I agree as far as the Glazers are concerned (and, at the end of the day, they are the only ones who really matter) but I was referring to the "club" in a wider sense - ex-players and fans (including on here), leading to this body of opinion which thinks appointing Ryan Giggs as the next manager is a sensible move or has a fetish for managerial longevity and regards promotion of youth team players as a virtue in itself (rather than rearranging cause and effect to link both to talent and tangible progress and success).
I Now Have Nothing But Outright Contempt For Van Gaal And The Board
- Thread starter Rednotdead
- Start date
The Glazers are business men, they should be smart enough to realize the club needs refreshing right through, clinging to the past is never the way to go.
They could sell up to make a huge return. Seems the sensible thing to do.
Still sounds OTT. Contempt for FIFA is fine as they are corrupt. A board making decisions you disagree with doesn't deserve contempt imo.
Perhaps some fans feel this way because the current board and manager are running the club's traditions and image into the ground.
I don't feel as strongly as OP but I really am saddened by what's going on at the moment. We're a global laughing stock, but besides that I miss the style of football we were so well known for. It doesn't feel like I support Manchester United, it feels like I support an empty, passionless club like Chelsea (sorry not sorry Chelsea fans).
We don't have a single player that loves the club they're playing for - I miss players like Evra, like Ronaldo, Scholes, Giggs, Van Der Sar, Ferdinand etc. Besides their obvious talent, they loved United. Van Gaal compared to Fergie is a joke in terms of passion as well, LVG seems too proud to admit his failings and is carrying on with his bollocks philosophy whilst completely ignoring the majority of fans. His ego isn't right for this club. I know I've said previously I'd take Mourinho but that's only because he'd be an improvement on Van Gaal, but I'd much prefer someone like Pep or Pochettino - someone who understands the values of the club's they're at and respects them.
That is really the only scenario that makes sense if I thought our board had a clue, but I feel as though they all have their heads up their asses and think the money and prestige will last forever.
I understand that but, personally, I've always thought that the accusation of 'lacking passion' or 'not caring about the shirt/club's values', is only levelled at players and managers when the results aren't good. If we were winning and playing well, the players would look like they were enjoying themselves.
Your last point is probably true, but fans have always said that our style of play isn't the United way and isn't acceptable. It didn't start off like this - we played possession football last season but it was fancy and quick at times. It's developed into a boring and slow style of football, lacking direct play and flair. The fact Van Gaal said we played better in the first half against Swansea speaks volume.
I loved the football we played last season and thought that's what we were working towards. I thought the statements to the press were just him either lying or trying to flatter poor performances rather than criticise the players so didn't take much notice. But since then we've gotten further and further from that, as if that brilliant successful period where we took the best teams in the country apart was a mistake.
Was that a real grumble by Adidas? If so, yay.
Whilst I agree where we have ended is not good enough, some of that comes down to not being too lucky/ tactics.My guess is the board is worried about becoming a sacking club since we've prided ourselves in not being one. I think the only thing the board can be held for is the appointment of two terrible managers. One they took SAF's advice so it would seem and appointed Moyes who was a complete disaster! and the other being LVG was the only really ''proven'' () manager in the market in the summer.
The managers being poorly selected is one thing but the money spent and what we've got in return in completely shocking.
Moyes:
Mata - 38.5 million (luxury player, ya I said it..)
Fellaini - 28.5 million (Not worth 10m, complete shite)
LVG:
Herrera - overpaid
Shaw - worth every penny
Blind and Rojo - worth what was paid for them, squad players at best
Di Maria - Complete flop
Darmian - Average at best
Memphis - Shite
BSF - Fine, in decline.
Morgan - Fine
That's 3 transfer windows with over £300m spent on 11 players yet Shaw, Martial and Morgan are the only one's that are top level quality which leaves us with Shaw, Martial, Morgan, De Gea and Smalling as proper United starters. That's a shocking return. It's not just a new manager we need it's 6 new players, which is exactly what £300m could have bought you.
Mata - 38.5 million (luxury player, but Chelsea's best player the season before and contributed lots of midfield goals as well as creativity)
Fellaini - 28.5 million (agree has seemed usless, but at Everton he was a fairly wanted man. His price was due to unrealistic targets not working out.)
LVG:
Herrera - (paid going rate and clause, a talented player who hasn't quite been given a role to focus on)
Di Maria - Complete flop (started well, it's surely at least 70% his fault for flopping with outside distractions, but tactics didn't work well with him)
Darmian - not big cost and one of the few available rated and reliable looking RBs.
