United is still a top club

[devilish]

In the 1990-1991 season Juventus ended 7th place. That despite having top players like Roberto Baggio, Salvatore Schillaci and Thomas Hassler. That wasn't an anomaly. Juventus came 6th during the 1987-1988 season, they came 4th during the 1988-1989 season and the 1989-90 season. This blip wasn't a Juventus exclusive thing either. Inter came 8th during the 91-92 season, 6th during the 94-95 season and 95-96 season. The 1998-1999 season had Juventus and Inter at 7th and 8th place respectively while during the 1993-1994 Inter came 13th place just 1 point away from relegation. That was despite Inter having players like Zenga, Bergomi, Bergkamp, Jonk, Schillaci and former golden boot Darko Pancev.

What is my point? These things do happen in super competitive leagues were every game matter and fine margins decide who wins or who loses. The Serie A of the time was not a 1-2 horse race league were the likes of Bayern, PSG or Real/Barcelona would win the league no matter what. One bad managerial appointment, a couple of bad signings or an injury or two was enough to see that club slip to ridiculous levels. Yet despite the clear upset the likes of Inter and Juventus had, no one dared showing them any form of disrespect. That was because everyone knew that the Serie A of the time was the best league in the world and everyone wanted to play there.

The EPL is not as good as the Serie A of the time. I mean you don't see a team like Fiorentina get relegated despite having top talent such as Batistuta. However its pretty close to that. We have the best managers (Klopp, Pep, Conte, ETH etc) and some of the finest players. United might be in the Europa league but it has a unique history, one of the biggest fan base in the world, one of the most promising managers in football, we have a rare level of humanity towards players which borders to the naïve and on top of that we pay some of the highest salaries in football. We take that for granted but we really shouldn't. Not that far away from our football borders top clubs struggle to pay the salary of their own players (although that doesn't stop a particular club from buying new players) and their major signings happen to be our rejects (Pogba, ADM, Lukaku).

That doesn't mean we're flawless and in my opinion its our duty as fans/guardians of the club to expect these faults to be sorted. However no one from the outside should be in the position to disrespect the club or make the club look small to suit his agenda (ex paying any pending salary accrued at a club at the brink of bankrupcy). United is still a top club who can attract great players in. Its up to our DOF to step up and be counted by quickly switching targets if needs be.

 

[Thoms]

I agree but the 3 years under Ole have seriously damaged the image of the club. Doesn’t mean youre not a top club anymore, you sure are.

 

[AltiUn]

I agree but the 3 years under Ole have seriously damaged the image of the club. Doesn’t mean youre not a top club anymore, you sure are.

I think it was mainly last season, last summer we attracted Sancho, Varane and Ronaldo which speaks to how we were viewed at that time.

 

[Sandikan]

The fact our first SEVEN games are on tv shows the enduring appeal United have.
Could do with getting back into gear on the pitch though!

 

[Slon]

The fact that posts like that occur means that we at least lost self confidence.

 

[Von Mistelroum]

We're definitely badly diminished but it takes much longer to be no longer considered a top club, however time isn't on our side. Our fanbase will diminish over time and the longer we make ourselves look like a banter club, the worse things will be.

 

[dcrompton]

Not sure about Serie A not being dominated by 1 or 2 clubs. Between 91 and 98 Serie A was only won by 2 clubs, AC Milan (5) and Juventus (3)

 

[mu4c_20le]

Felt like we were less attractive under LVG, only big name he could get was di Maria. We ended up with a bunch of alternatives and saw how that turned out. No CL was also a big issue, as always.

 

[Someone]

We're definitely badly diminished but it takes much longer to be no longer considered a top club, however time isn't on our side. Our fanbase will diminish over time and the longer we make ourselves look like a banter club, the worse things will be.

Liverpool failed to challenge for decades and still maintained their top club status. We've been mismanaged for a while, but all in all we still have the financial muscle to bounce, and we still have a massive fanbase, and that will always attract top players. Honestly I'm not worried about the club status at all, I just want us to go in the right direction, and then watch us challenging for everything again.

 

[Tavern in the town]

The EPL is not as good as the Serie A of the time.

Is this really true? I am too young to have watched Serie A at the time but the current Premier League is tactically and physically streets ahead of any league in the 90s imo (as I said I’m too young to have watched it at the time but literally any clip I’ve seen of 90s football and I’m struck by how open teams seem to be compared to today.)

