Lots of players? Who? Who are these players who played much better before he arrived? Valencia, Young, Mata, Sanchez, Magic, etc don't count as they are at the age where they are naturally going to be on the decline. Herrera was always at this standard, just playing a little more often. He never blew us away with consistent performances. Rashford is doing what he has always done, apart from scoring less now. For a lot of fans who didn't buy into the media hype, he has never been good enough to be a starter in a dominant p, successful United team. Same goes for Lingard. So who? Who are these amazing players than another manager could turn into quality players? Smalling? Lindelof? Lukaku? Rojo? Darmian? Jones?
Gary Neville
- Thread starter yamo123x
- Start date
Anyone else get really annoyed at the way he says 'club'? Or is it just me? infuriates me every time he says it.
Well you've pretty much answered you own question haven't you. The players of age have played to a level they are use to whilst the young players have not improved and those who have been coming into their twilight are still playing like they are coming into their twilight. I think Neville has a cheek to sit there and say Martial isn't playing any better before, when the whole point of having youngster is to progress them. Would he have comfortably sat there and say he expected Ronaldo at 18 to be the same player at 22. No.
The really question is who plays better for United than they do for their country. Answer. Non of them.
Thanks, that's super useful.
Gary is out to lunch, he's playing politics - if I recall, he wanted to give Moyes more time, and seemed to love LVG. It's clear our club is being badly managed and Mourinho is not the right man for the right woman. For me the divorce should have happened after the Sevilla fiasco - instead we'd have to write off this season, and potentially the next one too (no CL it seems).
Fooked.
Anybody not backing the manager can stay at home on the 24th vs Palace. Spineless individuals.
The Juve win won't be beaten for years, we were never going to back it up by beating City. Look at our defence ffs.
We'll have a decent run until Christmas and all will be forgotten.
The Juve win won't be beaten for years, we were never going to back it up by beating City. Look at our defence ffs.
We'll have a decent run until Christmas and all will be forgotten.
Maybe you should stay at home. The rest of us will support Manchester United rather than Mourinho United.
No point in fans turning on each other, everyone is entitled to have their own opinion. Mourinho is walking a tightrope in my opinion so you are always going to get unpopular opinions.
Fact is he's spent a lot of money now and the majority of his investments have been crap.
Does a pundit not working out as a manager damage their credibility to be pundits? Alan Shearer and Gary Neville spring to mind.
They were good enough to come 2nd last season, so clearly they're better than how he has us playing right now.
I don't think so. Punditry and management are different positions, each with different roles and responsibility.
Not had the money? He has spent 420m over these windows, how much more does he need to spend to have a style of football. Not having money was not the issue in August, it was the fact Ed didn't want to spend 60m on a 29 year old which I think is very very fair given what has become of Sanchez on his level of wages. The problem comes that Jose wants to get old experienced players whilst Ed wants to bring in more youthful players. Definetly not about not having money. I'm sure that if Jose found a 50m 25 year old defender in the summer ( who knows if we really wanted Maguire andnif he is worth that much given Mahrez went for 60m!) Ed would of signed him.
I support Manchester United. I want the best for the club I love. I believe we have no real success in our future under Mourinho. I believe the longer he is here, the more the club will suffer long term. Why should I back Mourinho? He's being paid an ungodly amount of money every week & is doing a bad job. I back Manchester United.
If you are happy to "challenge" for top 4 at best every year, go right ahead. We will not win a title under Mourinho, it's abundantly clear.
Care to explain why we're sitting 8th in the table with negative GD? Suppose Watford and Bournemouth have better defences.
We back the club. Man United FC not Mourinho FC.
Go to bed.
Souness - Is Mourinho getting the best out of his players?
Neville - Are the players good enough?
Both interesting questions.
The answer is simple I think. Mourinho plays a certain style, and the players he's got do not fit that style. So Souness is right.
Neville - Are the players good enough?
Both interesting questions.
The answer is simple I think. Mourinho plays a certain style, and the players he's got do not fit that style. So Souness is right.
You know they sold their best player ?which is what allowed them to buy players. Before that mourinho had spend more than double what Liverpool had spent under klopp
Nope, i think none of those players are capable of improving enough to be of title winning quality. Yes one or two of them may be slightly more effective in a different set up but I struggle to think of a system that would bring out championship winning quality as starting players in Rojo, Jones, Fellaini, Lingard, Rashford, Lukaku, Darmian, McTomminay, Herrera and this current version Young, Valencia, Sanchez and Mata. Genuinely think no one could make a title winning team out of this current crop. And the news today that too of our oldest and weakest players are getting new contracts is truly a sad state of affairs.
Completely disagree with ya mate but hey ho, this is a forum and that's what forums are for.
Well if your going to name all the crap players who's not going to agree. I could say how does Otamendi, Kompany, Gundogan, Jesus, Mahrez, and Danielo win a title. They don't look very special to me. At the end of the day we have quality players good enough to compete for this title with a few player 3 max from going for the league and Champions league. Barring we have a 'team' well drilled to trying to win week in week out. Not exploiting opponents weaknesses.
