If as the answer from a lot of you is “lack of long term planning” why on Earth was I mocked and given a “special one” tag line when Mourinho was hired four years ago. He was massively popular at the time and exacerbated all of our problems.
As a fanbase - what are we all unhappy about?
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My main gripe is Woodward having free reign to do whatever he wants despite constantly and repeatedly proving he's an idiot and harming the club both on and off the pitch in the process.
I get that people are annoyed at the Glazers profitting from the club, but the fact is if we were winning games and trophies there'd be much less anger, and they have allowed the club to spend enough money for it to be doing a LOT better than it is. At this point it's just bizarre why they aren't the ones asking the questions to Woodward.
I get that people are annoyed at the Glazers profitting from the club, but the fact is if we were winning games and trophies there'd be much less anger, and they have allowed the club to spend enough money for it to be doing a LOT better than it is. At this point it's just bizarre why they aren't the ones asking the questions to Woodward.
The owners have spent a lot of money, so it puzzles me when fans complain about this. Thinking the Saudis are the answer also pisses me off. Why would you want your club to become a political tool for such a leader as MBS? Are folks really not paying attention to the rest of the world? And I don't want anyone coming at me for not wanting an evil dictator anywhere near my club.
What bugs me is the disorganised mess. Woodward or someone close to him, should have realised by now that we need a structure and someone with the right credentials to be in charge of it.
We continuously make the same mistake of giving every manager too much power.
We have an identity. We want to play good attacking football; have good, skilful, talented, brave players; we don;t want over the hill players and mercenaries. We are not about that kind of shit - such players should never be on our list.
Ole has the right idea in some ways, but the wrong execution. We don't get players and support staff based on nationality but on merit. Same for support staff - they should be hired based on merit, not because you're English, or friends with the manager. It's just stupid. This disappoints me greatly with Ole. I thought he was more clever than that.
We are crying out to have a good structure in place and get the best, most suitable DOF who shares our philosophy to execute this. Have them re-organise our scouting system. Hire a manager willing to work under this structure (any manager who wants power without proving themselves at this club first should not be hired!); and get the players who fit this.
Ensure we have the best technical coaches money can buy. No one seems to get we need to be well coached and that this is a priority. A big mistake made with Ole, the club should have insisted on hiring great coaches as Ole is not the best technically.
Look at overhauling our sports science department.
The above is what makes me angry most of all. The money is not being spent wisely and folks in powerful positions at United don't seem to be applying common sense. That irritates me beyond belief.
The club is making things more complicated than it needs to be.
I'm also unhappy about fans getting too influenced by the press and pundits - they all have a fecking agenda and it's not to help United. We need to cut them out and release some of the pressure. It would affect me mentally to play for United if I paid attention to all the shit being said.
If someone could come up with a plan of trying to get the club to recognise that we need a proper structure in place, then I'd be all for it.
So I guess, lack of organisation is my problem with the club.
End of rant.
What bugs me is the disorganised mess. Woodward or someone close to him, should have realised by now that we need a structure and someone with the right credentials to be in charge of it.
We continuously make the same mistake of giving every manager too much power.
We have an identity. We want to play good attacking football; have good, skilful, talented, brave players; we don;t want over the hill players and mercenaries. We are not about that kind of shit - such players should never be on our list.
Ole has the right idea in some ways, but the wrong execution. We don't get players and support staff based on nationality but on merit. Same for support staff - they should be hired based on merit, not because you're English, or friends with the manager. It's just stupid. This disappoints me greatly with Ole. I thought he was more clever than that.
We are crying out to have a good structure in place and get the best, most suitable DOF who shares our philosophy to execute this. Have them re-organise our scouting system. Hire a manager willing to work under this structure (any manager who wants power without proving themselves at this club first should not be hired!); and get the players who fit this.
Ensure we have the best technical coaches money can buy. No one seems to get we need to be well coached and that this is a priority. A big mistake made with Ole, the club should have insisted on hiring great coaches as Ole is not the best technically.
Look at overhauling our sports science department.
