United have given him too much work.

 

[Bestietom]

He was never going to be the manager, the plan was for him to move upstairs. I feel he has done his best, I place the blame on this season solely on the players, they have quite obviously phoned it in, it's clear as day.

They should have allowed him bring in a Forward and Kamara for midfield (10million) in January. We could have got 4th position.

 

[SuperiorXI]

They should have allowed him bring in a Forward and Kamara in January. We could have got 4th position.

I understand why they didn't. It would be a risk with a new manager coming in, and obviously at that point it wasn't certain that we would get ETH so it's not like they could even get any targets vetted first.

 

[Bestietom]

I understand why they didn't. It would be a risk with a new manager coming in, and obviously at that point it wasn't certain that we would get ETH so it's not like they could even get any targets vetted first.

We could have got Kamara for 10million. Surely this was not a risk as he would easily fetch more than this if he failed here. Diaz went to Liverpool and has hit the ground running when we could have had him first. We needed someone when the news came out about Greenwood.

 

[pcaming]

I am in the middle on this.

Firstly, Ralf came in and talked about how we were so open under Ole and that cant happen, 7 months later, we are just as bad, only this time we dont look like scoring goals, so what is Ralf doing on the training ground? These were the questions asked on Ole.

Yes, he may not be the best manager, he is meant to have coaches who can coach.

On the other side, I would rather go into a summer with open wounds for the new manager than what he have done in the last 2 years which is plaster over the cracks and hope for certain players to come through.

In the last few years, jury been out on every player, now there is no jury. I will feel sorry for no player if they are sold.

The defense at the start of his tenure was a lot tighter, the players have just checked out.

At the end of the day, RR is just 6 months out of almost a decade of failure. He had no signings, no proper coaches and a squad where half the players don't even want to be here. It was a recipe for disaster. As a coach his playing style is high pressing, that idea was dead a few matches in as the players were not capable or simply disinterested in implementing it. So now he and his coaches have to set up the team in a manner that isn't ideal to the strengths as trainers.

Then we look at the team, Marcus woeful, Sancho still hit and miss and injured, Elanga raw...Ronaldo is the only decent forward.
Midfield they've all shit the bed, even Bruno, and Pogba simply doesn't give a toss about the club anymore.
Defense we have Varane who's too injured to settle, Maguire like Marcus has just got to shit. The fullbacks have all been crap.

You can say it's the coaches job to get the best out of the squad, and you'd be right. The problem is that we have none, and had to scrape the barrel to find some assistants.

Nowhere along the line did we create an environment that could rectify the situation.

 

[SuperiorXI]

We could have got Kamara for 10million. Surely this was not a risk as he would easily fetch more than this if he failed here. Diaz went to Liverpool and has hit the ground running when we could have had him first. We needed someone when the news came out about Greenwood.

No chance, there is a United tax on all of our signings, his price would have gone up if we went in for him.

 

[Bestietom]

No chance, there is a United tax on all of our signings, his price would have gone up if we went in for him.

No mate he was actually offered to us on last day of window, even cheaper.

 

[SuperiorXI]

No mate he was actually offered to us on last day of window, even cheaper.

Source?

 

[mctrials23]

So, you are saying that both our performance and problems were very much obvious last season with Ole, but Ralf has now somehow exposed them and saved Ten Hag the time to find them on his own? Well, how does that work?

Our problems under Ole have been evident since the honeymoon period was over in his first season. Lack of coaching, players not knowing what they were supposed to be doing on the pitch, complete lack of control of games, awful teamwork and disjointed attacking and defending. Yes, these issues were all massively apparent throughout Oles time. Oh and game management, awful.

United results covered up the complete mess that those results were built on. Ole wasn't sacked out of the blue, he had a horrible run of results and seemingly couldn't motivate or fix the team that he had built at great expense. In comes a manager who isn't happy clappy and doesn't let them get away with putting in 3/10 effort levels and getting praised for it.

