2019/20 Season Review

[SirAnderson]

At the risk of doing this when emotions are running high...

Disappointing end to it. Had its moments of gloss but we had 3 decent chances at getting a trophy and failed at each ask. That for me is our most damning aspect of this season. My expectation of the league was met, and did actually better than expected in the end actually, but in the cups we have let ourselves down terribly imo.

Our squad is better though and going in the right direction. Bolstering it will be key to whether we keep going in the right direction.

Signings have been a positive as well but 1 or 2 can improve much more.

ALSO: In saying the above....if we are to separate the direction, signings, etc and just focus on the actual results of our seasons competitions, what would it be?

Thoughts?

 

[Mibabalou]

Were still away from challenging from any trophy, hopefully the board and Ole see this.

Need real quality players to flesh out the squad, cant depend on Greenwood and Bruno to save us everymatch.

 

[SirAnderson]

Were still away from challenging from any trophy, hopefully the board and Ole see this.

Need real quality players to flesh out the squad, cant depend on Greenwood and Bruno to save us everymatch.

FA Cup was a really missed chance, cannot say we were far away from challenging there??? I mean Arteta and Arsenal won it ffs.

Only thing we overachieved in is the league!

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

Better than expected. Lots of promise for the coming seasons. Now it's up to the top of the house.

 

[Andycoleno9]

Four 3rd and 4th spot trophies in one season. Not bad. We are Man Utd. We must win trophies so it is all right then

 

[RedDevilRoshi]

Better than expected. Lots of promise for the coming seasons. Now it's up to the top of the house.

Yep, exactly the same way I see it too. There is potential there in this Utd team but it’s a fair way off from competing for the title at this moment in time.

 

[el3mel]

6/10 season at best. Anyone saying otherwise is stretching it too. Got top 4 but with 66 points and trophyless.

In ranking of our other seasons post Fergie, it's probably 3rd or 4th in ranking among 7 seasons.

 

[SirAnderson]

Can we at least acknowledge that we had a more than decent shout at winning at least 1 of the 3 cups we managed to get into the semi finals for...
That's what gets to me the most.

 

[Drainy]

Job done.

Foundations are there for the team to progress. It was a season of transition, we let go or lost a lot of senior pros and promoted a lot of young players- this season will have done them the world of good.

At the start of the season there was a fear that we would be midtable again - we finished 3rd (by luck as much as skill) and got to 3 semi finals. Disappointing to not do better but our attack is being carried by young players - its what they do - perform inconsistently and get mugged off by more senior pros in one off cup games.

We are in the Champions League next season- hopefully we can strengthen the squad further, as it does need depth in attacking midfield and central defence, and build on a very young and promising team (the youngest in the league, I believe?)

 

[SirAnderson]

6/10 season at best. Anyone saying otherwise is stretching it too. Got top 4 but with 66 points and trophyless.

In ranking of our other seasons post Fergie, it's probably 3rd or 4th in ranking among 7 seasons.

Maybe not better than Mourinho's season where we got 2 trophies I think. In terms of results, not direction the club is taking, that's miles better with Ole. Need to separate the 2.

 

[Dec9003]

Probably not going to get a reasonable discussion on this season ten minutes after we get knocked out of Europe.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

A poor season in the end. But I'm feeling more optimistic going into next year than I was last summer.

We badly need some attacking depth though. Beyond the starting 11, we have nothing.

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

6/10 season at best. Anyone saying otherwise is stretching it too. Got top 4 but with 66 points and trophyless.

In ranking of our other seasons post Fergie, it's probably 3rd or 4th in ranking among 7 seasons.

1 Mourinho first 2 LVG second (for the Fa cup), 3 Mourinho second, 4 Ole second, 5 LVG first, 6 Ole/Mourinho, 7 Moyes.

 

[lsd]

We are moving forward slowly but we need the injection of winners into the squad transfer wise to strengthen our mentality.

 

[Castia]

Ups and downs.

