What went wrong with our squad

Roboc7 · Sep 23, 2019

The squad is really weak and could slip a lot further down than people think this season. That midfield yesterday was shocking but it’s only Pogba missing, there’s no RW and no proven goal scorer.

We’ve missed and continue to miss how football has developed. A DOD or equivalent, a manager who coaches his players and teaches them a style of play, recruiting with that in mind and getting rid of players who can’t do it.

None of Mata, Matic, Perreira or Mctominay would be a regular at likes of West Ham, Wolves, Leicester or Everton let alone top six teams.

We spent a world record fee on a defender who is good but not great, his former team didn’t buy anyone but I fully expect them to finish above us. We’re a joke and it’s not even close to changing.

1988 · Sep 23, 2019

ivaldo said:

Yeah it's totally hilarious. Really puts the shine on our club. Talking about how he wants to go home and f*** his girlfriend while attempting to put his fingers in her mouth and then licking them himself. And the video where he jumps on Garners crotch? Good stuff.

Schmeichel's Cartwheel · Sep 23, 2019

The decline began in the summer of 2009.

Out- Cristiano Ronaldo & Carlos Tevez

In- Antonio Valencia & Michael Owen

Wasn't Arjen Robben available for about £20m that summer? How on earth we allowed that to happen I'll never know. The fact that we won another 2 league titles & got to a champions league final after that is a testament to just how good Fergie was. He really was papering over the cracks.

Look at the following two summers, we brought in players like Hernandez, Smalling, Bebe, Young etc, cheap options, while City paid for the likes of Yaya Toure, David Silva & Aguero. Looking back, of course they were going to overtake us. We did this to ourselves though with years of underspending, then trying to play catch up with 4 different managers & 4 different visions. Missing out on Eden Hazard in 2012 because of agent fees was a big big blow.

Basically we're a mess, and it was 10 years in the making.

INF-AMOS · Sep 23, 2019

I'd love to have the time or abilty to sit down and write a book called...
'The Destruction of a Football Giant in eight Year's'.
Eight years because this mess actually started even before Fergie retired with his "No value in the transfer market" statement then the subsequent failure to replace the likes of Keane or an aging squad.

You have to consider that Glazernomics was in action back then and they've only generally thrown money at the squad more as knee jerk reaction signings rather than as any long term strategy....

Then bad managerial appointments and much of the stuff written above ... etc etc etc etc

lysglimt · Sep 23, 2019

Ask yourself this - how many Points would we have if we had a proven goalscorer, and a very good midfielder ?

SirAF · Sep 23, 2019

Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
The decline began in the summer of 2009.

Out- Cristiano Ronaldo & Carlos Tevez

In- Antonio Valencia & Michael Owen

Wasn't Arjen Robben available for about £20m that summer? How on earth we allowed that to happen I'll never know. The fact that we won another 2 league titles & got to a champions league final after that is a testament to just how good Fergie was. He really was papering over the cracks.

Look at the following two summers, we brought in players like Hernandez, Smalling, Bebe, Young etc, cheap options, while City paid for the likes of Yaya Toure, David Silva & Aguero. Looking back, of course they were going to overtake us. We did this to ourselves though with years of underspending, then trying to play catch up with 4 different managers & 4 different visions. Missing out on Eden Hazard in 2012 because of agent fees was a big big blow.

Basically we're a mess, and it was 10 years in the making.

Bang on.

lysglimt · Sep 23, 2019

Josh 76 said:
I wouldn't be surprised if 4 or 5 players of most teams in the premier league would walk into Utds first 11. That's how fecked up it is.

No they wouldn't - most of the teams don't have players better than AWB, Maguire, VL, Shaw,DDG, Pogba, Martial and Pogba

Robbie Boy · Sep 23, 2019

Reminds me of a Leeds file I had on maybe CM or one of the first FM’s, I can’t quite recall. Yes, I know, a Leeds file but much like Lingard, I was young and learnin’. Anyhow, basically I bought really shit players who I for some reason, thought were going to be good. I also bought past it nonsense on high wages who flopped badly. In the end, I think I got fired somewhere around the relegation zone. It was my only time on any incarnation of the game that I was fired.

