He is a Liverpool fan. Of course he would like it to happen.
Board vs Jose
- Thread starter AshRK
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
If not, you should have sacked Mourinho. He's the manager, it's his choice. Which is why I wrote above, with the indecision at display this summer and carried into the season, I wouldn't be surprised if this season ends up as a write-off.
Obviously. But objectively, I do think you have to back your manager, find someone you are prepared to back or have a setup where this doesn't come up.
The board has done none of those this summer.
Kind of agree. Not necessarily at backing at all costs, but having a setup (like a DoF thing). Also, I think the manager needs to be flexible on his transfers.
While we probably won't ever know what happened, it seems that Ed and Mourinho wanted different types of players. Ed probably marketable young players while Mourinho old veterans with no resale value but whom he can trust. Then Mourinho put pressure on Ed via media. Likely it could have been solved better by a long conversation, and if not, then Mourinho should have been sacked.
Probably going to far with the list of my assumptions (yay, my Tagline), but the only way this makes sense is if we have hired a manager for next summer, and Ed thought that Mourinho can get us top 4 anyway, so finish this season somehow, and then go big next season with Zidane and a big budget. But then we also know that when Mourinho is not happy, he is a ticking bomb and things turn out ugly.
Regardless, it has been a clusterfeck and likely multiple parties are to be blamed. Still happy that we kept Pogba and Martial though.
By now, I think it is pretty clear this is where Woodward is at. It reflects really poorly on him though. A competent executive would have had the plan ready to roll out as soon as last season finished, not sit on your hands during the period where your most decisive actions as chairman are meant to be taken, then start rolling out changes to the managerial structure while the season is just taking off. He's a clown, basically.
Iirc Sir Boby Charlton as well as SAF are members of the board.
Woodward is probably looking through the money glasses, signing bunch of 30y olds just isn't sustainable.
You don't have to be outraged on our behalf. A number of us sympathise with the club's stance. We just felt it could have been handled better
Weird. You genuinely would have chosen this summer's strategy as the best of the four choices (1. backing JM, 2. sacking JM, 3. DoF at the start, 4. doing nothing really but next season will be better)? All it needed was a more presentable rollout?
Presentable rollout? I'm referring to alternative transfer targets and a feedback process to reach a middle ground with Jose on the type of targets.
Charlton and Ferguson hardly spends hours every day looking at prospects, evaluating play etc., which you’d need to evaluate which 30-year old is worth what. Ferguson in his time brought in experience when he thought it necessary.
By ‘bringing in a bunch of 30 y olds’ for ‘exuberant money’, I assume you mean Matic, Sanchez and Alderweireld/Boateng? There are no others, right?
That's how I read "just felt it could have been handled better" - Ie. "the decisions were the right ones, but not the delivery."
I'd say not being able to sit down and talk with your nearest colleague/employee over the course of a summer (or start of it, really) to align on policy and execution is also pretty damning.
At least one of them shouldn't be in a job, really.
We should sell Martial, Pogba and sack Woodward to back Jose? Maybe it's best to let us worry about our team's internal politics. Your hardline approach to all of this isn't the most practical.
No, I actually lined up three viable options:
1. back Jose
2. fire him.
3. Or, if you are looking for a different direction with a DoF and defined transfer policy above the manager/head coach - Actually execute as soon as the season is over so you can enact said policy over the summer, rather than wringing hands over it without really talking to your manager and then announce changes to happen when the football is underway and it's too late to do anything useful for this season.
Basically, Woodward has handled the summer about as poorly as is possible and has primed this season to be a write-off.
You absolutely don't need to do that in order to buy an already proven player, for youth player you do.
I'm referring to Willian and Perišić primarily, probably 70 million each on probably around 8-10 million wages, with 2-3 year expiry date which would leave us needing to spend big to replace them in couple of years.
Also bringing in those 2, whilst having Sanchez would mean both of Martial and Rashford would want to leave us.
