Is the United Way an actual style of football or emotional romanticising of previous eras?

Crackers

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For the best part of a decade we've been through several managers, with several styles of football, to varying levels of success.
None of these experiments have proven to be very successful, and you'd wonder how a club so big could not see that the style of football radically changed in the years after SAF.

Our post-SAF managers could have their styles described like
  • Hard to break down, really defensive teams with a little bit of hoofball. Uninspiring and you'd question any United-calibre player wanting to play such a minnow-like style.
  • A modern-enough possession based style, but reliant on a very disciplined skillful team. This one arguably needed the most time to work. It was boring, very hard to watch and frustrating, but might have had potential with the right set of players.
  • Hard to break down, but with a more ruthless attack and bully smaller low-table teams. This was a failed experiment, as the coach unfortunately could not keep his players from wanting to stab him with a rusty copper pipe.
  • A club hero, taking over his boyhood club. Immediate bounce, and players responded to his man-management tactics. However, the lack of tactical direction and coaching style was arguably devoid of anything other than "let the lads play

Has the United style of football ever been something that could be implemented by a successful manager that didn't play for United, or is it just an emotional reaction to a bye-gone era?



Some at United have stated that it's promoting youth, playing English/Irish talent and using width to sling crosses in - but is that an actual style of football or just something we associate with the club as key parts? The promoting youth has always been important, and so is promoting English/Irish talent, but is the rest just emotional waffle?
 

Crackers

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This might sound offensive to the class of 92, but a significant portion of them are to blame for their dogmatic approach to football, where "The United Way" had to be followed like it was some cult rule you had to follow on pain of death.
We've examples
  • LVG wanting to but failing to modernise our scouts, coaching style and overall play - and getting a lot of pushback from them, especially Giggs and Neville who then helped push him out of the club. He wasn't fit for the club, but his idea was right. United's style needed to change to keep up with how football was changing.
  • Ole being given the role after the interim, despite not having the required PL or equivalent experience. We all know SAF and the other 92s had a say in this, but it's ended up doing more harm than good. The PL has moved on to a very high press game, and teams need to be coached to perfection to break down defenses and handle pressure in midfield. We never saw an improvement under Ole with that. He was here for 3 years and it appeared we never moved past a basic counter-attacking style where personal expression was king. That's never going to work in a league like this. The unfortunate reality of SAF telling us to back Ole was quite a cruel one, as it put us all in a horrible position to back a cult-hero, when a lot of us knew deep down he wasn't good enough. (I'll admit I pretended to myself he'd be fine given time.

So, is it time we let the United Way die? It's a overrated nostalgic emotional reaction and needs to be seen for what it is.
We will always promote youth when they're good enough, and try to use local talent, but the United Way is based on emotion, not facts and is a hindrance to a modern style of football.
 

tjb

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I don't see the United way as a playing style, but a culture. We're set up and have always set up as the gentlemen of football. We expect a certain standard of behavior for the majority of our staff, players and management alike. Unlike a team like PSG, we expect players will honor and respect the club off the pitch and in turn the club will do the same for the players. Under Fergie, this came in the form of giving youth a chance and letting players who would otherwise have been pushed out due to their age stay a bit longer and leave in an honorable manner.
 

Ralph1386

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United way is an Ole PR bs to cover up for his tactical limitations.
 

SirReginald

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You definitely need to kill it off, whatever it is. It’s quite possibly the biggest thing holding you back. It’s an obsession with the past.

You can’t keep looking backwards, Liverpool stopped doing that and are now a fantastic team. How often do they mention their “history” these days? Certainly not as much as before.

Your club needs to a total restructure. Starting with a focus on what kind of club you want to be moving forward. Ralf is a very good appointment in that regard.

Honestly it’s no surprise that the clubs stronger than your own are modern, forward thinking clubs. Had you carried on with Ole you could easily have become the next Arsenal.
 
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Rightnr

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While I thought it was a bit of PR/propaganda tool for the Glazers to keep Ole in the job, there is such a thing as the United way.

But it is not about a specific way of playing but more about the principles that characterise the style of play. The things I associated with United is aggression and speed to the point of suffocating the opponent.

This would usually mean quick turnovers and transition from defense to attack in no time. And when in possession, stifling the opponent to ensure you get that goal that opens up the game and allows us to batter teams.

