In truth we can't even blame the Glazers for it entirely because whatever said and done, they spent a great deal of money on players. The higher management at the club (e.g. Woodward) are also part of this - we can blame the Glazers for appointing sub-optimal execs like Woodward but they never really backed down from investing in players. INEOS have identified this as a key failing, and trying to right the ship now across the board - which I think is a better approach compared to constantly changing managers. It's naive to think that our problems get fixed with a new manager, as much as the media wants us to believe that to be the case.
At Arsenal, Arteta has the final say over transfers. If Arsenal signed Anthony for £82m, it would be because Arteta wanted us to - that would be on him. When the terms for Mudryk got stupid, the club allowed Chelsea to beat us to the player. When the price for Rice got stupid, the club ponied up the cash. It’s very clear why - Arteta viewed Rice as key part of his plans.
I completely understand that that no modern Manager is solely responsible for any transfer. The games hasn’t worked like that for decades. But you didn’t actually answer my question - does ETH have final say over transfers? I’m asking because I don’t know. The answer may be that you (and by “you” I mean United fans in general) don’t know either, but it’s a genuine question.
I focus more on why our managers have to make these kind of signings. I believe the clubs job is to give the manager the tools to do the best they can. I don’t believe our club has done that for any of our managers,certainly not since SAF retired. That’s a trend that can’t be blamed on our managers.
Others have said it, but is overspending on Anthony or Maguire or whoever is a club thing. Even Diallo May end up cosying 37 million. Our club being crap at negotiating for players is the reason our managers end up with Ighalo/Weghorst level signings.
I think that I have always come at this from a “glazers are wasting our financial advantage and undermining our managers with a dysfunctional infrastructure” point of view. It’s not that I’m convinced all our managers are or were good enough but that I felt they all had to manage with a handicap to our rivals. I’ve always felt United throwing bad money at the problem was actually protection for the glazers incompetency as it puts the focus on the managers “who have had a fortune spent so have no excuse”.
Im not necessarily objectively correct as I feel I do what a lot of you do , but you guys over focus on our managers(I over focus on club infrastructure). You start from a point that when the football is bad or not meeting expectations, it’s the manager. Not completely wrong and quite often right but I feel the constant rotation of managers was never gonna yield the kind of success we all want.
If we were run like city/pool and had an actual record at doing well with what we have, I’d have no complaints. But our record has been consistent underperforming players/managers whose careers mostly tank when we are finished with them.
That to me is a “the problems not players/managers, it’s the club”’ kind of thing. And we, as fans will not leave the club so we focus our anger at the wrong people. Managers can be changed and are more likely to be changed then the morons running the club so our best hope; to be fair; is focusing on some exceptional manager coming in and making our broken club work.
Anyways , we can all agree that hopefully INEOs, whatever they do, makes it that managers really will be our main/only problem and easily replacable.
Utd have basically been run like a lot of the Italian clubs for the last 10 years. Wasted money through the club being run poorly and terrible squad management.
Overpaying for potential that doesn't get realised ,add in a few big money marquee signings, bringing in and paying over the hill players well above what they are worth and a hell of a lot of dross. Constantly looking to the next manager without addressing the underlying issue around the club won't solve anything. Hopefully Jim can get this right, I'm not sure ETH will be given the time to work with any new structure.
I'm coming round to thinking that the dutch style and philosophy just doesn't work in English football. It's just not fast or aggressive enough to be a constant threat to the opposition, the PL is one of the fastest leagues in the world, even the lower teams are incredibly fit, fast and well organised. Trying to play a slower more intricate approach just doesn't work.
I don't think anyone knows for sure, but I doubt any individual has "final" say on transfers, and I imagine that to be true at Arsenal too, even if it's come out that Arteta "has" that power. It's very likely to be a mutual decision between the manager, sporting director, and chief exec. (or whoever else controls the budget).
As for your examples, I don't think they're comparable, and I think you've speculated a fair bit about Arteta's role in them too.
Antony, by a fair few reports, was scouted while Solskjaer was still here and valued at around £25-£30 million by the club. Ten Hag came in and wanted a left-footed right-winger as a key part of his plans. The only players we had registered at the club fitting that description and being remotely suited to senior football were unptoven and out on loan at Sunderland, or suspended indefinitely, pending the outcome of a police investigation.