Alderweireld would be a good addition but not for the amount Spurs were asking considering he's in the last year lf his contract, because that would be us setting a precedent, but then again as it stands we have Jones, Smalling, Rojo, Bailly, Lindelof challenging for the first team spot with Tuanzebe and TFM right behind the corner as well.
There's zero evidence Pogba leaving or staying has anything to do with whether Mourinho stays or goes, and Martial's agent is the only person who has said Martial wants to leave, which doesn't exactly equate to Mourinho asking for him to be sold and the board refusing to. More likely he's told the board that Martial can leave if he wants to, and the board are reluctant to sell for a cut price due to his age and potential...which actually makes sense. I suspect Mourinho will still play him if he feels he's the best choice in a game.
It is very boring how people try to create a drama out of next to nothing.
Woodward's fumbling account of our attempts to sign a centreback are of more concern, and not because of his relationship with Jose...just because it made him sound like an idiot who shouldn't be trusted with that sort of thing.
"Backing" the manager and signing every player he wants aren't really the same thing. It's like claiming the Liverpool board don't back Klopp anymore just because you fudged a move for Fekir or whatever he's called. If the club didn't back Jose as manager they wouldn't have signed Fred and Dalot, or made any attempt to sign a centre back. It doesn't really matter how much stuff gets invented out of thin air. If Jose has a good season he'll be backed, if he has a bad season he wont. That's how it seems to work at United now.
I think it's a reasonable assumption that while Mourinho has not specifically asked for Martial to be sold, Martial wants to leave and Mourinho would have been happy to sanction it to get in a different player instead. And probably, both Mourinho and Martial are annoyed that the board has effectively priced this out of happening. I reckon Mourinho will play Martial the way he sees him - as a decent squad player. Probably a reason why Martial wants to leave.
How much Pogba staying or going has to do with Mourinho remains to be seen, but I'd be surprised if it isn't a factor - or at least that the board will seriously consider how much a factor it is, if it escalates over this season.
Klopp actually handed back much of that responsibility. He's a major reason we have a DoF now although it hardly ever gets noticed. He preferred Julian Brandt over Salah, but went with the consensus decision of the panel.
It reminds me of the rodgers situation really. "Here's my shortlist, what's the budget?" "for that list? not much. But if you are willing to choose from a totally different list, it will be much bigger." The fact that they don't even seem to be operating with the same shortlists suggest a total misalignment of resources. Are they not talking to the same scouts?
But really, as much as I'd enjoy to see Mourinho go full throttle on all the clichés fans feared when he joined, about scaring away youth and buying short term solutions for big money, he's simply trying to fulfil his remit. Might fail and all, but he's doing his job, pantomime villain-style as it may be. It's woodward's buffoonery that basically amount to not doing his job at all.
We need to calm relations at this club currently. I think we can all agree that the drama surrounding Manchester United needs to die down so we can get on with business.
Virtually everywhere Mourinho looks there are tensions he could do with easing. Chief here is the mutual disaffection between him and Pogba with the post-Leicester outburst possibly rooted in Mourinho’s lukewarm praise of his triumphant World Cup campaign. The Mourinho-Pogba contretemps are mirrored by those the former is enduring with Anthony Martial. The player wants to leave but, given the manager also missed out on a wide-forward in the window, pragmatism may mean differences should be buried. And while Mourinho and Ed are cordial, the disconnect over transfers illustrates all is not perfect between our two most important men. An upturn in these relationships is required
Virtually everywhere Mourinho looks there are tensions he could do with easing. Chief here is the mutual disaffection between him and Pogba with the post-Leicester outburst possibly rooted in Mourinho’s lukewarm praise of his triumphant World Cup campaign. The Mourinho-Pogba contretemps are mirrored by those the former is enduring with Anthony Martial. The player wants to leave but, given the manager also missed out on a wide-forward in the window, pragmatism may mean differences should be buried. And while Mourinho and Ed are cordial, the disconnect over transfers illustrates all is not perfect between our two most important men. An upturn in these relationships is required
Lots of sense in what you write. Now we really don’t know the extent of agreements and disagreements between neither José and his board nor José and his players. What we have is a Mourinho using the press to communicate disagreements with both players and board for a while, and some players and now apparently also the board using the media to answer back. Which seems to me a risky game for everyone, as the collective press functions as a borderline unstable drama king/queen with multiple personality disorder. Not the place I would have gone for marriage counselling, to say the least
We’ll see how the season develops. If Rashford steps up again, Lingard stabilizes at his best and Mata keeps it ticking, RW isn’t a strength but not much of a weakness either, assuming the rest og the team is flowing smoothely. Right now, that’s assuming a lot, but it’s very early in the season.