There were still plenty of people on here who didn't think Ole was at fault for this. For creating the team and culture around it. Mind boggling.

Ralf has come in as a manager who wants to play in a very contrasting way and the players have basically not done any of it. While Ole defended the players and made excuses for them, RR has been unwilling to give them a free ride. Yes he has very much exposed these players for the lazy overpaid and overindulged prima donnas they are.

Lets say Carrick takes over for the rest of the season (which yes, some people wanted). First of all, if he had god top 4 I can almost guarantee you he would have got the job and people on here would have loved it because they are idiots. Second of all he would have continued in Oles vein, letting the players run the show. Lets say he gets top 4, things aren't so bad and then ETH comes in.

What do you think would happen when he doesn't want to indulge the lazy cnuts in our team. We would probably have offered contract extensions to some of them and he would be stuck with them for a year or more. It would have completely undermined his first year.

We are currently in a position where much of the dross can be culled from the squad and we can start from a low base. I am actually excited for the first time in years. We have a good, modern manager who doesn't put up with any crap from his players and one that plays a modern style of football that pretty much all of the other top teams play a version of.

 

[Bestietom]

Source?

Manchester United were offered the option to buy one of their targets in the January transfer window, but decided to turn it down to help the next permanent manager.


It was an extremely quiet January window for United, despite the fact that they are far from guaranteed to finish inside the top four at the end of the season and qualify for next season's Champions League.

There were only outgoings at Old Trafford as Anthony Martial and Donny van de Beek joined Sevilla and Everton, respectively, though Jesse Lingard, Dean Henderson and Phil Jones remained at the club.
United were linked with several players, including a potential move for Amadou Haidara, and were one of many clubs rumoured to be interested in Ousmane Dembele.
However it seems like they'd never have signed anyone, as they even turned down one of their actual targets, in the shape of Marseille midfielder Boubacar Kamara.

According to Fabrizio Romano, the decision was made as the club are waiting to give their next manager more money to invest in the squad.
"Manchester United were offered the opportunity to sign Boubacar Kamara in the last days of the window," Romano said on his 'Here We Go' podcast.
"They turned down this chance because they will invest more money for the new manager.
"They want to wait and see what’s best."

 

[Matt007a]

I've not turned on him, although I wouldn't say he's totally blameless.

He wanted to change the style when he came in, that was clear from the first couple of games when we half pressed and ran out of steam very quickly.

From that point it's not clear if he just gave up because he didn't think he could make the players fit enough during the middle of the season in the 6 month time scale, or if the players simply didn't fancy it and forced his hand.

Normally you'd say it was the former, but with this bunch of players I could absolutely believe some of them refused to get on board. They knew he'd be out of the door in 6 months and so he couldn't really do much about it.

With ETH it'll be a different prospect. Partly because some of the bad eggs are leaving in the summer and partly because as a full time manager he has the power to simply get rid of players. Rangnick hasn't been given any backing to sign anyone or ship anyone out in January who was causing issues.

As soon as Rangnick started criticising the problematic players to the press they were always going to down tools on him. From there it only takes a few bad eggs to bring down the rest.

I can't be sure on this but the impression I get is that Rangnick creates a game plan and only certain players stick to it. If even a couple of the 11 go rogue the whole unit falls apart.

 

[SuperiorXI]

Manchester United were offered the option to buy one of their targets in the January transfer window, but decided to turn it down to help the next permanent manager.


It was an extremely quiet January window for United, despite the fact that they are far from guaranteed to finish inside the top four at the end of the season and qualify for next season's Champions League.

There were only outgoings at Old Trafford as Anthony Martial and Donny van de Beek joined Sevilla and Everton, respectively, though Jesse Lingard, Dean Henderson and Phil Jones remained at the club.
United were linked with several players, including a potential move for Amadou Haidara, and were one of many clubs rumoured to be interested in Ousmane Dembele.
However it seems like they'd never have signed anyone, as they even turned down one of their actual targets, in the shape of Marseille midfielder Boubacar Kamara.

