Fergie’s role in our current plight

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That means jack shit really. A winner's squad needs time to build. SAF left a squad made up of a horde of mules which were decent enough to support his very old guard but were pretty average on their own. If SAF was serious in leaving a legacy that endures past him then

a- he would have pushed for serious changes in our infrastructure. The man could live without a top DOF but the same can't be said about his successors especially if the successor in question was David Moyes
b- he would have replaced the likes of Scholes, Giggs, Rio, Vidic and Evra long ago

As Scholes once said. There's something really bad in a team when their best midfielders are at the wrong side of their 30s

There again, I sometimes wonder if its SAF's fault or the club's fault. The more time passes, the more I think its the latter.
I hope you're not one of those who claim he left the team in that shape on purpose so nobody hurts his legacy.
 

devilish

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What utter tosh. He won the league with the same "mules" the season he left. He won it by 11 points. Everyone else didn't suddenly become wank. He beat the best the league had to offer as he did time and time again. We went out in the CL to a poor refereeing decision against Real Madrid.

Had he stayed on, he'd have won the league next season too.
He had Scholes, Giggs, Rio, Vidic, Evra and a RVP scoring left right and center with mules doing the donkey work. Once the former left we were left with just.......
 

Buster15

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The glazers takeover of the club is the root of our problems.

Obviously it didn't go all to shit the day after they took over but within a decade we became a second tier club.

The pivotal point for me was trousering the ronaldo money and then just spending the minimum of what they think they needed to keep the cash cow milkable.
Bang on.
No one is perfect. But for Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson was as close to perfection as we are going to get.
He lived and breathed the club and probably still does.

If all our players showed even a small percentage of his commitment we would not be in shambolic state we are in.
 

Revaulx

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Good point. I’ve never got the admiration people seem to have for him. If he’s to be judged by our transfer dealings, then it’s fair to consider him a complete failure from 2007 onwards.
Not sure about this. Given the strictures we seemed to be working under (which may indeed have been partly Gill's fault) I don't think we did too badly until Fergie retired. Some of the expensive failures (Hargreaves, Anderson) were more down to bad luck than anything else.

The failure adequately to replace Ronaldo in 2009 was of course utterly inexcusable.
 

Di Maria's angel

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He took us as a broken club (in a way) and left us as an absolute giant. Nobody, even him, could predict such incompetence from our board. I mean, more then half of our squad is still his and we bought exactly 32 players. Also, changed 4 managers, 3 playing styles and played like 2 decent games all together.

As for the team he left, I still stand that he could easily maintain our dominance in the next 3-4 years just by buying Thiago and Herrera for example.
Who'll ever forget those three games against Spurs, City and Liverpool in 2015 :drool:.
 

RedDevil@84

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Not much.
Maybe in Moyes time or first year of LvG, but that's about it.
By LvG's 2nd year, the club (Woodward) had enough transfer windows to set things right. If they didn't and clung on to dross and crocked players from Fergie era, then it is totally on the club management.
 

charlenefan

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There's no doubt Fergie who spent the best part of his life building United to what we are today left at a time that benefited him. He knew there was a massive rebuild to do and given his age quite understandably took the decision he couldn't oversee yet another one

Giggs, Scholes, Ferdinand, Vidic and Evra were all nearing the end (hell Scholes actually did retire the same day as SAF did), RVP was only ever going to give us a couple of years of service, Rooney was a problem and outside of all those players I've just mentioned Carrick and De Gea the squad was lacking in quality

Moyes didn't have to feck it up as badly as he did though and LVG then didn't have to buy as badly as he did and obviously Woodward has be present throughout the entire shit fest as well, a lot of people SAF included could have done better to avoid us being in this current position
 

Aloysius's Back 3

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I've got nothing to say about SAF -

However just because he is the greatest man to step foot at this football club doesn't mean he can't be analysed alongside some of his decisions.
 

youngrell

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That means jack shit really. A winner's squad needs time to build. SAF left a squad made up of a horde of mules which were decent enough to support his very old guard but were pretty average on their own. If SAF was serious in leaving a legacy that endures past him then

a- he would have pushed for serious changes in our infrastructure. The man could live without a top DOF but the same can't be said about his successors especially if the successor in question was David Moyes
b- he would have replaced the likes of Scholes, Giggs, Rio, Vidic and Evra long ago

As Scholes once said. There's something really bad in a team when their best midfielders are at the wrong side of their 30s

There again, I sometimes wonder if its SAF's fault or the club's fault. The more time passes, the more I think its the latter.
If the great man had a longer period to plan his exit it's quite possible he would have put a more structured exit plan in place. But he had a personal life outside of the club that he decided to put first for once.

