Eric Bailly - English players were favoured

[stevoc]

"English players were favoured and Swedish players were favoured also French players were favoured oh and fit players were favoured."

"It was all so unfair."

Cry me a river, 3 managers in a year have decided they have little or no use for Eric Bailly. He's rarely fit, when he is he's reckless, inconsistent, hes a decent defender but nothing special. And on top of that it seems he has serious attitude problems.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

I can understand Bailly's frustration seeing McChoir (@JPRouve ) start every week, especially after some hair-raising performances. I had Bailly ahead of McChoir in the pecking order, for what it's worth. Bailly was a better defender but his swashbuckling style of defending was almost too much for the fainthearted. Bailly was liable to turn in a 2/10 performance on week and a 9/10 the next, whereas McChoir is a solid 6 week in, week out. I can see why Ole preferred reliability.

 

[Mickeza]

Who else does it apply too? Who where AWB and Shaw alternatives last year?

Telles. Miles ahead of Shaw mate. World class fullback.

 

[stevoc]

With all the talk about his injuries, he is not wrong though about the English players. He was on the bench a lot watching Maguire ruining our season last year.

Eric was no doubt gutted he wasn't given the chance to ruin our season.

 

[Vidyoyo]

How dare he say what we were all thinking?

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

Lindelof says hi

 

[Wheato]

A few facts to point out.

- Bailly was injured i.e. not available for selection for over 100 games. It's hard to cement your place in a team when you are made out of glass.
- He plays on the right side of defence, so it was Lindelof and Varane who were keeping him out of the side, and neither of them are English!

He's not the first player to leave United and then blame the club for "holding them back." Pogba was injured for 4 months, last season. He's injured again without kicking a ball for Juventus. Probably won't return until January. Lingard has been chasing shadows at Forest, while Henderson picks the ball out of his net for the 14th time in 6 games.

Sometimes it's better to live with humility and do your talking on the pitch.

 

[Lentwood]

This argument is equivalent to ‘I’m not racist, one of my friends is black’.

It's definitely not...

The poster is (quite rightly) ridiculing the notion that a Norwegian and then a German chose not to select Bailly because they 'favoured English players' by pointing out that Bailly also failed to dislodge a Swede and a Frenchman.

The 'one of my friends is black' argument is totally different. That's a poor attempt at legitimising racist behaviour by saying you can't possibly be racist (or have done something racist) because you know someone who is black - which is obviously is a ludicrously illogical statement to make.

 

[acnumber9]

This argument is equivalent to ‘I’m not racist, one of my friends is black’.

It really isn’t.

 

[devilish]

Squad politics play a huge part in football especially when the squad's attitude is crap. When a team is focused on winning honours then the players in it tend to accept any sort of slack as long as that would guarantee them trophies. However when most players put their own agenda first then cliques tend to form and the focus tend to shift from winning to self improvement and preservation. Managers would have to react to that of course. Players who are be better players might find themselves isolated or on the bench in favour of people who are more likeable and would improve the squad as a team. Meanwhile contradicting decisions tend to be taken as well. For example ETH made Maguire captain and yet he barely plays him.

In my opinion this piece of news had revealed or rather further exposed two things.

A- Bailly wasn't liked very much and the reason for it is now pretty obvious. That might explain he was barely given a sniff despite Maguire was almost diabolical throughout last season
B- Manchester United has a huge pro British bias. This is hardly surprising. You only have to hear United poster boys in the media to notice the constant bias towards English players. Not to forget the crazy decisions taken when we appointed Moyes as manager, Murtough as DOF, Fletcher as technical director and we spent 80m and 50m on 2 donkeys

 

[santeria13]

I don't like Bailly or his attitude at all, but in a way he's right. Ole had no balls. He was scared to drop English players due to the fear of a media backlash and said players throwing their toys out of the pram. Whatever way you look at it, the media has been very nice to certain English players within our squad and seems to have a good relationship with a couple of them.