The above is what makes me angry most of all. The money is not being spent wisely and folks in powerful positions at United don't seem to be applying common sense. That irritates me beyond belief.
The club is making things more complicated than it needs to be.
I'm also unhappy about fans getting too influenced by the press and pundits - they all have a fecking agenda and it's not to help United. We need to cut them out and release some of the pressure. It would affect me mentally to play for United if I paid attention to all the shit being said.
If someone could come up with a plan of trying to get the club to recognise that we need a proper structure in place, then I'd be all for it.
So I guess, lack of organisation is my problem with the club.
End of rant.
I understand what you're saying, but I don't think it's impossible to hire managers whose primary concern is winning trophies in a 3 year timeframe and balancing that with long term strategic goals. The trick is being able to cycle through managers without ripping up the foundations of the squad or tactical approach.
Most other big clubs seem to manage it.
Well to be fair short term solutions can also be a part of long term planning. My expectation when We hired Jose was that We knew the kind of manager He is. Maybe He was there to win some things before it got too long (not to gather up young players as what most of the posters and/or the board seemed to think). Expected the board to back him fully and let him buy older players to be catalysts for trophies. But the board didn't even back him fully. That's when you know it's really the lack of planning that's the problem, We try out things blindly. We want A but We don't want to do the things that are needed to achieve A.
Back to Bruno, it's the same problem every time.
Most fans are unhappy about?
Performances;
Why can we appear to do reasonably well against the top teams, but struggle and frankly look clueless against hardworking journeymen type teams, who continuously catch us on the break? Admittedly we now have some key players missing, but even before this the above problem persists.
Why are we unable to score direct from corners, this isn't something recent its been going on for a number of seasons?
Why have we spent millions of pounds nearly £800m and don't seem to have a pot to p*** in, especially when it comes to pressurising teams and scoring, sometimes from simple goal opportunities?
Finance/Transfers/Wages;
We have paid 'top dollar' for players for years, and mostly we got some joy, if only for a limited time, from our purchases, but now we seem all at sea over; who decides who to buy, when, and what we should pay for them and what we pay them in terms of salary?
If we really have all these 'unknowns' in relation to our most important and expensive assets, then we will come a cropper, its not rocket science? (or maybe it is??)
Facilities;
Old Trafford has special significance for all United fans, it is (or was ) our 'Theatre of Dreams'. However it has terrible access and egress issues, mainly because of its position located between a railway line on South side and a canal on the North side which cause 'pinch points' when fans leave the stadium. The stadium itself has had renovations and currently improvements for disabled fans is underway, but overall its looking like its past its sell by date... perhaps a bit like the team. There are no screens, the PA system is poor in certain parts of the ground, the upper tiers have limited viewing in places, the seating is out of date and now seats are too small in width and height and legroom for todays generally taller and larger bodied fans.
Who's to Blame?
Well ultimately the blame is laid rightly, at the door of the owners and the CEO, but they are not football people, they understand how to make money but not how to run a top football club. Of course they make money for themselves, they own the club. The CEO is also great at making sponsorship deals, squeezing every penny he can out of the brand name, but he doesn't seem to understand how to conduct transfer business and so the hundreds of millions made available for transfers/wages gets wasted or full bang for the buck is not realised. The sooner a DoF is appointed the better, that applies whether the present owners stay or new ones come in, the club needs both, people to raise the money and then someone who knows how to spend it... that would make us all (well nearly all) happy!
Performances;
Why can we appear to do reasonably well against the top teams, but struggle and frankly look clueless against hardworking journeymen type teams, who continuously catch us on the break? Admittedly we now have some key players missing, but even before this the above problem persists.
Why are we unable to score direct from corners, this isn't something recent its been going on for a number of seasons?
Why have we spent millions of pounds nearly £800m and don't seem to have a pot to p*** in, especially when it comes to pressurising teams and scoring, sometimes from simple goal opportunities?
Finance/Transfers/Wages;
We have paid 'top dollar' for players for years, and mostly we got some joy, if only for a limited time, from our purchases, but now we seem all at sea over; who decides who to buy, when, and what we should pay for them and what we pay them in terms of salary?