Started poorly so to finish 3rd is a big positive. Bruno has been good and seeing Greenwood develop is exciting.

Shame we couldn’t get a cup win, losing 3 semi finals is disappointing. We have a decent starting 11 but need 4 solid players this summer if we are to stand a chance next year.

Its clear to see the progress though, we’re finally starting to move forward and have a young squad that can develop. A strong summer window will see us start next season in a strong position to challenge for a trophy.

 

[GDaly95]

Pretty much impossible to finish higher in the league.

Youth given a chance. Greenwood brought in to perfection.

Had two months without Martial and Rashford. Pogba not really around at all.

Wasn't given the midfielder he needed until Jan.

The players clearly care and are determined to turn things around. The change in mentality is quite staggering.

Existing players improved.

The three semis were very disappointing. The FA Cup in particular.

From Ole's perspective, 8/10. The man has turned the ship around whether people want to admit it or not. We're going in the right direction.

 

[Nick7]

Shit for over 50% of the season but pulled it together when it mattered for the league. Ok season, about the least that could be expected.

 

[el3mel]

Maybe not better than Mourinho's season where we got 2 trophies I think. In terms of results, not direction the club is taking, that's miles better with Ole. Need to separate the 2.

Direction wise we're going well, but seasons are ranked individually and results wise, this isn't any better than 2016/2017 or 2017/2018.

This is overall an average season. We ended the league campaign pretty well, but got 66 points only at the end and ended up trophyless, so 6/10 is fine rating. Not great but not bad. Just average or above average that's all.

 

[The Man Himself]

We did better than expected in league, thanks in parts to others around us fecking up and Bruno signing. Disappointing in FA Cup and Europa, should have been in final of both. On positive side, Greenwood breakthrough season was pleasing.
Need at least 3 new signings. A CB, Grealish and Sancho. Ideally an upgrade for Matic position too but that will probably have to wait.

 

[Godfather]

Shit season pretty much.

 

[Revan]

All in all, an okay season. Probably in par with LVG’s first season and worse than Mourinho’s first two seasons.

Dreadful on the first half of it, really encouraging signs on the second half.

I think that Ole and the team can definitely improve (and we need new signings to go up a level), but I am relatively happy with how the things have gone, and if offered last season, I would have taken a third place finish and 3 semi finals. Not excellent, but definitely decent.

 

[kudiak]

This season is acceptable. We showed the progress. But, we lost in two semifinal (FA and Europa) that we should winning it.

Rashford before injury was class.
Martial showed the confidence and better.
Fred was class before pandemic.
Bruno has change everything.

Our transfer windows is not bad. Bruno is excelent. Maguire and AWB is good.

For me, next season to win a trophy is must.

 

[TMDaines]

I’ll definitely be more enthusiastic going into next season than I was for this. I had us down for sixth in 19/20 if I remember correctly and whilst our points total didn’t really make that prediction look misplaced, we did drag ourselves to third with some great football on the run in. Maybe it says as much about the sides around us as it did us, but we’re still only going to be up against those same teams next year.

I thought appointing Ole when we did was a big mistake, but he’s done a lot to win me over. Beneath the smiling veneer, he clearly has strict standards on what will make a United player and has built a strong first XI. I don’t particularly mind the fact that he has been reluctant to bring the likes of Ighalo, James, Mata and Lingard on when needing goals. Nobody thinks they should be starting matches for us, so why this sudden panic to take better players off for them whenever we are pushing late on?

Three semi-finals is very impressive, until you reflect that we lost all three of them. City in the LC was a while ago now, but I feel for the manager a bit in the FA Cup and EL. De Gea shits the bed at Wembley and all of his front five somewhat explicably can’t finish to save their lives in the Europa League finals week, after having been clinical for months.

Ole deserves some more time, but United’s future is to be more heavily influenced at the board/director of football level. I don’t see any manager making this squad title contenders, especially without serious luck on the injury front as it is extremely thin in terms of quality. We need quality signings to improve the first team and provide us a bit more depth and competition for places. I’m not sure I see many signs of that happening though. Other than Sancho there is utter radio silence.