The people who took over take full responsibility for the mess they have put us in since.
 

Aloysius's Back 3

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I didn't like the way we sold Ronaldo and bought no one in with a long term future to atleast reach the levels of Rooney.

In my opinion the moment Ronaldo left us without an adequate replacement - it made our club look smaller to the world; even though we continued to win titles at home due to SAF's brilliance.
 

2cents

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RedDevil@84[/QUOTE said:
By LvG's 2nd year, the club (Woodward) had enough transfer windows to set things right. If they didn't and clung on to dross and crocked players from Fergie era, then it is totally on the club management.
Hard to argue with that. The summer transfer window of 2015 especially was pretty disastrous looking back. Had it gone another way we likely wouldn’t be having this conversation.
 

Born2Lose

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First of all he only left the job because he felt a duty to his wife, so great respect to him for that.

I think he thought the best course of action was to reign in the spending during the last few years of his management, so that the new manager could start with a blank canvas, which I think made sense. The problem is he also seemingly had a big part in appointing Moyes which was a huge mistake.

The truth is though we've spent hundreds of millions of pounds since he left and three of our back 4 last night were reserve players for Ferguson. Through Woodward's naivety and lack of any long term vision we've essentially wasted all that money, and the thing that worries me most is I'm not sure that any lessons have yet been learnt.
 

fallengt

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Yes, it was 100% Fergie's fault that everyone at the club completely dropped their balls after he'd left.
Either that or might be they never had those to begin with, it was all Fergie's and he could spare them some extras
 
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soaphroniscuss

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SAF put up with the Glazers' spending restrictions for the good of the club. It will all come out in time.
Saying that, in matters Man Utd, SAF is beyond reproach.
 

Irish Jet

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He overseen a huge decline in our squad which coincided with City’s rise from 2009-2012.

Whether it was down to Ferguson or the Glazers we allowed City to construct a world class squad almost unchallenged and gave up a position of total dominance. They still sing songs about it. That period was disgraceful and people were rightfully protesting the owners at the time – it was obvious Ferguson was squeezing every last bit of ability the squad had but it was never a good long term plan and he eventually bit the bullet and signed RVP – the sort of move we should had have been making earlier. Add to this complete disregard for the youth system which crippled an entire class of youngsters to the point of relegation. How much of the blame he personally gets depends on how much he truly could get the Glazers to invest when the product on the pitch wasn’t demanding it.
 

Red Comet

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There's no doubt Fergie who spent the best part of his life building United to what we are today left at a time that benefited him. He knew there was a massive rebuild to do and given his age quite understandably took the decision he couldn't oversee yet another one

Giggs, Scholes, Ferdinand, Vidic and Evra were all nearing the end (hell Scholes actually did retire the same day as SAF did), RVP was only ever going to give us a couple of years of service, Rooney was a problem and outside of all those players I've just mentioned Carrick and De Gea the squad was lacking in quality

Moyes didn't have to feck it up as badly as he did though and LVG then didn't have to buy as badly as he did and obviously Woodward has be present throughout the entire shit fest as well, a lot of people SAF included could have done better to avoid us being in this current position
I don't think SAF made any decision over whether he wanted to rebuild the squad. His retirement wasn't planned and was something that was made due to her circumstances in her wife's side of the family. He felt that he needed to be there more for Cathy.

It really boils down to Glazer's management of the club - they obviously see a club as a money making asset and till date hasn't poured in a single cent of their money into the club. They instead saddled the club with debts that is financed by the club's revenues, and they really lucked out with Sir Alex at the helm who was still able to make the team perform at a level that is much more than the sum of its parts. Whenever SAF's side meet Barcelona in the CL you could tell instantly that there was a gulf in class between the 2 teams.
 

KingMinger22

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The club was completely stretched for cash flow in his final seasons.

This is the entire reason why we are where we are.

Failure to invest from 2009-14.
 

charlenefan

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I don't think SAF made any decision over whether he wanted to rebuild the squad. His retirement wasn't planned and was something that was made due to her circumstances in her wife's side of the family. He felt that he needed to be there more for Cathy.