1. Quite often a winger/wide forward wont track a full back all the way. One of the midfielders or defenders will pick them up. If the winger stays up the pitch it means they're in a better position to attack if the team recovers the ball, and it stops the full back going forward as much as their primary job is still to defend against that winger.
3. He may not be able to match City's spending but he's had more than enough money to get us playing to a particular style.
That's just clearly not the case though is it. Look at the side who started on Sunday.
De Gea is not at his best right now but has been previously under Mourinho.
Young has had a revival. Still nowhere near good enough for a United team obviously, but less useless than he had been under LVG, Moyes and SAF.
Smalling isn't any worse than before. As mediocre defensively and shit on the ball as ever.
Lindelof has jumped up massively in terms of Portugal to the Prem so judging his performances from previous isn't really relevant.
Shaw was shit for LVG and is doing his best in a United shirt right now.
Matic has had the exact same couple of years at United as his last two under Chelsea. Unremarkable season followed by a totally awful season. All under Mourinho anyway.
Herrera has always been a mediocre "do a job" player. No different now to LVG in terms of his level.
Fellaini has been far more useful for Mourinho than he had been for Moyes or LVG.
Lingard has only played under Mou really, obviously not a United standard player.
Rashford was just as inconsistent under LVG and has been as inconsistent for England.
Martial has played his best football the last few weeks.
The only players you can definitely say have been better prior to Mourinho are Sanchez and Pogba. But was Pogba better because he was playing with much much better players in a much lower standard league? Would Sanchez be any different under another manager given how garbage he has looked since signing?
De Gea has not been better under Mourinho than the previous managers. I'd say he's worse on crosses now than he was when establishing himself with Sir Alex. Thats one of the reasons we're weak defensively on corners and conceeded so many last season
Smalling was better under LVG. That was his best season.
Lindelof was seen as a £30 million+ defender while in Portugal. He isnt now
Matic is a lot worse than when he was at his best at Chelsea
Lingard is still to show all that much, especially any consistancy. He's currently not worth a mention
Rashford was a teen
Martial isnt any better than his first season even though he was a teen
Friend, and who can United sell? Liverpool sold Coutihno, and before that Suarez. So yeah, they sold players because they had players to sell. Who could have Mourinho sold when he first came to the club?
So we're not fans if we don't blindly support a manager who is failing?
What kind of stupidity is that? Mourinho doesn't do anything a United manager is supposed to do. He doesn't promote or develop youth, he doesn't playing a fun brand of football and now he can't even get results. We have a lower point total through 12 games than we did under Moyes and this is the worst start in the premier league era for the club.
He has to go. Blind fealty has no place here. We need to do what's best for the club not what's best for Jose.
Martial
And if he had the same interest from Barcelona or Madrid that those players had, we would have sold him too.
Where has this bizarre myth come from that Mourinho is only signing older players?
If anything one of the reasons our defence looks so poor is due to the fact that we've signed the likes of Bailly/Lindelof/Dalot thinking of 5 years time rather than right now.
Am I the only one who agreed with him yesterday? I thought Souness came over as a bit petulant tbh.
More to do with the players he wants rather than the ones he bought. Barring Matic and Sanchez, I agree they all have been pretty young. But Toby and Perisic are 29. There was also a 28 year old Bale for 70m. I think the way Jose wants to take this squad forward is to bring in tried and tested players and if he had his way, it would be a completely different looking team.
Love the guy as a player, he gave his all. But as a pundit and just as a bloke in general I think he's a bit of a tit. If it were up to him Moyes would still be in charge.
Souness asked him a simple question in a very respectful manner and he kept dodging it. At this point his refusal to apportion any kind of blame to the managers is quite baffling. Even if you believe we need restructuring at board level.
I mean he even said City and Liverpool have patterns of play and United don't then blames everything but the man paid millions to coach.
And that's an achievement is it? 2nd place?
They're average, with the exception of 3 or 4 players and one of those is going through a Joe Hart phase, whilst the other is young and inconsistent
To me he seemed to be getting at the fact the players aren't good enough. Jose's methods work, we've seen that. He stated that Moyes, Van Gaal and now even Jose can't get these players playing well, and we're still here blaming the manager? He pointed to the likes of Ashley Young, can he play better? He's not sure he can. I agree with him. Jose is a great manager, but he's not a magician.
Souness seemed to keep deliberately missing the point, hence my accusation of petulance. Every time Neville explained himself, Souness tried to put words in his mouth or just didn't acknowledge Neville's point at all. I think he tried to explain himself twice, but Souness just kept coming back with "so you're saying what we saw out there today was good enough?". After the second time I think Neville just gave up.
You know who made coutinho into a player that can be sold for 200m?
I think Sourness just wanted Neville to answer the original question which was 'are we getting the best out of those players?'. Neville kept changing the subject talking about different players even suggesting Martial wasnt better under LVG than he is now when he carried us basically as a teenager. Before his latest run in the team everyone would've agreed that he's stagnated and not progressed.
