Gary Neville on United

charlenefan

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Other 4 parts can be found on the Sky Bet YouTube channel if you want to watch the whole thing
 

Tarrou

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For those of us too lazy to watch what are the key takeaways to moan about?
 

Greck

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For those of us too lazy to watch what are the key takeaways to moan about?
You can get all the action in the first 5-8 minutes. I thought I couldn't be arsed to watch either then I skimmed the video and got hooked when I saw it was Gary and a fan arguing the exact topics we argue here everyday with the exact exchanges we give each other. Worth watching.
 

buckooo1978

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Gary excusing the mismanagement of the club as a natural cycle

well done McKola for pressing him

Disrespectful from Neville in some ways. Fair enough on the fact that the Glazers dont care about protests but he could have shown some empathy with United fans complaints

Neville seems to be pedalling a myth that United fans are upset that we arent buying 100m world beaters when that's a distortion of the 5 key questions
 

Leftback99

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Always find myself agreeing with Neville when he speaks about us.
 

Greck

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Gary excusing the mismanagement of the club as a natural cycle

well done McKola for pressing him

Disrespectful from Neville in some ways. Fair enough on the fact that the Glazers dont care about protests but he could have shown some empathy with United fans complaints

Neville seems to be pedalling a myth that United fans are upset that we arent buying 100m world beaters when that's a distortion of the 5 key questions
- I also disagree with his lack of urgency but I think he's only taking this view because the club is taking an approach that agrees with him (young, British and as he says, likeable) hence why he has more patience
-There's no way to say it nicely. Those protests are an effort in futility
- let's not sugar-coat it, most people are outraged over a lack of transfers
- we don't have to agree with him or put his opinions on a pedestal I always say. He's prone to a lot of biases. I actually agreed with 95% of what he said then remember he was just outraged with the club a few months ago but now seems more forgiving with the club leadership because of the new transfer approach. Take it as serious as you would another opinion on redcafe
 

Rozay

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Agreed with every single word he said about us.
 

11101

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I agree fully with Neville, at least the first 5 minutes or so that I watched. This is the first season we seem like we have half an idea of the type of player we want and the style we want to play. It will take a bit of time to get right but it's better this way. Dybala was a massive bullet dodged and so are many similar players to him.
 

AR87

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Basically agree with Neville minus the weird thing about it being a natural cycle. The cycle occurs because the decisions from the top down are crap.

However, I'm optimistic this summer was an inflection point for us as a club. I have been saying all summer that the players we've linked with have common threads in terms of age, that they'd all be making a step up from a lower club to the top level (in stature of club if not performance), style of play, and would not blow up our wage structure.

James, AWB, and Maguire all fit how Ole wants to play and the type of player he's looking for. So did Longstaff and Fernandes (assuming at some point there was genuine interest). Now what we need is for Woodward to actually get in a technical director to improve our recruitment in providing multiple options to address holes in the squad (i.e. we need another pivot CM so if Longstaff's valuation is way out of whack with what you think he's worth you can move on to another similar profile of player).

I genuinely believe if we'd added another CM the general view of this window overall would be much different than it currently is. We did well with the players we signed, but we needed to do more. It's not the worst, and it's not the best. That's still somewhat frustrating as a fan, but I think for once there's actually a plan and vision that the club feels committed to beyond "back the manager, give him loads of money, hope he picks the right players, and if he fails sack him".
 

Amarsdd

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Gary was great there. When I've watched reddevilsunited, Mckola always seemed a more reasonable one of the bunch but here he sounded more like the moaning bunch of the caf. Its almost like he decided not to listen to Gary's points and just argue, sort of what you see here.
 

GifLord

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Other 4 parts can be found on the Sky Bet YouTube channel if you want to watch the whole thing
Is it just me or is the sound badly out of synch? I think they even had issues with audio during the Liverpool v Norwich match.
 

Stobzilla

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Neville nailed it on Herrera. Decent enough player but no better than a lot of central midfielders out there. Genuinely think he has been the most over-rated player on this website that I have ever come across.
 

SaintMuppet

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Neville nailed it on Herrera. Decent enough player but no better than a lot of central midfielders out there. Genuinely think he has been the most over-rated player on this website that I have ever come across.
Not quite, I think Bruno Fernandes wins that one...
 

Leftback99

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Neville nailed it on Herrera. Decent enough player but no better than a lot of central midfielders out there. Genuinely think he has been the most over-rated player on this website that I have ever come across.
I wonder what the reaction would have been if we'd bought a 'Herrera replacement' rather than Maguire.
 

SCJY

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Gary was great there. When I've watched reddevilsunited, Mckola always seemed a more reasonable one of the bunch but here he sounded more like the moaning bunch of the caf. Its almost like he decided not to listen to Gary's points and just argue, sort of what you see here.
You mean FullTimeDevils, right?

I totally share your opinion, he seems the most reasonable on there. He's also infinitely better than Howson... I cannot stand that guy and shut it off every time I see his head or hear the droll of his voice.
 