If we really have all these 'unknowns' in relation to our most important and expensive assets, then we will come a cropper, its not rocket science? (or maybe it is??)
Facilities;
Old Trafford has special significance for all United fans, it is (or was ) our 'Theatre of Dreams'. However it has terrible access and egress issues, mainly because of its position located between a railway line on South side and a canal on the North side which cause 'pinch points' when fans leave the stadium. The stadium itself has had renovations and currently improvements for disabled fans is underway, but overall its looking like its past its sell by date... perhaps a bit like the team. There are no screens, the PA system is poor in certain parts of the ground, the upper tiers have limited viewing in places, the seating is out of date and now seats are too small in width and height and legroom for todays generally taller and larger bodied fans.
Who's to Blame?
Well ultimately the blame is laid rightly, at the door of the owners and the CEO, but they are not football people, they understand how to make money but not how to run a top football club. Of course they make money for themselves, they own the club. The CEO is also great at making sponsorship deals, squeezing every penny he can out of the brand name, but he doesn't seem to understand how to conduct transfer business and so the hundreds of millions made available for transfers/wages gets wasted or full bang for the buck is not realised. The sooner a DoF is appointed the better, that applies whether the present owners stay or new ones come in, the club needs both, people to raise the money and then someone who knows how to spend it... that would make us all (well nearly all) happy!
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Posters are bored....it's all well and good to say the club is rebuilding -- or to be hoping the club is rebuilding. But there's nothing tangible to see about that. Look at the threads from the cafe -- a continuing rant about this person or that person. Negative, negative and more negative.
I also agree with whoever said that people don't want to blame Ole, so they're blaming the Glazers and Woodward.
Edit - also I hope fans recognise that Neville or anyone else just blaming Glazers and Ed should not be listened to. They are not the only ones at fault.
People are just moving the conversation away from issues which the coach is in control of. I love Ole, but he also shares some responsibility for the mess we see on the pitch and it's not just the players, it's the lack of proper coaching. It's also insisting on Maguire and getting the club to spend £80M on him, when most of us could see the midfield needed the most investment. An error in judgment and another reason why I want an experienced person in charge of recruitment.
People are just moving the conversation away from issues which the coach is in control of. I love Ole, but he also shares some responsibility for the mess we see on the pitch and it's not just the players, it's the lack of proper coaching. It's also insisting on Maguire and getting the club to spend £80M on him, when most of us could see the midfield needed the most investment. An error in judgment and another reason why I want an experienced person in charge of recruitment.
Can't speak for everyone but I think the lack of sustained planning coupled with years that have alternated between pretty poor net spends and then massive spending sprees has just felt very disjointed. We're being led by money men with no knowledge of the game whose ultimate ambition is to bleed the club of the massive profits it generates. Changes between 4 very different managers haven't helped and I don't like to say it but we all could see a few problems in SAF's last few seasons too. The club has been knocked about in all directions and I think there's a genuine feeling that we're just very directionless. Even Ole's championing of youth, 'culture' and fast, counter attacking football ("no tippy tappy") just feels desperate and backward looking, as if looking to the past will just solve everything. It all feels very sad.
As for Woodward, it's this simple. Let's look at just one example of his genius negotiating skills.
As for Woodward, it's this simple. Let's look at just one example of his genius negotiating skills.
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/23753129 I never see this get mentioned that much but we actually tabled a joint bid for Fellani and Baines for 28 million which Everton correctly labelled 'Insulting and derisory'. Fellaini's release cause was 23 million up until a certain point in July. The club doesn't pay this. Before the transfer window ends Ed panics and buys the player for 27 million
That's 4 million more than we could have paid for him and 1 million less than our joint bid for him and Baines 
We've appointed the wrong managers for a start. All of them since SAF.
Weird how people keep saying this. With Mourinho, we were trying to win in the short term to get time to improve for the long term. Turns out people (mostly here probably) didn't want the older, seasoned players needed to win in the short term.