This caught the club off-guard as they hadn't anticipated the need to identify targets that weren't left-sided centre-backs, defensive midfielders (or indeed, Frenkie de Jong and just Frenkie de Jong) and allegedly a striker of some description. Reports have said we walked away early in the transfer window because Ajax quoted £50 million at a minimum, and we didn't think he was worth that. We ended up panic-buying him for much more, right at the end of the window, because we'd failed to identify anyone else who could come in that summer, had been absolutely humilated in our opening two matches, and by that time, Ajax had already sold other first-team players, so put the price up.
It seems we also had a few extra million to burn after getting Casemiro for a bit less than we were prepared to pay for de Jong (although this is speculation on my part), and given we were two games into the season, pulled the trigger on Antony, lest we remain light a "key" player. Obviously he's been shit, so all round it was a terrible deal as he's not come remotely close to being a key player and cost us a fecking fortune.
As for Mudryk and Rice, well one was an unproven kid who'd looked alright in the Ukrainian league, and one was a Premier League-proven midfielder, guaranteed starter for England, and (I believe) captain of his club. There's also your obvious need for a player in Rice's mould, while Mudryk would have been just another attacker. It still represented a risk at that price, but it makes far more sense for the club to authorise a big fee for Rice than it would have for Mudryk, and I'd be very surprised if Arteta was the one who single-handedly pulled the plug on Mudryk when the asking price kept increasing (especially once Chelsea got involved).
Using the hypothetical of Arsenal signing Antony, I still think it'd be different to how we came about signing him, because (I'm assuming) he'd have at least been identified as a potential top target for that position by your scouts, and therefore, potentially worth the outlay. For us, he was the player who'd most recently played in that role for our new manager, and the club hadn't found any alternatives so spent about £50 million more on him than we'd actually valued him at ourselves.
In truth we can't even blame the Glazers for it entirely because whatever said and done, they spent a great deal of money on players. The higher management at the club (e.g. Woodward) are also part of this - we can blame the Glazers for appointing sub-optimal execs like Woodward but they never really backed down from investing in players. INEOS have identified this as a key failing, and trying to right the ship now across the board - which I think is a better approach compared to constantly changing managers. It's naive to think that our problems get fixed with a new manager, as much as the media wants us to believe that to be the case.
Agreed with a cavaet that I blame the glazers for wasting all our money.
And I know I’m being pedantic but please don’t say they spent money , they spent the clubs money. Not having a go at you, I just twitch whenever anything positive is posted about the glazers and United spending.
Of course I know it's not personal and it's a fair reaction to have given what we've dealt with since their buyout and yes it is the club's money. This is without even getting into the debt + interest piled on the club due to the leveraged buyout. I think we can all agree the failures on the pitch are mostly down to the way things were run here by the Glazers as well as their appointed execs, and there is no point in blaming the manager now when those chickens have come home to roost. Based on INEOS's reflection on the situation, I'm happy that they've realised this too.
While the Glazers have been happy for the club to spend a lot on transfer fees and wages, ultimately its still on them that it's been wasted as they hired the people they put in charge of managing that money. Importantly, the only way that money was theirs was as unrealised profits, and not actually from their coffers.
People mention FSG not getting it right at Liverpool until Klopp came in, but that's not strictly true. They had a big miss early on with Carroll, and others like Downing, but they also brought in Suarez, Henderson, Coutinho, Sturridge, Gomez, Milner and Firmino before he was hired, who were all successes (to varying degrees).
People (rightly) highlight the success of signings like Mane, Salah, and even Wijnaldum, but because Klopp has done (far) better than Dalglish and Rodgers, it is sort of forgotten that Grujic, Klavan, Karius, Solanke, Minamino, Keita and even Oxlade-Chamberlain didn't pan out as perhaps anticipated. With the exceptions of Keita (and perhaps Oxlade-Chamberlain) the key differences are that they haven't been spending large amounts on the players that haven't worked out, and when they have spent big, it's generally paid off.
I think they've been fairly consistent with their transfers (some have worked very well, others haven't), and have perhaps been more successful as time has gone on and they've grown into the responsibility, but that growth also came with the managers also improving with each replacement.
