Board vs Jose

[Jazz]

It was subtle! He said expect Valencia to be injured more, there were signs last year. Or put another way, older players are more injury prone so maybe we should replace, but I guess that is partly what Dalot is.

So why buy Dalot instead of an experienced player? I don't get Jose. If he wanted someone to jump right in, why buy Dalot who is not only young, but also out until September. Doesn't make sense.

 

[RedTillI'mDead]

Under Mourinho we have been a good balance between age of signings. We sign enough players in good age, so the other side of balance is needed

We just brought Sanchez on big wages who is 30 in December.

Matic is almost 30

Ashley Young is 33

Valencia is 33 in August

Mata is 30

Smalling is 29 in November

Rojo is 28

Romero is 31

Darmian is 29 in Dec

Herrera is 29 in Aug

Fellaini is 31 in Nov

Over the next 3/4 years that's a fair number of high appearance players that will need replacing.

Ashley Young might have a loose plan in Shaw and Valencia in Dalot, but either squad players or better players will be needed within the next summer, max 2.

Romero is probably well covered and has a few more years anyway. GKs can go on till 40 if they look after themselves.

Beyond that we have a large demand coming up for either first teamers or squad players. We either need to replace one older player for another leaving, or buy on the younger range and take a hit on a larger squad.

Adding age without losing could cause an expensive bottle neck! This said that's 11 players, so at 3 a season we could easily manage this list. Damian might already be gone soon.

 

[Son Of Sam]

If that is true, why does he continue to play them in preference to his own signings of Bailly and Lindelöf?

Or maybe Jose has less say on transfers than we all believe. Which is certainly possible, and why we ended up signing obviously non-Jose players like Mkhitaryan; possibly Pogba also.

Smalling was the most durable last season. Others were injured throughout. Towards the end of the season, he started Smalling/Jones to boost their chances of making the World Cup squad. Bailly’s Ivory Coast were out of the World Cup dream as far back as October last year & Eric was injured for most parts of last season. Lindelof had his chance & blew it against Huddersfield.

Jose has worked with Terry, Gallas, Carvalho, Ramos, Pepe, Lucio, Materrazzi, etc. There’s no way Jose feels Smalling/Jones are in that category of elite CBs. I think the board is hindering Mourinho. He’s not getting what he is asking for and that fault lies with Woodward & the board. We all saw how Hazard destroyed Jones in the cup final & recently in the 3rd place match at the World Cup. Smalling is below Cahill, Maguire & Stones in the pecking order. We can’t win the PL with the duo in our defence.

 

[Red4Life_#7]

But even then Jose prefers smalling and jones to bailly and lindelof which is a concern. Let us not forget this is the same Jose who has publicly begged Fellaini to sign the contract. Woodward is a strange character but Jose has also made some questionable decisions.

Jose is a world class manager, tbh I don't know what questionable decisions you mean?
Jones and Smalling have been at the club for many years, you need players like this in your squad to bring consistency and maintain the dressing room. Are they the world's best CB's... no, but we've had one of the best defensive records in the EPL for the last few seasons so they can't be that bad.

Belgium came 3rd in this summer's WC, even this manager called Fellaini vital to their team so he must be questionable too. Tbh I'm not Fellaini's biggest fan, but one thing I do admit is that he is very difficult to play against and he can be extremely effective at times in a match.

The arrival of Fred, plus if Perrera stays will bring much needed technical ability to our Midfield and allow us to move the ball much faster this season. This is something we lacked big time last season and I believe it will help Rashford and Lukaku vastly.

 

[RedTillI'mDead]

So why buy Dalot instead of an experienced player? I don't get Jose. If he wanted someone to jump right in, why buy Dalot who is not only young, but also out until September. Doesn't make sense.

I think Jose probably appreciates the experience of Valencia and what Dalot can bring. His point might simply be that its not enough and we need an additional head. Maybe he doesn't see Dalot as anywhere near squad ready so we need immediate cover or maybe Dalot as versatile is a useful sub, but we still need 2 natural options for each position with Dalot as a 3rd to cover either flanks.

 

[ti vu]

We just brought Sanchez on big wages who is 30 in December.

Matic is almost 30

Ashley Young is 33

Valencia is 33 in August

Mata is 30

Smalling is 29 in November

Rojo is 28

Romero is 31

Darmian is 29 in Dec

Herrera is 29 in Aug

Fellaini is 31 in Nov

Over the next 3/4 years that's a fair number of high appearance players that will need replacing.

Ashley Young might have a loose plan in Shaw and Valencia in Dalot, but either squad players or better players will be needed within the next summer, max 2.