Now we have Ole, and we're giving up on the short term successes and working only on the long term. People should be thrilled! Turns out though, that losing in the short term is depressing and boring. Who could have guessed that?
Snark?
Not really. Look at what happened when we finished 2nd behind City with some 18 points less than them. Buying Fred and Dalot at a cost of around 70 million wasn't really showing a lot of ambition and didn't send out the message that we were seriously going all out to compete. Add to this the Sevilla debacle in the CL and a pretty tame FA cup final defeat and you could see we needed more investment. If we serious about challenging then this doesn't add up.
In fact wasn't there even a quote from Ed a few years back saying that United didn't have to win trophies to generate money? I recall he got a lot of flack for saying something along those lines.
Both. if you spend a lot you can afford to spend it not too good, but we have not spent enough.
Also we are obvioiúsly not spending it well at all.
Thus it doesn't make sense what we do. If you have a limited budget then you should not overpay for average players in our strongest positions.
Also we are obvioiúsly not spending it well at all.
Thus it doesn't make sense what we do. If you have a limited budget then you should not overpay for average players in our strongest positions.
I don't have a problem with how much we've spent, I have a problem with how poorly we've spent it.
The state of our squad is an absolute joke. Martial should not be our first choice striker. We should not have two 21 year olds as our only real options on the wing. We shouldn't be looking to a child as our saviour off the bench. We are just chucking young players in without experienced players to guide or help them. The complete lack of leadership in our dressing room is another symptom of this. I fear some of our recruitment is based on social media engagement rather than footballing ability or improving the team.
How we've handled managers and contracts in general has been idiotic to say the least. How the feck are we paying Shaw, Martial, Rashford, Lingard etc so much money for so little return? "You've been decent for a while have some bags of cash!" I'm not saying they are all poor players, but we are somehow massively overpaying them like they have done something in the game. How did LVG last so long? That cretin should have been sacked long before he lucked his way to an FA Cup. Having said that how did we handle the sacking with so little dignity? Giving Rooney that contract when Sir Alex had given us the chance to get rid. Giving Mourinho the new contract before not backing him in the market and giving Martial who he wanted rid of a ridiculous new contract. Rojo....just Rojo.
There have been so many bad decisions that it's hard to have faith in the people in charge getting anything right. Doesn't help when some of those decisions feel like they were made for reasons other than improving us as a team.
The state of our squad is an absolute joke. Martial should not be our first choice striker. We should not have two 21 year olds as our only real options on the wing. We shouldn't be looking to a child as our saviour off the bench. We are just chucking young players in without experienced players to guide or help them. The complete lack of leadership in our dressing room is another symptom of this. I fear some of our recruitment is based on social media engagement rather than footballing ability or improving the team.
How we've handled managers and contracts in general has been idiotic to say the least. How the feck are we paying Shaw, Martial, Rashford, Lingard etc so much money for so little return? "You've been decent for a while have some bags of cash!" I'm not saying they are all poor players, but we are somehow massively overpaying them like they have done something in the game. How did LVG last so long? That cretin should have been sacked long before he lucked his way to an FA Cup. Having said that how did we handle the sacking with so little dignity? Giving Rooney that contract when Sir Alex had given us the chance to get rid. Giving Mourinho the new contract before not backing him in the market and giving Martial who he wanted rid of a ridiculous new contract. Rojo....just Rojo.
There have been so many bad decisions that it's hard to have faith in the people in charge getting anything right. Doesn't help when some of those decisions feel like they were made for reasons other than improving us as a team.
Pick a thread, any thread.
Arm chair football managers on red Cafe could tell that our midfield was missing both quality and numbers yet professionals in charge of recruitment, the management and the board thought it was just fine. That's a real big concern.
Why unhappy? Because results and performances are the worst in 30 plus years.(Actually it is a bit more watchable than under LVG but basically we are shite and sick of it)
Mostly I blame Woodward. Treats United as his disney toy. No strategy but wont bring a DOF in.
Its not clear how much input managers have over transfers and how much Woodward Judge etc have - personally suspect the managers have much less control than people assume - but one thing for sure is they are 100% in charge if negotiating transfer fees and contracts. He is a shambles.