Me and my bro still laugh about it but neither of have much to laugh about as he’s an Arsenal fan. Basically this United side are literally a carbon copy of that ill-fated Leeds side.

ivaldo · Sep 23, 2019

1988 said:
Yeah it's totally hilarious. Really puts the shine on our club. Talking about how he wants to go home and f*** his girlfriend while attempting to put his fingers in her mouth and then licking them himself. And the video where he jumps on Garners crotch? Good stuff.

It’s hilarious that a 17 year old being a 17 year old somehow offends you. I mean, how insignificant must your life be for this to actually bother you?

It is, of course, the source of all our issues. If only our players were consummate professionals like Citehs are. Then we would be some real success!

1988 · Sep 23, 2019

ivaldo said:
It’s hilarious that a 17 year old being a 17 year old somehow offends you. I mean, how insignificant must your life be for this to actually bother you?

It is, of course, the source of all our issues. If only our players were consummate professionals like Citehs are. Then we would be some real success!

Oh wow, taking it to a personal level? That's harsh. He's a 17 year old professional footballer player for one of the biggest brands in football. I can boil it down to me being fed up with some of our players acting as if social media is all that matters rather than winning games and getting us back on track. Can you see the winning and fighting mentality in the lot?

ottosec · Sep 23, 2019

Our squad is in such a mess because we treated and gave free hand to our managers like they were Sir Alex.

I mean first we had Moyes, who was a questionable appointment at best. He refused Tiago because he was not PL proven and signed Fellaini instead.

And worst of all he came and sacked all our top staff that Fergie put together in many years and brought his men from fecking Everton. I think this might have been the biggest blow, I can't remember a single player improving in his time at United since then. :annoyed:

Then we had LVG who also rejected a top midfielder because he didn't match his philosophy(Kroos) and brought dross instead. He sold a shitload of experienced proven winners and replaced them with shit players whose only quality was that they fit his criteria. He literally only signed Rojo because he was left-footed and he was obsessed with playing a left-footed CB on the left side. :houllier:

Then we had Mourinho who spent almost half a billion on players and managed to fall out with every one of them. These days he moans on TV how he wasn't backed up

and how our team is trash, when he was the one to buy many of these players.

We should have appointed a DOF from the start and build the squad without regards to any manager. Let them prove themselves by improving current players first, then give them free rein over the transfers.

ivaldo · Sep 23, 2019

1988 said:
Oh wow, taking it to a personal level? That's harsh. He's a 17 year old professional footballer player for one of the biggest brands in football. I can boil it down to me being fed up with some of our players acting as if social media is all that matters rather than winning games and getting us back on track. Can you see the winning and fighting mentality in the lot?

The irony of you taking issue with the ‘personal’ aspect of my comment. :lol:

You could boil it down to that, but you certainly wouldn’t be able to qualify it. We’ve had Silva at City posting some pretty abhorrent things on SM over the last few days but that didn’t stop him banging in a hat trick against Watford on the weekend.

Are you asking me to judge Greenwood on a collective view of the team? Do I see fight in this side? With some players, yes. With a lot, no. Does that mean automatically a 17 year old being a 17 year old means he isn’t committed? Come on.

Crustanoid · Sep 23, 2019

Ed should have found the cash to buy the 4-5 other players we needed to get our squad up to speed - that’s what went wrong.

He should have not dithered around all summer so they could all have time together to gel.

He should have got a DOF and started implementing a football philosophy/structure more than a year ago, rather than cutting corners. Even if Ole is not the manager to take us forward-we will continue to go backwards whilst football is not a priority here.

Mark Pawelek · Sep 23, 2019

The table shows the squad and their average MEN rating (this year). A total of 24 players saw match action.
I included players who've not played (in sky blue). These include 3 players who were injured at the season's start (2 of whom may have gone out on loan had they been fit). Plus 2 others who are closest to the 1st team squad but whom may not play at all.
Of the 24 players who've played:

We are light on experienced midfielders & strikers
Creative players (positions 7,8,9,10,11) are relatively weak (at creating goals) compared to previous years.

Heading "Weighted Average / manager" shows the performance of each Manager's signings. Ole is top with 6.2. Jose and Moyes are bottom with 5.0
Even home-grown youth graduates are doing better than the average Moyes/Mourinho signing.

Lay · Sep 23, 2019

How much have we spent? And look at the state of our squad, it’s embarrassing.

drdoityourself · Sep 23, 2019

We haven't had any direction since SAF left. If only there was a position in football for a certain person to set the direction of a squad and a playing style.