Amarsdd

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You mean FullTimeDevils, right?

I totally share your opinion, he seems the most reasonable on there. He's also infinitely better than Howson... I cannot stand that guy and shut it off every time I see his head or hear the droll of his voice.
oh yeah, fulltimedevils! thought reddevilsunited sounded wrong.
 

LARulz

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Adam is such a knob. He doesn't like the answer so starts shouting over Gary
 

L1nk

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I wonder what the reaction would have been if we'd bought a 'Herrera replacement' rather than Maguire.
We should of got both, i think was the point. Absolutely zero reason not to buy at least 1 midfielder, we saw plenty of good ones from Europe exchange hands, but it seems because they weren't English enough we weren't interested, which quite frankly, is a ridiculous stance to take.

Despite what people think, Pereira isn't good enough, McTominay isn't good enough, Lingard isn't good enough, Mata isn't good enough, Fred hasn't proved to be good enough, Matic is a lumbering tree.

We are going to get battered in the middle of the park by any half decent team, that's a fact. If Pogba can't play we might as well pack it in because no other player has shown any amount of creativity in the middle of the park required to even be effective.

But of course, let's just waste another season meandering about with a "rebuild", that mythical phase that only we seem to be perpetually stuck in or take years to get through when other teams only take maybe a season or two despite a new manager or new players, old ones sold.

Ole talked big about there being a cull and so on and so forth, the fact is we've culled nobody, we've held onto dross and given new contracts to most of them, whilst going into the season with a weaker midfield and, arguably, attack.

What happens if we don't make Top 4 again next season? Again, all the excuses of top players don't wanna join us will be exactly the same and more than likely that means Pogba etc is gonna go.

So whilst I agree on the recruitment of this season, we did not recruit enough, infact we are 2/3 short of the summer we needed. Quite frankly despite what Solksjaer is peddling out, I'm thinking the Glazers basically payed for Maguire with the Lukaku money and didn't wanna spend any more.
 
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Bastian

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Haven't finished it yet, but he's making the same error many posters on here do when praising us for having rejected the chance to go all out for non-committed players in the last couple of weeks of the window.

Which is leaving out the fact that we had months to sound out players who fit the criteria we had. We had Ole adamantly telling the press that so many players wanted to join us, even when top 4 was out of the question, agents ringing him and what not. Am I supposed to believe that in the whole world of football there were no midfielders who could either improve our first XI or at least give us better options? Of course that's not the case. But of all those who have enough quality, which I am sure are many, do none of them fit our criteria of actually wanting to play for us? Hardly. It's unthinkable that a competent recruitment personnel would struggle with finding quality players hungry to fight for us.

It's this false dichotomy of either we sign players who are reluctant to play for us or we sign no one.

And when he starts saying we'll win the league before Liverpool when we are miles off them is just bonkers. Fair enough, City are the favourites, but come on Gary, think with your brain.
 

Steerpike

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Gary was great there. When I've watched reddevilsunited, Mckola always seemed a more reasonable one of the bunch but here he sounded more like the moaning bunch of the caf. Its almost like he decided not to listen to Gary's points and just argue, sort of what you see here.
I also agree with wat GNev was saying - I like the fact that there now seems to be some structure to our transfer business (though we still need to sharpen up our act, which may be difficult while it's down to Ed to push things along). I'm not sure what Mckola actually thought we should have been doing instead, apart from going down the path of recruiting panic replacements for the people who had left.

The point about success going in cycles was reasonable as well - how boring would football become if that wasn't the case - but I do wonder whether money has changed the game in ways that make it harder for clubs to catch up if they fall behind.
 

Chunk of hope

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What a tool he is from full time devils, he sums up utd fans on social media. Embarrassing
 
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Devil may care

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Neville's mate is in charge and he's a nationalist, so he's always going to defend the farcical transfer window we had, then when it goes wrong it'll be Pogba, Martial and Lindelof's fault.
 

MikeKing

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That's still somewhat frustrating as a fan, but I think for once there's actually a plan and vision that the club feels committed to beyond "back the manager, give him loads of money, hope he picks the right players, and if he fails sack him".
That's actually what people wanted to happen when they wanted us to bring in a DOF. If Ole has managed to unite the board and club with his vision then it can only be a good thing. It seems there may be some structure in the works. About the owners, I honestly don't care that much about them. We have a lot of money and are spending it. They are just clueless and need guidance, hopefully they'll have that and make good use of it. I would much rather Ed bring the big guns out for a perfect player like Sancho, while "supervised" by the club than him on his own struggle to sign random names on a list only to overpay for some big name player he heard was good in the last minute.

I think we are going about fixing the wage-structure as well, and our culture of selling players which is difficult to do. Thing is, you have to be resilient and not budge, it takes a long time to build an image and one bad transfer deal to break it.

The other way of looking at it, is a far less patient view and makes me want to quit watching football. I'll side with Gary, no need to panic.
 