Now if all this reminds you of a certain team and manager, you're right. Klopp was the perfect post-SAF appointment and Woodward fecked up.

Rangnick certainly fits this bill as well, so let's hope we rectify the failures of the past 10 years and get back to winning ways.
 

Grande

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For the best part of a decade we've been through several managers, with several styles of football, to varying levels of success.
None of these experiments have proven to be very successful, and you'd wonder how a club so big could not see that the style of football radically changed in the years after SAF.

Our post-SAF managers could have their styles described like
  • Hard to break down, really defensive teams with a little bit of hoofball. Uninspiring and you'd question any United-calibre player wanting to play such a minnow-like style.
  • A modern-enough possession based style, but reliant on a very disciplined skillful team. This one arguably needed the most time to work. It was boring, very hard to watch and frustrating, but might have had potential with the right set of players.
  • Hard to break down, but with a more ruthless attack and bully smaller low-table teams. This was a failed experiment, as the coach unfortunately could not keep his players from wanting to stab him with a rusty copper pipe.
  • A club hero, taking over his boyhood club. Immediate bounce, and players responded to his man-management tactics. However, the lack of tactical direction and coaching style was arguably devoid of anything other than "let the lads play

Has the United style of football ever been something that could be implemented by a successful manager that didn't play for United, or is it just an emotional reaction to a bye-gone era?



Some at United have stated that it's promoting youth, playing English/Irish talent and using width to sling crosses in - but is that an actual style of football or just something we associate with the club as key parts? The promoting youth has always been important, and so is promoting English/Irish talent, but is the rest just emotional waffle?
This gets tiresome to answer after I while, am I trad to think young fans should read up a bit on the great teams of United and draw some own conclusions rather than just posing it as an open question? Maybe so.

For a number of people (not everybody, but a number of them), the greatest eras of this club has been the Ernest Mangnall years of our first cup and league wins, the Busby era, phases of Tommy Doc and Ron Atkinson, and then Sir Alex. To me, the Solskjær years are up there with Docherty and Atkinson as generally enjoyable United kinda stuff, even if it stopped short of the legendary. Are there commonalities between the peaks og those eras? Yes, undoubtedly. Are they all completely similar? Of course not. But there have almost always been a portion of magic (Billy Meredith, Duncan Edwards, Georgie Best, Jesper Olsen, Ryan Giggs, Christiano Ronaldo), a measure of working class grit (Charlie Roberts and the Outsiders, Nobby Stiles, Lou Macari, Bryan Robson, Roy Keane), a dose of pure speed (countless speed merchants firing up the wings, for some reason Andy Kanchelskis stands out to me at this moment), a sprinkle of drama (Meredith and the Outsiders again, the phoenix of ‘58, Denis Law, Eric again, Tevez, Rooney, Berbatov) and the fresh breath of youth (The Babes, Sammy McIlroy, Norman Whiteside, The Class, Ron&Roon, Rash&Green). Identity has been all over Scotland and Ireland, to the first English team in Europe, to the World, yet always connected to Stretford, red brick houses, Madchester music etc.

Not unlike things that are important also at other clubs, but it is noteworthy when people like Dave Sexton (dull and cautious, Moyes (no panache), Van Gaal (slow football) and Mourinho (dour and all of the above). My money on why patience ran out with Ole in the end with alot of us, was not simply the lack of ‘patterns’, but also the fact that towards the end, we didn’t create enough chances and action, it became dour, cautious and feeble the last months. Then parience with bad results stooped.

How much of this is translatable to style of football? I don’t think it’s merely a question of fast and tricky wingers (but it certainly helps! Rashford and Sancho is a lot more enticing than anything much else if it clicks), but it’s certainly not Van Gaal style possession or Mourinho bus parking (and throwing under). Solskjær was along the right lines when Rashford and Martial had their best spells and Bruno provided flash and fast forwardness, but he couldn’t build on it. Don’t forget many people tired of the football under Fergie the later years, even when we won, because it became cautious and labored much of the time due to style changes. Anyone but Ferguson and it could have gone real sour.

So’ I’d say it’s a lot about speed, grit and that little extra panache is necessary at United, if not there will be a feel that something is missing. Formations is not the issue, but it’s clear to me that Klopp would be a perfect fit for us, Guardiola would be ok, but Mourinho was a catastrophe, notwithstanding the trophies.
 