Memphis - Was the highest rated youngster in world football. Not managers fault he has flopped.
Bastian - Hugely experienced, brings in winning experience to a new team.
Morgan - One of highest rated proven Premiership midfielders when we brought him, has done fine as you said.
So overall I don't think the managers should be hugely blamed for the signings they made. The problem has been the making it gel together. And maybe that's where the real problem lies. That plus players not living up to expectations which is something even SAF suffered with. Some players just came handle the big spotlights of United!
However there is also the players we didn't sign. Our CB has been calling out for a quality CB not a squad CB. Our wings need a top fast winger, Memphis should have been that, but we needed at least two new wingers. And forward line relying on a 19 year old was always going to be an ask!
Ed Woodward is a bigger problem than Moyes and VG have been in my opinion. The bloke is simply a clown.
When we appointed Van Gaal he said:
''He’s got incredible energy and very importantly he likes attacking football.
If you remember the Barcelona team [he managed] in the late ’90s, who played incredible, attacking football, and those games we had against them in ’98/99, that’s the kind of football that Manchester United fans love. It’s part of our DNA.''
Yet why the feck were't people doing their research? It takes just a simply Google search to see the reason Bayern sacked him:
''Football should be enjoyable but there has been nothing enjoyable at FC Bayern for a while now.''
Right, so you'd think maybe he would still bring success which is more important post-fergie than any style of Football. However, after achieving the bare minimum last year, he is serving up easily the most boring football in the whole of the country, with piss poor results and a win record of a lower midtable club.
Yet does the board act? Are we waiting until yet another season is a write off just to carry on the transition to Liverpool? The fact is we probably can't be doing with the huge payout losses of sacking him, and while we are still in touch with top 4 it's happy days. Keep him on. Everything about the club right now is utterly disgusting, the team is being so limited and it is destroying careers of Footballers.
As FC Bayern put it:
''Problems were being created which ripped the club to pieces. Louis Van Gaal should consider what he has done.''
But I guess a club like FC Bayern, who are not as famous or world renowned as Manchester United, have about 400% more ambition right now. Manchester United who were at their level 4-8 years ago, have currently got a horrible cancer eating away at them. Clubs like Crystal Palace and Watford should have so much more pride right now. The only thing we should be proud of is our history, more than any other club we should be proud of it. The current state one feels more ashamed than anything else.
When we appointed Van Gaal he said:
''He’s got incredible energy and very importantly he likes attacking football.
If you remember the Barcelona team [he managed] in the late ’90s, who played incredible, attacking football, and those games we had against them in ’98/99, that’s the kind of football that Manchester United fans love. It’s part of our DNA.''
Yet why the feck were't people doing their research? It takes just a simply Google search to see the reason Bayern sacked him:
''Football should be enjoyable but there has been nothing enjoyable at FC Bayern for a while now.''
Right, so you'd think maybe he would still bring success which is more important post-fergie than any style of Football. However, after achieving the bare minimum last year, he is serving up easily the most boring football in the whole of the country, with piss poor results and a win record of a lower midtable club.
Yet does the board act? Are we waiting until yet another season is a write off just to carry on the transition to Liverpool? The fact is we probably can't be doing with the huge payout losses of sacking him, and while we are still in touch with top 4 it's happy days. Keep him on. Everything about the club right now is utterly disgusting, the team is being so limited and it is destroying careers of Footballers.
As FC Bayern put it:
''Problems were being created which ripped the club to pieces. Louis Van Gaal should consider what he has done.''
But I guess a club like FC Bayern, who are not as famous or world renowned as Manchester United, have about 400% more ambition right now. Manchester United who were at their level 4-8 years ago, have currently got a horrible cancer eating away at them. Clubs like Crystal Palace and Watford should have so much more pride right now. The only thing we should be proud of is our history, more than any other club we should be proud of it. The current state one feels more ashamed than anything else.
My issue is wholeheartedly with the board.
Interesting read regarding the Bayern quotes, but realistically what are the board to do now? Sack him now mid-season leaving the club in complete disarray, or sack him at the end of the season? Sadly for all of us, he is still the best man to deliver 4th place, so that's what will keep him his job until the end of the season.
I'm convinced work is being done now on his successor, whoever it is. The way things are there's zero chance he will still be here in the summer. The board won't accept it. The former players don't accept it, the fans don't, the media don't.