The culture in this club is so set in the 90's. The only players who last here it seems are the hard working, lacking-in-talent grafters. The "Squad players".
This stems from Fergie having John O'Shea and Phil Neville and making it work. I don't really see those types at any of the leading clubs today. You could mention James Milner but he runs more than any other and has a delivery to match.

So we get behind these squad players, saying every club needs them. We give them contract after contract, but have close to no patience for those who take risks and maybe try something a little bit different. I think it can be summed up in that video of the last game, last season when Pogba was given hell and Lingard applauded for his efforts by match going fans.

The only way to be safe at Old Trafford, is to be just that, safe. Players with higher highs than others, remember young Memhis Depay against Midtjylland? We have absolutely no patience for them. We can't stand the lows of flair players. Nani was at one stage booed at Old Trafford. No one has replaced him at RW since.

Now we champion McTominay, Lingard approaching 27 is firmly featured in the team. The slow-safe-weak Mata has been rewarded a new contract. The slow, declining Matic is firmly infront of Fred, who despite his faults, has room to grow. Young, with no end product, has not brought winning mentality as a captain over the last years, gets a new contract for his failures at 34.

We've become a team full of squad players. This weekend's line up was full of them. The guys who just come in to do a job. That job is risk averse.

But the fans will stay on the back of the current creative players. Players who are severely shackled by lack of creative outlets at other positions in the team. Pogba will likely leave next summer, and the era of the more popular grafter Sean Longstaff will commence.

tomaldinho1 · Sep 23, 2019

Our squad is a reflection of the chaos the board put the club under when they decided they'd sign Moyes (advocate of 4-4-2 and death by crossing), LVG (ultra possession based football), Mou (the opposite), Ole (no experience).

devilish · Sep 23, 2019

Alot of things.

A- Nepotism took over. At first it was at top coaching/scouting level who were replaced by the manager's family, friends and former players Then it moved at player's level and finally at managerial level. That wouldn't have been possible if the club moved to modern times aka by appointing DOFs etc. Hence, our past managers made sure that would never happen. Hence they were allowed to sign rubbish like Michael Owen, Fellaini, Bastian, Valdes, Matic and co aka players who weren't good enough for the club but were extremely loyal to their manager.
B- The value signings. That lead to United buying not the best players around or those with the most potential but those who provided value for money. The reality is that most of the signings made were neither good enough nor provided value at all
C- We were unlucky with injuries. Fletcher, the twins, Wes.....all players who would have been way better then they actually were
D- Due to a lack of a top quality DOF, the club became non efficient especially in terms of transfers. That lead to far too few signings made which in turn lead to players either being kept past their expiry date or given contracts they didn't deserve.

meamth · Sep 23, 2019

I believe this time we are focusing on slow rebuilding rather than quick fix.

Instead of panic buys and overpaying players that are not available, this time we are willing to wait, taking the risk of low performance through out the season for a better future.

This is a path we never took before, so I guess this is all planned and expected from the board.

Think about it, maybe next summer, we move for the players early and signings are made after long negotiations/scouting during the season.

Right now, it might be a disaster, but a disaster Ole and the board is willing to take for a greater future.

This is all just optimism though, we could really crash and burn, I'm not too surprised to be honest.

PSingh · Sep 23, 2019

Njord said:
If you on average add 5 players to your squad each season through purchases and promotions, which you expect will give you an average of ten years of service each, you will with a 40 % succes rate have a squad of 20 top players at all times. The more money you use the higher the quality.

This rule seems to apply to every top team around Europe, except us. Looking at the squads of the best teams, several of them will have 3-4 players outside their starting XI which would be regular starters for us. I wanted to look at what happened to put us in this position.

I saw the thread about Anderson retiring at 31 recently, and felt it was weird that he could still have been playing for us if things workes out for him. Thinking back at all the signings we have made since we signed him kn 2007, there's quite a few players that could still have been playing for us.

Rafael could have been a world class RB in his prime, if not for his injuries. Cleverley once looked like a future superstar, and so did players like Jones and Shaw.

What do you think is the reason why so many of our signings failed and consequently left?

In my opinion I think there are four main explantions:

1. We had a lot of players who constantly got injured. There might have been issues with our training methods before Mourinho, when I feel this improved.

