Gary Neville on United

Santoryo said:

Glad someone mentioned this. People be acting as if teams like Real, Barca etc never had their share of trouble and dark years in Europe.

Like you mentioned Madrid constantly failed to get past the quarter final stage of the CL for a decade, Juventus were in Series B etc. These things happen to all teams. People pretending otherwise are either ignorant or being disingenuous.

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Theirs lasted a couple of generations until Cruyff came along

Very late to the party, just watched this.

Love hearing Gary talk about United and pretty much always end up agreeing with him. How can anyone dislike the man is beyond me.

Andersonson said:

Glad Neville agrees with me on Herrera. A meh player. Nothing special at all and there are loads of players lik him around. We should aim higher if its the correct personality. I like what we've done this summer. Steady, but a plan.

The-not-spending-glazer-out has to take a break for a while and get behind our plan and manager.

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It's all well and good saying that Herrera's a bit of a meh player, but the problem is that all the better midfielders that are out there are out there at other clubs and not at United. He was still our second best midfielder out of a midfield three and we haven't replaced him with a similar version, let alone a better one.

Santoryo said:

Glad someone mentioned this. People be acting as if teams like Real, Barca etc never had their share of trouble and dark years in Europe.

Like you mentioned Madrid constantly failed to get past the quarter final stage of the CL for a decade, Juventus were in Series B etc. These things happen to all teams. People pretending otherwise are either ignorant or being disingenuous.

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Umm Madrid failing to get into the quarters is not the same as united not getting in the champions league 4/6 years not the same level at all. Juventus going to serie b again is not the same either as the reason they were there was not because of the team ability or performance.

Steerpike said:

The point about success going in cycles was reasonable as well - how boring would football become if that wasn't the case - but I do wonder whether money has changed the game in ways that make it harder for clubs to catch up if they fall behind.

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The part about cycles seems reasonable but as mentioned above we’ve hit a dip not because of a natural cycle but due to the ineptitude of the board (poor signings of players and managers).
I do agree that we seem to be on a better trajectory atm so that’s a positive. Also agree with GN that we couldn’t realistically gut the team all at once. Hopefully we will get rid of the dross over the next 2 or 3 transfer windows and replace as necessary with talented young & hungry players.

Jim Beam said:

Very late to the party, just watched this.

Love hearing Gary talk about United and pretty much always end up agreeing with him. How can anyone dislike the man is beyond me.

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Hyperbole surely? Even his biggest fans must be able to see that he rubs people the wrong way. I never used to understand why non-united fans didn’t like him during his playing days but he’s definitely a bit of a busy body.

OL29 said:

Hyperbole surely? Even his biggest fans must be able to see that he rubs people the wrong way. I never used to understand why non-united fans didn’t like him during his playing days but he’s definitely a bit of a busy body.

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Not really. I mean, disagreeing with the man, yeah, sure. He sometimes does talk bollocks especially during the games and when he tries to be neutral going exactly opposite of that.
But, when he talks purely about United as the main topic you can see he cares about the club. In combination with his playing career which he gave to us, I don't understand how anyone can dislike or have any animosity towards him.

Then again, I never understood why people take anything that our former players have to say so emotionally.

Santoryo said:

Glad someone mentioned this. People be acting as if teams like Real, Barca etc never had their share of trouble and dark years in Europe.

Like you mentioned Madrid constantly failed to get past the quarter final stage of the CL for a decade, Juventus were in Series B etc. These things happen to all teams. People pretending otherwise are either ignorant or being disingenuous.

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Unfortunately, quite a few people don't seem to agree. Liverpool hadn't won anything for years. City have just started and are enjoying probably their best moment, but by no means does it mean they will dominate for years.

Barca, Real dominated Europe and at those times you looked at them and think, how is someone going to beat them? But managers are afraid of tinkering with winning teams, they becoming complacent and they drop. And I mention it again, we are lucky we had Fergie who signed players to replace players. But even he did not have the easiest rides back when he was almost retired.

This is why I think Liverpool might have missed a trick, going in with the same squad.

fallengt said:

The way Neville put it he implied that some thing's bound to happen. It's not.

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Of course it is going to happen. Name one team that has maintained that peak long term?

Anustart89 said:

Now, one would think that a team that keeps investing, restructuring, adapting and rejuvenating its squad could potentially stay at the top for longer than a 'natural cycle'.

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Agreed and SAF is proof of that but even with the right management and investment there is always a new tactic (Pep's tiki-taka for example), a new methodology (Wenger's sports science and vapo rub) or a hungrier manager (Mourinho) to eventually contend with and you don't always come out on top.

Anustart89 said:

It's all well and good saying that Herrera's a bit of a meh player, but the problem is that all the better midfielders that are out there are out there at other clubs and not at United. He was still our second best midfielder out of a midfield three and we haven't replaced him with a similar version, let alone a better one.

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Yep.
Regardless of what fans think of Herrera, or Neville, he was clearly our 2nd best midfielder last season. The other options were:

Matic
Fred
McTominay
Pereira

Herrera was better than all of them. He left for free and we didn't replace him. That's a downgrade no matter which way Gary spins it, and while there maybe plenty of midfielders better than Ander out there...…..we didn't sign a single one of them. So Gary's point is completely redundant. We downgraded in midfield, no ifs or buts.

McTominay might end up having a belter of a season and we might think 'shit, he's better than Herrera'.

Newsflash - we had Scott last season, so we have still downgraded in midfield by lesser numbers alone.

It's the downgrading that is hard to defend and that is on the owners/Woodward for not shoring up the numbers with a new midfielder. And as Gary said "there's lot of them out there better than Ander."

So it should have been easy enough.

Hard to agree with anything Gary has said there. Im not even sure he's convinced of it.

Of course football has its cycles, but lets not pretend like this is some natural occurrence. This is the result of an outdated structure and lack of qualified personnel.

mancan92 said:

Umm Madrid failing to get into the quarters is not the same as united not getting in the champions league 4/6 years not the same level at all. Juventus going to serie b again is not the same either as the reason they were there was not because of the team ability or performance.

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SPOT ON!

GBBQ said:

Of course it is going to happen. Name one team that has maintained that peak long term?

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Technically, it's a "phase" not a "cycle".
United's still in top 3 for most valuable football clubs in the world in last 20 years. We're not doing a Leed.