It's like anything in life, if he had realised the errors in his ways and changed it up, I think the fans and the board would forgive and forget, but he's so stubborn with this approach, it really is eating away at the club.
That's preventive and it works too.
Just thinking maybe the board doesn't see this as 'failure' yet. Seem to recall Moyes was immediately fired when top 4 become mathematically impossible.
Anyway, I expect the board to be already moving covertly.
Agree. Dislike, anger and sadness I can understand but contempt?
We will struggle to get top 4. Another manager could have us push for the league.
Which only makes sense if there's a guaranteed (or high probability) chance that the change will bring success/prevent failure. This is the way I see it: Currently there's 60% chance LVG gets us at least top 4 this year - let's put entertainment issues aside for now. Any managerial change made must therefore guarantee similar or better probability of success else there's no point in changing.
I'm guessing LvG and the board had a few heart to heart chats around Christmas time in which he convinced them the form was down to injuries and that he needs to stay the course and buy an attacker in Jan. Fergie and Sir Bobby probably agreed and Ed is now in the middle in that there is no unanimity from the board in terms of sack now or stay the course. The fact that LvG is older and more seasoned than Moyes and that he was more or less Ed's appointment makes it all the more difficult to muster the support to sack him. Barely scraping a couple of wins on the trot and we are back at square one - shit attacking and LvG in charge for the foreseeable future.
Sorry mate, but you can't pull numbers out of thin air and use them to argue a point.
There are no guarantees with LvG whatsoever. Maybe he can turn it around, but that belief would be based on faith and optimism rather than observation and analysis. As it stands the team is clearly not delivering, and individually players are struggling. Going by his statements he seems to think that our performances are acceptable, expectations are unrealistic, and we're just unlucky with results.
When a manager thinks being held to a higher standard than Sheffield United is unfair, it just doesn't inspire hope or faith. I just don't see how any semi-decent manager could come in and do worse.
Correction - it's a board NOT making decisions. A board sitting doing nothing while the manager demonstrates quite clearly that he has no clue how to improve performances, then in post-game interviews blames the opposition for employing tactics everyone in football knows he has no clue how to combat.
Opposition fans firstly laughed at us for the insipid football we play, now they don't even do that - they just shake their heads in wonder that it's being allowed to continue game after game as though it's all the team is capable of and it's all we fans deserve.
Contempt is fully deserved by this board and these owners.
I have nothing but contempt for Woodward and the rest of the empty suits that make up the board. Their decisions (or lack of) are running this club into the ground.
We used to laugh at Chelsea when they were losing continuously under Jose but then it just became sad.... That's exactly where we are today.
Contempt is too much. I just have this weird feeling of disinterest in all things Utd in general and specially when it concerns LVG. I don't care nor ever listen to his interviews, what he says bores the shit out of me when I read the transcripts. Moyes had a similar effect but more anger was involved because he was completely clueless. LVG tries to be clever while being a different type of clueless.
You hit on something there. There is an apathy I have now when watching mufc games. I just know it's going to be the same old dull lifeless shit.
I'm just waiting for LVG to go so we can start again, I just hope it isn't with Giggs because if pep goes to city he will take them to the next level we will get slaughtered.
I'm not entirely sure on that one. He's in for a massive culture shock when he comes here, Klopp has recently alluded to it as well. It's not the cosy little two-team league he's used to.
Klopp got clobbered in his own 'two team league' as well, he's not good enough to lace Pep's shoelaces.
If Pep comes to City, and gets all his transfers which he probably would, I'll give it a season for the new squad to settle before they start steamrolling this otherwise bog standard competition. The discipline he will drill into the squad is simply unmatched and unrivalled, he will end up building a well oiled machine like always, in contrast to the fire-fighter style management seen in this league. It's not cosy in here? It was pretty cosy for Jose last year and what he had to do was hardly anything special, bog standard tactics, all it took was a well settled outfit doing it week in week out, with the manager keeping them all motivated for every game without making any heavy changes to the tactics. No one could touch them all season. Now imagine Pep with all the City's money building a squad suited to him with quality all over the pitch. It is rawk-ish delusion to pretend it would be anything but what he has done to the previous two leagues - crush them.
Honestly think you've got it wrong. Every team in the league will be able to spend big this summer, there will be even fewer "easy" games next year. No team is going to steamroller the league IMO, even with Pep on board. It's become a cliche but the Premier League really is a totally different challenge to the other leagues in Europe and it's only going to get more competitive.