2. Some of our players succumbed to the pressure of playing for United, others believed their own hype, and thought they had made it before they had.

3. The appointment of van Gaal hurt us badly. His squad management were horrendous.

4. In general, we have bought way to many duds. It seems we have hsd big problems with our scouting these last 12 years. Hopefully this is improving, as ae seem to have made three good purchases this summer.

Good post.

But the biggest factor is we’ve bounced around from manager to manager, each with a different philosophy/style of play, and it’s left us with a horrendously unbalanced squad.

It’s too early to say if Ole is going to be successful. Judging by the transfers this summer, I think United are prepared for the long haul back. Hence why the club didn’t bend over backwards to sign Dybala and was unwavering in their decision to gut the squad of deadwood. So, at the very least, the club have to give Ole an opportunity to build his squad.

Canagel · Sep 23, 2019

drdoityourself said:
We haven't had any direction since SAF left. If only there was a position in football for a certain person to set the direction of a squad and a playing style.

The culture in this club is so set in the 90's. The only players who last here it seems are the hard working, lacking-in-talent grafters. The "Squad players".
This stems from Fergie having John O'Shea and Phil Neville and making it work. I don't really see those types at any of the leading clubs today. You could mention James Milner but he runs more than any other and has a delivery to match.

So we get behind these squad players, saying every club needs them. We give them contract after contract, but have close to no patience for those who take risks and maybe try something a little bit different. I think it can be summed up in that video of the last game, last season when Pogba was given hell and Lingard applauded for his efforts by match going fans.

The only way to be safe at Old Trafford, is to be just that, safe. Players with higher highs than others, remember young Memhis Depay against Midtjylland? We have absolutely no patience for them. We can't stand the lows of flair players. Nani was at one stage booed at Old Trafford. No one has replaced him at RW since.

Now we champion McTominay, Lingard approaching 27 is firmly featured in the team. The slow-safe-weak Mata has been rewarded a new contract. The slow, declining Matic is firmly infront of Fred, who despite his faults, has room to grow. Young, with no end product, has not brought winning mentality as a captain over the last years, gets a new contract for his failures at 34.

We've become a team full of squad players. This weekend's line up was full of them. The guys who just come in to do a job. That job is risk averse.

But the fans will stay on the back of the current creative players. Players who are severely shackled by lack of creative outlets at other positions in the team. Pogba will likely leave next summer, and the era of the more popular grafter Sean Longstaff will commence.

Sad but true

JoaquinJoaquin · Sep 23, 2019

meamth said:
I believe this time we are focusing on slow rebuilding rather than quick fix.

Instead of panic buys and overpaying players that are not available, this time we are willing to wait, taking the risk of low performance through out the season for a better future.

This is a path we never took before, so I guess this is all planned and expected from the board.

Think about it, maybe next summer, we move for the players early and signings are made after long negotiations/scouting during the season.

Right now, it might be a disaster, but a disaster Ole and the board is willing to take for a greater future.

This is all just optimism though, we could really crash and burn, I'm not too surprised to be honest.

That's all well and good, but when you cannot get the top class players in you need because your club is a shambles then you cannot achieve the rebuild properly. It's a catch 22.

arthurka · Sep 23, 2019

ayushreddevil9 said:
Ed Woodward being in charge of fixing it.

Thats where it gone wrong and will stay like that

This, nothing will change with him at the wheel.

meamth · Sep 23, 2019

JoaquinJoaquin said:
That's all well and good, but when you cannot get the top class players in you need because your club is a shambles then you cannot achieve the rebuild properly. It's a catch 22.

Well maybe we will fail to sign Sancho, but its not the end of the world is it.

There are gems like James, and I'd like another one or two signings like that.

If we're serious to play a young team, Manchester United will be a great prospect and attraction for wonderkids.

Sky1981 · Sep 23, 2019

ivaldo said:
We could’ve created a manager in the lab using Fergies and Busbys DNA to lead this team and it wouldn’t have mattered. Incredible that you expect Ole to be doing better than he has when his squad is made up of players signed by five different managers, all with a different ethos, no natural leaders or experienced players capable of playing in the starting XI, one creative midfielder who is out injured, and no fit strikers. The players he has brought in have coincidently been our best performers, so maybe we give the manager more than 8 months to sort out a team that has been rapidly declining for 6 years.

Excuses.