It really boils down to Glazer's management of the club - they obviously see a club as a money making asset and till date hasn't poured in a single cent of their money into the club. They instead saddled the club with debts that is financed by the club's revenues, and they really lucked out with Sir Alex at the helm who was still able to make the team perform at a level that is much more than the sum of its parts. Whenever SAF's side meet Barcelona in the CL you could tell instantly that there was a gulf in class between the 2 teams.
SAF's reluctance to rebuild the squad didn't start when he decided to retire though, dont forget the years of lack of investment in the midfield
 

Buster15

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He overseen a huge decline in our squad which coincided with City’s rise from 2009-2012.

Whether it was down to Ferguson or the Glazers we allowed City to construct a world class squad almost unchallenged and gave up a position of total dominance. They still sing songs about it. That period was disgraceful and people were rightfully protesting the owners at the time – it was obvious Ferguson was squeezing every last bit of ability the squad had but it was never a good long term plan and he eventually bit the bullet and signed RVP – the sort of move we should had have been making earlier. Add to this complete disregard for the youth system which crippled an entire class of youngsters to the point of relegation. How much of the blame he personally gets depends on how much he truly could get the Glazers to invest when the product on the pitch wasn’t demanding it.
I had to read this a couple of times just to make sure that you were not joking.
From what you have written you seem to believe that SAF told the Glazers what to do.
He was a realist and completely understood the situation and did his very best to work within those constraints.
And. Tell me. How could he stop City putting together a world class squad. Maybe he should have written them a nice letter asking them to stop.
Did he not deliver the PL title in his last season against City world class squad?

Bloody hell. Some people are hard to please.
 

Red Comet

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SAF's reluctance to rebuild the squad didn't start when he decided to retire though, dont forget the years of lack of investment in the midfield
My post had that down to Glazernomics hand that he was being dealt with. Sir Alex has never hesitate to spend in the past - we have been consistently breaking transfer records but I guess there were a few things that made the situation more difficult:
  • Glazernomics putting constraint on how much SAF is actually allowed to spend.
  • Oil money by Chelsea and Man City, and now PSG breaking the transfer prices.
  • Player agents becoming more powerful, which is something that SAF doesn't seem to take very well.
 

Siorac

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He didn't do enough in his final years to ensure we kept up with the European elite. Our recruitment was very poor.

But he retired six years ago and we've spent a shitload since then. Any mistakes or negligence on his part could and should have been rectified long ago.
 

MoskvaRed

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We’re now starting the rebuilding of the Mourinho rebuilding of the Van Gaal rebuilding. So it’s hard to blame Fergie for acts and omissions 8 years ago.

If he can be “blamed” for anything, it’s that he was so ridiculously good at winning football matches that it disguised how rotten and antiquated the club’s structure was becoming.
 

17Larsson

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His only problem was that he didn't realise how influential he actually was.

The team he left had just won the league, could have done well in the CL if not for the Nani sending off and had players performing well in nearly every position. He also left the door completely open for the next manager to sell Rooney if he wanted to and take no slack for it. Everything looked good until we realised no manager (so far) has been able to get as much out of a squad of players as he was able to
 

breakout67

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We succeeded BECAUSE of Fergie, and he was actually delaying the demise of the club due to the take over. We sold the best player in the world and replaced him with Valencia to save some money, Fergie was being held back and still pissed the league.

"Unfortunately, we are talking about a commercial club, not a football club. I spoke to Ferguson about this and in his last years, he also had problems with it."

- LVG
 

devilish

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If the great man had a longer period to plan his exit it's quite possible he would have put a more structured exit plan in place. But he had a personal life outside of the club that he decided to put first for once.

The people who took over take full responsibility for the mess they have put us in since.
The exit plan should have started years before that. Scholes, Giggs and Gaz were ancient, Ronaldo was never really replaced and Vidic, Evra, Rooney and Rio were showing clear signs of decline. The Value strategy was, for most part, a failure. The twins turned out to be crocks same as Jones was, Smalling was clearly a downgrade to Vidic, same thing can be said about Young replacing Giggs. United suddenly became reliant on RVP's goals and we RVP was hardly a youngster either.

