If the fans can see the club has no ambition, so can the players

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Looking at the money we have spent over the years since Fergie left it is hard to argue the club lacks ambition , but we have just been extremely incompetent in how we have spent it on average players with huge contracts and no real long term plan or vision. The money we have is not infinite and at some stage it was going dry up and the spend was going to tapper off.

You are right, it’s not ambition, it’s incompetence. It started with believing other managers could do what Fergie could do (not winning leagues etc), but actually the scope of management and power he had. Utd were clearly a big club in the 80’s, but nothing like as big when he left. We then gave Moyes, LVG and Jose unrivalled decision making, that they wouldn’t get at any other club in the world.

That’s been the problem.

Controversial view - if you were the glazers, you would be bloody fuming to see how £700m or whatever it is has been utterly squandered, and thrown down the drain.

 

[Siorac]

Anything to be said for context?
It was the ( apparently unproven, incompetent, out of his depth) managers first full season in charge, we have a young squad that is in transition from the previous mangers tired and tested methodology of buying expensive has-beens and quick fixes, and a season disrupted by massive injuries to key players and an unprecedented world wide pandemic.
To finish third in the league and to get to semi final stage in every other competition is a good achievement. Not the final ambition, but a great platform to build on for this season.

Let's apply even more context then: to get to these semi-finals, we had to beat Rochdale (on penalties), Chelsea, Colchester, Wolves, Tranmere, Derby, Norwich (after extra time), Brugge, LASK, and FC Kobenhavn (after extra time).

Of all these, only beating Chelsea away can be classified as an achievement. Maybe Wolves though that's stretching it. In the Europa League we got knocked out by the first decent team. In the FA Cup, by the second one. We played five lower league teams (well, technically Norwich was in the Premier League at the time but they were pretty much a Championship side all season long) and I'm not sure our EL knockout opponents could survive in the Premier League.

Thanks to our late rally after the signing of Bruno (and the complete collapse of Leicester as well as the inconsistent form of Chelsea) it wasn't an utterly terrible season, admittedly. But it hasn't really increased our pulling power with players, that's for sure: the main draw is still money. We pay well and our financial strength means that players can tell themselves that we'll eventually buy our way back into contention. Not this summer, certainly, but then there's COVID-19. The thing the likes of Sancho definitely won't care about is that we managed to beat Colchester and Tranmere.

 

[Rozay]

A deeper squad we might have won at least two of them. That is probably where the frustration is coming from. Those players were running on empty and I am convinced Rashford is still having problems.

Our current squad might have won at least two of them. Or we might not, which is football. Supposed ‘deeper squads’ failed to win the same cups we failed to win.

We all want new players, but the nonsense on the Internet at the moment is ridiculous and childish. We’ve already spent £100m this year as it is, and we are actively trying to spend more. All this ‘no ambition’ stuff is so grating. We were rubbish against Palace, and a Jadon Sancho or Alex Telles would not have changed that outcome. Chelsea have looked no better in two games despite signing every footballer moving.

If you want us to just go and loan Perisic or whatever, the club could have ‘gotten their business done early’ or all the other internet sayings that I hear are a mark of ‘ambition’. If you want the Sancho’s and Upamecano’s of this world, you need to trust the process and be patient. We signed VDB in a day. We can sign those players easily. However, if we had brought in Douglas Costa back in August everyone would be complaining.

 

[11101]

I don't think anybody questions our ambition. Everybody who joins talks about how nothing can prepare you for the scale and size of our operation. Probably only Madrid and Barcelona rival us for that.

What we do have is a confidence problem. New players come in and shine until they too succumb to it. Maguire, James, Greenwood, Bruno, all flying out of the blocks before slowing right down, and Donny currently playing one touch football like we haven't seen in months.

 

[Siorac]

That's a poor excuse, Arsenal had at best as much depth as we did and they won the FA cup. The reality is that the manager failed to rotate properly and our players had an absolutely stinker against Chelsea and choked against Sevilla.