 

[Irrational.]

So an odd season comes to a crashing end with a sucker-punch defeat against an average Sevilla side.

It's been a long, tough ride with a few highs (victories against City, Chelsea, signing of Fernandes) but quite a few lows.

We end a third consecutive season trophyless, knocked out of three semi finals.

Signings on the whole have been good and we've played some decent stuff at times. In the end we limped over the line in the race for top four - and it seems like it'll be a battle again next season.

Not not sure Ole is the man to lead us into next season (even though he most likely will).

I'd give the season a 5/10. We achieved the bare minimum without winning a trophy. We have a lot of work to do next season, even just to maintain the status quo I feel.

 

[SirAnderson]

So an odd season comes to a crashing end with a sucker-punch defeat against an average Sevilla side.

It's been a long, tough ride with a few highs (victories against City, Chelsea, signing of Fernandes) but quite a few lows.

We end a third consecutive season trophyless, knocked out of three semi finals.

Signings on the whole have been good and we've played some decent stuff at times. In the end we limped over the line in the race for top four - and it seems like it'll be a battle again next season.

Not not sure Ole is the man to lead us into next season (even though he most likely will).

I'd give the season a 5/10. We achieved the bare minimum without winning a trophy. We have a lot of work to do next season, even just to maintain the status quo I feel.

Well summed up. This is my feeling.s too.

 

[SirAnderson]

Kinda sums it up really...

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[Suedesi]

At the risk of doing this when emotions are running high...

Disappointing end to it. Had its moments of gloss but we had 3 decent chances at getting a trophy and failed at each ask. That for me is our most damning aspect of this season. My expectation of the league was met, and did actually better than expected in the end actually, but in the cups we have let ourselves down terribly imo.

Our squad is better though and going in the right direction. Bolstering it will be key to whether we keep going in the right direction.

Signings have been a positive as well but 1 or 2 can improve much more.

ALSO: In saying the above....if we are to separate the direction, signings, etc and just focus on the actual results of our seasons competitions, what would it be?

Thoughts?

I see this so much peddled here, that it ticks me off. How have signings been positive?

• Dan James is an utter failure - he can't be trusted to play more than 3 minutes in a game where we're chasing a goal. Has contributed f'all in goals and assists since December
• AWB is a braindead footballer with no first touch, no defensive awareness and generally poor in the offensive phase of the game.
• Harry Maguire is a decent defender but slow and completely overpriced.

So, how is any United fan happy with spunking 150 million quid on these three players? The first two won't make it, the third is just ok. Could have bought 4-5 decent players from Spain / France for that outlay.

 

[el3mel]

Kinda sums it up really...

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TBF, we got the same points tally in both league campaigns.

 

[TehRed]

It's a shame we couldn't win a trophy, I reckon we had it in us to win at least one this year. Feels like it was mistakes that kept us from the finals, more than us being outplayed.

Progress has undoubtedly been made, we arguably overachieved in the league, and certain players have improved this year.

There's still glaring issues with the squad depth and quality in certain positions, and Ole hasn't silenced all his critics yet despite the improvement in results.

This window is going to be huge for us in determining how much more progress we can make next season, because I'm not sure the squad as it currently is could go much further than it already has. The issues need addressing - over to you, Ole, Woodward and Judge.

 

[SirAnderson]

I see this so much peddled here, that it ticks me off. How have signings been positive?

• Dan James is an utter failure - he can't be trusted to play more than 3 minutes in a game where we're chasing a goal. Has contributed f'all in goals and assists since December
• AWB is a braindead footballer with no first touch, no defensive awareness and generally poor in the offensive phase of the game.
• Harry Maguire is a decent defender but slow and completely overpriced.

So, how is any United fan happy with spunking 150 million quid on these three players? The first two won't make it, the third is just ok. Could have bought 4-5 decent players from Spain / France for that outlay.