Whether its SAF's fault or the club sparing the pennies at a time when the debt was crushing us remains a matter of debate (I think its the latter). However lets not kid ourselves that SAF had it all planned. He didn't
 

charlenefan

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My post had that down to Glazernomics hand that he was being dealt with. Sir Alex has never hesitate to spend in the past - we have been consistently breaking transfer records but I guess there were a few things that made the situation more difficult:
  • Glazernomics putting constraint on how much SAF is actually allowed to spend.
  • Oil money by Chelsea and Man City, and now PSG breaking the transfer prices.
  • Player agents becoming more powerful, which is something that SAF doesn't seem to take very well.
Fergie was like Wenger, he spent the money like it was his own. You may be right his hands may have been tied but I honestly think he believed the whole 'no value in the market' line
 

Mr PG

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Probably not gonna be a popular topic on here, but I’m wondering how to assess Fergie’s role in our predicament? I don’t want to shit on his legacy, which is obviously ultimately defined by the bulging trophy cabinet and our re-emergence as a major domestic and European power, but I’d be interested to hear honest takes on how some of his decisions might have contributed to our decline. I always remember his assurances that the club wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the post-Busby years once he’d gone and that a smooth transition was the number one priority. Yet here we are.
Ok let me see...
Moyes, Obertan, Bebe, Berbatov (paid 32m sold 5m) (Kagawa instead of Hazard) etc lots of failed signings but the real mistake was sitting on our hands as City snapped up David silva, Aguero, Yaya, Chelsea signed Hazard
 

Irish Jet

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I had to read this a couple of times just to make sure that you were not joking.
From what you have written you seem to believe that SAF told the Glazers what to do.
He was a realist and completely understood the situation and did his very best to work within those constraints.
And. Tell me. How could he stop City putting together a world class squad. Maybe he should have written them a nice letter asking them to stop.
Did he not deliver the PL title in his last season against City world class squad?

Bloody hell. Some people are hard to please.
It was Ferguson himself who claimed there were no constraints from the Glazers. He claimed the reason for the lack of spending was down to there being no “value in the market”. If you read my post you would see that I didn’t blame him – Whoever held back the investment is to blame. Most likely the Glazers but impossible to know for sure. They’ve shown a willingness to invest since, but from a weaker position of desperation. Maybe Ferguson could have lobbied for more funds, maybe not. The reality was our decline can be traced back to losing Tevez and Ronaldo, the great defensive unit ageing and replacing them with the likes of Owen, Valencia, Young, Smalling, Jones, Valencia etc. There was a marked drop in quality that we were in for in this period and it’s still costing us today. VDS was pretty much the only player in that 2008 side we effectively replaced under Ferguson.

We should have bullied City in the transfer market. Gone in for Aguero, Silva, Touré and forced them to pay obscene money in the way we were forced to do with Sanchez, when the only thing they could offer over us was more money. We should have been picking off the best talent in the league because we were the most attractive proposition at the time – The dominant side. We picked a bad time to go for austerity.

He did deliver it. Largely due to a short term investment that paid off big time in RVP. But it was papering over cracks which has become extremely evident now. That was only 6 years ago – Look at where those players are now. Absolutely horrendous group of players for a manager to inherit.
 

Aloysius's Back 3

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It was Ferguson himself who claimed there were no constraints from the Glazers. He claimed the reason for the lack of spending was down to there being no “value in the market”. If you read my post you would see that I didn’t blame him – Whoever held back the investment is to blame. Most likely the Glazers but impossible to know for sure. They’ve shown a willingness to invest since, but from a weaker position of desperation. Maybe Ferguson could have lobbied for more funds, maybe not. The reality was our decline can be traced back to losing Tevez and Ronaldo, the great defensive unit ageing and replacing them with the likes of Owen, Valencia, Young, Smalling, Jones, Valencia etc. There was a marked drop in quality that we were in for in this period and it’s still costing us today. VDS was pretty much the only player in that 2008 side we effectively replaced under Ferguson.

We should have bullied City in the transfer market. Gone in for Aguero, Silva, Touré and forced them to pay obscene money in the way we were forced to do with Sanchez, when the only thing they could offer over us was more money. We should have been picking off the best talent in the league because we were the most attractive proposition at the time – The dominant side. We picked a bad time to go for austerity.

He did deliver it. Largely due to a short term investment that paid off big time in RVP. But it was papering over cracks which has become extremely evident now. That was only 6 years ago – Look at where those players are now. Absolutely horrendous group of players for a manager to inherit.
This. We didn't improve when we were at the top and went downhill almost on a known level. With that Squad he build after the CL only SAF could win a title with them & looking at the current state where there isn't just a top 4 teams but arguably 6 - this wasn't ever going to be good enough for us.
 

Sir Scott McToMinay

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I think one of the biggest issues we’ve had with the transition post-SAF, was because the players that won the league under him and were supposed to carry the mentality further failed, and never had the character for it, I’m talking mainly about De Gea, Smalling, Jones, Valencia and Young.

