Is the 'United Way' killing us?

fps

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I think one of the biggest killers for us has been a very simple and easy to correct problem: our constant neglect of the midfield and reluctance to bolster that area with real quality. We always seem to prioritise workhorse midfielders over press resistant technicians.
It is this 100%. You cannot consistently win matches without a level of midfield control, shaped by players who understand the game and have a genuine vision of midfield craft. The midfielders are the equivalent of your 10 in rugby, the whole game goes through them, they are absolutely key in who wins.

Without that control in midfield, you’re rolling the dice in matches, nothing more.
 

Sarni

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This 'united way' thing is all bullshit, and just a way of self aggrandizing adopted by Man Utd fans when the club was doing good on field. Now thats no more the case, they have started questioning it. Nothing surprising though, happens with all humans.
Bingo. Numerous times I have seen fans on here claiming that our amazing ‘United way’ is holding us back, or that we cannot succeed because we are just too fond of our principles and traditions.

This mythical thing doesn’t exist, we are the same as any other big club only much worse run.
 

GMoore23

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It’s the owners killing us and their inability and indifference to run a football club. Despite consistent failure the only reason Woodward still isn’t here is because he wanted to leave and he was replaced by his two right hand men who are continuing his legacy.

Until the owners are gone, new leadership brought in and huge changes made the ‘United Way’ will just continue being repeat of last ten years.

The United Way was SAF, when he went it went with him.

I've said this before. There's no such thing as "The United Way".

It was Fergie's way and before him it was Busby's way.

Find a great manager and we'll have success again. They're like hens teeth though.

Either of Klopp/Guardiola in charge of United this past few years and we'd have won plenty.

Enough money was spent.
 
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UpWithRivers

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Bingo. Numerous times I have seen fans on here claiming that our amazing ‘United way’ is holding us back, or that we cannot succeed because we are just too fond of our principles and traditions.

This mythical thing doesn’t exist, we are the same as any other big club only much worse run.
I agree that its a concept that no one knows what the fk it means but it does exist. Ten Haag said it himself. For this thread I just mean our traditional values and the way things are run based on the past and not being able to adapt to modern times. DOF being one, having to play a youth player like Rashford, transition football etc
 

Eddy_JukeZ

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I definitely think the quote by Ten Hag about becoming the best transition team there is is a bit suspicious. You didn't sign him because of his acconplishmts as a transitional coach but his time at Ajax where he was highly possession and control oriented.

One way or another, this club has signed so many players and coaches I rate and they suddenly underperformed expectations so heavily that I believe it has to be something cultural. Sancho and Antony so far looked nothing like their former selves and now Ten Hag is seemingly leaving the path that saw him ascend to one of the most promising young managers in Europe. All because people are living in the past and can't accept the sport has changed.
Just because you want to be the best transition team doesn't mean you completely ignore possession.

Do you think Klopp's Liverpool(at their apex) were the best transition team in the world? I'd say they were, but they were also very good at controlled possession play too.

It's not 1 way or the other. Most of the best teams are great at transitions and controlled possession.
 

stefan92

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Just because you want to be the best transition team doesn't mean you completely ignore possession.

Do you think Klopp's Liverpool(at their apex) were the best transition team in the world? I'd say they were, but they were also very good at controlled possession play too.

It's not 1 way or the other. Most of the best teams are great at transitions and controlled possession.
Which isn't surprising when you look at the skills needed. Passing and automatisms have to be there for both to be excellent at it, the main difference is that possession teams usually utilize small movements of their players to open up spaces while in transition you use big movements.

But either way you need players in every relevant position and other players hsve to be able to pass to them.

Transition doesn't mean just to hit it long and hope for the best, that's just what teams do that lack quality because it is a pretty low risk approach and doesn't require that much skill.
 

Zehner

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Just because you want to be the best transition team doesn't mean you completely ignore possession.

Do you think Klopp's Liverpool(at their apex) were the best transition team in the world? I'd say they were, but they were also very good at controlled possession play too.

It's not 1 way or the other. Most of the best teams are great at transitions and controlled possession.
You can and need to be good at both as a top team. But going by ingame impressions as well as tactical/transfer decisions (Mount besides Bruno, Garnacho as a starter) it seems as if the balance is leaning heavily towards transitioning. "Suspicious" doesn't mean definitive by the way, it is just my impression and I'm aware it could be wrong ;)
 

Son

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You can see we are trying to create in the wide positions which is the normal thing now as it’s harder for opponents to quickly counter and press when it’s out wide up field.