Mostly I blame Woodward. Treats United as his disney toy. No strategy but wont bring a DOF in.
Its not clear how much input managers have over transfers and how much Woodward Judge etc have - personally suspect the managers have much less control than people assume - but one thing for sure is they are 100% in charge if negotiating transfer fees and contracts. He is a shambles.
Let's start with Moyes. He was the wrong man from the start. He was dithering too much. Then he sacked a coaching staff who has won more than he ever has. He should never have been hired.
I still think LVG was the right man to come after Moyes as no one else better was available. I think the biggest mistake was to appoint Giggs as his assistant. I feel that created a conflict with LVG's style and what Giggs wanted. I know that LVG was boring as hell in the latter part but he had a philosophy that will eventually work out in the long run. The biggest issue for us was that Jose got sacked by Chelsea. Now I wish that they hadn't because I feel that United would have kept LVG in that case.
Jose was a disaster in his last year. I really do not understand his transfer policy. The players he got was not his type of players. As for Ole the less said the better. He is not really important in all aspects at United now. He is just a puppet of Woodward. If Woodward wants to play I am sure Ole will let him don a shirt and get him on the field too.
I still think LVG was the right man to come after Moyes as no one else better was available. I think the biggest mistake was to appoint Giggs as his assistant. I feel that created a conflict with LVG's style and what Giggs wanted. I know that LVG was boring as hell in the latter part but he had a philosophy that will eventually work out in the long run. The biggest issue for us was that Jose got sacked by Chelsea. Now I wish that they hadn't because I feel that United would have kept LVG in that case.
Jose was a disaster in his last year. I really do not understand his transfer policy. The players he got was not his type of players. As for Ole the less said the better. He is not really important in all aspects at United now. He is just a puppet of Woodward. If Woodward wants to play I am sure Ole will let him don a shirt and get him on the field too.
You cant say the owners signed Fellaini Schweinsteiger or Matic. that had the 3 incumbent managers at that time all over it. So stretching that I would bet most if not all transfers were at the behest of each manager here at the time of the transfer.
Im unhappy that the players bought in are a poor comparison to what we had mainly under Fergie.
Im unhappy how far we have fallen from the top and still look farther away from getting back, than ever.
Im unhappy that the Glazers, who has businessmen, wont put a proper footballing man/men in charge of footballing matters and keep the money men Woody and Judge as money men.
Im unhappy that the players bought in are a poor comparison to what we had mainly under Fergie.
Im unhappy how far we have fallen from the top and still look farther away from getting back, than ever.
Im unhappy that the Glazers, who has businessmen, wont put a proper footballing man/men in charge of footballing matters and keep the money men Woody and Judge as money men.
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Giving too much control to managers when it comes to recruitment has landed us in this mess post SAF. A independent party should run the recruitment side with a headcoach solely focused on coaching the players and preparing for games. In such a scenario even if the headcoach is sacked the foundation of the team stays intact because the party that runs recruitment and plans ahead is still at the club which would also see a smoother transition for the new headcoach.
The last six years suggest you're completely wrong. We still are the best club in England at making money despite not winning much.
I personally was unhappy about the Glazer take-over from day one but as many have said, the good results dampened that dissatisfaction. At the time it wasn't as obvious (again because of SAF's brilliance) that the debt they put us in facilitated so other clubs caught up faster and faster. SAF's net spend from their take-over until his retirement was an average of 13M/year. During this period clubs like City, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real etc outspent us by more than 500M and this in a market where players like Hazard, Aguero, Ronaldo went for prices under 100M.
We all listened to SAF's "No value in the market" line over and over, replacing players like Ronaldo with Valencia. Now we all know that the initial interest rates of the loan the Glazers put in place devoured most of our economy. We all knew from the start that the Glazers were firstly and foremost in it for their own profit, football and glory was never their nr 1 priority. When Gill and SAF left we weren't aware of how much of our success was down to them. The Glazers chose to replace Gill with Woodward, the man who facilitated the take-over. Moyes was appointed and directly Woodward showed his incompetence with the way the Fellaini transfer was handled.