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Tyrion

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You definitely need to kill it off, whatever it is. It’s quite possibly the biggest thing holding you back. It’s an obsession with the past.

You can’t keep looking backwards, Liverpool stopped doing that and are now a fantastic team. How often do they mention their “history” these days? Certainly not as much as before.

Your club needs to a total restructure. Starting with a focus on what kind of club you want to be moving forward. Ralf is a very good appointment in that regard.

Honestly it’s no surprise that the clubs stronger than your own are modern, forward thinking clubs. Had you carried on with Ole you could easily have become the next Arsenal.
I agree with what you're saying but I think Liverpool stopped looking backwards after they became successful, not before. If Mourinho had won the league here, people would have stopped criticising his tactics and got on board. I think fans revert back to tradition when things go badly wrong (e.g. Barca being desperate to get Xavi) and don't care about changes if they bring success (e.g. Klopp at Liverpool).
 

Tyrion

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Ferguson was more adaptable than the nostalgic pundits remember. He didn't have a clear style like Pep or Klopp that he stuck to dogmatically. He happily tweaked things when they weren't working and was fine with playing defensively. He was nowhere near as attacking a manager as they pretend. Some people here seem to think we were the PL's Globetrotters rather than a serious team.
 

Sky1981

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I don't see the United way as a playing style, but a culture. We're set up and have always set up as the gentlemen of football. We expect a certain standard of behavior for the majority of our staff, players and management alike. Unlike a team like PSG, we expect players will honor and respect the club off the pitch and in turn the club will do the same for the players. Under Fergie, this came in the form of giving youth a chance and letting players who would otherwise have been pushed out due to their age stay a bit longer and leave in an honorable manner.
Gentlemen? Our teams of the past arent a nice gentle monster. They're a rude tough bastard. Keane tackle on halaand, cantona, etc.

We're hardly the good guys
 

edcunited1878

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Youth. Courage. Success.

Since the Busby Babes. Young team, Munich, which required more youth and courage to start the club again (Jimmy Murphy), and winning major trophies.

It's not fluff, it's club values that run deep and what the club had to lean on.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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Gentlemen? Our teams of the past arent a nice gentle monster. They're a rude tough bastard. Keane tackle on halaand, cantona, etc.

We're hardly the good guys
Flashbacks to when Fergie literally told his players to kick and foul Arsenal out of the game, or when he referred to Newcastle as ‘a wee club up North’, or when he maintained a years long boycott of BBC and the club paid the fines, or when he called John Moss fat.

Real gentlemanly conduct right there from our greatest manager, and we all got behind it. All of these revisionism is tiresome. The Utd way, if it exists under Fergie, was to win.
 

Tyrion

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Gentlemen? Our teams of the past arent a nice gentle monster. They're a rude tough bastard. Keane tackle on halaand, cantona, etc.

We're hardly the good guys
Everyone hates us for good reason. :keano:

Flashbacks to when Fergie literally told his players to kick and foul Arsenal out of the game, or when he referred to Newcastle as ‘a wee club up North’, or when he maintained a years long boycott of BBC and the club paid the fines, or when he called John Moss fat.

Real gentlemanly conduct right there from our greatest manager, and we all got behind it. All of these revisionism is tiresome. The Utd way, if it exists under Fergie, was to win.
Exactly. I saw a post recently arguing that the "United way" was that it was better to win a game 4-3 than win it 3-0. :confused:
 

L1nk

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'The United Way' is not something that really exists, or that, it's not something that's unique to us. Alot of other top clubs do the exact things that the United way is supposed to represent;

Attacking wing play? - Other teams have done it for years, Bayern especially have done it for years and years and I believe I read a report that since LVG introduced the play of Robben and Ribery every coach since has had to have that wing play in the team.

Playing youngsters/youth from academy? - A multitude of other clubs do this, both big and small, in every country

Giving managers time? - Again, loads of clubs do this, true we may be patient enough to give them more time than most, but if you haven't noticed, it's actually been to our detriment more than anything else

Winning?
Never giving up?
Last minute winners/equalisers?

