Has this season hit rock bottom for you yet? If no, what, in particular, will be the final nails in the coffin?

[Ban]

It will get worse. Summer will be a disaster and next year too. Probably the year after too.

 

[Snow]

Not without Rashford, he’s so important to the way we play. Martial is proving he isn’t good enough. If we didn’t have so many holes in the squad he would be replaced as well.

It's not really that he's so important to the way we play but rather even when he's fit we don't have a good attack but without him it gets so much worse.

 

[Will Singh]

Have you seen our fixture list? We are four points from 14th with this to come next:

Premier League fixtures

Wolves - Home
Chelsea - Away
Watford - Home
Everton - Away
City - Home
Spurs - Away
Sheffield United - Home

That could literally be 3 points if we are lucky.

Exactly

 

[The Irish Connection]

Absolutely horrible. It’s completely papering over the cracks that we’re 5th. I wanted us to buy maguire because I knew we couldn’t afford koulibaly but 80 million?! If that’s what 80 million buys you we’re doomed.
I thought ole taking off pereira instead of James was the wrong move.

 

[Rozay]

I’m generally a bit of a believer in the longer term vision but I’ll be honest, I’m a bit heartbroken right now. Think I’ll have to take a short break from football.

 

[shabz]

I think rock bottom is now. Anytime we play and conce first, my first thought is we will lose the game. Not being able to sustain any attacking pressure against Burnley at home is awful. People see Manchester United as only a big name but not a big team anymore, we can't even rest on our laurels now. That's rock bottom.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Like I said, we will keep meandering around the same spot. Some will see progress in the few wins here and there. Others will understand we aren't managed anywhere near as well as we should be. There's nowhere further to go as far as I can see. We're already in the pits. Just a question of how long were willing to spend wondering the merits of making an effort to get out.

 

[Marcus]

This season is already dead and buried. My fear is that so are the next 5 years.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

I’m generally a bit of a believer in the longer term vision but I’ll be honest, I’m a bit heartbroken right now. Think I’ll have to take a short break from football.

The long term vision of youth and exciting football is a footbal club philosophy. A manager needs to have first and foremost quality and then hopefully also buys into the club's philosophy. What you don't do is hire a manager just to bring in that philosophy and clearly doesn't have the actual quality. As I said in another thread, if I believe in the promoting youth and playing tiki taka should I manage Barcelona? I sure hope not.

In Ole we apparently hired values and are sticking with it. That's bizarre. No CEO of any major company is merely hired on values. Excellence is a pre condition. At least of keeping you in the job.

 

[Imperious]

Hasnt hit rock bottom for me. But I have finally come to the realization that no matter who we hire as manager, its not going to do anything until Ed Woodward is removed.

In fact, even if we hired Pochettino by some fluke, I'd question his mind set given what everyone knows how the club is run.

 

[Morpheus 7]

Stick a fork in me, I'm done. Just a sad state when absolute shite is beating you easily at home. This is the bottom, without reinforcements and new ideas of management we are finished this year.

 

[VeevaVee]

Absolutely horrible. It’s completely papering over the cracks that we’re 5th.

Still surprises me that we are. Doesn't feel like we're winning enough to be near top 4.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Still surprises me that we are. Doesn't feel like we're winning enough to be near top 4.

It's because the competition for 4th has been particularly bad this year. Has to be noted that the gap between us and Chelsea is now 6 points so we aren't all that close as of now and the next swing is important if we want this to be a race.

 

[sdb4884]

The cremation started when i saw Phil Jones start tonight and it just went on from there.

 

[sammsky1]

Even when the Doc took us down into the 2nd division it felt better than what it does now. Somehow we knew we'd bounce back and we sure did that with with a young team of players the likes of Coppell, Hill and Pearson. Together with Sammy Mac, Buchan etc. they all understood what the club was about. Players who come here now seem to get infected by some fecking virus and become mediocre. We have become painful to watch and we're rapidly losing our identity. Watched utd for 55 yrs and never felt as disillusioned as I do now.

I suspect it’s because before, the clubs owners and the manger and the fans all had the exact same priority: for the football team to be as successful as it could and use the entire clubs resources to achieve that. And so even during the pre SAF years, we were a ‘united’ club.

We now have a situation we’ve been stuck in for years that our owners and fans have different primary objectives: profit vs club performance.

SAFs genius and brilliance was able to mask this but once that band aid was removed, we’ve been getting rudely kicked off our perch.

The club has lost all of its northern chappy charm (it now has a ‘corporate’ HQ in London!). The club culture under Woodward became just about money, merchandise and social media marketing. That is what new players got ‘infected’ by once they joined.

OGS is trying to reset but deep down we all know he doesn’t have the skillset and won’t be given the funding to pull it off.

I feel exactly disillusioned like you do (fan for 37 years) because I know there is nothing I can do to resolve ownership issue, except protest by not spending money on my club which I love.

 

[TwoSheds]

Rock bottom will be next month when we've signed nobody, sustained a couple more injuries and lost to some no marks. We either need a whole shite load of quality youth team players to come through or Ed to feck off and die and let somebody else work out what value there is in the market.

 

[cyril C]

2 more loss, then perhaps the Board would make up their mind on Manager....

