It’s the players…

Chumpsbechumps

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I always think back to seasons when managers win the league with teams and the next season their teams capitulate and the managers get sacked. Why is this ? How is this actually an acceptable thing in football ? Like I get how hard it is for some teams to recapture the form of the league winning season but the drop offs can be unbelievable. The same, without league titles, happens to United managers, with United squads drop off in form just falling off a cliff. Then you get the "the manager is not a good coach" comments which is not really objectively correct.

I mean managers don't lose the capacity to manage over a few months. Off the top of my head Ranieri sticks out more then most. Other managers maybe fall out with squads (every Chelsea manager who has won a league) but I don't get the impression Ranieri ever did anything to warrant such a drop-off in performance (like relegation type drop off). Even with the sale of Kante, that doesn't explain first to relegation spot. And yet Ranieri gets the boot and the Leicester squad raises its performance for some reason after hes gone.

When it comes to discussions on players, theres always a "yeh but manager" comment. I find it mad that players get such an easy ride of things. There is zero ramifications for players at the upper levels. The worst thing that can happen is being stuck on the bench (or home playing playstation like sancho) while their bank balance is filling up.

I have no doubt there are professionals at United who have high standards and ambitions. But I believe it can be hard to not let other things drag down your performances, it happens at many clubs, even Klopps pool fell apart for awhile and the injuries were accepted as one of the reasons. These things can upset and disrupt even good managers. But at United, there is always an extra drama from at least one or two or three players that just cuts the legs from under our manager.

Id love if there was a way for there to be a rebalancing of things in favours of clubs (and when I say clubs, I mean the fans). Players are spitting in our faces when they are not being professional. When they put their own personal feelings and wants ahead of doing their f**king job for the club that is paying them, they are giving us fans the two fingers. Hiding behind managers who will ultimately take the blame for these man children.

I imagine there are good players, who really do want to do their best and for different reasons it doesnt work out. But there seems to be an awful lot of players who have no respect for the fans of the clubs they play for. I am sick of managers getting all the slack for it.
 
Lazy is what they are. It's like when Ole asked them if they could handle ET at Wembley and they all said no because they'd never wanked off an alien before.

They weren't even willing to give it a go.
 
It’s a squad built from 4/5 differing ideas across 4/5 regimes. We’ve never allowed a full cycle to develop over 3 + years. Klopp got 3 to win his first trophy, binning Moyes after 8 months was tragic, that’s where it all went wrong and it’s never been rectified. He had feck all to spend Moyes, nothing, regardless of what you think of him he’s a good manager and proved it pretty much everywhere he’s been
 
Yep. And it has been since the Moyes era. The players got rid of Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho, Ole and Ten Hag is next.
 
tentan said:
Yep. And it has been since the Moyes era. The players got rid of Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho, Ole and Ten Hag is next.
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They are prized Glazer assets. Probably stupid contracts make them feel safe and unsellable.
 
"No player is bigger than the club" - SAF, it seems this group of players have took that as a challenge to prove Fergie wrong with the amount of times they've downed tools and got managers sacked .

If they don't like it they can leave, EtH deserves our backing and our outrage at these players thinking they can continue this toxic culture.
 
It’s easier to change a manager than move out most of the squad. It sucks, but it’s the reality
 
tentan said:
Yep. And it has been since the Moyes era. The players got rid of Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho, Ole and Ten Hag is next.
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There have probably been at least 60 new signings since Fergie retired. They cant all be lazy.

Fergie set the culture. Other managers have not been able to do it.

I back ETH to be able to do the same, but there will be some bumps in the road.
 
gaffs said:
There have probably been at least 60 new signings since Fergie retired. They cant all be lazy.

Fergie set the culture. Other managers have not been able to do it.

I back ETH to be able to do the same, but there will be some bumps in the road.
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The culture is set by the board now.

Players are rewarded with huge contracts for doing feck all and it’s impossible to move them on. This results in a large number of poorly motivated and entitled players which spreads through the squad no matter how many new players we buy. They’ll all get corrupted with the same shit eventually when they realise not even putting in a proper shift is enough.

Sacking the manager is always cheaper than sacking the players and we’ve seen that happening for years now. This club needs to be sold before any real change can happen.
 
I think there's a bit of a manger cult among fans. Particularly at United for obvious reasons.

The alternative explanation for what you're seeing is that teams get found out in the next season, other coaches figure out their weaknesses, players leave and their replacements don't fit as well, players grow old, lose form, .....
In our case this season, it's a combination of multiple key injuries and absences, an ageing midfield base, a new tactical plan that completely exposes that ageing midfield base, and finally a lack of belief.
In Leicester's case, probably the players did drop off, after an insane, improbable year that will define their entire lives.

elmo said:
The culture is set by the board now.