By comparison, United, under the Glazers, have just spent 10 years throwing money at pretty much random players and then expecting loads out of them because they cost a bomb.
Thinking of the wolves game away, do you think that if ETH had a more settled squad we might more like a Kevin Keegan type team with great football but always falling short? We win or lose games because for all his flaws he goes into games to win. Possibly naively at times.
Like there have been glimpses of class, too few to suggest it’s why we should persevere with ETH.
I’m not a tactical guru so am not good at discussing this in depth. But I have heard many, particularly on athletic, talk about what they can see he’s trying to do. What I wonder is what should he be doing, that’s he’s not doing, while he’s having these injury/squad issues.
Should he be shutting up shop or change what he’s doing? When he does or doesn’t make subs I don’t see an awful lot of meaningful options for him , but it seems like he’s really going for wins, which isn’t a bad thing but at times it’s cost us.
Like Bruno, when he just needed to take it into a corner near end of game and he shoots instead. Or conceding a goal or game momentum, even when 2 up. How much of that is players versus coaching? I get we could have sat back in games at 2-0 but that’s not really what a United team should be doing against the quality of teams we were letting back into games. So is that an underlying weakness in players or tactics or maybe both?
If you take the few Dutch managers that have been in the PL from Gullit, Koeman, Jol, they all have similar records to ETH. Losing as much as they won and not many draws. LVG Is the the only one who didn't lose so often, but that was football by numbers and it bored people to death.
Look at Klopp's Liverpool, top of the league and they basically play relentless hoofball and spam crosses and set pieces into the box. City play a possession game, but it's with quick movement and it's aggressive. Villa and Spurs are both fast and fairly direct. Arsenal too, play with pace and purpose. Utd don't play with pace or purpose or aggression.
To be honest I'm just thinking the Dutch style of play/coaching doesn't translate well to the English game. Is it too slow? Is it overly complicated? Or does he just lack the personnel? I don't know.
Utd are too slow, everything is too slow, players, ball movement, player movement. It's all too slow too pragmatic and maybe perhaps overly complicated, predictable and rigid in terms of movement.
If you're going to play with a 415 or 3124 in attack, you have to be able to control the possession in the final third to shift the opposition around, create space and overloads for the runners and players to have space to move into. However in the midst of all this you have players like Garnacho, Rashford and Bruno, who are everything you don't want in players in this setup, they want to play fast and be direct. But they just won't work in this system, they turnover the ball too much and don't work well against well setup defences who have time to get in shape, because the opposition are too slow to move the ball forward.
You're probably right about the unsuitability of the Dutch-style (however that's interpreted by the individual managers) to the Premier League. I think the hope with Ten Hag was that he wasn't particularly wedded to that philosophy, but just happened to be a Dutch manager.
(Ignoring the lack of distinction between Scottish and English "styles of play") It's similar to how no English manager has actually won the English Premier League. You have to go back to Keegan and Atkinson in the 90s to find the last English managers to finish second, and outside of Fergie, the only other British managers to finish in the top two were Dalglish with Blackburn (again in the 90s), and Rodgers with Liverpool.
Got ya, that’s a really fair response - cheers.I don't think anyone knows for sure, but I doubt any individual has "final" say on transfers, and I imagine that to be true at Arsenal too, even if it's come out that Arteta "has" that power. It's very likely to be a mutual decision between the manager, sporting director, and chief exec. (or whoever else controls the budget).
As for your examples, I don't think they're comparable, and I think you've speculated a fair bit about Arteta's role in them too.
Antony, by a fair few reports, was scouted while Solskjaer was still here and valued at around £25-£30 million by the club. Ten Hag came in and wanted a left-footed right-winger as a key part of his plans. The only players we had registered at the club fitting that description and being remotely suited to senior football were unptoven and out on loan at Sunderland, or suspended indefinitely, pending the outcome of a police investigation.
This caught the club off-guard as they hadn't anticipated the need to identify targets that weren't left-sided centre-backs, defensive midfielders (or indeed, Frenkie de Jong and just Frenkie de Jong) and allegedly a striker of some description. Reports have said we walked away early in the transfer window because Ajax quoted £50 million at a minimum, and we didn't think he was worth that. We ended up panic-buying him for much more, right at the end of the window, because we'd failed to identify anyone else who could come in that summer, had been absolutely humilated in our opening two matches, and by that time, Ajax had already sold other first-team players, so put the price up.