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Irwin99

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I also agree with wat GNev was saying - I like the fact that there now seems to be some structure to our transfer business (though we still need to sharpen up our act, which may be difficult while it's down to Ed to push things along). I'm not sure what Mckola actually thought we should have been doing instead, apart from going down the path of recruiting panic replacements for the people who had left.

The point about success going in cycles was reasonable as well - how boring would football become if that wasn't the case - but I do wonder whether money has changed the game in ways that make it harder for clubs to catch up if they fall behind.
Maybe operate on a plan that should have been formulated months before the window even opened? Lukaku and Herrera were obviously leaving before last season finished, Solskjaer said they'd be replaced with players coming in....maybe it might have been prudent to work on getting the right players with the time available. Panic replacements didn't have to be made.
 

ForestRGoinUp

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Neville's mate is in charge and he's a nationalist, so he's always going to defend the farcical transfer window we had, then when it goes wrong it'll be Pogba, Martial and Lindelof's fault.
It’s so true and easy to see this is the case.
 

Marcus

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I have a lot of time for Gary. I even found myself agreeing with him about losing Herrera. Especially since Gary lumped himself in as that kind of important, committed but can be found in abundance type.
 

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Gary is a motivator. He actually affected me and made me chill a bit. I am more positive. I think we can be alright and understand about getting players we like and can relate to. Ones with the right attitude. At the same time this will only get you so far so I will be silent and just watch and see

EDIT: actually feck that. This the same dude who thinks Moyes should have just ended his tenure only now and that Wenger should of stayed. A real "top red"
 
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Steerpike

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Maybe operate on a plan that should have been formulated months before the window even opened? Lukaku and Herrera were obviously leaving before last season finished, Solskjaer said they'd be replaced with players coming in....maybe it might have been prudent to work on getting the right players with the time available. Panic replacements didn't have to be made.
I don't disagree, but I didn't hear Mckola making that point.

As I said, I liked the fact that our transfer business was underpinned by some sort of strategy, but I absolutely recognise we need to get much better at executing it. I can imagine that Ole, if he's still at the helm for next year's window, will be pushing hard to get his targets nailed down early (now that he has experienced first hand the dilatory nature of Ed's dealings).
 

tenpoless

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Disastrous natural cycles are things like Earthquake, Tornado, Meteor hitting your house when you're sitting there watching ArsenalFanTV.

Mismanagement(s) aren't natural cycle especially if it keeps happening again and again. No excuses, They feck up and need replacing. Change or feck off.

Neville is a nobody. His views are always adjusted based around his mates and the same old 'fans need to be patient', etc, etc. Same thing happened during his interview about Wenger. Pretentious arrogance. 'Look, Im right because I say the right stuffs'.
 

hobbers

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He's half right and half wrong. Yes the new philosophy on recruitment has upsides. You cant get stung signing Di Marias, Lukakus and Sanchezs if you don't go out and sign them in the first place. Maguire, AWB and James are way more likely to be committed to the club for the very long term, if good enough, than a foreign equivalent.

But still, as a club we look an absolute shambles in the transfer market. We have the philosophy but not the plan. We lost two midfielders, who played a feck ton of minutes between them in the last couple of seasons, and brought no one in to replace them. That's just idiotic. Even before you consider the fact that Pogba will not be here long term and Matic now being a dead duck. If Longstaff was a perfect fit for Ole's midfielder profile, and the money was there, why didn't we sign him? £80m for Maguire was fine so why not £40-50m for such a vital long term signing? We knew both were leaving since January. Why was no one else on the shortlist?

We said we would replace Lukaku if he was sold. He was sold. We didn't replace him. We're down to two forwards and a 17 year old prospect (Sanchez doesn't count because he'll never be fit). Ridiculously cavalier attitude for a club that was ravaged by fatigue injuries last season and will be playing Europa league football this season. We knew Lukaku was going since Ole took over more or less. Where are the potential targets to replace him?

We know Pogba will force his way out next summer. Why did we only switch on to Eriksen at the eleventh hour? Who the feck have we been looking at otherwise?
 

Joga Bonito

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Neville nailed it on Herrera. Decent enough player but no better than a lot of central midfielders out there. Genuinely think he has been the most over-rated player on this website that I have ever come across.
Overrated or not he was our second best midfielder and arguably our most consistent and we will miss him, regardless of his standing amongst other midfielders in the game.
 

iluvoursolskjær

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Gary did well to inject a little bit of optimism there and I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said, though I felt he downplayed our struggles with the cyclical comment. Also disagreed with his take on Herrera; sure he isn't an elite but he always gave his all and was actually one of the few likable players in the squad - the very qualities Gary spoke of towards the end of that segment. And no matter how he wants to dress it up, releasing Herrera, Fellaini and Lukaku without replacing any of them has made the team considerably weaker. It's just really shit management and makes Ole's task an uphill one before a ball has even been kicked.
 

SaintMuppet

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Possibly, certainly in terms of those that played for the club though.
Herrera is a strange one to gauge. I could never quite figure out how good/bad he was for us. Fair play to him on his big contract at PSG though, he is certainly punching above his weight on that wage.