Problem is neither of our wingers are playmakers. Rashford, Antony. AWB can’t come into midfield and help Casemiro shield and control a game… He also has no ability to create an overload.

Our left with Shaw, Eriksen and Rashford does a bit better going on last season. Shaw is just a better footballer than AWB so can help in midfield also find passes to Rashford or the centre forward.

The problem is the right side.

We need a creative winger like Mahrez, Bernardo silva or Saka. Sancho is a left winger so doesnt work while Antony offers nothing but defensive attributes alongside AWB which is a pointless combo.

Until we create overloads consistently from either playmaking trio (on each side) we won’t score regular goals.
 
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Dominos

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Can he though? Thats the question. His speech about the United Way and transition football says otherwise. Sure he can sell Elanga but never Rashford. Never Garnacho. Never not keep pulling from the academy. Can he ask for a DOF? And on and on.
He's trying to make the best team out of the tools he has, recognising that within his first 12 months of the job he can't sign 23 new players to replace every member of the squad including replacing our best players. There's also nothing wrong with being good in transitions, see Klopp's Liverpool, being good in transitions doesn't mean you have to be hopeless at retaining the ball.

He will make use of the academy when the talent level is high enough to warrant it - he has to recognise that we have a finite transfer budget, and a homegrown player quota to meet. If you completely neglect academy players, the more you have to spend on transfers and we have FFP to contend with. And the more you ignore academy players, the more you have to spend on overpriced homegrown players from elsewhere because you're not producing your own.

I don't think he wants a director of football, he's enjoying the power he has. We also have the equivalent of director of football, it just seems like they either aren't enacting the power they have and just agreeing with the manager whatever he says, or they are just completely clueless themselves on how to build a squad of quality players.
 

Zehner

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If I were to say if there is a United way, it is the British way. Fast, athletic football up and down the pitch. I don't think you can say any of the managers that got fired got fired because they tried playing this way. If anything, it was literally the opposite on the pitch ( and the losing would have been much more bearable).
There isn't one case of a team playing successfully (as in 'competing for major titles') this way. Not even the best transition teams around do that.
 

UpWithRivers

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He's trying to make the best team out of the tools he has, recognising that within his first 12 months of the job he can't sign 23 new players to replace every member of the squad including replacing our best players. There's also nothing wrong with being good in transitions, see Klopp's Liverpool, being good in transitions doesn't mean you have to be hopeless at retaining the ball.

He will make use of the academy when the talent level is high enough to warrant it - he has to recognise that we have a finite transfer budget, and a homegrown player quota to meet. If you completely neglect academy players, the more you have to spend on transfers and we have FFP to contend with. And the more you ignore academy players, the more you have to spend on overpriced homegrown players from elsewhere because you're not producing your own.

I don't think he wants a director of football, he's enjoying the power he has. We also have the equivalent of director of football, it just seems like they either aren't enacting the power they have and just agreeing with the manager whatever he says, or they are just completely clueless themselves on how to build a squad of quality players.
That's the same excuses we have heard for over 10 years. At the end of the day we are being run behind the scenes the same way we always have and we are trying to play the same type of football. Something is amiss. No matter the manager or the amount we spend it all goes the same way. It's a cultural issue that makes it impossible to shift.
 

MancunianAngels

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Living up to the "United Way" shouldn't be a bad thing. It should be one or our main USP's as a club. The thing is though, it's always been an evolving thing.

The fast, counter attacking team of 94 was very different to the Treble team of 99 and the League/European Cup winning side of 2008. They all shared some characteristics like a core group of homegrown players, never die spirit and an ability to win matches even when the odds were stacked against then. Those teams always had a certain swagger about them aswell. You could argue that the current crop lacks any of this.

The lack of strong identity is also what leads you to wasting loads of money on Di Maria, Pogba etc as you don't have a strong culture/identity to place them into.

For that strong culture to be developed in the team, you need a strong level of consistency at all levels of the club. We wouldn't have won those first two league titles if Fergie hadn't been given the time to build. Those initial trophies between 1990 and 1992 gave the team and wider club the confidence to build.

Will Ten Hag be given that time?
 