Arsenal were pretty much finished in the league though, they lost 4 and drew 1 out of 10 post-lockdown. They focused their efforts on the FA Cup entirely. We, on the other hand, played an odd mishmash of a team against Chelsea and got punished for it.

 

[El Zoido]

The more important thing to note is to look at our great progress last season, going unbeaten in the league since January, a long unbeaten streak, hardly conceding a goal, scoring for fun, young players breaking through, a positive change in attitude and culture at the club. And yet we lose ONE game, and now we want to sack the manager, sell our entire defence as well as Pogba, and so on, it never ends. The meltdown is insane, if I was a Liverpool fan I’d be pissing myself with laughter looking at the comments on the caf. The fans are the problem, moreso than anything else. If this happens every time we have bad form or lose a game, we will never be successful again. It’s completely ridiculous.

 

[Plant0x84]

Let's apply even more context then: to get to these semi-finals, we had to beat Rochdale (on penalties), Chelsea, Colchester, Wolves, Tranmere, Derby, Norwich (after extra time), Brugge, LASK, and FC Kobenhavn (after extra time).

Of all these, only beating Chelsea away can be classified as an achievement. Maybe Wolves though that's stretching it. In the Europa League we got knocked out by the first decent team. In the FA Cup, by the second one. We played five lower league teams (well, technically Norwich was in the Premier League at the time but they were pretty much a Championship side all season long) and I'm not sure our EL knockout opponents could survive in the Premier League.

Thanks to our late rally after the signing of Bruno (and the complete collapse of Leicester as well as the inconsistent form of Chelsea) it wasn't an utterly terrible season, admittedly. But it hasn't really increased our pulling power with players, that's for sure: the main draw is still money. We pay well and our financial strength means that players can tell themselves that we'll eventually buy our way back into contention. Not this summer, certainly, but then there's COVID-19. The thing the likes of Sancho definitely won't care about is that we managed to beat Colchester and Tranmere.

I can’t disagree with any of that, but I don’t see how that speaks to a lack of ambition from the club?
It’s very arguable that Olé and the staff have improved players like Martial and Fred for example so the coaching is there. The way to improve on top of this is to sign better players, and if money is the deciding factor (not the main factor it has to be said) then so be it.

 

[Siorac]

I can’t disagree with any of that, but I don’t see how that speaks to a lack of ambition from the club?
It’s very arguable that Olé and the staff have improved players like Martial and Fred for example so the coaching is there. The way to improve on top of this is to sign better players, and if money is the deciding factor (not the main factor it has to be said) then so be it.

I don't really know if the people in charge of the club are ambitious enough or not, I just dropped into a debate about United's pulling power. My argument is basically that we can't offer the chance to fight for major trophies and very little suggests we will any time soon, considering our last seven years. Therefore our main draw is money.

 

[JPRouve]

Arsenal were pretty much finished in the league though, they lost 4 and drew 1 out of 10 post-lockdown. They focused their efforts on the FA Cup entirely. We, on the other hand, played an odd mishmash of a team against Chelsea and got punished for it.

Which is on us and based on the fact that Ole didn't make small changes every weeks or used extra subs efficiently. Fred who was performing very well before lockdown but was an afterthought after it, we had more subs after lockdown and didn't use them properly. Take the games against Sheffield United and Brighton, Fred remained on the bench even though we were up at least two goals after 50 minutes and he remained on the bench 5 out of 9 league games, those minutes that he didn't play were the opportunity to manage Matic, Bruno and Pogba minutes. And you could make the same point about McTominay but to a lesser extent.

 

[Icemav]

As a club we seem reactive and as such we don’t do enough to go that step further. When it looks like we need to do more to reach top four we go and do something. Then we only seem to step back.

This summer a look at the first 11 suggested we were on the right track, beyond that and our manager had no faith in any of them. We needed to build on what we achieved at the end of last season. We haven’t and now the club has fallen backwards, while other clubs have stepped forwards.

Sadly we need another reaction from the club, but ultimately success comes from long term planning not reactive signings to plug gaps, which is what we do.

