Cheers all and apologies this one was delayed as I know the group therapy session was much needed!
Sounds cathartic alright
If ETH survives the Christmas period you should do a podcast on the manager v clubs longer term issues.
By that, I mean , if you can sort of put together what actually changed after SAF left. Like we all know he was a superb manager but he wasn’t identifying players. He was involved but I hardly think he was personally scouting the Russian league for Vidic etc.
What changed with scouting when he left?
Fellaini being Moyes first signing should have been the canary in the coalmine warning for us. You think about it, he wasn’t a priority on any level. People probably think “well Moyes probably liked him” etc, but I don’t think for a second he was in the top 5 players that Moyes would of wanted.
I mean, even signing Fellaini for what, 30% more then we needed to later on in summer. There’s a trend of United over paying for players that’s been the case since then. Why are our managers having to pay the price for uniteds poor negotiating capacity and the rumoured delays that come from Joel/avram signing off?
I don’t think it’s fair to quote Uniteds transfer spend against managers as I think we have seen a continued “Fellaini tax” 30-40% extra cost on players simply because of the way the club conducts itself.
There is plenty of examples since the fellaini signing that this has plagued us.
And then there’s “the manager wanted that player” argument. Do people think a manager is gonna to publicly say “I didn’t want that player?”.
Not just that, how often do United get their top priority’s? This is important , particularly when you look at certain signings. Mata, Di Maria, Pogba, Sanchez, Casemiro, Ronaldo come to mind. I’m not saying these weren’t players we wanted but they all share a commonality in that we bought them when they wanted to leave their clubs. So what I’ve wondered is how often United make signings (that look quality on paper and no manager would really refuse) but are more a sign of the clubs inability to attain its priority players.
I remember a friend saying “United seem to make all the obvious signings”. Under SAF this rarely happened.
I’ve wandered a bit. But I’d just be really interested to listen to a discussion on the clubs dysfunctional football infrastructure that could be hamstringing managers and squads.