By the time Moyes finished 7th, it was obvious that our squad needed a rebuild. The lack of investment for 8-9 years forced SAF to never rejuvenate his squad, money wasn't there to buy younger players of equal quality. He never had the money to replace players like Giggs with Hazard, Keane with Silva or Rooney with Aguero. But resorted to "lesser" players and still managed to make them perform above their weight. Instead of having a pro-active approach to keeping us on top, the Glazers penny pinched right up to the end of Moyes reign and then threw money on project that needed a complete rebuild, Stars like RVP, Vidic, Rio, Rooney were all at the twilight of their careers, it was never going to be an easy job from there. The prolonged period with lack of investment put us here.
Instead of putting a proper plan in place, hire DOF to steer the ship in one direction, Woodward takes this on him and knee-jerks us further down the slope. The Glazers still keep him on even though he clearly failed massively on the football side of it. In an interview Klopp explained why he didn't choose to join the "richer" clubs:
"I had talks with other clubs and they didn't sound like a football club," said the German. "It sounded like marketing, image, you need to sign this, you need to sign that. And I thought 'wow, that's not the game I love.'
"It's all part of football, but it cannot be the number one, two, three, four priority. First of all please try to improve the game we play."
Klopp never mentions us in name but we know now that our CEO sold the job to Klopp as an "Adult Disneyland". It is obvious that Woodwards primary directive isn't to improve our football but build our brand, make more money. The Glazers and Woodward saw an opportunity after Oles fantastic initial run as manager, again in a knee-jerk reaction Woodward offers Ole a permanent role at the club. I like many other fans loved the appointment, I love Ole and the idea that a former player would lead us was exciting, but I'm just a fan, I knee-jerk, our board shouldn't. So suddenly our CEO decided that he himself (a CEO who's failed miserably in almost every football decision he's made so far) and Ole ( A young manager who has no experience at this level, fresh from the massive club of Molde) would take on the job to rebuild one of the biggest football clubs in history. Now we're reaping the fruits of their professionally handled rebuild, initially caused by the Glazers business-model. So no I'm not that happy with out owners nor our clown CEO.
We all listened to SAF's "No value in the market" line over and over, replacing players like Ronaldo with Valencia. Now we all know that the initial interest rates of the loan the Glazers put in place devoured most of our economy. We all knew from the start that the Glazers were firstly and foremost in it for their own profit, football and glory was never their nr 1 priority. When Gill and SAF left we weren't aware of how much of our success was down to them. The Glazers chose to replace Gill with Woodward, the man who facilitated the take-over. Moyes was appointed and directly Woodward showed his incompetence with the way the Fellaini transfer was handled.
By the time Moyes finished 7th, it was obvious that our squad needed a rebuild. The lack of investment for 8-9 years forced SAF to never rejuvenate his squad, money wasn't there to buy younger players of equal quality. He never had the money to replace players like Giggs with Hazard, Keane with Silva or Rooney with Aguero. But resorted to "lesser" players and still managed to make them perform above their weight. Instead of having a pro-active approach to keeping us on top, the Glazers penny pinched right up to the end of Moyes reign and then threw money on project that needed a complete rebuild, Stars like RVP, Vidic, Rio, Rooney were all at the twilight of their careers, it was never going to be an easy job from there. The prolonged period with lack of investment put us here.
Instead of putting a proper plan in place, hire DOF to steer the ship in one direction, Woodward takes this on him and knee-jerks us further down the slope. The Glazers still keep him on even though he clearly failed massively on the football side of it. In an interview Klopp explained why he didn't choose to join the "richer" clubs:
"I had talks with other clubs and they didn't sound like a football club," said the German. "It sounded like marketing, image, you need to sign this, you need to sign that. And I thought 'wow, that's not the game I love.'
"It's all part of football, but it cannot be the number one, two, three, four priority. First of all please try to improve the game we play."