It doesn't really matter how much you can spend, City already has one of the best squads in the league and it will only get better with the arrival of Pep. What exactly are others achieving in comparison to that with all the money? We're possibly the deepest pockets in the league and playing with a teenager as our best attacker. English clubs are getting all the TV money and yes there are teams like Leicester getting in on the act, but look at the league at the moment.
Jose pretty much showed what a top manager with a good squad can do, he steamrolled the league last year, so will Pep. The standard is pretty low at the moment, with everyone struggling in some way or another, throw a manager of the calibre of Pep or Ancelotti into this especially with the freedom of creating their own squad and it's pretty easy, again watch last season.
You're in for a massive shock as well as Guardiola. The massive amount of tv money now means no club has to sell players to survive, and even smaller clubs can spend big. The competitiveness of the whole league will improve substantially. He's not going to just walk in and take the place by storm.
Show me what the smaller clubs have achieved by not selling and spending?
Southampton got ripped off by United and Liverpool recently despite doing well.
People are assuming attacks like Mane/Tadic/Pelle or Arnauto/Bojan/Shaqiri are even going to matter in front of a Pep led City supermachine. Sure.
There's not going to be any shocks. Everyone knew Jose would get back to dominating the league as soon as he returned to Chelsea, he would have been leading the league by a handsome margin this year if not for the off field problems. Obviously I cannot rule that out for Pep as long as the things are run smoothly under his watch and he gets his ways, he will deliver, no question, like Jose did. That is what top managers do. And unless Jose joins us, there's no one to give any competition to Pep.
Tired of hearing about the 'competitiveness' of this league, have a look about how to use metrics correctly, and this one is just flawed a-z. Where are your so called competitive english clubs honed by playing in this amazing sweat breaking pulse rushing best league in the world when they get their asses handed out by the likes of Wolfsburg and what not in Europe?
Your whole post is made up of nothing but hopefullness, with zero regard for the history of the Premier League. Put Fergie in charge of United right now with a transfer window under his belt, and watch him win it by a double digit points margin. Heck he did that with a squad full of holes all over the place, and lot of that was due to there being no one who was capable of giving him a fight. Similar for Jose last season and similarly for Pep whenever he arrives, given the usual suspects who can compete with him are all in different leagues. Perhaps if someone like Simeone takes on Chelsea, he can be a challenge. Or if Jose takes up United. But with the current dross though, no chance whatsoever.
It's not personal! Not against LvG and not even against David Moyes.
When a manager has lost the dressing room there One way or another then there is no alternative. Unfortunately all other arguments go overboard when this happens.
When a manager has lost the dressing room there One way or another then there is no alternative. Unfortunately all other arguments go overboard when this happens.
City get Guardiola, we get Pochettino.
In that situation I'd take our chances over theirs any day of the week. Any day.
In that situation I'd take our chances over theirs any day of the week. Any day.
I'd like to hear the basis behind that, if there's any.
I'd definitely agree Moyes lost the dressing room. I don't think LVG has lost it. Let's just say he hasn't. Do you think he should still stay on?
Guardiola has succeeded in two-team leagues, there's no evidence yet to show he'll succeed in a more competitive environment. He may or he may not.
Pochettino built a good squad at Southampton and is now building a good squad at Spurs. He's good at bringing young players through and is very ambitious - he jumped at the chance to move to Spurs when he could have remained with a good squad at Southampton. He'd similarly jump at the chance to manage Man Utd (and there's nothing Levy could do about it.) I strongly believe he's destined for the top and his EPL experience would be a massive asset.
Pochettino over Guardiola for me any day .
A competitive environment where he would have no competition once he arrives. Just strange how people cannot realise whether the competition is due to teams being equally strong or equally weak.
Tell me, what happened to the competition of this league last year? An average team both tactically and in terms of quality lost a grand total of three games entire season, and every man and his dog knew who would win the league two months in.
That is what it takes to reduce the competition over here. A bunch of Hondas can keep on overtaking each other for however long they want but they cannot catch a Ferrari, period.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31785852
Hasn't managed a top team for a single minute yet apparently is destined for greatness. And that was your basis for arguing in his favour, whereas Pep has no evidence of performing under "actual" competition. Let's just say the Champions league from 2009-11 were a figment of our imagination.
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Cometh David Moyes.
I would give him consideration. He's done really well at both those clubs. I like the way Spurs play. I'd hate to have another negative manager.