 

[wolvored]

In England we are still one of the top four clubs with Liverpool City and Chelsea. Abroad we are much lower.
When was the last time we went in for a big name player and won the battle against Europes or Premier elite? The two best strikers available went to City and Liverpool with a minimum of fuss,and we might beat Arsenal to Martinez, in a two horse race, yet we cant convince FDJ to willingly come here, even when his club and agent want him to leave Barca.
We usually have to pay mega wages to convince players to come here, Sancho an example, but there have been others. We have fell way off the club and side we were a decade ago and people need to realise this. Hopefully TH can reverse this asap.

 

[Noodle]

Of course Utd are still a big club, but they’ve certainly slipped down the pecking order over this past decade.

Before Ferguson left you’d say only Real and Barca could rival Utd’s pulling power. Now you could put several teams in front from a player perspective. Real, Barca, Bayern, City, Juve, PSG, Liverpool and even Chelsea are arguably more attractive to a player right now.

The good news is you still have a huge fanbase and a few good seasons and things would swing back again. Liverpool are ginormous again commercially and performance wise and they were in the wilderness for an eternity in comparison.

 

[Spaghetti]

It is still a top club but at a very tricky phase.

We still want to buy the best players, and can afford them, but they don’t want to come because we are in the EL and a bit of a mess at the minute.

I don’t think things will get better immediately, but they will eventually. My hunch says that we will get lucky punts in the transfer market or a great crop of youth team players come through.

 

[el3mel]

What's even the point of this thread ?

And non United fans have the right to think whatever they want about us while being shit. Not like we weren't thinking the same of Liverpool back in the day when they were finishing regularly 6th-7th.

 

[devilish]

Is this really true? I am too young to have watched Serie A at the time but the current Premier League is tactically and physically streets ahead of any league in the 90s imo (as I said I’m too young to have watched it at the time but literally any clip I’ve seen of 90s football and I’m struck by how open teams seem to be compared to today.)

Tactics had evolved of course. Its like comparing military tactics of WW2 vs modern warfare. However in terms of quality across the board, I still believe that the Serie A of the time was better. Even mid table/small clubs in the Serie A at the time had absolute talents such as Voller and Cannigia (Roma), Careca and Maradona (Napoli), Gazza, Signori and Boksic (Lazio), Zico (Udinese), Muller (Torino) etc. The situation had degenerated into such silliness that Fiorentina got relegated despite having Laudrup and Batistuta in the team, Brescia could afford buying Hagi from Real (who was kept despite being relegated) and Inter came 1 point away from getting relegated despite having some serious talent in the team. Meanwhile the amount of bidoni (ie garbage bins aka failures) included Ian Rush, Denis Bergkamp, Hristo Stoichkov and former golden boot Darko Pancev while scoring more then 20 goals + per season in a league studded with WC defenders was an extremely difficult feat. In fact between 1980-81 and 1990-91 only Platini and Serena managed to score 20 goals + that despite the league being spoiled with top quality forwards like Van Basten, Maradona, Vialli, Zico and Careca

What the EPL excels upon is that its financially sustainable, something the Serie A never was and probably never will be. The glory days of the 80s and 90s lead to a financial burnout later on.

 

[devilish]

What's even the point of this thread ?

And non United fans have the right to think whatever they want about us while being shit. Not like we weren't thinking the same of Liverpool back in the day when they were finishing regularly 6th-7th.

my point has nothing to do with fans but with prospective players who try to use our recent dip to try and get money out of us.

 

[McGrathsipan]

Big business
Shite team

Players really want to join good teams.

 

[R'hllor]

We are not even a football club to begin with.

 

[Fanta Stick]

Top banter club.

 

[Bastian]

We're not what we used to be and we've got a long way to go if we get close to what we were.

 

[Amir]

Top club, always.

Crap team, though. That's a seperate thing.

 

[tjb]

We are still the most supported club in the world, which for me makes us the biggest.

In terms of pulling power, we have never been this juggernaut, even at our absolute peak. We were still losing the likes of Robben to Chelsea in 2004. We never signed players like Zidane, Figo etc either. Our big transfer, like Veron, came from situations like Barca are in, where Lazio could not afford to keep their star and needed to sell immediately.