According to Fabrizio Romano, the decision was made as the club are waiting to give their next manager more money to invest in the squad.
"Manchester United were offered the opportunity to sign Boubacar Kamara in the last days of the window," Romano said on his 'Here We Go' podcast.
"They turned down this chance because they will invest more money for the new manager.
"They want to wait and see what’s best."

Doesn't mention the price... for all we know it may have been his agent trying to get us to go for him. And in any case, Kamara would not have helped in the Greenwood situation since he's a midfielder.

 

[romufc]

The defense at the start of his tenure was a lot tighter, the players have just checked out.

At the end of the day, RR is just 6 months out of almost a decade of failure. He had no signings, no proper coaches and a squad where half the players don't even want to be here. It was a recipe for disaster. As a coach his playing style is high pressing, that idea was dead a few matches in as the players were not capable or simply disinterested in implementing it. So now he and his coaches have to set up the team in a manner that isn't ideal to the strengths as trainers.

Then we look at the team, Marcus woeful, Sancho still hit and miss and injured, Elanga raw...Ronaldo is the only decent forward.
Midfield they've all shit the bed, even Bruno, and Pogba simply doesn't give a toss about the club anymore.
Defense we have Varane who's too injured to settle, Maguire like Marcus has just got to shit. The fullbacks have all been crap.

You can say it's the coaches job to get the best out of the squad, and you'd be right. The problem is that we have none, and had to scrape the barrel to find some assistants.

Nowhere along the line did we create an environment that could rectify the situation.

I mean I dont care, if you are a semi decent coach, you should be able to get a team to defend. I saw 3 good defensive performances under Carrick.

Thats the least a coach can do, get a team to defend. Its not like the players are all bad, I mean some of them are World cup and Champions league winners.

I agree the coaches are probably worse than what we had with McKenna and them.

It will be interesting which of these players perform next season cause lets be honest, we are not selling all of them. The free ones will go but I expect 2/3 max outgoings of the contracted ones.

 

[Bestietom]

Doesn't mention the price... for all we know it may have been his agent trying to get us to go for him. And in any case, Kamara would not have helped in the Greenwood situation since he's a midfielder.

I did not download the whole story mate. if you want the whole story you can get it on Man Utd website what Romano wrote on 1st and 2nd February this year.

 

[Awwal Lawal]

One thing Ralf has done is to bring to light just how big the job is on rebuilding the whole club which will help ETH in the short and hopefully the longer term so just by taking the pressure slightly off the next manager is a plus on his side. People that want to give him zero credit are continually failing to look at the bigger picture.

We've been waiting for years for someone to tell it how it really is and now we have that someone it's a PR stunt? He's been a disaster as interim for whatever reasons but could prove to be one of the best things to happen to the club in a long time.

Just by hiring him has taken the club forward. If a lot of people got their wish and we hired Conte it would set us back even longer because our players would of downed tools on him as well due to the work ethic his system requires. Instead we're getting in one of the hottest properties in football. The club are finally moving forward and Ralf is a part of that and I find it hard to understand why people have completed written him off considering the experience he has in (re) structuring clubs.

If by telling it as it is then why sack Mourinho who gave a more brutal assessment of the squad.

Why should saying it as it is be called self - preservation in the case of Mourinho while for Ralf a masterstroke in moving the club forward.

Why do we have to have someone come in to tell us about glaring deficiency in the squad apparent for all to see be defined as a masterstroke of ingenuity?

None of what Ralf parrots over and over in his press conferences are hidden issues, why then do we have to derail a substantial part of the season to listen to this message.

If he is a genius in Club restructuring why don't he humbly excuse himself from the front facing role on the pitch and get to work "upstairs" behind the scenes.

With his years of experience in the Footballing Industry he should know that the front facing role of coaching is quite brutal.

Thus, if he is assumed as experienced, he should have focused on his strength which was club restructuring and management and allow a more qualified person handle the on pitch affairs.