It seems we also had a few extra million to burn after getting Casemiro for a bit less than we were prepared to pay for de Jong (although this is speculation on my part), and given we were two games into the season, pulled the trigger on Antony, lest we remain light a "key" player. Obviously he's been shit, so all round it was a terrible deal as he's not come remotely close to being a key player and cost us a fecking fortune.
As for Mudryk and Rice, well one was an unproven kid who'd looked alright in the Ukrainian league, and one was a Premier League-proven midfielder, guaranteed starter for England, and (I believe) captain of his club. There's also your obvious need for a player in Rice's mould, while Mudryk would have been just another attacker. It still represented a risk at that price, but it makes far more sense for the club to authorise a big fee for Rice than it would have for Mudryk, and I'd be very surprised if Arteta was the one who single-handedly pulled the plug on Mudryk when the asking price kept increasing (especially once Chelsea got involved).
Using the hypothetical of Arsenal signing Antony, I still think it'd be different to how we came about signing him, because (I'm assuming) he'd have at least been identified as a potential top target for that position by your scouts, and therefore, potentially worth the outlay. For us, he was the player who'd most recently played in that role for our new manager, and the club hadn't found any alternatives so spent about £50 million more on him than we'd actually valued him at ourselves.
You're probably right about the unsuitability of the Dutch-style (however that's interpreted by the individual managers) to the Premier League. I think the hope with Ten Hag was that he wasn't particularly wedded to that philosophy, but just happened to be a Dutch manager.
(Ignoring the lack of distinction between Scottish and English "styles of play") It's similar to how no English manager has actually won the English Premier League. You have to go back to Keegan and Atkinson in the 90s to find the last English managers to finish second, and outside of Fergie, the only other British managers to finish in the top two were Dalglish with Blackburn (again in the 90s), and Rodgers with Liverpool.
Got ya, that’s a really fair response - cheers.
I suppose what I mean by “final say” is that do you have a Manager that that has approval over major signings. Both United and Arsenal obviously had that for donkeys years in SAF and Wenger.
We then did a 180 on that model and by appointing Sanllehi as Head of Football above Emery as Head Coach (pointedly, not Manager). Emery famously wanted Zaha, but was overruled from above and we ended up with Pepe for £72m. That decision was so disastrous that the Kroenkes dispatched Tim Lewis (now our Executive Vice Chair) to investigate whether it amounted to fraud and we our most recent accounts show an £18m impairment due to us writing off his entire remaking value. Including wages, we set fire to a nine-figure sum.
We then brought in Edu as Technical Director and Arteta as Head Coach. They have been “promoted” to Sporting Director and Manager since, in recognition that the buck stops with them. For major transfers, they have make the case to the owners to release huge sums of money, but we now have a very clear structure in place.
I was curious if it’s the similar with United. From the outside looking in, it looks like ETH is getting players that he’s familiar with so you would think he’s approving them. But I’m fully aware that looks can be deceiving.
Whilst there are certainly the factors you have described, ultimately it is the manager's job to manage the situation they are in, how would SAF, Pep, Klopp or even Wenger have coped in similar circumstances? I doubt as badlyThey've all dealt with different problems and all had injury problems throughout, it's been a regular issue for far too long.
- LVG had the immediate post Sir Alex expectations and the mess that needed fixing after Moyes. Alongside that he had to deal with Woodward.
- Jose had perhaps the easiest time of it given our expectations were so low. But he still had to deal with Woodward and had problems with player power (Martial, Pogba).
- Ole faced Covid and the insane schedule with a half fit, demoralised squad. Again, Woodward.
- Ten Hag's had issues with player power (Mason, Ronaldo, Sancho) and the club sale.
Personally I think the biggest consistent issue throughout has been recruitment and the slow rebuild that hampered every single Manager under Woodward. I'm not going to throw all the blame at Woodward, the Managers have to take responsibility as well as do the players. But his broad strategy for the club was horrendous.
This was the hope that he wasn't going to be anothe LVG. There are a lot of similarities to their reigns.