These were the Ferguson way, we're chasing this because we want to go back to an era of "winning", what people say about the United way, what they actually mean is the Ferguson way, the problem is we are drowning as a football club because football has moved on, Fergie has moved on, the game has changed, modernised, and because we are chasing the 1990's again we have been left behind
 

tenpoless

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Also known as Gary Neville agenda. It just a concept of a club being run properly. No oil daddy, trying to bring youngsters while still being competitive and entertaining (comebacks are part of entertainment).
But ex players tend to equate it to certain playing style, giving the wrong people more time and playing football the old ways. They're not United way, they're outdated way. The equivalent of that ex players' "United way" are old songs you like and used to hear during your teenage years that hold a lot of memories. Your past memories automatically translate those songs as the best songs ever and that the current ones are trash and you refuse to try and understand them. Even though the world has changed, there are more genres, more tools and you are left behind because of your own memories. But the fact is the old songs don't sell and not successful anymore. The newer ones dominate the market and they're successful. We are the old song right now. Hopefully a massive change will happen in 1-2 years. United way is still there but combined with modern approach. It will still be United but not the 90's United. The class of 92 can feck off, unless if one of them becomes a manager at a top club and be very successful their opinions mean nothing and they don't own the club.
 
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Rajiztar

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Also known as Gary Neville agenda. It just a concept of a club being run properly. No oil daddy, trying to bring youngsters while still being competitive and entertaining (comebacks are part of entertainment).
But ex players tend to equate it to certain playing style, giving the wrong people more time and playing football the old ways. They're not United way, they're outdated way. The equivalent of that ex players' "United way" are old songs you like and used to hear during your teenage years that hold a lot of memories. Your past memories automatically translate those songs as the best songs ever and that the current ones are trash and you refuse to try and understand them. Even though the world has changed, there are more genres, more tools and you are left behind because of your own memories. But the fact is the old songs don't sell and not successful anymore. The newer ones dominate the market and they're successful. We are the old song right now. Hopefully a massive change will happen in 1-2 years. United way is still there but combined with modern approach. It will still be United but not the 90's United. The class of 92 can feck off, unless if one of them becomes a manager at a top club and be very successful their opinions mean nothing and they don't own the club.
Pretty apt anology you used. These old players should only allowed to say opinions on games only. Not management or who should be coach.

Some time they may be right but most of the time they just love to live in past so why they were not able to succeed as coaches but occupying commentator jobs. That too they wouldn't do proper but proper biased nauseating.
 

The Red Thinker

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You definitely need to kill it off, whatever it is. It’s quite possibly the biggest thing holding you back. It’s an obsession with the past.

You can’t keep looking backwards, Liverpool stopped doing that and are now a fantastic team. How often do they mention their “history” these days? Certainly not as much as before.

Your club needs to a total restructure. Starting with a focus on what kind of club you want to be moving forward. Ralf is a very good appointment in that regard.

Honestly it’s no surprise that the clubs stronger than your own are modern, forward thinking clubs. Had you carried on with Ole you could easily have become the next Arsenal.
Being a Chelsea fan, I don't expect you to get what the "United Way" is. It's beyond just football. The United Way isn't the reason we're here. It's because of a severe drought of football intelligence within the decision making body of the club. It's run by bankers. It hasn't been the United Way in some time. But some things we still adhere to. It's a club that will always give youth a chance. Our identity is built on it. It will always treat its staff with respect and dignity. Some of these things have looked stale off late. But I believe with Fletcher and Murtough in as football intelligence it will help revive the United Way on the pitch too. Rangnick will give structure and a clear path to that goal on the pitch for 6 months and then off it after.
 

greatscott9930

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So the United Way isn't a non-profit charitable organization that used to elicit money from me every year at my former employer? Interesting.
 
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The united way was installed by Sir Matt Busby. A footballing, player development and winning culture that became the club identity. It became the standard by which all future winning football of united was to be judged. SAF is the only manager since Busby to return it long term. We are simply looking to make it a permanent systemize part of the club. So hiring a man like Rangnick will be key to that.


It doesn't matter that some other clubs mere have similar components to their culture. Just like all humans have blood. The simply fact is just like DNA is unique. The way those thongs are combined at United to firm a culture is unique. To see people glibly claim it should be thrown out "to modernise' is up there with saying the likes of Barca and ajax should abandon their cruyffian principles. Or that Real Madrid should turn its back on galactico based, prefferably entertatining winnining football just because they fall on some darker times. Betrays a fundamental unerstand what gives historical succesfull clubs identity.
 