We're not asking him to win the league. Top 6 is too much for a team with 200m in defence and pogba in midfield?

Bayern barcelona chelsea city changes manager every 2 years they never complain about having a bad squad.

JoaquinJoaquin · Sep 23, 2019

meamth said:
Well maybe we will fail to sign Sancho, but its not the end of the world is it.

There are gems like James, and I'd like another one or two signings like that.

If we're serious to play a young team, Manchester United will be a great prospect and attraction for wonderkids.

See, to be a Champions League calibre team you need a mix of experience and 'wonderkids'. We still don't know James ceiling yet, so calling him a wonder kid may be a bit premature.

The problem we have is, the players a tier below Sancho who will improve us like a James Maddison for example, will start to question whether a move to United is even worth it. At that point your in big trouble. And that is the stage we are heading to unfortunately.

Siorac · Sep 23, 2019

drdoityourself said:
We haven't had any direction since SAF left. If only there was a position in football for a certain person to set the direction of a squad and a playing style.

The culture in this club is so set in the 90's. The only players who last here it seems are the hard working, lacking-in-talent grafters. The "Squad players".
This stems from Fergie having John O'Shea and Phil Neville and making it work. I don't really see those types at any of the leading clubs today. You could mention James Milner but he runs more than any other and has a delivery to match.

So we get behind these squad players, saying every club needs them. We give them contract after contract, but have close to no patience for those who take risks and maybe try something a little bit different. I think it can be summed up in that video of the last game, last season when Pogba was given hell and Lingard applauded for his efforts by match going fans.

The only way to be safe at Old Trafford, is to be just that, safe. Players with higher highs than others, remember young Memhis Depay against Midtjylland? We have absolutely no patience for them. We can't stand the lows of flair players. Nani was at one stage booed at Old Trafford. No one has replaced him at RW since.

Now we champion McTominay, Lingard approaching 27 is firmly featured in the team. The slow-safe-weak Mata has been rewarded a new contract. The slow, declining Matic is firmly infront of Fred, who despite his faults, has room to grow. Young, with no end product, has not brought winning mentality as a captain over the last years, gets a new contract for his failures at 34.

We've become a team full of squad players. This weekend's line up was full of them. The guys who just come in to do a job. That job is risk averse.

But the fans will stay on the back of the current creative players. Players who are severely shackled by lack of creative outlets at other positions in the team. Pogba will likely leave next summer, and the era of the more popular grafter Sean Longstaff will commence.

This, and what @finneh said above about cumulative failure in terms of transfers. These two posts just about sum it up.

Our only way out of this mess is if some of our signings prove to be unexpectedly huge successes in the future, like Salah or Robertson were for Liverpool. We can't sign a 100M player for every position we need one in.

Casanova85 · Sep 23, 2019

What went wrong?

This is my list:

a) Huge money spent on failed signings for Moyes, Van Gaal and Mou in 13-18.
b) The franchise player, Pogba, would rather play for Zidane's Real Madrid.
c) Our main LB, Shaw, very injury prone and unfit in general.
d) Still a weak link in defense, Lindelof, a Mou signing.
e) Still very weak in midfield. A DMF and CM needed. Horrible scouting by the club.
f) A RFW was needed but was not signed this summer. Or a CF/SS (Dybala?) so Martial could play on the right.
g) Our single CF (kind of), Martial, injury prone.
h) Rashford a great secondary actor, but certainly not a franchise player/leader.
i) Pep's City is the main reference in the Manchester and England right now, both for "glory hunters" and "huge wage hunters".

Fosu-Mens · Sep 23, 2019

Njord said:
4. In general, we have bought way to many duds. It seems we have hsd big problems with our scouting these last 12 years. Hopefully this is improving, as ae seem to have made three good purchases this summer.

Either a dud or simply bad coaching and tactical set up. Most likely a mixture of bad coaching and lack of relevant(to the technical game that is modern football) style of play. And some of them are simply bad transfers with abilities that are not as useful in how football is played today.

If you buy a player and he does not improve over 3 years (due to personal, coaching or training environment reasons) then it is very difficult to still be competitive given that most other top teams improves with coaching and training. We would need a new first 11 every other year for the team to stay competitive if we are not able to improve our players during training.