Scandi Red

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What is the United way exactly? I thought it was just attacking football with winner mentality and focus on youth?
 

stefan92

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What is the United way exactly?
That's an excellent question.
They all shared some characteristics like a core group of homegrown players, never die spirit and an ability to win matches even when the odds were stacked against then. Those teams always had a certain swagger about them aswell.
None of this is specific for United. Having a bunch of homegrown players is smart business as it allows to focus your spending on some key players, you don't need to spread your budget over a whole squad.

The never die mentality is something basically every top team evolves, and if they have the quality and mentality they sometimes win even against superior opposition. It happens, but obviously not all the time. Nonetheless that swagger naturally evolves in successful teams.

That said I do agree with you that it changed over time. Bluntly said: The United way had been being a top team, whatever that meant at the time. After SAF it somehow evolved into doing what SAF did.

And considering that his adaptability was one of his biggest strengths, I am pretty sure that he would not have done the same if he was still managing United.
 

Chairman Steve

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What is the United way exactly? I thought it was just attacking football with winner mentality and focus on youth?
Pretty much and so is a lot of other teams mantra funnily enough. How I feel those teams who pride themselves on being boring as feck using old foreign guys to get the job done! :p

I hate this ‘United Way’ thing that gets trotted out. It’s always from the old boys who were around United when we were successful. They don’t seem to realise that’s over a decade ago now and football has moved on. Gary Neville is a big offender of this and Meulensteen’s new book alludes to that too.
 

Gordon Godot

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Pretty much and so is a lot of other teams mantra funnily enough. How I feel those teams who pride themselves on being boring as feck using old foreign guys to get the job done! :p

I hate this ‘United Way’ thing that gets trotted out. It’s always from the old boys who were around United when we were successful. They don’t seem to realise that’s over a decade ago now and football has moved on. Gary Neville is a big offender of this and Meulensteen’s new book alludes to that too.
I think it has a place. It was definitely about youth and the use of home grown talent, though our youth system was horribly neglected and its only now catching up. Its also about attacking, exciting football, which Mou, LGV and others failed to deliver.

Doesnt matter whether this is unique. Its about winning or losing 4-3 rather than settling for 0-0. One reason mourinho should never have been let anywhere near OT
 

Gordon Godot

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We've had jobs for the boys, old schoolers behind the scenes, yes even Sir Alex.

Moyes was brought in to be a Sir Alex clone. Scottish and everything. That's no way to choose a successor. I don't think Mourinho was his usual self and adapted to a slightly different less pragmatic form of football. Van Gal seemed to do it his way. Ole was chosen because of his links with the club and the football he played. Now even Ten Haag is talking the United way and transitional which is completely different to his style of play. Or so we believed.

Player wise we have a history of youth. Which is beautiful. But that means we have to adapt to those players. We could never get rid of Rashford for example. So we adapt everyone around him. Garnacho the same. I'm not saying they are the problem abilty wise I'm saying that a new manager is never given the choice to get rid if they don't fit their style.

I think Liverpool went through the same problems until Klopp transformed them totally. So how do we change and adapt if we continually stick to the past?
I think you confuse different things. The United way was never particularly about continuity, Busby played for City (we did try and sign him), and after the war a contact from the signing convinced him to join as manager over Liverpool. He later began the programme of promoting youth players over signings. His disastrous attempts to appoint his own successor and sit above them were not a part of the club culture, indeed we were once promised by Gill that United had learnt from this and they had a plan. In fact the board chose to do the same thing with Fergie. Keeping some ex players around has a role, but the key lesson from Busby is getting the best people available.
 

Ibrahimorich

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Are people trying to suggest that every single manager has been instructed by the Glazers (via Woodward or whoever) to play a specific way? Or that all of these massive egos (LVG and Mou especially) have somehow been cowed by the size of United and decided to change their lifetime of successful ideals to try to fit the "United way"?

Each post-Fergie manager has played wildly different styles of football, with varying but ultimately limited success. I'm fairly confident they're allowed free-reign as to which coaches they want and how they want the team to play, so to suggest the "United way" is somehow the root causes of our malaise seems like a load of old cobblers to me.
 

lex talionis

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If anyone is looking for a silver bullet to explain our overall shitness since Sir Alex left us, look no further than the wage packages we offer our players. Once you've made it to OT, what else is there to prove?

Not every player we brought in, or up, fell victim to having made it, but most of our transfer acquisitions have failed to live up to expectations not an account of ability but on account of interest. Alexis and Pogba top the charts in this regard, but Martial is in the top decile of players who just no longer gave a shit once they got their killer contracts. Still early days, but Antony doesn't look like a footballer who's interested in developing his game. Sancho has spent two seasons here so far and hasn't lived up to expectations.
 