You are spot on in my opinion. Its a tough skill to effectively and proactively strategize for the future. The goal is to create a functioning and successful TEAM. Over and over and over.

The people in charge of Manchester United aren't capable of doing this. They must think they are really intelligent and capable but ultimately they don't know what they don't know. They are the suckers are the poker table.

 

[Siorac]

Which is on us and based on the fact that Ole didn't make small changes every weeks or used extra subs efficiently. Fred who was performing very well before lockdown but was an afterthought after it, we had more subs after lockdown and didn't use them properly. Take the games against Sheffield United and Brighton, Fred remained on the bench even though we were up at least two goals after 50 minutes and he remained on the bench 5 out of 9 league games, those minutes that he didn't play were the opportunity to manage Matic, Bruno and Pogba minutes. And you could make the same point about McTominay but to a lesser extent.

Sure, all I'm saying is that Arsenal are not a good counter-argument because they couldn't perform well on multiple fronts either.

I'm unconvinced by a lot of things about Ole, in-game management being one of them.

 

[JPRouve]

Sure, all I'm saying is that Arsenal are not a good counter-argument because they couldn't perform well on multiple fronts either.

I'm unconvinced by a lot of things about Ole, in-game management being one of them.

It's a good counter-argument because the fact that we didn't win is based on our own decisions, a team that was worse than us and had less depth won a cup while we came relatively close after taking frankly dumb decisions. Putting our issues on depth when we didn't even use the depth that we had is a very poor argument.

 

[Cloud7]

More importantly, when will the fans start wanting out? There’s are more successful local alternatives with guaranteed returns and standards to meet their needs.

I'm not sure if you're joking about this or not, but this is very much happening before our eyes, but we won't see it for another decade or so. United are losing the younger generation of football fans. It's anecdotal of course, but many, many up and coming football fans are fans of clubs like PSG and City these days, much more so than you would have said seven or eight years ago. It's not just us losing them, of course, but as a club that prides ourselves on being one of the most well supported in the world, and where all our commercial deals rely on the huge name of the club, in the long term losing the next generation of football fans is not good for us.

And to be honest, you can hardly blame them. We all are already committed to United, but as someone just getting into the game, what joy and excitement is there in becoming a United fan?

 

[Green_Red]

I'm in full agreement. As a club, wasting £80m on Maguire, £50m on Fred, £30m on Lindelof and Bailly, and finally Sanchez and the wages that deal cost the club, you are looking at £200m + on mid table level rubbish at best.

£200m should be assembling a title challenging side. The problem is, the club are having to finance these deals against the club and pay over time. We are probably still paying lump sums off deals and that has to be taken into consideration.

Now I'm not a glazer apologist but if you are business minded, I think you would want a decent return on your investment at some point before spending more. You must remember utd have one of the highest wage bills in Europe. Until you shift the deadwood, and trust the recruitment team, you are basically throwing away money and I'd rather it be saved right now until things change.

That would be all good except for the fact that the Glazers have taken over a billion out of the club. That is the return in their eyes.

 

[RUCK4444]

First time in a while I can't really muster an opinion on something here, feeling quite down in general and this place after a loss is the worst remedy for that.

Genuinely think I might skip this season in general, doubt I'll manage to, but for the first time I think it would genuinely do me some good to avoid the circus.

 

[Class of 63]

I'm sure every potential target of ours is salivating at the thought of some League Cup semi-finals, too.

You do realise this thread is asking about players currently at the club don't you?

Keeping on topic, if there are players wanting out after we achieved the objective(T4) plus reaching three semi-finals i'd say Go, bugger off, don't slam the door on the way out, i'd much rather the players thought if i'd given 5/10% more we'd maybe have got to one or two of the finals and maybe won one/both of them, and next time i'm in that situation that's exactly what i'm gonna do.

 

[Class of 63]

Teams get to semis all the time. Doesn't mean a thing. Actual silverware is needed and soon otherwise there will be players wanting out.

As I said to yer man above if they want out let 'em go.