Typical bad transfers:
1. Fred: How they thought that he was worth £50m is beyond me.
2. Maguire: Spending that sum on a central defender when we lack two central midfielders is just sad. Lets not factor in that he is slow as F, and will get destroyed in 1v1 and if not protected my midfielders (which we do not have).
3. Lukaku: Dinosaur player.
4. Sanchez: Bought him just to appease sponsors and piss of City/Pep.

And lets not talk about contracts extentions.

Siorac · Sep 23, 2019

Sky1981 said:
Excuses.

We're not asking him to win the league. Top 6 is too much for a team with 200m in defence and pogba in midfield?

Bayern barcelona chelsea city changes manager every 2 years they never complain about having a bad squad.

That's not what you were saying when your beloved Jose Mourinho was in charge:

Sky1981 said:
The real reason?

Young herrera fellaini smailing valencia jones rashford lukaku lingard bailly lindelof are midtable quality players. Theyre bought from midtable teams for midtable price. Hell some of them arent even midtable qualities when we bought them.

When half your squad is midtable qualities you finish midtable. A good manager can push abit more and create a sum better than the parts. But theyre not magician

We scream at jose, ed, glazer while neglecting the very obvious, our squad are midtable.

No top 4 would want our players bar pogba and de gea, martial would get into 2 out of top 4 teams at best. The rest are bench materials at top 4.

Now why do you expect differently?

So, apparently, in November 2018 we couldn't expect any different because we have a mid-table squad - but now it's "excuses". Interesting, that.

Sky1981 · Sep 23, 2019

Siorac said:
That's not what you were saying when your beloved Jose Mourinho was in charge:

So, apparently, in November 2018 we couldn't expect any different because we have a mid-table squad - but now it's "excuses". Interesting, that.

I said my expectations is top 6 or boot for ole. 6 is midtable.

I never expect us to win. But if you failed top 6 and put squad as an issue that's an excuse.

For all my fondness of jose finishing out of top 4 is a sackable offence for him. He should be sacked in his first season if not for winning the europa.

I never changed my bar for any manager.

mariachi-19 · Sep 23, 2019

Shit managers.

Massive Spanner · Sep 23, 2019

At the beginning of Jose's second season, after he signed Lukaku, Lindelof, and Matic - we were talked about as title contenders and having the best squad along with Man City, and some of the best squad depth, too. In fact a lot of people said our squad was too big. That was only two years ago, and now we have possibly the weakest squad in the top six, so I don't buy this idea that it all stems from shite investment all the way back to 2009.

In the last two years alone, we didn't back Mourinho after he finished second (rightly or wrongly), all we signed was a teenage RB and a complete dud of a midfielder. We then let some very useful players go (Fellaini, Herrara, Lukaku) without replacing them. Ole spent most of his transfer budget on a CB despite it not being our biggest problem area and we didn't sign any players in our biggest problem areas (right wing, central midfield)

It doesn't fecking take a decade to build a great squad, or destroy a squad, or whatever. If the club and manager's had actually built properly on the squad we had at the start of 2017 then we'd be in a much better position right now.

JPRouve · Sep 23, 2019

drdoityourself said:
We haven't had any direction since SAF left. If only there was a position in football for a certain person to set the direction of a squad and a playing style.

The culture in this club is so set in the 90's. The only players who last here it seems are the hard working, lacking-in-talent grafters. The "Squad players".
This stems from Fergie having John O'Shea and Phil Neville and making it work. I don't really see those types at any of the leading clubs today. You could mention James Milner but he runs more than any other and has a delivery to match.

So we get behind these squad players, saying every club needs them. We give them contract after contract, but have close to no patience for those who take risks and maybe try something a little bit different. I think it can be summed up in that video of the last game, last season when Pogba was given hell and Lingard applauded for his efforts by match going fans.

The only way to be safe at Old Trafford, is to be just that, safe. Players with higher highs than others, remember young Memhis Depay against Midtjylland? We have absolutely no patience for them. We can't stand the lows of flair players. Nani was at one stage booed at Old Trafford. No one has replaced him at RW since.

Now we champion McTominay, Lingard approaching 27 is firmly featured in the team. The slow-safe-weak Mata has been rewarded a new contract. The slow, declining Matic is firmly infront of Fred, who despite his faults, has room to grow. Young, with no end product, has not brought winning mentality as a captain over the last years, gets a new contract for his failures at 34.