1. We bought Dan as a squad player for developing, to cast him as a failure already is just laughable. Love how people are quick to write off a player who came in from the championship, came to massive club, had to try and adjust and lost his father. I wish every player can be a Rooney and burst on the scene, sadly this is reality, not fantasy.
2. braindead footballer? That comment is braindead. He has been contender for player of the season prior to Bruno coming in.
3. Not his fault we paid that much for him, doesn't change the fact that he has done a good job and contributed to what was the 3rd best defense in the league and with goals conceded...unless you happy with Smalling, Jones, Lindelof and Bailly taking us into the future...

And great seer of the future, love how you just know someone won't make it. Would love to see your Sanchez comments and many other predications of our players. Please give me lotto numbers while you at it.

 

[pocco]

TBF, we got the same points tally in both league campaigns.

We could have been looking at another terrible season really with our points total, it miraculous where we ended up. Not just because of the final points total but also the pandemic which seemed to work in our favour and allowed us to claw it back from so far behind.

If we finished 6th again this season then it would have been our worst season since Fergie when you factor in the huge outlay on transfers in the last two windows.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

Progression but the ceiling has been reached I fear. Once the club are qualifying for the Champions League and can command big sponsorship deals the owners will be happy. I don't think much work will be done in the transfer window to build on this season but we will see.

 

[Suedesi]

1. We bought Dan as a squad player for developing, to cast him as a failure already is just laughable. Love how people are quick to write off a player who came in from the championship, came to massive club, had to try and adjust and lost his father. I wish every player can be a Rooney and burst on the scene, sadly this is reality, not fantasy.
2. braindead footballer? That comment is braindead. He has been contender for player of the season prior to Bruno coming in.
3. Not his fault we paid that much for him, doesn't change the fact that he has done a good job and contributed to what was the 3rd best defense in the league and with goals conceded...unless you happy with Smalling, Jones, Lindelof and Bailly taking us into the future...

And great seer of the future, love how you just know someone won't make it. Would love to see your Sanchez comments and many other predications of our players. Please give me lotto numbers while you at it.

Bissaka is braindead defender, and he was atrocious defending on both goals

Look at the first one (granted Lindeloff wasn't perfect, but AWB got pulled out of position and got beaten on the easy one-two)


And then for the second goal he's looking ahead while the ball is being played in the zone when he's marking the only Sevilla player.

Negative football IQ. Clear the fecking ball, don't hop around like an idiot

And that's defending which is supposed to be his forte, let's not even talk his attacking game which is non-existent.

And piss off with the sarcasm and sophistry while you're at it.

 

[Gandalf Greyhame]

I’ll definitely be more enthusiastic going into next season than I was for this. I had us down for sixth in 19/20 if I remember correctly and whilst our points total didn’t really make that prediction look misplaced, we did drag ourselves to third with some great football on the run in. Maybe it says as much about the sides around us as it did us, but we’re still only going to be up against those same teams next year.

I thought appointing Ole when we did was a big mistake, but he’s done a lot to win me over. Beneath the smiling veneer, he clearly has strict standards on what will make a United player and has built a strong first XI. I don’t particularly mind the fact that he has been reluctant to bring the likes of Ighalo, James, Mata and Lingard on when needing goals. Nobody thinks they should be starting matches for us, so why this sudden panic to take better players off for them whenever we are pushing late on?

Three semi-finals is very impressive, until you reflect that we lost all three of them. City in the LC was a while ago now, but I feel for the manager a bit in the FA Cup and EL. De Gea shits the bed at Wembley and all of his front five somewhat explicably can’t finish to save their lives in the Europa League finals week, after having been clinical for months.

Ole deserves some more time, but United’s future is to be more heavily influenced at the board/director of football level. I don’t see any manager making this squad title contenders, especially without serious luck on the injury front as it is extremely thin in terms of quality. We need quality signings to improve the first team and provide us a bit more depth and competition for places. I’m not sure I see many signs of that happening though. Other than Sancho there is utter radio silence.