Romero is probably well covered and has a few more years anyway. GKs can go on till 40 if they look after themselves.

Beyond that we have a large demand coming up for either first teamers or squad players. We either need to replace one older player for another leaving, or buy on the younger range and take a hit on a larger squad.

Adding age without losing could cause an expensive bottle neck! This said that's 11 players, so at 3 a season we could easily manage this list. Damian might already be gone soon.

And our signings? Fred, Lindelof, Bailly, Pogba, Dalot, Lukaku are all in good age. 29-30 is supposed to be prime in many cases for players. Half of ours those you listed ain't starters. And squad average age is very healthy. Try to look at other (preferred sucessful) teams. Do we need more quality in our starting XI to improve the team? Yes. Resale value is depended on result also. Look at Shaw. It's unlikely he would get us good fee if he is to be sold now, and he's young. Shaw is one of other players in good age at the time signed under LVG, and most of them now have been moved on and in the progress. So what's the point of not looking at 100th step ahead, when you're struggling for the next few steps

The ultimate aim of transfer is filling what you need. No point in planning for future when you can't get going at the moment

 

[Josep Dowling]

We just brought Sanchez on big wages who is 30 in December.

Matic is almost 30

Ashley Young is 33

Valencia is 33 in August

Mata is 30

Smalling is 29 in November

Rojo is 28

Romero is 31

Darmian is 29 in Dec

Herrera is 29 in Aug

Fellaini is 31 in Nov

Over the next 3/4 years that's a fair number of high appearance players that will need replacing.

Ashley Young might have a loose plan in Shaw and Valencia in Dalot, but either squad players or better players will be needed within the next summer, max 2.

Romero is probably well covered and has a few more years anyway. GKs can go on till 40 if they look after themselves.

Beyond that we have a large demand coming up for either first teamers or squad players. We either need to replace one older player for another leaving, or buy on the younger range and take a hit on a larger squad.

Adding age without losing could cause an expensive bottle neck! This said that's 11 players, so at 3 a season we could easily manage this list. Damian might already be gone soon.

This is my issue. We are continuously linked to 29/30 year old players. And they will need replacing in 3 years times amongst all the other players.

We should be looking at 23-26 year old players that we can half develop into top quality players. The whole transfer strategy is beyond clueless and it’s starting to really frustrate me now.

 

[Revaulx]

At the current rate Fellaini would have left and we wouldn’t have even replaced him. Fellaini should be the least of everyones worries.

Indeed. And who’s to say a new manager wouldn’t rate him? LvG and Martinez aren’t Jose, and both have got good things from Fellaini.

 

[SteveW]

A rift might be the best thing that could happen. Jose is a bad fit for United and he's not going to change.

 

[Jazz]

Well if anything has happened it's got to be fairly recent. Board supported him on Fellaini even with the negativity coming from the majority of the fans.
He just seems to want more and more. I reckon you could get him Messi, Ronaldo, Bale and all the late 20s/30 year old footballers he loves, and he would still moan imho.

 

[Son Of Sam]

Criticizing the Glazers/Woodward feels like a cop out to me. United have spent £600m since the end of SAF's reign. Madrid's net spend is a third of that and yet they've won 4 European titles in that time. No United manager can claim they haven't been backed. The problems go deeper.

I can't knock the board for potentially being tepid about backing Mourinho further given how he's failed to get the most of the investment the club has already made. Must be rather annoying for them that the areas seemingly being targeted are areas that have already been invested in over the last 2 years...

Would a director of football really help steer the clubs seemingly aimless/directionless personnel policy? I've seen it mentioned often but fail to see how the dynamic would work in practice under Mourinho

Mourinho didn’t spend that £600m and half of the players brought in post-SAF have since left. Di Maria, Falcao, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Blind, Depay, Zlatan, Mkhitaryan. The board would be stupid not to back him.

It’s not like Pep has succeeded in making the most out of what he inherited. Majority of his buys turned out to be duds too but they kept on backing him. Pep inherited Hart, he quickly binned him for Claudio Bravo who was equally useless. That didn’t stop their board from getting Ederson. Same applies to Nolito....and this is the guy Jose must compete with.

If the board is not ready to do Jose’s bidding then they should not expect the Holy Grail. It’s as simple as that. The board has bought poorly prior José. United’s rebuilding job(given LVG/Moyes mismanagement) was thrice as much as that oh City and at least twice as much as any other club in the top 6.

 

[Greck]

So why buy Dalot instead of an experienced player? I don't get Jose. If he wanted someone to jump right in, why buy Dalot who is not only young, but also out until September. Doesn't make sense.