11 players? One of whom is a third choice goalkeeper, one is a full back clearly brought in for future seasons and another was a striker that was only ever going to be for one season. That leaves 8 players, so lets go through them one by one.
Eric Bailly - looked superb initially, are we really blaming Mourinho for him being a) losing his head after making the slightest of mistakes in a game or b) being made of glass?
Henrikh Mkhitaryan - major part of us winning the Europa League in season one, dreadful in season two - literally swapped him for Alexis Sanchez which was a phenomenal deal.
Paul Pogba - comfortably the most important outfield player in the team.
Victor Lindelof - poor first season, slowly improving and is starting to look a good player.
Romelu Lukaku - probably not a player I'd have signed but was our top goal scorer in season one.
Nemanja Matic - in poor form at the moment but is by far the second best midfielder at the club and is an integral part of the team.
Alexis Sanchez - we are a far better team with him in it.
Fred - yeah I don't really get him to be honest but he was clearly choice 3/4 at best in the summer.
Five, if not six of the seven still at the club would be in our strongest eleven all being well.
It is a far more cowardly stance to blame all our problems on the manager when it is clear the issues are way over his head. Managers at big clubs are backed to sign players that will improve the team, we came up against a £230m back five on Sunday for example. Liverpool needed a centre back, they signed off £75m for Van Dijk. Mourinho wanted a centre back in the summer and Ed Woodward went to the press saying he knew better than Mourinho regarding signing Alderweireld/Maguire ffs. The club is toxic and that is not Mourinho's fault.
No, I agreed with him. He didn't dodge the question (is Mourinho getting the best out of these players?) at all, he just responded with "I don't know" and explained why.
Souness is talking about how we're not getting the best out of the squad, but what evidence have we got to suggest we're better than our second place finish last season?
Maybe we are expecting too much from these players. Maybe our players aren't good enough.
Yes, players like Rashford, Martial, Shaw, etc all have potential, but that doesn't mean they're going to be top players or are currently top players.
Having said that, managers of other teams have been able to go into clubs and massively improve individuals. For example:
Robertson under Klopp
Sterling under Pep
Alli under Pochettino
Barkley under Sarri
I don't really get that with Mourinho. Yes, Martial has done well over the last month or so, but he is far from consistent, and had it not been for Sanchez's poor form, he'd still be on the bench.
Actually, in terms of our attack, I wouldn't say anyone has improved.
My only worry is that, as Neville said, we've had three managers now and neither one of them have been able to take us back to the glory days. Is our problem deeper than just the manager, or have we been unlucky with all three managers?
Liverpool, despite not winning anything under Klopp yet are now seriously title contenders. It took Klopp a bit of time to get in who he wanted, in order for him to implement his style of play, but he now seems to be there. The players made it clear where he wanted to go.
I don't get that feeling with Mourinho, and I'm unsure of how he wants to play. He bought Fred to play in games such as yesterday and didn't play him.
As I've said in many threads, going forward we need a modern manager who plays high energy football. Out of all the top teams, we seem like the only team who aren't doing this. We've seen the impact it has had with teams like Arsenal and Chelsea this season, and I personally feel until we do that, we'll continue to struggle in a game that seems to have left Mourinho behind.
Maybe we are expecting too much from these players. Maybe our players aren't good enough.
Yes, players like Rashford, Martial, Shaw, etc all have potential, but that doesn't mean they're going to be top players or are currently top players.
Having said that, managers of other teams have been able to go into clubs and massively improve individuals. For example:
Robertson under Klopp
Sterling under Pep
Alli under Pochettino
Barkley under Sarri
I don't really get that with Mourinho. Yes, Martial has done well over the last month or so, but he is far from consistent, and had it not been for Sanchez's poor form, he'd still be on the bench.
Actually, in terms of our attack, I wouldn't say anyone has improved.
My only worry is that, as Neville said, we've had three managers now and neither one of them have been able to take us back to the glory days. Is our problem deeper than just the manager, or have we been unlucky with all three managers?
Liverpool, despite not winning anything under Klopp yet are now seriously title contenders. It took Klopp a bit of time to get in who he wanted, in order for him to implement his style of play, but he now seems to be there. The players made it clear where he wanted to go.
I don't get that feeling with Mourinho, and I'm unsure of how he wants to play. He bought Fred to play in games such as yesterday and didn't play him.
As I've said in many threads, going forward we need a modern manager who plays high energy football. Out of all the top teams, we seem like the only team who aren't doing this. We've seen the impact it has had with teams like Arsenal and Chelsea this season, and I personally feel until we do that, we'll continue to struggle in a game that seems to have left Mourinho behind.
@hobbers
Smalling isnt soley responsible for the amount of goals we concede. His personal performances were better that 1 season for LVG
Smalling isnt soley responsible for the amount of goals we concede. His personal performances were better that 1 season for LVG
He did try to, I just don’t think Souness believed his answer. He said he didn’t know and explained why but Souness wasn’t happy with that and resorted to weird black and white ultimatums.