Rapsinfour

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There isn't one case of a team playing successfully (as in 'competing for major titles') this way. Not even the best transition teams around do that.
I would argue that United from 91-96 were that team and won the PL numerous times; of course this style of play was a big reason ( in addition to the European Cup domestic player rule) we kept bouncing out of the then European Cup and a major reason we bought Veron ( to teach us how to play in the European Cup).

Regardless, I am not arguing that we should play this way, only pointing out none of the managers fired were for fired for playing this way or setting a 442 style. They were fired for playing trash mediocre football. Only LVG during his first 4 or 5 games played this way until the Leicester game freaked him out.

Also, one of the reasons noone currently will win this way is because all of the managers who can set up their teams to play this way (in terms of resources needed) are control freaks (Pep, Tuchel, Arteta, ETH). You look at Man City now; if Fergie was there, you know he would be playing a 442 with Haaland and Alvarez as the 2, with KDB in the middle, and instead of paying 100 mil for another CM who wants to faff the ball around, he would get a to class winger to feed them the ball and attack, attack, attack instead of trying to keep 70% possession.
 

Rapsinfour

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Sure he can sell Elanga but never a Rashford. He has to have at least one youth player at the core of the team. Imagine he decided to play 0 youth players? Impossible. So he builds around the best one - Rashford. Sure he has been played out of position but our whole style of play is to hit Rashford quickly. Thats all we do.
I think you and I have a different definition of building as around a player. For example, SAF, until mid 2000s, preferred to play a 442 with two athletic wingers( with a right footed winger as RW and left footed winger for LW) supplying two elite strikers . However, due to CR7 strength as scorer, he switched to a 433. Furthermore, to form the team to the strengths of CR7, he played CR7 as a LW who would start on the left and finish in front of the net; Rooney would start as 9, but then fill in for CR7 defensively. To me, this is an example of building around a player, changing formations and making tactical decisions to cover for a player's weakness. We have very much not done this for Rashford.

The reality is that we have not built around a player post Fergie. We have built around the whims of whatever manager we have had at this time. We didn't build around Pogba; we built around Mourinho to the extent that Pogba was booed and Mourinho was cheered even though he had replaced Pogba with !!! Mctominay!!! We haven't built around Bruno or Rashford.

ETH's words, if you looked kindly, are him playing to the choir and bigging up the tradition of a big club ( despite the fact that he is very much not playing a 442 attacking football with prolific strikers and flair wingers). If you don't want him to give the benefit of the doubt, he is simply gaslighting and not wanting to take responsibility of the players he has bought ( because he can't get them to play the football he was brought here to play).
 

Abraxas

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Why would it be the "United Way" that is killing us? That's a fairly nebulous concept in and of itself whereas it stands to reason that after 10 years of struggles there are reasons which are logical and explainable without this term. I don't think it needs to be encapsulated as the "United Way." Could you imagine a competent owner coming in and deciding ah yes, it's the "United Way" that's killing us, we must get rid of that. Or to look at it a different way, is it really the "United Way" in the classical sense (if by that we mean the actual glory days) if we are absolutely horrendously incompetent? That was never part of the plan.

At this stage it feels like flogging a dead horse but it is fair to say the owners are the problem and the common denominator while other things have come and gone. No matter which direction you approach it from, all roads lead to Rome as far as where the problems begin and end, and ultimately final responsibility rests with them. I guess some of the major problems with them can probably be summarised within a few categories

1) They are distant. They don't care about the club beyond what they can extract from it, which leads to shortsightedness from the sporting perspective but probably great efficiency from their own personal perspective.

2) They are poor communicators. Whether it be engaging with a fanbase to improve club harmony or looking at the reports on their decision making processes for recruitment.

3) They appoint executives and upper management poorly from a sporting perspective. They have probably appointed great people for their own personal goals, but not best in class within the footballing arena. This has led to poor strategic direction on the pitch, summarised by abject recruitment. Ultimately your success is largely dictated by the quality of the pool of players and alignment to a particular team structure. Squad turnover was also compromised by terrible contractual positions with players enabled by said upper management.

4) An extension of the above, they appointed poor managers. Whether it be people that were never of the standard (Moyes) or has beens (v.Gaal, Mourinho) or embarrassing clowns like Ralf. Ultimately it was probably secondary to terrible recruitment and too much power wielded by the managers (as a result of the above, no strategic direction - so it all links together). But it was still a major problem because the decision making of the managers exacerbates the issues or potentially covers a few holes if they're exceptional.
 