A simple question for his advocates, if he wasn't the coach and was employed by Manchester United to assess a coach who had similar outputs during these six months as an outsider would he recommend such person for a role "upstairs"?

 

[georgipep]

Our problems under Ole have been evident since the honeymoon period was over in his first season. Lack of coaching, players not knowing what they were supposed to be doing on the pitch, complete lack of control of games, awful teamwork and disjointed attacking and defending. Yes, these issues were all massively apparent throughout Oles time. Oh and game management, awful.

Evident since the honeymoon period but still results until this season were constantly improving.

Don't mix facts with opinions. The entire bolded part is just opinion. Not a single fact. If anything, there are objective facts that support the opposite.

Awful game management while both achieving best league results since SAF and having the most comebacks in games? I would say that he had poor starting tactics but game management is definitely something he excelled at.

United results covered up the complete mess that those results were built on. Ole wasn't sacked out of the blue, he had a horrible run of results and seemingly couldn't motivate or fix the team that he had built at great expense. In comes a manager who isn't happy clappy and doesn't let them get away with putting in 3/10 effort levels and getting praised for it.

There were still plenty of people on here who didn't think Ole was at fault for this. For creating the team and culture around it. Mind boggling.

Do you think that the sudden change in player motivation was something that "just happened"? No other factors that contributed to that?

Ralf has come in as a manager who wants to play in a very contrasting way and the players have basically not done any of it. While Ole defended the players and made excuses for them, RR has been unwilling to give them a free ride. Yes he has very much exposed these players for the lazy overpaid and overindulged prima donnas they are.

And how did that helped him, the squad, the club or Ten Hag? I still can't figure that one out. Especially if "our problems under Ole have been evident since the honeymoon period was over in his first season".

Lets say Carrick takes over for the rest of the season (which yes, some people wanted). First of all, if he had god top 4 I can almost guarantee you he would have got the job and people on here would have loved it because they are idiots. Second of all he would have continued in Oles vein, letting the players run the show. Lets say he gets top 4, things aren't so bad and then ETH comes in.

What do you think would happen when he doesn't want to indulge the lazy cnuts in our team. We would probably have offered contract extensions to some of them and he would be stuck with them for a year or more. It would have completely undermined his first year.

Do you think any Manchester United manager post-SAF has had the full freedom to bin players they didn't want to keep? And the club had supported them in doing so. I would argue that Lukaku and Sanchez are examples of that, and sadly we will never know what Ole thought about others. But we do know what Mourinho thought of quite a few of our players and the club didn't allow him to sell them.

And the reason I'm writing this is because of the idea that there is any way a manager can be successful when not being 100% backed by the club, while not having top people management skill and relationships with his players. That just doesn't work in reality.

We are currently in a position where much of the dross can be culled from the squad and we can start from a low base. I am actually excited for the first time in years. We have a good, modern manager who doesn't put up with any crap from his players and one that plays a modern style of football that pretty much all of the other top teams play a version of.

Other than the players with expiring contracts and the ones that want to leave, I can't see why we would be in a position to cull anyone else.

I am super excited about Ten Hag and hope he gets all the backing he needs, but these lazy, agenda-driven statements about his predecessors are just total bs.

 

[Fletchageddon]

This season was dead as soon as the club signed Ronaldo. This led to massive unrest and ultimately Ole's sacking. It was the final unsustainable move of Woodward. Ralf has pulled back the curtain for the fans and he's revealed a circus where a modern football club should be. We should be forever grateful.

United and the fans became complacent and nostalgic. I admit I did. Thought Ole would be SAF reincarnate and some artistry and determination would win out. However we cannot. We need to modernise, consign the SAF era to the past and move forward.

Football has moved on. You are only as good as your last season as a club and the team is only as good as their last match. That's how we need to view ourselves.

 

[evil_geko]

Ralf is the best thing that has happened to this club in long time, if short term people can't see why, there is no arguing, it is going in circles.