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wise_old_man

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Now if all this reminds you of a certain team and manager, you're right. Klopp was the perfect post-SAF appointment and Woodward fecked up.

Rangnick certainly fits this bill as well, so let's hope we rectify the failures of the past 10 years and get back to winning ways.
Imagine Rangnick in the summer tells our board to convince Klopp at all costs, while he himself sweet-talking Klopp about how he would give Klopp an even better platform here with stronger financial strength... This might be an even bigger media event than the Figo to Real Madrid thingy.
 

TeddyBear

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The united way , whilst won us a lot domestically. Fell utterly short in the european front.

a club like the size of united should have comparable CL records with Liverpool at least, let alone Real Madrid

you fail to innovate and evolve, you risk left behind.

as great as SAF was, i bet he would have no qualms trading a few more CL for domestic ones.
 

Foxbatt

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It is a load of bollocks. We have defended for our lives in some matches under SAF. So much that Jose would have been proud of it. We can out pass any team in the PL and also outkick them too. We always had hard men, from Nobby Stiles to Vidic. McQueen scared the daylights out of Foster in the FA Cup replay.
This class of 92 is the biggest issue United have now. Yes they had three world class players in Scholes, Giggs and Beckham. But that is it. None of the others were anything special. They were decent players but you could pick players of that calibre from any decent club.
The United was is never give in and also had belief that we could always win a football match. None of this wing play only or counter attacking or front foot play always.
 

Desert Eagle

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There is no United way. It was the Fergie way and before him the Busby way. If there is a United way it revolves around playing youngsters and winning.
 

RedBanker

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The amount of philosophical musings on the board about United and what United is these days is something to behold.
If we had tangible success to talk about this would not have happened. Sometimes when the reality is just shite people tend to turn to philosophy
 

RedBanker

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The United way for me has always been the SAF way. Play to win. If you can't win then it's a BIG deal. The winning culture. Success begets success. SAF had his whims and idiosyncrasies but the man was addicted to winning. I think we lost that direction big time over the last 9 years. Not winning became acceptable, across the entire set of stakeholders at the club. I want that to change.

Over the last 100 years we had 20 odd managers but SMB and SAF shared around 50 years between them. This is perhaps the reason why many of us still have a wish that some manager will come along and have a long spell with us. Truth is that it's most unlikely to happen in modern football. This hope is one more thing I want to give up.
 

devilish

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In my opinion its a no. SAF's last team was very pragmatic, cynical and quite frankly boring. No one said that it wasn't the United way back then. For me the United way are more of a set of aims we try to adhere to. This include

A- Promoting as many promising players to the first team squad as possible
B- Play attacking and exciting football
C- Raising standards at all level
D- Win trophies

I think Rangnick is more in line to the United way then Ole is
 

Borys

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We missed a chance under van Gaal to modernize our football. I thought we were going right direction, and I thought he didn't get enough support from inside the club (the support that Ole got).
It was a pivotal point and then we went down again. Mourinho was never going to change us, and appointing Ole was just to make some fans happy without going for actual results.
 

wolvored

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'The United Way' is not something that really exists, or that, it's not something that's unique to us. Alot of other top clubs do the exact things that the United way is supposed to represent;

Attacking wing play? - Other teams have done it for years, Bayern especially have done it for years and years and I believe I read a report that since LVG introduced the play of Robben and Ribery every coach since has had to have that wing play in the team.

Playing youngsters/youth from academy? - A multitude of other clubs do this, both big and small, in every country

Giving managers time? - Again, loads of clubs do this, true we may be patient enough to give them more time than most, but if you haven't noticed, it's actually been to our detriment more than anything else

Winning?
Never giving up?
Last minute winners/equalisers?

These were the Ferguson way, we're chasing this because we want to go back to an era of "winning", what people say about the United way, what they actually mean is the Ferguson way, the problem is we are drowning as a football club because football has moved on, Fergie has moved on, the game has changed, modernised, and because we are chasing the 1990's again we have been left behind
Spot on. The original Utd way was the Busby way, plenty youth into the side, play with proper wingers left footed on the left right footed on the right. Fergie was the last manager in the 90s early 2000s to do this to the letter. Other clubs as you say also did this.
 

Jacob

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The United way for me is the 'never say die' attitude and nothing else. You could argue youth is part of it as well but that hasn't been a constant denominator throughout our history.