 

[TheLord]

How soon will the current crop of stars agitate to leave United because of the lack of trophy prospects and who will be the first to do so (excluding Pogba)?

Why would anyone agitate? They're all on insane wages. Which club would offer them so much for doing feck all?

 

[Bastian]

Looking at the money we've spent the last five or six years, and the players we've tried to sign, I don't believe it's ambition that we lack. It's competence.

Look at the managers we've appointed.

 

[Class of 63]

More importantly, when will the fans start wanting out? There’s are more successful local alternatives with guaranteed returns and standards to meet their needs.

Can't come soon enough for me.

 

[fergieisold]

This ‘the club has no ambition’ stuff is dramatic spoilt child bollocks.

After the Palace loss reality has quickly flown out the window. We pulled of an excellent piece of business in Van De Beek and just put our reserve keeper on 100k per year to stop him leaving to a rival. Pretty sure that shows plenty of ambition!

Oh, and the transfer window isn't even shut yet so time for more movement.

 

[Siorac]

You do realise this thread is asking about players currently at the club don't you?

Keeping on topic, if there are players wanting out after we achieved the objective(T4) plus reaching three semi-finals i'd say Go, bugger off, don't slam the door on the way out, i'd much rather the players thought if i'd given 5/10% more we'd maybe have got to one or two of the finals and maybe won one/both of them, and next time i'm in that situation that's exactly what i'm gonna do.

One of the posts you responded to explicitly said this:

We'll just offer them more money to stay or come.

It's the only reason you join this club now. Good payday.

This doesn't just refer to the players already here, clearly.

 

[glazed]

It's sad that you both think that way, it's nonsense by the way.

I was struck by Messi's reported comments on wanting to join City because he thought it was the best way to win another Champion's League.

 

[Rozay]

After the Palace loss reality has quickly flown out the window. We pulled of an excellent piece of business in Van De Beek and just put our reserve keeper on 100k per year to stop him leaving to a rival. Pretty sure that shows plenty of ambition!

Oh, and the transfer window isn't even shut yet so time for more movement.

Indeed. Not to mention, the section of the market we are shopping in is not your regular. The biggest deal done so far this window is about £70m, and we’re trying to beat that by a good £40m. None of the other clubs who usually do similar deals, (record breaking types) have been on it this summer. Real, Barca, PSG - none of them. If it were just about ‘buying players’, we could have easily added ‘players’. The right ones, that we want, not so easy, especially in this window.

And there is common sense in selling first anyway. We can’t keep adding centre halves until we reach 10, for instance.

I’m not panicking. We will almost certainly do more business, and throwing out dramatic statements, devoid of any appreciation for context or climate, like ‘the club have shown they lack ambition’ is just tantrum tweeting to me.

 

[Suedesi]

Lack of trophy prospects!? If i'm not mistaken we got to three Cup semi-finals last season which kinda suggests the club is going in the right direction so why would anybody be looking to get away unless it's for more money??

Let's be real - the only trophies worth winning are the league and the CL, and we are miles away from achieving either.

We used to make fun of Liverpool for winning the mickey mouse treble. Now reaching the semifinals of some mickey mouse tournaments is some sort of achievement?

 

[Zen86]

Can't come soon enough for me.

Yeah, we need a good purge to be fair.

 

[Zen86]

Fans wanting out is not as visible/effective as our best players wanting out.

It’s us who pay their wages, or something like that

 

[glazed]

That's a poor excuse, Arsenal had at best as much depth as we did and they won the FA cup. The reality is that the manager failed to rotate properly and our players had an absolutely stinker against Chelsea and choked against Sevilla.

I agree. The depth excuse is partly true but it also hides our lack of quality coaching.

 

[Bastian]

A lot of the players are a manifestation of that lack of ambition. As is the manager. As are the executive directors.

 

[Arka_BleedingRed]

The Board is naive and outdated, and Ed is naive, dithering, and not at all ruthless in his decisions. There is no common collective will, everything works from the business perspective rather than football. That's what's wrong with the club.

