It's not an easy task to create a PL winning team. The starting place is an important factor. Turning Newcastle to title challengers is a different challenge than turning a sleeping giant around. It's easier to come and win a few cups at United because you're bound to have some experience at the top level, it's not the first time for the club. At United you have more baggage. Having weight to throw around in a cup or two is great but in a rebuilding process, that is all dead weight. Big ego's not contributing ruins the team moral. On one hand you can't do it without them, but you sure as shit can't do it with them. As a manager what do you do?
Do you put your foot down, play youngsters and pay the price? For that to happen you need full backing and safety for your job, and a whole process of shifting these players out and hunting for new ones should start immediately.
Do you protect your assets by slowly phasing these players out? Do you have replacements in the squad? Do you have a core within the team you can rely on to back you?
I knew we were going to struggle this year. I didn't know about the injury crisis with Shaw, Varane and AWB out or lack of form from all our key players like Bruno, Rashford, Martinez, Casemiro. But I did know we never bought a CDM. We bought Casemiro and thought that was that. We never replaced Fred who had the legs to support all our midfield combinations. We never upgraded Lindelof, Dalot, Maguire etc even though we know they don't fit our requirements as backup players, and have no chance of establishing themselves as first team players. Yet, because we don't do anything with what we learn about the squad, we keep seeing what we've been seeing. If things were going bad and we had new players with potential, at least we would be waiting for something potentially to change, but to expect new things from that lot is dumb. So I knew we was fecked when we kept signing few players for big money, when we really needed a bigger overhaul.
We seem to have taken the approach of slowly adding to the team, so to not need to do a full rebuild process. If you have a core team, structure, a manager you trust and the patience of the fans this might work. However, last ten years we've had some good moments but it's all been built on a house of cards. We effectively keep building on the same tower of shit, because really it cost a lot of money to do it the other way, and we've already spent a lot of money. The patience of the fans is hinging on a managers ability to be pragmatic and create moments, to distract us while we wait for real change. Fans turn on the manager even if he manages to do that, because it's not what we want.
Let's have an objective look at our current rebuild.
Signings:
Antony
Casemiro
Martinez
Malacia
Mount
Hojlund
Onana
By position, it seems the bare minimum. How do we supply and build around that, for consistency and the future.
Loan:
Reguilon
Amrabat
Sabitzer
Weghorst
Free transfers:
Johnny Evans
Eriksen
We're filling gaps all-right but for too many positions at once, with a severe lack of quality.
The thing is, how are we going to sell Sancho, Van de Beek etc. and on top of that now sell Antony. If we after two seasons know that a player isn't going to work out, we should be able to sell him and use that funds to reinvest in the squad. Not persist with him for years and years. We're so far behind, some of the action needed to be taken years ago and this small ball approach in the market with a bunch of loan signings just stinks of no willingness to commit and invest anymore. We can't get rid of Maguire, so instead of buying a new CB, we buy Johnny Evans.
We also need to stop signing Kagawa all over again. Every year we spend a chunk of money on an attacking midfielder we really don't need, just because they are so easy to come about in the market. That's not rebuilding, it's adding to the house of cards. We could have bought Haaland, Odegaard, Caicedo amongst other talented youngsters if we had been willing to invest in young players in the market, yet we've been too busy "protecting" our assets to pay them any mind.