Klopp never mentions us in name but we know now that our CEO sold the job to Klopp as an "Adult Disneyland". It is obvious that Woodwards primary directive isn't to improve our football but build our brand, make more money. The Glazers and Woodward saw an opportunity after Oles fantastic initial run as manager, again in a knee-jerk reaction Woodward offers Ole a permanent role at the club. I like many other fans loved the appointment, I love Ole and the idea that a former player would lead us was exciting, but I'm just a fan, I knee-jerk, our board shouldn't. So suddenly our CEO decided that he himself (a CEO who's failed miserably in almost every football decision he's made so far) and Ole ( A young manager who has no experience at this level, fresh from the massive club of Molde) would take on the job to rebuild one of the biggest football clubs in history. Now we're reaping the fruits of their professionally handled rebuild, initially caused by the Glazers business-model. So no I'm not that happy with out owners nor our clown CEO.
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But we are making less and less.
Erm, perhaps that's why saving more and more is a solution? regardless of trophies. Especially since our recruitment have been poor and yield very little positive result. How much do We get if We won the league compared to hundreds of millions We could save from buying players anyway? that's without mentioning their wages since our wage standard is absurd. And other silly addons.
Everything to do with Solskjaer his ethos, his identity, his useless attempts to cultivate the team to perform, his mannerisms in interviews after defeats, he was a winner of a player but has transitioned into a loser of a manager.
I don't blame Woodward for everything under the sun like most do because his influence doesn't effect results on the pitch. Us spending and wasting money is because the structure of the club is poor, LVG, Moyes and Mourinho haven't utilised many of their purchases adequately enough.
Also some of the fans I've got to throw in, some of the romanticism I've seen on here is an absolute embarrassment. Many fans have expressed some of the most ridiculous notions for Solskjaer due to their impoverished mentality to the extent they would remain happy for the club to remain destitute to suit their fantasy agenda of time permitted arguments when the reality is that our club sits in the depths of mediocrity.
I can't think of a worse combination than emotive fans, Solskjaer and Woodward. The whole thing smells like 7th place which is coincidentally where we look to be finishing.
I don't blame Woodward for everything under the sun like most do because his influence doesn't effect results on the pitch. Us spending and wasting money is because the structure of the club is poor, LVG, Moyes and Mourinho haven't utilised many of their purchases adequately enough.
Also some of the fans I've got to throw in, some of the romanticism I've seen on here is an absolute embarrassment. Many fans have expressed some of the most ridiculous notions for Solskjaer due to their impoverished mentality to the extent they would remain happy for the club to remain destitute to suit their fantasy agenda of time permitted arguments when the reality is that our club sits in the depths of mediocrity.
I can't think of a worse combination than emotive fans, Solskjaer and Woodward. The whole thing smells like 7th place which is coincidentally where we look to be finishing.
Yeah. I wonder who appointed Ole. Such a trigger happy person.
Exactly. People might argue that our big deals are coming to an end and are about to get renegotiated and improved. But this time companies have bargaining power because we’ve been shit and aren’t even CL regulars.
How do we get deals better then the ones Real/Barca etc are halfway through when they are in the CL every year.
Not even that young. Martial is 24 Rashford and James 22. Greenwood is the only 'youth' in football terms. Agree with what you say.
Most annoying thing for me is incompetence. Reality is we are owned by the Glazers and that’s not going to change for a while.
Clearly having them as owners is not beneficial but given the wage bill and money spent on transfers we should be miles better. Tolerating incompetence and having no accountability for failure is the culture behind the scenes and it makes no sense.
Clearly having them as owners is not beneficial but given the wage bill and money spent on transfers we should be miles better. Tolerating incompetence and having no accountability for failure is the culture behind the scenes and it makes no sense.
We've nearly doubled our revenues since 2013 despite this being our worst spell as a team in 30 years. Sure, the rate of growth has declined recently but that's more due to the lack of CL than lack of trophies.
My fundamental problem with the Glazers is the same problem I'd have with any private owner of Manchester United. A cultural institution like Manchester United, which is effectively a public good for the community of Manchester (and now the rest of the world), should not be owned privately.
United exists to win football matches. With owners like the Glazers, United will always exist to make money. The two don't always align.