English managers up to more recent years have generally been a bunch of Mike Bassett's who stuck to 44f*cking2 and lacked the tactical ingenuity to out think and outsmart other managers with different ideas.
Manager's who have come in and won the league, I think they have all brought something different to the table, Wenger, Jose, Ancelotti, Ranieri etc. That superiority fell away as they got figured out by other teams, but it always takes time a wide selection of games for the opposition to build a plan that works. Teams even worked out how to shut Klopps Liverpool down in their off seasons. This is one area where I think Pep's has been outstanding, he's been figured out in one or 2 games here and there. But no team has come up with a blue print on how to stop City that others can work off. He always has something else up his sleeve. Quite similar to how SAF used to just find a way to win, he'd lose one here and there, but by and large there was always a slight variance in approach that nullified the oppositions plans. But the speed, intensity and aggressive forward play were always evident.
My feeling is that teams have figured out ETH and Utd too easily, the forward play is too slow and predictable, you get 5 or 6 seconds to get set and you just wait to pounce on a lose pass or bad touch and nail them on the break. With Utd there's just not quality in enough players within the squad to offer much variation in approach that things can be tweaked slightly week to week to account for the opposition.
Sacking him now achieves nothing anyway. I'm sure we are being proactive in the background.Not sacking him now is just delaying the inevitable but I understand the reluctance from INEOS to act reactively. Depleted squad or otherwise, it is clear as day ETH doesn’t have the tactical vision required to adapt to the game and the players at his disposal.
That is because possession is only a viable stat if you do something with it. They can get close to the box then do the umbrella thing because there is no clear set plays to penetrate and no one is moving. I really don't get what the point is of getting there if there is no plan after that. Wing backs break the odd time, but no service. Then they cross into 2 in the box after a slow move forward. This is so far from what a good team does it is frustrating. There is no flow, there is no side to side quick movements. Martinez can make things happen when he's in there, but McGuire thinks he is still at Leicester waiting for Vardy to break for the long ball. They don't get into the lanes, or if they do it doesn't materialize. When you get into a lane and continually don't get service, you stop running into them. I would love to sit and watch a training session to see exactly what they do, because either it doesn't carry into games or they don't work on the full pitch game plan. Betting its the latter.But we don't have higher possession stats. Our 3 league games with higher possession were a defeat vs Palace, a defeat vs Bournemouth and win vs Forest (we've been losing since minute 2 to minute 52). We only get high possession if the opposition is happy to let us have the ball. Otherwise we can't keep the ball. We struggled offensively under van Gaal but at lease we could hold to the ball when we wanted to.
I would sack him now for 2 reasons, it will get that short term wakeup call that might materialize into a potential CL position, if and only if the right manager is brought in. As well quite frankly, he ain't getting it done, at the least give fans some hope. The question then becomes, who do you make interim? You have to bring in someone to get some excitement back. At this point it is more a PR move.Sacking him now achieves nothing anyway. I'm sure we are being proactive in the background.
I think the criticisms that his system only works with his ideal squad are probably fair, and I also think the criticisms of his system, even at full strength, having obvious flaws are fair, even if it appears to be similar to the systems used at other clubs. There's clearly a key difference, whether that's personnel or tactical, and he seems unable to figure out how to change it to make it work.
That's what I meant with the comparisons to the English/British style, really. The Dutch style is obviously a different beast to the "kick and rush", "four, four, bloody two!", "big man/little man" you associate with the British style, but there's clearly something about it that makes it similarly ineffective at the top end of the Premier League.
I don't think we will want the hassle. Just a clean break in the summer.I would sack him now for 2 reasons, it will get that short term wakeup call that might materialize into a potential CL position, if and only if the right manager is brought in. As well quite frankly, he ain't getting it done, at the least give fans some hope. The question then becomes, who do you make interim? You have to bring in someone to get some excitement back. At this point it is more a PR move.
Here is the thing though, what if, and a big what if, they turn it around this year? Say they beat City, totally hypothetical, make a decent push and actually qualify for CL? What then? I think you can put some butter on ETH, because he is toast after this year, but can he salvage his job?It’s not ideal to go into a new season with the manager in last chance saloon. The media will constantly be bringing it up and the players could easily half ass the effort until the new guy comes in.