Loves to moan. Would rather transfers before looking within his squad for solutions. Our board are also a weird bunch. They must not have been watching football for too long if they think an unhappy Mourinho will end well. Back him or sack him is the right term

 

[Castia]

Well if anything has happened it's got to be fairly recent. Board supported him on Fellaini even with the negativity coming from the majority of the fans.
He just seems to want more and more. I reckon you could get him Messi, Ronaldo, Bale and all the late 20s/30 year old footballers he loves, and he would still moan imho.

We’ve added a midfielder and a young right back who will have limited games it’s hardly something to be happy about.

Meanwhile Martial wants out, Pogba is supposedly unhappy and we still can’t shift players like Darmian, Rojo, Jones etc it’s a complete mess.

 

[royboy16]

Seems a bit of an invented story, may want to actually wait until the window closes.

If Sanchez had been signed this summer and beaten City to both he and Fred i think this place would be a lot more optimistic.

Yeap.

 

[SirFergie]

Staff leaving, Jose publicly fighting with the board, Jose and the board disagreeing on Martial, Pogba apparently telling the board he wants to leave at the end of the season, a complete lack of transfer funding all of a sudden.

If the board are at a complete disagreement with the manager about the way things should be done moving forward then just sack him, don't have us all go through months of trying to see eye to eye and ending in a shit storm.

Who else, other than a scout who has got a promotion, has left?

 

[Jazz]

We’ve added a midfielder and a young right back who will have limited games it’s hardly something to be happy about.

Meanwhile Martial wants out, Pogba is supposedly unhappy and we still can’t shift players like Darmian, Rojo, Jones etc it’s a complete mess.

He gave Rojo an extension just before the season ended. He is no way gonna sell one of his favourites...

 

[YouOnlyLiveTwice]

You either back the man to the end or you get rid of him and his pragmatic football, that's simple logic. If you don't give him the chance to win, why is he even here.

Give him his 29 year old winger, a LB, and a CB.

 

[eams conway]

To me, it seems that Jose is asking for an absolute fortune to be able to bridge the gap between ourselves and City.

Maybe the board believe that Jose's targets are grossly overpriced, or that they are actually unattainable and Jose is finding it hard to believe.

Either way, it doesn't bode well for us as I reckon we need to bring in another 2 excellent players.

Over priced like virtually ever single footballer in the past few years ?

 

[Jim Beam]

Don't think it is true, but hypothetically speaking leaving Jose in charge and not backing him must be the dumbest of all the choices.

 

[AndyJ1985]

Don't think it is true, but hypothetically speaking leaving Jose in charge and not backing him must be the dumbest of all the choices.

He's been backed ffs. Signing Maguire would take his spending to half a billion pounds in two years!

 

[Oneunited26]

I don't know who the guy on the right almost thinks Jose is creating a siege mentality us against them, yeah look at his press conference after the sevilla loss lol

 

[RonaldoVII]

He's been backed ffs. Signing Maguire would take his spending to half a billion pounds in two years!

Is that enough? We're still playing Fergie's players in defence and miles off City.

 

[Jim Beam]

He's been backed ffs. Signing Maguire would take his spending to half a billion pounds in two years!

We signed Maguire? He has been backed in the past fully agree. I don't even think that lack of investment in this transfer window and not signing the likes of Maguire is a valid excuse for not making, for example, comfortable top 3 finish with 80+ points along with playing some proper football.

But if there is any rift this summer between the board and Jose, you just don't go on with him because of his personality. He is not your Moyes type of guy who will just be happy that he is sitting in the dugout and not believing he got the job.

 

[C'est Moi Cantona]

He's been backed ffs. Signing Maguire would take his spending to half a billion pounds in two years!

Yes, it's been fairly clinical each transfer window, one massive money signing, two £30 - £40 million signings, + a wage busting free.

This summer will likely be the similar, he has been backed like most other manager could only dream about, yet he still leaves the squad full of holes, he just needs to get on with it.

 

[Jed I. Knight]

Desperation. And lack of vision.

There is a mood of doom and gloom around the club, from the fan base to the players. And it all emanates from the manager. This has to be his last season.

Regarding the bolded part, don't worry, it will be.

As for what comes next, though, as per your second sentence, I don't think there's much to indicate that the next guy who comes in will be anything other than another coin toss that goes sour eventually. We can hope that a third managerial failure in a row would force a moment of introspection for those at the executive level, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Son Of Sam]

He's been backed ffs. Signing Maguire would take his spending to half a billion pounds in two years!