No matter which side of the Mourinho debate you lie on, it is hard to justify the board’s ineptitude and lack of ambition.
If the board was serious about making United title challengers, they had two options at the end of the summer: Either trust Jose is the right man for the job or get in a new manager. If they trusted Jose then they should have trusted his judgement and got the players he asked for. If not, they should have fired him and found a suitable replacement. However, continuing with a manager who now believes that his team is not strong enough for a title challenge is not going to take the club anywhere. It shows that the club is happy with the status quo as long as we keep on qualifying for the champions league.
If the board was serious about making United title challengers, they had two options at the end of the summer: Either trust Jose is the right man for the job or get in a new manager. If they trusted Jose then they should have trusted his judgement and got the players he asked for. If not, they should have fired him and found a suitable replacement. However, continuing with a manager who now believes that his team is not strong enough for a title challenge is not going to take the club anywhere. It shows that the club is happy with the status quo as long as we keep on qualifying for the champions league.
Pfft, even in academic writing at uni style counts for 10 marks out of 100.I could have made 12500 post in two weeks and still your childish gibberish won't be worth my time.
Jesus Christ!
TBF though if the rest of my argument was as bad as yours I'd be clinging to it for dear life too.
I thought Aguero was class back then and Silva was considered pretty good. It's just that we fell for foreign players can't adapt here argument and went for safe bets like Ashley Young.
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Rather we spent a portion of that sacking him, and save the rest for hopefully a good attacking manager.
If that's true and if they indeed intend to give him 100 million in January then that is a pretty strong indicator he'll be here next season as well.
Spend £100m in January when out of title race, in desperate bid for top 4.
Depressing thought.
I don't mind if we invest in 2 good CB's. The club's vision should be planned irrespective of the present manager.
If the money is to buy a CB it doesn’t really matter if he is here or not by the end of the season. We need a top CB anyway, regardless of the manager.
Thankfully it’s only Jamie Jackson reporting it.
Paper talk and bullshit.
They were good not world class, they developed into world class players.
I doubt if the news or the numbers are true, but it would be terribly daft by the board to not sanction money in summer, but then sanction it in winter, when it is arguably difficult and costlier to get a player.
It would be well worth though, if we get a genuine quality CB, who will not be found out in the English league.
It would be well worth though, if we get a genuine quality CB, who will not be found out in the English league.
Alderweireld- 30 mil plus Rojo/Jones/Smalling
Skriniar-60 mil
Icardi- Lukaku plus 30 mil.
And you have happy Jose and team that can win title.
Back to reality; we will buy Maguire for 70 mil.
Skriniar-60 mil
Icardi- Lukaku plus 30 mil.
And you have happy Jose and team that can win title.
Back to reality; we will buy Maguire for 70 mil.
Too little, too late
There is no chance Inter sell him to us for 60 million.
In fairness, you could tell Aguero would be WC all the way back at Independiente, let alone at Atlético. Our record with Argies is pretty awful though so understand it. SAF always preferred a solid British core and managed to get the best out of that so I have absolutely zero issues with it.
Too late to save the season perhaps but not too late for Mourinho to demonstrate with the team what would have been different if he was given funds all along.
Edit: oh God, another 'Warchest' article
We need to get a CB regardless of who the manager is. Koulibaly, De Ligt or Skriniar would be very nice.
If we don't make the top 4 he's gone anyway.
We see this shit every time.