One example is when Rashford was abysmal for a long period of time last season, to the point where he wasn't even bothering to run in games. He got dropped by Rangnick and immediately the press/pundits were all over him for making that decision. Ole was scared of that kind of reaction.

For the record, I think Rashford has been great this season and he 100% deserves his starting spot at the moment.

 

[Gavinb33]

How dare he say what we were all thinking?

we are not all thinking this at all.

I mean he was in the team a lot when Ole 1st came in and was probably 1st choice over Lindelof (who isnt English) and then became unreliable because he was injured a lot and managers rate availability as a good trait to have as a player and he has missed over 100 games though injuries that is case of being unlucky nothing more maybe if he can stay fit for a long period he'd have got more games.

 

[Andycoleno9]

Who where the alternatives? Genuine question because i can't remember the other options.

Eh, Dalot for Awb. Telles for Shaw. Bailly for Maguire. Martial for Rashford. Donny for McT.
Remember leaks when Ole was fired? Many of them said that players were angry just because of that; because same players played week after week no matter what.

 

[JPRouve]

It's difficult to take his point seriously when the alternatives were consistently worse. Maybe Dalot should have been given more playing time earlier but it's not a given otherwise english players beat frankly poor competition. Now there is maybe a case when it comes to the signing of overpiced PL proven players or the the distribution of large contracts to PL proven players. But even then almost all our foreign players should have been jettisoned alongside our overhyped english players.

 

[VanDeBank]

That'd be genius is mourinho and the club hadn't chased Maguire for a year before ole arrived. So with that fact it is complete rubbish

Mourinho, an infinitely better manager (no, not a fangirl) would've dropped Maguire in that form last season Then again, Maguire might not have sunk down that deep under Mourinho, but that only further proves my point.

You really didn't think that one through much, did you?

 

[Red Dreams]

I respect what Bailly said.
For me the Leicester match encapsulated how inadequate Ole was as a manager.

He could just as easily called Ole an idiot and he would have been right.

 

[sugar_kane]

Ole really fecked up with that Leicester game and it was the beginning of the end for him, he lost the dressing room that day I believe.

Bailly can do one with his excuses though, if he was a good enough centre back he would have displaced Lindelof (assuming there was English bias, which I believe is bollocks otherwise Lingard and Henderson would have been starting every week)

The anglophobic element of our fanbase will lap it up though.

All that said - Ole did have a bias towards certain players, undoubtedly, and it was a huge factor in him getting the sack. I don't believe this was based on nationality though.

 

[jamesjimmybyrondean]

He's absolutely right. It got to a point last season were Rashford and Maguire were so bad you just can't do worse than them no matter who you replace them with. I would not say its because of their nationality though. One of Oles problems was that he found his first 11 and whenever they underperformed, his method of getting them back to form was to keep playing them

 

[JPRouve]

Ole really fecked up with that Leicester game and it was the beginning of the end for him, he lost the dressing room that day I believe.

Bailly can do one with his excuses though, if he was a good enough centre back he would have displaced Lindelof (assuming there was English bias, which I believe is bollocks otherwise Lingard and Henderson would have been starting every week)

The anglophobic element of our fanbase will lap it up though.

All that said - Ole did have a bias towards certain players, undoubtedly, and it was a huge factor in him getting the sack. I don't believe this was based on nationality though.

I prefer to be known as anti-albionist. Anglophobic makes it sounds like I fear english people.

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

Eh, Dalot for Awb. Telles for Shaw. Bailly for Maguire. Martial for Rashford. Donny for McT.
Remember leaks when Ole was fired? Many of them said that players were angry just because of that; because same players played week after week no matter what.

Could argue with a few other items on this list (even Donny's compatriot who managed him at his "peak" isn't giving him a look over McT, so it might be time to accept he's just a bit shite), but throwing in Martial for Rashford is literally just padding.