How did you arrive at this amount? He’s spent only £286m before this transfer window.

£30m - Bailly
FREE - Zlatan
£27m - Mkhitaryan
£89m - Pogba
£30m - Lindelof
£35m - Matic
£75m - Lukaku

Sanchez replaced Mkhitaryan -

If you add Fred, Dalot, Grant to £286m - it’s not even up to £400m. Stop using abacus counting to force your ridiculous narrative.

 

[LoneStar]

It's simple really. If you don't believe in the manager, just sack him.

Not giving someone like Jose (tbf any top manager really) no money is just a recepie for disaster.

Either completely back him this season, or sack him right now and start finding a new manager.

 

[Leftback99]

Seems a bit of an invented story, may want to actually wait until the window closes.

If Sanchez had been signed this summer and beaten City to both he and Fred i think this place would be a lot more optimistic.

You're right about Sanchez, there would be optimism that we finally have a RW and potent attack again.

I reckon it was seen as the big marquee for this year within the club but it's gone nowhere near as well as hoped. Mourinho even said in February we wouldn't be looking for attackers in the summer.

 

[Laurentiu amt]

And our signings? Fred, Lindelof, Bailly, Pogba, Dalot, Lukaku are all in good age. 29-30 is supposed to be prime in many cases for players. Half of ours those you listed ain't starters. And squad average age is very healthy. Try to look at other (preferred sucessful) teams. Do we need more quality in our starting XI to improve the team? Yes. Resale value is depended on result also. Look at Shaw. It's unlikely he would get us good fee if he is to be sold now, and he's young. Shaw is one of other players in good age at the time signed under LVG, and most of them now have been moved on and in the progress. So what's the point of not looking at 100th step ahead, when you're struggling for the next few steps

The ultimate aim of transfer is filling what you need. No point in planning for future when you can't get going at the moment

Thing is our fans are panicking.
They want Bale, they don t want Bale. If Bale can t be done, they want Bailey or Malcom, or whatever player has a good youtube compilation.

I m beggining to think that we want players just for the sake of it, just to compete with other teams spending. I don t understand it anymore, it s not even funny.

Some people are complaining that we didn t get Malcolm. Well, we have paid scouts, people that watch a player all year round and you, the fan reading this post, think that, after seeing a YT clip, know what the fek we need?

Other than CB and some extremely expensive CM buys, what else can we buy ? A RM, which oone? A LB, which one?
Football is a business these days, you try to buy ready made players that don t cost a feking fortune. (Matic, fred, kante etc)

We can t buy every prospect out there, especially forward players. Every attacking mid these days has a good clip on YT, knows some tricks and flicks, but how many of them deliver the numbers? Few, very few..

We re spoiled, quite a lot.

 

[Smores]

How did you arrive at this amount? He’s spent only £286m before this transfer window.

£30m - Bailly
FREE - Zlatan
£27m - Mkhitaryan
£89m - Pogba
£30m - Lindelof
£35m - Matic
£75m - Lukaku

Sanchez replaced Mkhitaryan -

If you add Fred, Dalot, Grant to £286m - it’s not even up to £400m. Stop using abacus counting to force your ridiculous narrative.

I was wondering this too, he's only really made one error in his signings the rest have been good purchases that would leave a better team if he were to leave.

People underestimate how much needed replacing whilst amusingly also melting down in the transfer threads. Not sure they even bat an eye lid at such incongruence

 

[FrantikChicken]

This is my issue. We are continuously linked to 29/30 year old players. And they will need replacing in 3 years times amongst all the other players.

We should be looking at 23-26 year old players that we can half develop into top quality players. The whole transfer strategy is beyond clueless and it’s starting to really frustrate me now.

Who we're linked to is irrelevant because it's based on rumors. You need to look at who we've actually signed. Fred is 25 and Dalot is 18-19.

Like you're literally having a meltdown over something that isn't happening even though in reality we're signing exactly the age range of players you're asking for.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

If this were the case (and I’m sure it was) I wonder why an alternative to Perišić wasn’t bought. Jose tantrum (if you can’t get him, then don’t bother), or the board thinking they’d bought enough players already. If the latter, the kicking in the nuts started last summer.

I'm only speculating wildly, of course – but what I thought at the time was that Inter were being completely unreasonable in one way or another: Demanding a ridiculous fee, perhaps demanding Martial as part of the deal, etc. And that Woody then told José that this isn't happening – because we're a serious operation and can't be seen giving in to ridiculous terms.