And within the set of owners, we have been tragically unlucky. They're incompetent, avaricious and nepotistic and yet getting what they crave -- a microcosm of modern capitalism.
I feel like a lot of what made me love Manchester United and football in general is being shat on. Our club has been turned into a "brand" rather than a football club that does financially well by being one of the best football clubs in the world. A dip in success was to be expected after Ferguson but owners and board (I suppose Ferguson can take some of the blame here as well ) really turned our club into a shadow of itself.
My main gripe is lack of succession planning. Secondary problems *seem* to be lack of top of the line staff in all areas of the club.
They don't care about the club. We are nothing for them.
True, although I was referring more to the young players coming in from the youth team at the minute in the games they do play. They are being thrown into a squad full of has beens, failures and no ones. I know they don't always play much, but when they do who are they looking to? Pogba? Mata? Maguire? He's trying to settle in himself and has had the captaincy thrust on him because there's no one else.
The ages of the others were from the start of the season when we somehow decided that forward line was a good idea. That's before you even get into the midfield. We made a huge mess the last few years bouncing from extremes of managers and very rarely getting anything right. It's like we've written a manual on how not to do it.
It all comes back to your point in your other post about the refusal to put a football man in charge of football matters instead of leaving it to bankers. Whether Ole is the right man for the job or not, whether Mourinho was, they need(ed) someone above them that's interested in something other than different managers whims or social media clicks. It feels so scattergunned.
Look at Matic, Mourinho wanted someone to fulfil that role so he wanted the player he knew and had worked with before. That's fair enough. Ed said yes, fair enough still. The problem being Matic's age, someone with a bit of footballing knowledge in between Ed and Mourinho might have spotted this gap in the team and been able to offer a younger alternative that we wouldn't be looking to replace a few years later. We've given ourselves nothing to build on because we keep fecking up the foundations then hiring someone else to build something to their own tastes on top of the mess we've previously made. We've done this 3 times now and still don't seem to have learned.
Being back at square one at the end of the season by making the same mistakes.
Costly flops
Star players wanting to leave
Manager not being good enough
Not offloading the deadwood and in some cases offering new contracts
Boring football
Watching our rivals get better
You can copy and paste these for almost every post Fergie season. It's the same old rubbish, year in year out.
Costly flops
Star players wanting to leave
Manager not being good enough
Not offloading the deadwood and in some cases offering new contracts
Boring football
Watching our rivals get better
You can copy and paste these for almost every post Fergie season. It's the same old rubbish, year in year out.
I agree with a lot of what you wrote but the decision to rebuild the club with Ole is 100% on him. He made the decision that him and Ole were competent enough to handle the rebuilding of one of the biggest clubs in history. What we're seeing now i a result of that.
My biggest problem is something Rio pointed out the other day - the players we sign never seem to improve at all.
Either it's a recruitment problem, or more likely, a coaching problem.
Either it's a recruitment problem, or more likely, a coaching problem.
How about the fact that they’ve taken £1 billion out of the club and failed to invest a single penny of their own. Supporters really need to educate themselves on the failings of the Glazers, we’re being left behind and OT is in need of major renovations. The list goes on and on.
I have no personal experience of elite management or any knowledge of the weird and wonderful world of the transfer market. However, even I can see that giving players like Jones et al extended contracts and not really wanting to play them is madness. Trying to play top trumps with City by out bidding them for Sanchez with a squad disrupting wage which was only ever going to sow disharmony in the squad and is another act of madness. The sheer volume of back passes is unbelievable, I remember when Ray Wilkins was called the ‘crab’ for all the sideways passing that went on under the management of Dave Sexton. Currently I would see sideways passing as a leap forward in this squad! Although it pains me greatly to say this, but not copying Klip Kop by get a functioning squad of players and then as and when viable upgrade the weak areas.
But they’ve shown they’re incapable of building a great squad post Fergie and have failed to put into place a structure that will allow a proper rebuild. Talk and intention is one thing but actually putting into action is another. We are not a smart football club on the footballing side and that’s a major problem.