Rashford had just come back from injury and started 2 games all season before Solskjaer was sacked. If you want to go back to the previous season, they were both starting (in different positions) and no one would seriously try to say Rashford was the one who was getting inexplicably picked week after week despite not playing well. When he stopped playing well, Martial was injured.

 

[Abraxas]

A load of rubbish in my opinion.

Even if Maguire was "unfairly favoured" - and I would argue that is a debate in itself, it's not necessarily indicative of favouring English players. You have a sample of one player there that happens to English. If the manager fancied Eric Bailly would he favour Ivorians?

Luke Shaw was a better footballer than Telles so I don't know where to go with that one. You are going to have a nucleus of English players if you're an English club, and some are going to be better than competition from other nations.

 

[Speako]

Ole really fecked up with that Leicester game and it was the beginning of the end for him, he lost the dressing room that day I believe.

Bailly can do one with his excuses though, if he was a good enough centre back he would have displaced Lindelof (assuming there was English bias, which I believe is bollocks otherwise Lingard and Henderson would have been starting every week)

The anglophobic element of our fanbase will lap it up though.

All that said - Ole did have a bias towards certain players, undoubtedly, and it was a huge factor in him getting the sack. I don't believe this was based on nationality though.

Spot on.

 

[2 man midfield]

I’d have happily picked Eric Bailly more often, but he wasn’t available. Unless there’s something we don’t know? I’m not sure he should be blaming anyone for it not working out here, just bad luck.

 

[Leftback99]

Stole a living here and has now swapped our bench for Marseille's.

 

[zenith]

Bailey is talking a load of bull. He was not picked because varane and Lindelof were ahead of him, simply by virtue of them being fitter and better defenders.

Besides, he was ignored by not one but 3 managers. All this talk just exposes him as one of the toxic characters of the group last year and I'm glad that such guys are being shipped out or shown their place in the squad

 

[Baneofthegame]

You don't have to bring his injury record to the mix. Think his point is very valid - we were a mess last year. Maguire always played even with injuries . Noone had balls to bench that underperforming defence which included Maguire, Shaw, AWB .

Could he have been the replacement? Probably not - as he himself has been very underperforming for very long time. But the point stands.

I suppose we should add Jones into the mix if we exclude injury records.

 

[The Midnight Rambler]

For those insulting Bailly, have you actually read his quote?

He’s actually rooting for United with his words about being lucky that Ten Hag has character.

 

[flappyjay]

"English players were favoured and Swedish players were favoured also French players were favoured oh and fit players were favoured."

"It was all so unfair."

Cry me a river, 3 managers in a year have decided they have little or no use for Eric Bailly. He's rarely fit, when he is he's reckless, inconsistent, hes a decent defender but nothing special. And on top of that it seems he has serious attitude problems.

Henderson, Rashford, AWB and Shaw all these English players lost their spot to foreigners. Shaw most likely through injuries.

 

[2 man midfield]

For those insulting Bailly, have you actually read his quote?

He’s actually rooting for United with his words about being lucky that Ten Hag has character.

I don’t think the door is totally shut on Bailly, and he must be thinking this too. Some players outgrow their injury problems, Smalling became ever present around this age despite constant injuries well into his twenties. A good spell at Marseille and who knows? He might be able to come back and sit on our bench again.

 

[RVN1991]

The message is correct, it's the messenger I have a problem with. The guy was never fit and was shit when he did play, sounds to me like an excuse for his own failures here rather than pointing out an issue for the greater good of the club.

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

For those insulting Bailly, have you actually read his quote?

He’s actually rooting for United with his words about being lucky that Ten Hag has character.

“[The club should] encourage competition in the dressing room, not just look out for some. I’ve always had the feeling that the national player was prioritised".

“That doesn’t happen at Chelsea or other big Premier League clubs. Some people take it for granted that they are going to start, and that weakens the team".