I would go a step further to this and say that, even though we have lost ground to City and Liverpool, any player would still take us over any other team in England. In Europe, the only other teams with more pulling power are PSG, Bayern, Barca and Madrid. This is with us struggling over the last ten years. In truth, us showing an ability to play good football and compete for trophies would immediately push us quickly up the totem pole. Our aim should not be to compete with Barca or Real in terms of overall pull, or City and PSG in terms of financial muscle, but to ensure that we are always ahead of a team like Bayern in terms of attraction.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

I agree but the 3 years under Ole have seriously damaged the image of the club. Doesn’t mean youre not a top club anymore, you sure are.

This 100%

 

[Rojow]

Nothing last forever if we cannot turn this around.

 

[el3mel]

my point has nothing to do with fans but with prospective players who try to use our recent dip to try and get money out of us.

And they're right to do whatever they think suits them ? Why should they care about United's image ?

This is honestly a very entitled point of view and I hate to use the word "entitled" but the situation suits this word.

 

[VorZakone]

What if RAWK had a thread like this? Would the Caf make fun of it?

 

[Will Singh]

I think since SAF left it’s been downhill and under Ole we were stagnant and attracted a couple of top players. Things looked like we’d made a turn but somehow last season we just gave up, it was like the club lost the will to live. This season is massive for the club and if we don’t do anything then I can’t even imagine how far we will slide…

 

[arthurka]

What if RAWK had a thread like this? Would the Caf make fun of it?

You think?

 

[Blood Mage]

Glazers have turned us into more of a franchise than a football club, where players come to get big wages and sponsorship deals rather than win trophies.

 

[bringbackbebe]

Glazers have turned us into more of a franchise than a football club, where players come to get big wages and sponsorship deals rather than win trophies.

Think there is clear acceptance that this approach needs to change, even amongst the Glazers. If you watched Arnold's interview recently, you could see statements like:
"Do you want me to go ahead and complete the transfers? Does that ring a bell?" (reference to Woody)
"If you go into the training ground and ask where the billion pound is? I can't see it"

We've made decisions recently that's taking us forward as a club for the first time in a decade. This will start paying off soon.

 

[Ted Lasso]

Haaland was asked who he looks forward to playing the most in the PL. Answer? Manchester United.

Thought that was interesting considering he's a bit younger. Maybe in part due to the family history

 

[Red the Bear]

Not the best comparison to be honest.

In those times no matter what juve, inter and Milan would be the big horses in terms of financial might but that ain't really the case here anymore with straight up state backed clubs running the show.

I'll be very worried especially with the addition of Newcastle, several terrible years to add to the ones we've already had and we could end up wallowing in the sea of mediocrity for the years to come.

 

[wolvored]

Haaland was asked who he looks forward to playing the most in the PL. Answer? Manchester United.

Thought that was interesting considering he's a bit younger. Maybe in part due to the family history

Maybe would have said Spurs if he signed for Arsenal or Liverpool if signed by Everton maybe?

 

[Frank Grimes]

Maybe would have said Spurs if he signed for Arsenal or Liverpool if signed by Everton maybe?

He hates United because Keane wounded his oul lad.

 

[wolvored]

He hates United because Keane wounded his oul lad.

Yes there is that as well, but wasnt he going to join Utd under Ole, but we wouldnt accept the buy out clause, or was that just media talk?

 

[Frank Grimes]

Yes there is that as well, but wasnt he going to join Utd under Ole, but we wouldnt accept the buy out clause, or was that just media talk?

He hates utd. Solskjaer couldn't even convince him to come to utd and he knew him very well.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

...but wasnt he going to join Utd under Ole, but we wouldnt accept the buy out clause, or was that just media talk?

Hard to say but it was at least heavily rumoured at the time.

Anyway, I doubt very much that Haaland turned us down because of the Keane incident (or whatever) - far more likely that it was the BOC: United would have wanted to tie him down for at least five years without any BOC, whereas Dortmund never have any issues with BOCs and the like.

 

[Ted Lasso]

Maybe would have said Spurs if he signed for Arsenal or Liverpool if signed by Everton maybe?

Comes across like he still would have said United. I'm just wondering whether it's because of the club history or more specific to the Haaland family history

 

[OverratedOpinion]

Okay, that's good then.

 

[meamth]

We're definitely badly diminished but it takes much longer to be no longer considered a top club, however time isn't on our side. Our fanbase will diminish over time and the longer we make ourselves look like a banter club, the worse things will be.

Liverpool was a banter club before Klopp arrived. Things can change quickly.