 

[Xoe]

Rock bottom will be hit when Henderson lifts up that trophy in a few months time.

 

[sideshow_bob]

Rock bottom for me:
- no 1st team Jan signing
- no Top 4
- Pogba leaves
- Ole stays
- None of Matic, Mata, Jones, Bailly, Sanchez, Shaw, Rojo, Pereira, Lingard leave
- no Saudi takeover
- Ed remains at the helm
- still no right winger purchase in summer
- 'british preferred' transfer policy turns out to be true

 

[Devil may care]

I'm actually surprised we are still in the spot we are, granted we have been aided by how crap the other teams competing for the 4th spot also are, but when the summer transfer window closed with such minimal investment I said we'd not make top 4 and even top 6 would be a struggle. So the fact we are still clinging to Chelsea's tail is more than I expected given the thin, inexperienced squad and manager who is out of his depth.

 

[Lentwood]

That was our worst results this season but this is going to continue to happen unfortunately until we can somehow get in better personnel

Second half we looked devoid of confidence but first half we created at least three chances that a top player would have taken.

Once again the opposition had one set piece and one that wasn’t even a half chance and scored two goals whilst our forwards continue to show no goalscoring instinct whatsoever.

 

[Deery]

Would Barcelona allow this to go on? They just got rid of a Valverde and he won the league last year. Such a small time mentally with the club’s owners haggling over a few million pound when Barca go out and spend 100’s off millions to remain at the top of the game.
It’s where we should be at but instead these bastards have destroyed us.
I’ve had a night to sleep on it and still feel just as bad this morning and the worst thing is with player confidence, tiredness and a thin squad I can only see it getting worse.
So yes it’s the lowest point but no we are going to sink even lower.

 

[Volumiza]

Yes and the rock will fall further.

 

[londonredmaniac]

Yes, it has now

 

[Godfather]

It hits a new low week after week.

 

[Yagami]

With the depleted squad we had going into the season, I expected much worse, to be honest, so no. I don't know what'd be the final nail in the coffin for me either.

I said this a couple of weeks ago, and it still hasn't hit rock bottom, but I can see it coming when we inevitably get knocked out of every cup and finish mid-table.

Even though pretty much all of us saw this season panning out the way it has done because of our anorexic squad, it doesn't make it any easier to take. In fact it makes it more annoying because if we, the fans, could see this coming, why couldn't the people in charge of the club itself? Sigh!

 

[Adisa]

We haven't reached bottom. Far from it.

 

[Ballache]

I'm trying hard to stay positive and not let his drain me emotionally, I'm trying really hard to see the positives.

But it's getting more difficult every week.

The worst part is that I can't see anyone succeeding with Manchester United. Not under the current regime. So the thought of acquiring someone like Pochettino, or Nagelsmann doesn't excite me. We will be stuck in the same cycle for many years if things don't change.

That's how I feel too. We should start by making the obvious change (Poch for Ole) but we need to restructure the footballing side of the club and it needs to happen now.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

Without the only player who has shown this season he can consistently score goals we will drop like a stone now.

Bottom half finish looking more than realistic without Rashford.

Get to the magic 40pt mark, hopefully sooner than later, and then we can focus our energy on a club sale. Time to make things that toxic they have to sell.

If 50,000 renew their Season Tickets again they must be fecking suckers for punishment. If you want change don't buy one. They won't have a choice then. Then you'll get one back once the club is sold.

 

[Ronaldo's Love Child]

I'm happy to write this season off as long as we avoid relegation. Let us use the next few months as an opportunity to try different tactics out then let us settle on that and only then can we really seriously look at recruiting quality players to fit a working system.

At the moment, we have no clearly identifiable system or tactic and even world class players need a functioning tactic to play to their potential.

 

[RoyH1]

As bad as we are, and as bleak as it looks, we're still 5th. Things can get much worse.

 

[Enigma_87]

First win for Burnley at OT since 57 years.

And no, we haven't reached the bottom yet.

 

[DRM]

Oh let me tell you, this is nowhere near rock bottom, it's only going to get much worse from here!

 

[RedIan]

It does feel like rock bottom. However without Rashford to prop up the attack and no sign of any new players coming in and the transfer window just over a week left - its going to get worse.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Last night was my rock bottom.

It's depressing how badly we are run.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

It will get worse than last night.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Even at 1 nil the team looked like they knew they were beat. If that’s not rock bottom I don’t knew what is

We have seen this a number of times this season. There is no leadership to fire them up and fight back on or off the field.

 

[pascell]

It will get worse than last night.

Losing 5-0 away to Everton last season, losing at home to already relegated Cardiff last season, losing 2-0 away to at the time bottom of the table Watford this season, we were 3-0 down at half time to City just the other week, there's a lot more I've etched from my memory too! Our next 2 league games wre Wolves at home and Chelsea away, we could be 9th/10th after those if results don't go our way.

 

[humdinger]

There will be more nights like last night before the season is done. And probably next season too.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

It will get worse than last night.

If we sign some players and quick, even Lou Macari said last night that we have to spend and now, it might lift the team. If not it will get a lot worse as you say. We could be out of two cups in a short time and I do not have any hope for a EL win. People saying no europe might be a good thing, in the past maybe. This time it could just be the beginning of a massive slide.