We were horribly prepared for that transition, absolute amateur stuff.
But then again, maybe no one actually realize how good SAF was, not even SAF himself.
No one would’ve won the league with his last team, it was a very mediocre side by Man United standards.
 

Buster15

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It was Ferguson himself who claimed there were no constraints from the Glazers. He claimed the reason for the lack of spending was down to there being no “value in the market”. If you read my post you would see that I didn’t blame him – Whoever held back the investment is to blame. Most likely the Glazers but impossible to know for sure. They’ve shown a willingness to invest since, but from a weaker position of desperation. Maybe Ferguson could have lobbied for more funds, maybe not. The reality was our decline can be traced back to losing Tevez and Ronaldo, the great defensive unit ageing and replacing them with the likes of Owen, Valencia, Young, Smalling, Jones, Valencia etc. There was a marked drop in quality that we were in for in this period and it’s still costing us today. VDS was pretty much the only player in that 2008 side we effectively replaced under Ferguson.

We should have bullied City in the transfer market. Gone in for Aguero, Silva, Touré and forced them to pay obscene money in the way we were forced to do with Sanchez, when the only thing they could offer over us was more money. We should have been picking off the best talent in the league because we were the most attractive proposition at the time – The dominant side. We picked a bad time to go for austerity.

He did deliver it. Largely due to a short term investment that paid off big time in RVP. But it was papering over cracks which has become extremely evident now. That was only 6 years ago – Look at where those players are now. Absolutely horrendous group of players for a manager to inherit.
Just because I don't necessarily agree with you doesn't mean that I don't respect your passion my friend.
Shame more working for our club don't display that same level.
We are all on the same side.
 

deadrevelz

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Fergie was like Wenger, he spent the money like it was his own. You may be right his hands may have been tied but I honestly think he believed the whole 'no value in the market' line
He was happy to spend money and break transfer records before. And considering the way transfer prices have gone, was there really 'no value in the market'? That's just football. You can say the same thing now, but in 3 years prices will go up again. If you buy quality young players, you can argue that they are almost an investment. Look at Real Madrid with Ronaldo ffs... 10 years later, age 33 they sold the cnut for a profit!
 

MoskvaRed

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It was Ferguson himself who claimed there were no constraints from the Glazers. He claimed the reason for the lack of spending was down to there being no “value in the market”. If you read my post you would see that I didn’t blame him – Whoever held back the investment is to blame. Most likely the Glazers but impossible to know for sure. They’ve shown a willingness to invest since, but from a weaker position of desperation. Maybe Ferguson could have lobbied for more funds, maybe not. The reality was our decline can be traced back to losing Tevez and Ronaldo, the great defensive unit ageing and replacing them with the likes of Owen, Valencia, Young, Smalling, Jones, Valencia etc. There was a marked drop in quality that we were in for in this period and it’s still costing us today. VDS was pretty much the only player in that 2008 side we effectively replaced under Ferguson.

We should have bullied City in the transfer market. Gone in for Aguero, Silva, Touré and forced them to pay obscene money in the way we were forced to do with Sanchez, when the only thing they could offer over us was more money. We should have been picking off the best talent in the league because we were the most attractive proposition at the time – The dominant side. We picked a bad time to go for austerity.

He did deliver it. Largely due to a short term investment that paid off big time in RVP. But it was papering over cracks which has become extremely evident now. That was only 6 years ago – Look at where those players are now. Absolutely horrendous group of players for a manager to inherit.
I agree with most of that but it’s now six years on and it should have been possible to rebuild since 2013. Klopp inherited an average squad, lost their star player and has transformed it into a team heading for 90+ points and possibly a league title. We have been in a cycle of replacing (or supplementing) mediocre players with more expensive mediocre players.
 

youngrell

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The exit plan should have started years before that. Scholes, Giggs and Gaz were ancient, Ronaldo was never really replaced and Vidic, Evra, Rooney and Rio were showing clear signs of decline. The Value strategy was, for most part, a failure. The twins turned out to be crocks same as Jones was, Smalling was clearly a downgrade to Vidic, same thing can be said about Young replacing Giggs. United suddenly became reliant on RVP's goals and we RVP was hardly a youngster either.

Whether its SAF's fault or the club sparing the pennies at a time when the debt was crushing us remains a matter of debate (I think its the latter). However lets not kid ourselves that SAF had it all planned. He didn't
Your last sentence is exactly what I'm saying.

His sudden retirement was completely unplanned, hence the aging squad and poor forward planning. Had he planned for his exit, I'm sure he'd have done so properly.