God help Ten Hag with this fanbase.

 

[Zen86]

Ralf is the best thing that has happened to this club in long time, if short term people can't see why, there is no arguing, it is going in circles.

God help Ten Hag with this fanbase.

Hopefully it works out better than when Moyes exposed how rubbish we were.

 

[mctrials23]

Evident since the honeymoon period but still results until this season were constantly improving.

Results were improving slightly, performances were not even close to improving. The best spell under Ole was his first few months. In his best season he got 7 points less than Mourinho in his second place finish and did it in a season where Chelsea and Liverpool were a complete mess for a lot of the season.

In his first 2 season he managed to get the same points total and only in a season where arguably 3 of the main rivals for the top positions were garbage. He had also spend hundreds of millions at this point. I would expect him to be doing better each season based purely on that.

This is also the issue, performances and how you win/lose games is far more important than winning games when you are trying to build anything. This is what people have been saying for years. Scabbing results when you get dominated by teams at the bottom of the league isn't a good sign.

Don't mix facts with opinions. The entire bolded part is just opinion. Not a single fact. If anything, there are objective facts that support the opposite.

90% of football is opinion. If you genuinely think that Ole was actually building towards a side that could compete with Liverpool and City (and lets be honest, Chelsea will be around there over the next few years) then you are delusional. The gulf in quality between the football we played over the past 3 years and that of the aforementioned sides is frankly astronomical. Genuine question, how much football do you watch outside of United games?

Awful game management while both achieving best league results since SAF and having the most comebacks in games? I would say that he had poor starting tactics but game management is definitely something he excelled at.

Mourinho came second with 7 more points, with a cheaper team and in a season that didn't have most of the other top teams imploding spectacularly. Ole frequently didn't make any changes late into games to change them and probably cost us a Europa League as a result. Being so fecking useless in the first half of most of your games and coming back into them in the second half isn't something to brag about. That means you're making a mess of the first half. As people have pointed out repeatedly, we relied on our star players to do something special time after time after time. Thats not good management. None of the top teams rely on that. Their core is a good team that functions well and scores goals through teamwork. The star players add that extra 5% of magic. Our star players were responsible for 80% of our quality on the pitch.

Do you think that the sudden change in player motivation was something that "just happened"? No other factors that contributed to that?

No, it was perhaps a combination of Ronaldo coming back coupled with results finally reflecting performances. We were an accident waiting to happen. While results were half decent the players were OK, as soon as they soured they had no fundamentals to fall back on and it quickly turned into a shit show. Pampered, overpaid and overindulged players downing tools at the slightest sign of adversity. Who would have thought it. Ole bought that team. Ole put that team together and "coached" them. Its on him when they have the mentality of wet flannel.

And how did that helped him, the squad, the club or Ten Hag? I still can't figure that one out. Especially if "our problems under Ole have been evident since the honeymoon period was over in his first season".

Because plenty of our fans and probably our owners aren't capable of looking past results as a metric of team growth and improvement. When Klopp took over Liverpool you could see what he was trying to do. You could see the erratic improvement and where the team was heading. Under Ole there was none of that. No direction. Not tangible improvement in the quality of our play. No style, tactics or synergy between the players.

RR coming in certainly hasn't helped the players and i'm fine with that. If they don't want to earn their obscene wages then feck them. He has shown just how lazy and indifferent they are. He has shown which players have even a passing desire to be at United long term. As I said, he has potentially saved ETH months or a year of faff with these lot.

Do you think any Manchester United manager post-SAF has had the full freedom to bin players they didn't want to keep? And the club had supported them in doing so. I would argue that Lukaku and Sanchez are examples of that, and sadly we will never know what Ole thought about others. But we do know what Mourinho thought of quite a few of our players and the club didn't allow him to sell them.

You think Ferguson had that power? United hadn't bought a top class CM in years under Fergie. United were still at the top because of Fergie the manager, not because he was given anything like the funds he should have been. Our team in the last few years of Fergie was threadbare and not a patch on the competition.