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croadyman

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We've had jobs for the boys, old schoolers behind the scenes, yes even Sir Alex.

Moyes was brought in to be a Sir Alex clone. Scottish and everything. That's no way to choose a successor. I don't think Mourinho was his usual self and adapted to a slightly different less pragmatic form of football. Van Gal seemed to do it his way. Ole was chosen because of his links with the club and the football he played. Now even Ten Haag is talking the United way and transitional which is completely different to his style of play. Or so we believed.

Player wise we have a history of youth. Which is beautiful. But that means we have to adapt to those players. We could never get rid of Rashford for example. So we adapt everyone around him. Garnacho the same. I'm not saying they are the problem abilty wise I'm saying that a new manager is never given the choice to get rid if they don't fit their style.

I think Liverpool went through the same problems until Klopp transformed them totally. So how do we change and adapt if we continually stick to the past?
Still find it mental that Fergie thought Moyes was the right guy to succeed him,come on there was so many better options that should have got the job. Don't think Guardiola was an option as by the time he decided to step down Bayern had already got agreement for Pep to take over
 

croadyman

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I definitely think the quote by Ten Hag about becoming the best transition team there is is a bit suspicious. You didn't sign him because of his acconplishmts as a transitional coach but his time at Ajax where he was highly possession and control oriented.

One way or another, this club has signed so many players and coaches I rate and they suddenly underperformed expectations so heavily that I believe it has to be something cultural. Sancho and Antony so far looked nothing like their former selves and now Ten Hag is seemingly leaving the path that saw him ascend to one of the most promising young managers in Europe. All because people are living in the past and can't accept the sport has changed.
So if the Ajax team were so possession and control oriented how come we have yet to see much evidence of it at Utd
 

RoyH1

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It all starts with the owners. They're incompetent and that's bred a culture of incompetence throughout the club. If there's a "United way" then this certainly ain't it
This. When the people at the top are incompetent trust fund 'kids' they haven't got the business savvy to get things done right and set a tone of success fort he club.
 

Zehner

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if Fergie was there, you know he would be playing a 442 with Haaland and Alvarez as the 2, with KDB in the middle, and instead of paying 100 mil for another CM who wants to faff the ball around, he would get a to class winger to feed them the ball and attack, attack, attack instead of trying to keep 70% possession.
No offense, but that's what I meant. Many United want to see a way of playing style that's just not feasible in modern football anymore. There's a reason that primarily "control freaks" are signed for those high profile jobs. You can't afford to be so wasteful with the ball in modern football. When you can't play vertically, there's no point in forcing it. You'll only gift the opponent opportunities to transition and you'll be pinned back into your own half against a team that is good at keeping the ball and counter pressing. Which is why I don't think Ferguson would try this if he was still a coach today.


So if the Ajax team were so possession and control oriented how come we have yet to see much evidence of it at Utd
?
 

Telsim

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"The United Way" is just some pointless sentimentality, one that is also mightily self-important if I might add, which in turn is bred from utter incompetence. And it all starts from the top. And since that is not changing anytime soon, neither will all the rest. Just get used to it.
 

Spark

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The United Way is pure PR spin, which makes for fantastic documentaries and montages.

It's the owners that have been 'killing us'. If you want a physical representation of their regime, letting Old Trafford decay into obscurity is the most potent example.
 

Glorio

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The "the best transition team in the world" quote didn't bother me, as I did feel the plan would surely improve possession and control, but use the high press to force turnovers and hit teams on the transition.

Watching Bruno and Casemiro spamming hopeful long balls from deep and ignoring all the options around them is causing me to wonder if I was wrong about what that quote meant.
 

Skills

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"Back the manager"

Just 3 words responsible for the downfall of one of the most successful clubs in all of sports.
 

Rapsinfour

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No offense, but that's what I meant. Many United want to see a way of playing style that's just not feasible in modern football anymore. There's a reason that primarily "control freaks" are signed for those high profile jobs. You can't afford to be so wasteful with the ball in modern football. When you can't play vertically, there's no point in forcing it. You'll only gift the opponent opportunities to transition and you'll be pinned back into your own half against a team that is good at keeping the ball and counter pressing. Which is why I don't think Ferguson would try this if he was still a coach today.
I don't think it is is many United fan; frankly, the way the club have been going, a lot of us ( including myself), at this stage, would happy with above average. Look at the love Bruno ( and to a lesser degree Rashford) get despite having plenty of flaws ( esp. when compared to the greats of United past).