Luckily [Erik] Ten Hag has a lot of character and I hope he can change that dynamic.

The bolded =/= rooting for the team you're still contracted to. More like taking potshots at your teammates, which is one thing if you actually have something to justify your stance - in this specific case, was Maguire "taking it for granted that he would always start" or was it just because multiple managers concluded he's just a better and more reliable player than the alternatives, including Bailly?

He hasn't been getting games for us and he's speaking out about it, which is fair enough - but the way he's framing it is not really in line with the facts. Willing to bet he was led into it by some interviewer looking for a good headline - you just know sections of our fanbase (the Ole Out / PE Coach / Brexit FC brigade) will lap this up.

As an aside, my take at the time that we signed Maguire was that I wasn't sure he'd be a notable upgrade on Smalling. If anything, Mike is the one who should be coming out with these claims of national team favouritism

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Maguire has hardly been flawless for United and I'm sure he has been treated preferentially to some degree due to certain factors: the fee, the captaincy (which was a mistake), perhaps even his nationality: the notion that Ole was trying to establish a British core at United isn't entirely far fetched, even if it has been blown out of all proportion by some posters (who are also guilty of completely ignoring the likely underlying rationale). However, he has remained consistently available – which is kind of crucial if you want to become a default starter.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Pointed out previously that there was probably plenty of players not happy in the squad as it was far too bloated. Some players clearly did get preferential treatment, and that will cause problems if they do not perform.

Hopefully, we continue the clear out though.

 

[Cassidy]

He has a point, Maguire was shown preference over others last season, however if I were him, I'd be doing a bit more reflection on as to why I wasn't trusted to play over a shite/injured Maguire. A big clue is that it has nothing to do with where you were born

He was not the managers record signing

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

if he doesnt like it he shuld just leave are country

Are you English? If so, you should know the difference between are and our.

 

[Andycoleno9]

Ole really fecked up with that Leicester game and it was the beginning of the end for him, he lost the dressing room that day I believe.

Bailly can do one with his excuses though, if he was a good enough centre back he would have displaced Lindelof (assuming there was English bias, which I believe is bollocks otherwise Lingard and Henderson would have been starting every week)

The anglophobic element of our fanbase will lap it up though.

All that said - Ole did have a bias towards certain players, undoubtedly, and it was a huge factor in him getting the sack. I don't believe this was based on nationality though.

Agree with you but at the end it was (maybe) about nationality. Ole was desperate to stay here. When results went completely to shit, he tried to buy time with being "mate" with players and keeping core of team happy. And lets be realistic; it is always better to have domestic players on your side than foreign players.
In any league and any country, not just England. So English fans should not take this as "attack on England". This happens everywhere

 

[WhyYouGottaBeSoRuud?]

Henderson, Lingard and Rashford's minutes from last season completely throw this out the courtroom for me.

 

[MadDogg]

Mourinho, an infinitely better manager (no, not a fangirl) would've dropped Maguire in that form last season.

That's actually very debatable. Lukaku and Matic were our two worst performers in 18/19 under Mourinho (Lukaku being at a similar level of form that Maguire was last season), but they were basically untouchable. They were Mourinho's 'soldiers' and he wouldn't drop them no matter how bad they were playing. That played a part in him ultimately getting fired.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

I do think as an English team, where we can, we should always, not so much favour but get as many in as possible, simply because its an English club.

Sir Alex always used to try and have a core of English players, and I'm pretty sure other leagues do the same. There were a time when Real and Barca had the Spanish team in their sqauds. Only bodes well for the national team, too.

I do think Bailly has no right saying what he said, though. I mean, I could understand if he was reliable but perhaps Maguire (assuming this is the player he is talking about) would have been dropped earlier if our previous managers could rely on Bailly.

 

[TheRedHearted]

Well, surely this will be the last player we put out on loan! After Henderson and this, the glazers won’t allow it anymore