A proper and clear structure in terms of hierarchy, a collective vision in terms of the direction where the club should move forward to, a revamp of the Board members, appointing a DOF to focus and improve the footballing side of things, which in turn will improve the revenue, and then appoint a coach keeping in line with the club's vision. No short fixes or shortcuts, everyone should be in for the long haul.

If we fans can see the complete lack of ambition from the club, imagine how it must be for the players, at least for the ones not here just for money. The comments coming from the likes of Lukaku, Alexis, lies or not, doesn't help the wholesome, family image that the club tries to portray unsuccessfully. Not trying to sound like a doomsday merchant, but the way we operate often, it feels like one step forward, two steps back. We made tangible improvements last season, but we failed to build upon them this summer.

 

[Class of 63]

One of the posts you responded to explicitly said this:


This doesn't just refer to the players already here, clearly.

I know the two posters obviously hadn't read the op which was less than a dozen posts previous, they were talking about players who haven't even joined United yet but agitating to leave, the bastards, i'm no surprised Ed Woodward dithers on transfers if that's the case, I think I would myself!

 

[Class of 63]

Yeah, we need a good purge to be fair.

Last in first out seems fairest, purge or cull i'm easy

 

[Class of 63]

I was struck by Messi's reported comments on wanting to join City because he thought it was the best way to win another Champion's League.

First Pogba and now Messi agitating to leave United, what is going on at Old Trafford?

 

[Andycoleno9]

I still don't know how Pogba is still around. He is off after this season for sure. De Gea and Martial maybe. Rashford and Bruno...well i guess they will stay no matter what. Rashford knows that no other big club will not treat him like we do and Bruno just came here.
Others....well i like them but the harsh truth is that United is their jackpot. It is either United or some midtable club.

 

[ravi2]

Last in first out seems fairest, purge or cull i'm easy

Maybe start with yourself first.

 

[glazed]

First Pogba and now Messi agitating to leave United, what is going on at Old Trafford?

I was making the point that top players aren't motivated solely by money.

 

[James Peril]

Lack of trophy prospects!? If i'm not mistaken we got to three Cup semi-finals last season which kinda suggests the club is going in the right direction so why would anybody be looking to get away unless it's for more money??

Goodness, are we celebrating semi-finals now? Aston Villa got to a final, Arsenal even won a cup and both had terrible seasons. Semi-finals jeesh.... how low can we go in terms of ambitions? One of the semis were reached by beating the mights of Rochdale (on pens!) and Colchester before being beaten by City. Yeah we did Chelsea in between which is superb, but they played their reserves. And who did we play in the Europa? Brugge, LASK and Copenhagen? Losing to one of those would have created mayhem on here. Can’t even remember the FA Cup except for losing to Chelsea when we rested too many players to have a go in the league.

You play what’s in front of you and all, but those semis were nothing to celebrate and says nothing about our progression as a team.

 

[Class of 63]

Maybe start with yourself first.

Okay as long as yous let me back into the fold after i've earned my Spoilt Little Princess badge,

 

[Class of 63]

I was making the point that top players aren't motivated solely by money.

Okay, apologies.

 

[Class of 63]

Goodness, are we celebrating semi-finals now? Aston Villa got to a final, Arsenal even won a cup and both had terrible seasons. Semi-finals jeesh.... how low can we go in terms of ambitions? One of the semis were reached by beating the mights of Rochdale (on pens!) and Colchester before being beaten by City. Yeah we did Chelsea in between which is superb, but they played their reserves. And who did we play in the Europa? Brugge, LASK and Copenhagen? Losing to one of those would have created mayhem on here. Can’t even remember the FA Cup except for losing to Chelsea when we rested too many players to have a go in the league.

You play what’s in front of you and all, but those semis were nothing to celebrate and says nothing about our progression as a team.

What has any of that got to do with the question posed in the op?

It's basically a we all know Pogba will feck off if we don't start winning major trophies pronto because he's a flake, which other players currently in the squad will do the same thread.