Something like that. José probably didn't have an alternative target – and the reason for this is that he, clearly, didn't think it was absolutely necessary to bring someone in. He pretty much said this himself, i.e. he declared himself pleased enough with the window. It was only much later, when we started losing sight of City, that he brought up the Perisic business again – which is, well, typical José style moaning and little more.

 

[Revaulx]

José probably didn't have an alternative target – and the reason for this is that he, clearly, didn't think it was absolutely necessary to bring someone in. He pretty much said this himself, i.e. he declared himself pleased enough with the window. It was only much later, when we started losing sight of City, that he brought up the Perisic business again – which is, well, typical José style moaning and little more.

So he did. I’d forgotten that. The moaning only started later on.

 

[Jonno]

This is my issue. We are continuously linked to 29/30 year old players. And they will need replacing in 3 years times amongst all the other players.

We should be looking at 23-26 year old players that we can half develop into top quality players. The whole transfer strategy is beyond clueless and it’s starting to really frustrate me now.

Lol.... We've just signed Fred and Dalot. Bailly, Lindelof, Lukaku, Pogba Are they 29/30?

Of the 29/30 year olds you mention - Jose brought them in to fix the horrendous unbalance of age/experience at this club. You wonder why we were yo-yo'ing in and out of the top 4 before Jose arrived, it was because we had either very old players, very young players or sh!te peak players. Jose has brought a great range of players in from 19-20 to 19-30 to improve our whole squad. Take a look at the squad he inherited some time and you'll appreciate how much of a good job he's done.

Fans moan we're not competing, Jose signs a small handful of experienced winners to try add consistency and immediate quality, fans moan Jose only signs peak players.

 

[Jonno]

He's been backed ffs. Signing Maguire would take his spending to half a billion pounds in two years!

Hang on, I don't recall Jose spending 450 million pounds. He's spent 280 - almost half of what you're claiming.

Have a good look at the squad he inherited too compared to his rivals like City, Chelsea and Tottenham - you'll realise he's done a very good job guiding us to 2nd place and 3 cup finals.

 

[sullydnl]

I'm surprised that so many people seem to be reading a lack of transfer activity as us not backing the manager, as if this is a deliberate strategy on the club's part.

I would have thought it's more likely to be a combination of a) us (reasonably) wanting to sell before buying but struggling to do so and b) simply not being all that good at operating the transfer market.

I know a lot of people changed their opinion on Woodward's capacity in the latter regard after some high profile deals but I remain rather unconvinced by him and (even more so) our approach to the transfer market generally.

If there's a problem it's less likely to be that we're deliberately not backing the manager and more likely that we're not good at backing the manager.

 

[beycont]

Hopefully the board stands tall and Martial stays and Jose walks.

And if the next manager falls out with Martial? Should he be sacked as well? Why not let Martial manage the club as well?

 

[Damien]

Who else, other than a scout who has got a promotion, has left?

Guessing he's on about Faria but he seems to have left on good terms to go into management.

 

[Fosu-Mens]

a) us (reasonably) wanting to sell before buying but struggling to do so

Difficult to sell players on high wages they are not likely to get anywhere else (China?). Woodward handing out big contracts to some, then everyone wants one. As long as the 10K is good, he and the board are happy.

b) simply not being all that good at operating the transfer market.

Since our way of identifying players, according to Mitten, is to put Mourinho, Woody and the Head of Corporate Developement in a room each new year to create a 3 man list of players in the positions we want to strengthen, it is no suprice we are not good at operating in the transfer market. Definition of short term planning if this is the case.

I know a lot of people changed their opinion on Woodward's capacity in the latter regard after some high profile deals but I remain rather unconvinced by him and (even more so) our approach to the transfer market generally.

Let Woodward focus on the financial aspect, and keep him a long way from those aspects directly related to football. Hire a DoF to manage transfers in cooperation with the manager and the scouting team. Will also help us in the way that we do not need a whole new squad each time we hire a new manager, which is not long before we need to do again.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I'm surprised that so many people seem to be reading a lack of transfer activity as us not backing the manager, as if this is a deliberate strategy on the club's part.

I would have thought it's more likely to be a combination of a) us (reasonably) wanting to sell before buying but struggling to do so and b) simply not being all that good at operating the transfer market.

I know a lot of people changed their opinion on Woodward's capacity in the latter regard after some high profile deals but I remain rather unconvinced by him and (even more so) our approach to the transfer market generally.

If there's a problem it's less likely to be that we're deliberately not backing the manager and more likely that we're not good at backing the manager.

I mean it's hard to say, because we don't know what Woodward/Jose are doing behind the scenes.

Though if our only additions are Dalot and Fred, then perhaps Woodward is indeed the key man to blame.