I’d say it’s much easier just to mutually part ways in May, announce new guy at the same time and then have a pre-season of the whole new club setup together.
Funnily enough Guardiola's style is massively influenced by Cruyff's Barca legacy. Cruyff set the basic playing style at the club and although it evolved they never really moved away from it. So I have a hard time claiming that the "Dutch style" just doesn't work when a variation of it clearly does. But maybe that's the point - it has to be a variation, not the pure unaltered form. But than, EtH doesn't play that any way, he actually made Ajax more direct and less possession based then they were before him for example. So I don't think you can really pin that all down to nationality, but it's definitely curious that the PL is the only big league that was never won by a domestic manager.That's what I meant with the comparisons to the English/British style, really. The Dutch style is obviously a different beast to the "kick and rush", "four, four, bloody two!", "big man/little man" you associate with the British style, but there's clearly something about it that makes it similarly ineffective at the top end of the Premier League.
Funnily enough Guardiola's style is massively influenced by Cruyff's Barca legacy. Cruyff set the basic playing style at the club and although it evolved they never really moved away from it. So I have a hard time claiming that the "Dutch style" just doesn't work when a variation of it clearly does. But maybe that's the point - it has to be a variation, not the pure unaltered form. But than, EtH doesn't play that any way, he actually made Ajax more direct and less possession based then they were before him for example. So I don't think you can really pin that all down to nationality, but it's definitely curious that the PL is the only big league that was never won by a domestic manager.
It’s not ideal to go into a new season with the manager in last chance saloon. The media will constantly be bringing it up and the players could easily half ass the effort until the new guy comes in.
I’d say it’s much easier just to mutually part ways in May, announce new guy at the same time and then have a pre-season of the whole new club setup together.
This is the hope.
Euros makes things a bit complicated, but we need a blank state.
Whilst there are certainly the factors you have described, ultimately it is the manager's job to manage the situation they are in, how would SAF, Pep, Klopp or even Wenger have coped in similar circumstances? I doubt as badly
We are talking at the moment of INEOS improving structure, recruitment, facilities etc... this is great but even in the best circumstances a manager does not operate in a perfect vacuum
But also the factors you have mentioned are not responsible for all the bad decisions managers have made, I would say that had Mourinho been given more support over the Pogba situation that he would have fared better, and Ole was certainly hung out to dry, but LVG and Moyes were masters of their own downfall
And as for ETH, not sure how anyone but himself is responsible for playing without a midfield etc....
Here is the thing though, what if, and a big what if, they turn it around this year? Say they beat City, totally hypothetical, make a decent push and actually qualify for CL? What then? I think you can put some butter on ETH, because he is toast after this year, but can he salvage his job?
I was thinking this back Christmas time but now we’re in March, it feels like he’s going to need to have the turnarounds to end all turnarounds now to give us a dilemma. A good chunk of our wins this year haven’t been what we would universally deem comfortable and comprehensive.
Most of our games recently have been on a knife edge, even when we’re 2-0 ahead in some instances. If every game is a heart in your mouth game, that’s a problem.
But regardless, INEOS could have easily made their minds up already and are going to mutually part ways regardless if we won the FA Cup and somehow finished 4th.
It is likely that 5th place will be enough to get into Champions League so top 5 could be the new top 4.
By that statement the he is just not good enough, this is Manchester United we should not be making excuses for managers, players, the structure, the backroom or the ownersI don't think it's fair to compare ETH with them, they are a pretty high benchmark, he's in a different tier.
It will be harder to rebuild with the Europa though. We may aswell not be in Europe altogether. But then will we attract top players if we aren’t in Europe, you can say we have over the years but that’s because we paid ridiculous wages to compensate not being in Europe. That’s gonna stop under Radcliffe. You’d expect players still to join because we’re still one of the biggest clubs but the best Players want the best competitions.No, as it stands it will most likely go to Germany and Italy. And even if, we will be 6 points off fifth after the weekend.
Maybe it’s a good thing they can start the rebuilding season without CL football, we don’t belong there anyway right now, this years campaign showed it.
Here is the thing though, what if, and a big what if, they turn it around this year? Say they beat City, totally hypothetical, make a decent push and actually qualify for CL? What then? I think you can put some butter on ETH, because he is toast after this year, but can he salvage his job?