Like it or not, Ole spend hundreds of millions on players he wanted. This was his team. I'm sure in a perfect world he might have got some different ones but no manager has their pick of the players. Klopp hasn't cherry picked the best players in the world. In fact, I can't think of too many Liverpool players that we're in massive demand when he bought them. Klopp is the antithesis of Ole. A manager who adds value to players and buys them for their synergy with the team, not because they are a star name or flavour of the month.

And the reason I'm writing this is because of the idea that there is any way a manager can be successful when not being 100% backed by the club, while not having top people management skill and relationships with his players. That just doesn't work in reality.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. Ole wasn't successful. Ole was heavily backed by the club and managed to leave a complete pile of crap at the end of his time here. Thats his legacy. 0 trophies, crap football for most of the time and a mess of a squad.

 

[Foxbatt]

The players are the ones to blame. We all know how Ralf wants to play. But the players don't play that way. Everyone can see that.
To get us into cl he has failed. But to expose the malaise in the club he has been brilliant.

 

[DRJosh]

Ralf needed to happen.

His role was clearly to expose our deficiencies under a more methodical framework and vision.
I’d like to think that his appointment will ultimately mark the end of strategic short-termism at our club

 

[SteveTheRed]

I like his honesty, but he was a terrible pick for manager. The only saving grace is that getting an interim for 6 months allowed us to get Ten Hag in the summer. If we didn't , we'd have rushed a decision for a permanent manager and probably being doing it all again.

Ultimately he got the job with a group of players that won't listen to him. Won't do as instructed. That is partly manager problem and players. A manager should be motivating those to play for him, run the extra yards and he has failed to do that. He should also be given the chance to sack those who are useless, which he won't. Hence why he is airing dirty laundry now.

 

[georgipep]

Results were improving slightly, performances were not even close to improving. The best spell under Ole was his first few months. In his best season he got 7 points less than Mourinho in his second place finish and did it in a season where Chelsea and Liverpool were a complete mess for a lot of the season.

In his first 2 season he managed to get the same points total and only in a season where arguably 3 of the main rivals for the top positions were garbage. He had also spend hundreds of millions at this point. I would expect him to be doing better each season based purely on that.

So, Ole's second place is because Chelsea and Liverpool were underperforming but Mourinho's second place was something else? Are you serious?

And the points total is more indicative of the quality of the rest of the league than anything else. We saw how good that Mourinho team really was.

90% of football is opinion. If you genuinely think that Ole was actually building towards a side that could compete with Liverpool and City (and lets be honest, Chelsea will be around there over the next few years) then you are delusional. The gulf in quality between the football we played over the past 3 years and that of the aforementioned sides is frankly astronomical. Genuine question, how much football do you watch outside of United games?

I watch quite a lot of PL football and the occasional CL game.

Can you tell me which team in the PL has managed to consistently build towards bridging the gap between them and City/Liverpool? It's double as difficult when you have one hand tied behind your back (the club) and the fans constantly demand bs hype words like "patterns of play". Honestly, that's what clickbait and sound-bite pundits like Scholes and Keane thrive on. You should aim higher.

Ole frequently didn't make any changes late into games to change them and probably cost us a Europa League as a result. Being so fecking useless in the first half of most of your games and coming back into them in the second half isn't something to brag about.

So, now you are diving into the crystal ball hypotheticals...Ok. What if Pogba was available all season? What if Martial didn't miss his dozens of chances? What if the board bought Fernandes the previous transfer window, when he was originally identified?

Making changes to turn games around is probably #1 sign of good game management.

That means you're making a mess of the first half. As people have pointed out repeatedly, we relied on our star players to do something special time after time after time. Thats not good management. None of the top teams rely on that. Their core is a good team that functions well and scores goals through teamwork. The star players add that extra 5% of magic. Our star players were responsible for 80% of our quality on the pitch.