The never say die attitude comes from Fergie, so in reality, the 'United way' should actually be the 'Fergie attitude' in my opinion.
 

roonster09

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IMO "The United way" is not a style of play, it's more about mentality. For example Bayern has "Mia san Mia" which translates to 'We are who we are" and Muller explains it as a mentality.

Bayern lost the final 2-1 to Portugal's Porto in Vienna, but gained an apposite club motto which has become synonymous with their rich history, unprecedented success and winning mentality.

"Mia san Mia stands for the complete will to succeed," explained homegrown Bayern star Thomas Müller. "That's how we manage to turn games round so often. There's no middle ground, only wins.

"Mia san Mia stands for a hardcore winning mentality with a good dose of self-belief, but without any arrogance. Whoever wants to win has to work hard for it. It's the same as for professional footballers.

"The best footballers always play for Bayern. Everyone gives it their all in training. Anyone who can't get on with the idea is in the wrong place. It's something we all try to teach the younger players. There's nothing that's more important."

It's not much different from United under SAF, never giving up, work hard with lot of self belief to win every game.

It's more "SAF way" than ManUtd way.
 

AndySmith1990

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It's a notion made up by the self righteous section of supporters that's used to put United on a pedestal and belittle anyone who stands against it; "it" being their opinion basically. This was used to full effect during Solskjaer's tenure.

I think people have this strange idea that because we had one manager for 26 years, after "giving him time" (despite many fans wanting him sacked early on) that makes us a better club than all the rest, and as a club we've developed an arrogant superiority complex which has led us to languish in the past, dining on past glories, assuming if we change nothing but just give a manager time, the same success will come... It's the United way.

I think what I'm saying is, the United way, as it stands today, is nonsense. It may have meant something a long time ago, but it's been twisted and deformed to the point where it means nothing and is only used as a tool to force a bullshit opinion down someone's throat.

In fact, if "United way" was put in the dictionary, I'd add a photo of Gary Neville next to it. Gary Neville sums it up perfectly. Moronic, delusional, and stuck in the past.
 

gajender

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The united way , whilst won us a lot domestically. Fell utterly short in the european front.

a club like the size of united should have comparable CL records with Liverpool at least, let alone Real Madrid

you fail to innovate and evolve, you risk left behind.

as great as SAF was, i bet he would have no qualms trading a few more CL for domestic ones.
Sir Alex would have certainly liked to win more CL , but if you think he would trade his PL titles for more CL trophies then you have no Idea about the man for him Domestic dominance came first and foremost .
 

Kopral Jono

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Ferguson was more adaptable than the nostalgic pundits remember. He didn't have a clear style like Pep or Klopp that he stuck to dogmatically. He happily tweaked things when they weren't working and was fine with playing defensively. He was nowhere near as attacking a manager as they pretend. Some people here seem to think we were the PL's Globetrotters rather than a serious team.
One of Fergie's best attributes as a manager was that he wasn't stubborn. Bloody-minded, yes, but never stubborn and always kept up with the times, be it on the pitch tactically (being of the early adopters of the false nine system) as well as off it with his tailored approach on certain high-profile players.
 

sparx99

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May 22, 2016
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Ferguson was more adaptable than the nostalgic pundits remember. He didn't have a clear style like Pep or Klopp that he stuck to dogmatically. He happily tweaked things when they weren't working and was fine with playing defensively. He was nowhere near as attacking a manager as they pretend. Some people here seem to think we were the PL's Globetrotters rather than a serious team.
Well in particular he got more cautious as he aged. Particularly in Europe where a dose of pragmatism got us more consistently to the later stages.

He also got less ruthless with the squad. Some of the class of 92 should’ve been replaced but they were kept on til nearly 40. The bloodbath summers of the 90’s were key for keeping us pushing forward.
 

Hughie77

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What I find is football has changed in the way its perceived by the modern day manager etc. SAF played as most 4-4-2 and we in the main the best at it. The youth set all played same way etc ready for the 1st team. We've moved from that and it showed how hard a JOB UTD is. Until we get a way of playing ,sticking to it or a tweak now and then . That may well be on cards .
 

TheReligion

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It's the club culture, principles and values.

Super important and what gives United it's identity. I don't expect Chelsea fans to get it as such, nor will those United fans who come and go with the success or those that know little about the club and its roots.