This, mostly.

After selling Lukaku and not replacing him, I feared about our output this season. But Greenwood in particular played almost 2600 minutes of football and officially has the second highest number of appearances in all competitions for us after Maguire, scoring 17 goals and assisting 5 in the process. This has truly been a breakthrough season for him and I'm very excited to see Ole develop an academy wonderkid so well while meeting our targets.

Also it's funny to see vitriol being directed towards Rashford in a season where he made an enormous change in the real world, scored 22 goals and assisted 11. People seem to forget how young he is at 22 - for reference he is only 10 days older than Dan James and a month younger than Tammy Abraham. The fact that we have such high expectations of him already underlies how he's convinced all of us that he's capable of meeting them. He's in the same age group as TFM, Tuanzebe and AWB. It's just nuts how good he is for his age.

It would have been nice to win some silverware, but 3rd in the league and 3 semi-finals while playing slick attacking football (at least in the second half of the season) while developing such young, exciting players is definitely great progress for me. I encourage posters to look back upon their predictions and comments a year ago after the transfer window closed to realize how much Ole and this team have exceeded them.

I hope we strengthen the squad and move on from here to winning something next season while finishing top four again - I am confident Ole is the man to take us forward to those goals. We're not good enough to win the league, at least a season or two away from challenging Liverpool/City for the title.

 

[SirAnderson]

Bissaka is braindead defender, and he was atrocious defending on both goals

Look at the first one (granted Lindeloff wasn't perfect, but AWB got pulled out of position and got beaten on the easy one-two)


And then for the second goal he's looking ahead while the ball is being played in the zone when he's marking the only Sevilla player.

Negative football IQ. Clear the fecking ball, don't hop around like an idiot

And that's defending which is supposed to be his forte, let's not even talk his attacking game which is non-existent.

And piss off with the sarcasm and sophistry while you're at it.

Way to judge a player on 1 game...great stuff.

That better?

 

[::sonny::]

Bruno Fernando transformed a bad season in a decent season (considering the last 7 yrs)

The squad is still incomplete and bad built, with many dead wood, rotten apples, negative leaders and overrated players, being young is not a technical quality

I wouldn’t expect so much in the next 2/3 yrs

 

[el3mel]

We could have been looking at another terrible season really with our points total, it miraculous where we ended up. Not just because of the final points total but also the pandemic which seemed to work in our favour and allowed us to claw it back from so far behind.

If we finished 6th again this season then it would have been our worst season since Fergie when you factor in the huge outlay on transfers in the last two windows.

That's why I rate this as an average season at best. The only good thing is there's some optimism about overall play style and squad building, but results wise, we only really played to the expected level since the restart till the Villa match, so individually wise, pretty average season.

 

[Suedesi]

Way to judge a player on 1 game...great stuff.

That better?

I've seen him all season, he's awful.

 

[pascell]

5/10 for me. We got top 4 but this should always be the very bare minimum for United with the money we spend each summer. Let's face it too, Leicester capitulated massively to allow us to get top 4, had they not, we'd have been looking at no top 4 and no trophy, yikes. So I'd like to give an honourable mention to Leicester for their help.

I'm also not buying this 'progress has been made' by Statman Dave saying we've got to 3 SF this season, we've also lost all 3 SF which is very, very poor and shows the lack of elite/winning mentality we have in the squad still.

 

[bosnian_red]

I think you have to be encouraged given all the circumstances. Getting 3rd place and the semi's of every competition is good. One off cup games, anything can always happen. Unfortunately we didn't win any trophy, but it was still a good season for sure, and we went far in 3 different cups which shows we can compete on a few different fronts (much better than throwing away cups to focus on others, small time mentality imo).

Imperative to push on this summer for next season though. As a club we've reached a point where we need to be aggressive in the market and go big with what we need. Frustrating part is I don't think there's a chance in hell we do that (clearly looks like we're bailing on Sancho already), but that's what is needed if we want to be serious as a football club again.