You should think through your statements before posting them. Let's have a look at the star players in the top teams and their contribution:
Man Utd (20/21) - 73 goals
Fernandes - 18 goals
Rashford - 11 goals
Cavani - 10 goals
Total of 39 goals or 53.4% of their team total

Man Utd (21/22) - 57 goals
Ronaldo - 18 goals
Fernandes - 10 goals
our third highest league goalscorer is....Greenwood with 5
Total of 33 goals or 57.8%

Liverpool (21/22) - 87 goals
Salah - 22 goals
Jota - 15 goals
Mane - 14 goals
Total of 51 goals or 58.6% of their team total

City (21/22) - 89 goals
Sterling - 12 goals
De Bruyne - 11 goals
Mahrez - 11 goals
Foden - 9 goals
Jesus - 8 goals
Total of 51 goals or 57.3% of their team total

So...our star players contributed to our total goals last season...LESS than this season or compared to City and Liverpool. But I guess stats are irrelevant as they don't agree with your agenda?

Chelsea make a real case of it with Mount being their league top scorer with 10 goals.

We were an accident waiting to happen.

Such statements are ridiculous for a team that made steady progress over the course of 2+ seasons.

Pampered, overpaid and overindulged players downing tools at the slightest sign of adversity. Who would have thought it. Ole bought that team.

Ole bought:
Summer 1: Maguire, AWB, James (sold)
January: Ighalo (emergency loan), Bruno

Summer 2: Donny, Amad, Pellistri, Cavani, Telles

Summer 3: Sancho, Varane, Heaton, Ronaldo

Ok, who are the pampered, overpaid and overindulged players in this group?

Maguire? The same one who caused Mourinho to implode and get himself sacked? The same one wanted by Pep and City? Ok, we paid a lot of money for him. Was that Ole's decision?
AWB? How is he pampered, overpaid and overindulged? When did you hear anything negative about him?
Donny? Half the Caf wanted him. He was supposed to be the ultimate combination player that will work wonders, why would Real want him otherwise? How has he been pampered, overpaid and overindulged?
Telles? Quite a lot of reports out there that he wasn't Ole's choice but was forced to accept since the club neither sold the deadwood he wanted out, nor bought who he wanted. Regardless, I think Telles is not good enough for us but when was he pampered, overpaid and overindulged?
Cavani? He was the most determined player we had last season. This season he is a shadow of himself. I don't know how Ole got him to deliver so much better last year, but he obviously did.

Because plenty of our fans and probably our owners aren't capable of looking past results as a metric of team growth and improvement.

If our club cares what the fans think, we are in deeper trouble than it seems.

When Klopp took over Liverpool you could see what he was trying to do. You could see the erratic improvement and where the team was heading.

You should speak to more Liverpool fans. I have quite a lot of them in my circle and they are STILL negative towards Klopp. In his first 2 seasons they wanted him out every week.

You think Ferguson had that power?

Yes, he definitely did. Just see the star players he sold and then buying older players for significant amounts.

Ole spend hundreds of millions on players he wanted. This was his team.

Unlike other managers, who only spent £12 total. First, Ole didn't negotiate player prices. Second, "players he wanted" is something that every manager at United since SAF has disputed.

Klopp hasn't cherry picked the best players in the world.

No, Klopp cherry picked the players he wanted and waited patiently to get them, while his club supported this strategy.

 

[RopersReturn]

He needs called out, worst interim appointment I can remember. Players have been a joke but he's not improved one player or the team. All these fan channels defending him too, a breath of fresh air. Is he really? Calling out players then playing them a few games later, any person could point out the glaring deficiencies. Managers get the best out of what you have. Tactically, mentality, shape or even individually. He might be great behind the scenes building and recruiting, starting to get annoyed how he's immune to criticism. Especially from our fan base.

At least we got rid of the wretched Jim Lawlor and Marcel Bout thanks to Ralf. The amount of damage Woodward has done can’t be underestimated either.