We've become a team full of squad players. This weekend's line up was full of them. The guys who just come in to do a job. That job is risk averse.

But the fans will stay on the back of the current creative players. Players who are severely shackled by lack of creative outlets at other positions in the team. Pogba will likely leave next summer, and the era of the more popular grafter Sean Longstaff will commence.

Perfect summary. And the purchase of Maguire is the symbol of that cautious mentality, a team that lacks firepower and flair spends 80m on a CB. Maguire is a good player and an upgrade on what we had but he was also not the priority when you are subpar in midfield and attack.

MrSingh2002 · Sep 23, 2019

Reactionary transfer dealings same as usual.

No backup targets. Or realistic targets at all.

Not trying hard enough or spending enough to replace players like Herrera, Fellaini and Lukaku.

Woodward can feck himself as this was avoidable.

ivaldo · Sep 23, 2019

Sky1981 said:
Excuses.

We're not asking him to win the league. Top 6 is too much for a team with 200m in defence and pogba in midfield?

Bayern barcelona chelsea city changes manager every 2 years they never complain about having a bad squad.

No, it's just an inconvenient truth for you.

We've played 6 games. It's hysterical to say now we aren't finishing top 6.

How many of those teams have gone 5 years without a significant trophy? Do a quick tally for me.

RedCoffee · Sep 23, 2019

1. Poor choice of managers. Moyes achieved nothing with Everton. Van Gaal was at the end of his career and Mourinho had been sacked 3 times.
2. Lacking any strategic approach to transfers and letting the 3 named above buy what they want at whatever price clubs demanded.
3. Mental strength. We are weak in the face of adversity and need someone on the coaching side to pull things together. This is and continues to be an issue especially with Carrick and Phelan in the mix.

Wednesday at Stoke · Sep 23, 2019

Post champions league final in 2009 and Ronaldo leaving.

2009-2012: Fergie, no value in the transfer market
2012-2013: Moyes, No clue who to buy and how to buy
2014-2016: LvG, Woodward says the club have the resources to do a lot in the market, galactico era, massive payments to agents
2016-2018: Jose, Manager says the club need to win trophies, cue purchasing older players, bloated salaries, massive payments to agents
2018-Now: Ole, get rid of crap bought previously, buy English, young players

So when you have 5 different strategies in one decade, you are going to have a bad time.

RedSky · Sep 23, 2019

Siorac said:
That's not what you were saying when your beloved Jose Mourinho was in charge:

So, apparently, in November 2018 we couldn't expect any different because we have a mid-table squad - but now it's "excuses". Interesting, that.

This is half the problem with the forum right now with Jose fanboys willing to throw the club under the bus because their messiah got sacked for being a cnut.

Everyone knows the likes of Mata, Matic, Young, Lingard, Pereira are painfully average and at best should be only playing in cup games. Yet four of those started at the weekend.

That's not even taking into consideration the amount of dross we sold in the summer. All our Managers with the exception of Ole have allowed the dross to linger at United. It's going to take at least 1 if not 2 summer windows to finally be shot of the garbage.

Let's also not do the old 'well they might come good under a new Manager' excuse. No they won't. They're not fit to wear the shirt. Get. Rid.

P.S. Please, please, PLEASE sign a right winger!

Josep Dowling · Sep 23, 2019

ivaldo said:
No, it's just an inconvenient truth for you.

We've played 6 games. It's hysterical to say now we aren't finishing top 6.

How many of those teams have gone 5 years without a significant trophy? Do a quick tally for me.

Do you honestly believe this, when will some see the reality that's right in front of you?

Our form since the PSG away game has been relegation form. No away win since then either. The squad has no one to come off the bench even when the whole squad is fit. With a few injuries we are having to use youngsters with no first team experience who are clearly not ready and in some cases not good enough either. Our best players have terrible injury records.

Players like Mata have been given important roles this season when they were being shuffled out by Mourinho. There is a reason, because they weren't good enough in the first place.

And on top of this we have already lost to Crystal Palace and West Ham, drawn away to Southampton. We haven't had a difficult game yet considering Wolves's form and Chelsea being in a similar situation to us.

I haven't seen many positives this season. Even with buying two new defenders we are still conceding goals. This squad of players creates as many chances as LVG. If Solskjaer wasn't an ex United player the fans would have lost patience already.

What went wrong with our squad

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