Fergie got a lot more conservative in terms of attacking football later on in his career, so you could argue that he would also have gone more possession- oriented, but he still tried to turn Anderson ( a CAM) into a deep lying midfielder. He still romantically played 2 in the middle ( Carrick plus giggs) in the CL final against Barca ( even though Chelsea had shown the way to beat them would be to muck it up). I, still, remember his playing Berbatov and Carrick as CB in a league/FA Cup match. So I could argue that him being conservative at the end might have been the function of the Glazernomics rather than him just being more conservative ( plus quieroz).

In terms of why the top managers are possession based managers, it could be because the executives in the big box are risk averse and copy what is working instead of trying to be innovative. Jerry west, a great NBA executive, mentioned that a lot of executives were more interested in keeping their job than winning; this means if ETH fails, the guy in charge can say oh we tried Pep Regen, but if they get a manager who plays completely differently ( and he fails), the executives will be likely mocked and fired.
 

marktan

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Our downfall has been primarily one thing and one thing alone - terrible recruitment. We let the manager sign players will nilly and pretty much all of them have been shite at it.
 

wolvored

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What is the 'Utd way'? We had 2 long good spells under Busby and Fergie. Im too young to remember the Busby era, but remember the dross between the two and what we have had since Fergie went. I would like us to develop a style and stick to it. Buy the players and get in the manager who implements that style. If TH comes up short you can see us going for De Zerbi and unless we bring in the right players we will play shit under him as well. Bruno and Rashford for example, wont suit his style, but he would have to work with them, nullifying his style.
 

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I don't think it is is many United fan; frankly, the way the club have been going, a lot of us ( including myself), at this stage, would happy with above average. Look at the love Bruno ( and to a lesser degree Rashford) get despite having plenty of flaws ( esp. when compared to the greats of United past).

Fergie got a lot more conservative in terms of attacking football later on in his career, so you could argue that he would also have gone more possession- oriented, but he still tried to turn Anderson ( a CAM) into a deep lying midfielder. He still romantically played 2 in the middle ( Carrick plus giggs) in the CL final against Barca ( even though Chelsea had shown the way to beat them would be to muck it up). I, still, remember his playing Berbatov and Carrick as CB in a league/FA Cup match. So I could argue that him being conservative at the end might have been the function of the Glazernomics rather than him just being more conservative ( plus quieroz).

In terms of why the top managers are possession based managers, it could be because the executives in the big box are risk averse and copy what is working instead of trying to be innovative. Jerry west, a great NBA executive, mentioned that a lot of executives were more interested in keeping their job than winning; this means if ETH fails, the guy in charge can say oh we tried Pep Regen, but if they get a manager who plays completely differently ( and he fails), the executives will be likely mocked and fired.
As far as I headr, Ferguson was a rather pragmatic manager in his prime who reinvented himself regularly. He was no innovator, he was an adapter and quite brillant at that. So I heavily doubt he wouldn't have adapted to these new developments and instrad have continued with a idealistic-nostalgic apptoach.

Moreover, you generalize quite much. Klopp and Guardiola are different managers and so are Ten Hag, Tuchel, Nagelsmann or de Zerbi. But all of them have things in common and that is that they want to control the game. And it is only logical because if you're the favorite, you are convinced you're the better tram then you want to dictate the game and minimize the chance/luck factor as much possible. You're essentially opting for underdog tactics and if you do so, you'll get underdog results.
 

wolvored

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Still find it mental that Fergie thought Moyes was the right guy to succeed him,come on there was so many better options that should have got the job. Don't think Guardiola was an option as by the time he decided to step down Bayern had already got agreement for Pep to take over
Apparently he asked Ancelotti as well before Moyes and he had just agreed to go to Madrid, but you are right there surely was a better manager than Moyes.
 

Eli Zee

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Feb 20, 2017
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No.. as someone said, missing press resistance midfielders is an issue... also, I don't think a front 3 consisting of any 2 of Rashford, sancho or martial will ever be good enough to compete at the highest levels.... we need a striker that doesn't have to play on the wing to be good.

i don't think these players reallly know what to do if there isn't a clear pass or space to run into.... they at times seem to think and okay like an amateur.