Players are rewarded with huge contracts for doing feck all and it’s impossible to move them on. This results in a large number of poorly motivated and entitled players which spreads through the squad no matter how many new players we buy. They’ll all get corrupted with the same shit eventually when they realise not even putting in a proper shift is enough.

Sacking the manager is always cheaper than sacking the players and we’ve seen that happening for years now. This club needs to be sold before any real change can happen.
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Multiple managers have had a free reign to totally overhaul the squad in their first two years, and they've all done it. Every time the assumption is that the lazy players got the mangers fired....but half the players are sold, and 2 years again the lazy gene starts getting expressed again in a new set of players. It doesn't make sense.

berbatrick said:
let's look at the team spines, the ones who were clearly 1st choice in their position:

2012-13 title: DDG, Evra, Carrick, Valencia, Rooney, RvP.

Moyes: mostly the same

LvG: DDG, Smalling, Blind, Valencia, Young, Herrera, Rooney, Mata, Martial.

Jose: DDG, Smalling, Valencia, Young, Herrera, Matic, Pogba, Lukaku.

Ole: DDG, AWB, Lindelof, Maguire, Shaw, Fred, Pogba, Bruno, Rashford, Martial.

Ragnick: DDG, Dalot, Maguire, Fred, Bruno, Rashford, Ronaldo.

ETH: Onana, Varane, Martinez, Shaw, Casemiro, Bruno, Antony, Rashford.
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elmo said:
The culture is set by the board now.

Players are rewarded with huge contracts for doing feck all and it’s impossible to move them on. This results in a large number of poorly motivated and entitled players which spreads through the squad no matter how many new players we buy. They’ll all get corrupted with the same shit eventually when they realise not even putting in a proper shift is enough.

Sacking the manager is always cheaper than sacking the players and we’ve seen that happening for years now. This club needs to be sold before any real change can happen.
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I would agree re the big contracts and in some cases they can create apathy. Yet, were not the only club to pay huge wages.

But im not sure what the alternative is. We are the biggest revenue generating club in the league. We are always going to have to pay big wages, especially if we want to attract good players.
 
we keep changing managers and nothing changes

we keep changing players and nothing changes

it’s almost as if there is some other constant variable that might be the issue

can’t think what it might be though
 
Fans mentality needs to change as well

Stop accepting mediocrity

Jeer then and telll them this is not acceptable

How does it make then plays better? The tough one will. The weak one will cry over the press and weaken his position to be sold

Might as well try. We have nothing more to lose. They're embarrassing the name of Manchester United

I lost count on how many people citing mediocre players as their favorite from lingard to martial..just because they pull one two good games and they smugly prophesied oh he good great ceiling. good lord my favourite united player is Beckham and nobody tops that till today passion wise
 
Being footballer at United is an easy job.
Play badly, hold no accountability, leaks backroom noise to their mates in media, they write shit and manager gets sacked.
Rinse repeat.
Worst of all, the Glazers built this culture.
 
gaffs said:
I would agree re the big contracts and in some cases they can create apathy. Yet, were not the only club to pay huge wages.

But im not sure what the alternative is. We are the biggest revenue generating club in the league. We are always going to have to pay big wages, especially if we want to attract good players.
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There’s a difference between paying big wages and paying stupidly high ones like we are.
 
gaffs said:
I would agree re the big contracts and in some cases they can create apathy. Yet, were not the only club to pay huge wages.

But im not sure what the alternative is. We are the biggest revenue generating club in the league. We are always going to have to pay big wages, especially if we want to attract good players.
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City spent more than United many years and they aren’t stuck paying stupid transfers and wage anymore.

United hasn’t adapted or changed anything in this regards. Just like we still constantly rely on a manager coming in and making everything tick, we are in the stone age while every other functioning club has found a way to get more bang for their buck.

United is an outlier of a club, not just because it’s a lot money , but because it’s not learned to adapt to changing environment in football. That starts from the ownership who just need to loosen their grip (why are they signing off on any Signing, they haven’t a breeze what they are doing) and just allow a complete overhaul of how the football side of the club is run.

ice Said it loads of times, it’s not that hard, you find out what all the other clubs in your bracket are doing right and you do that, poaching the best in class in all departments. Not buy some player with a potentially high fifa stat and trust it will eventually sort itself out
 
It's always the leadership and culture they create. Each and everyone of the players can be replaced, the current squad is very different from lvg and mourinho teams yet same outcome.
This suggests the issue is bigger than the players or managers. Their failings is only a symptom of the bigger issue which I think is the owners themselves. It will take a miracle for things to work well under their leadership.
 
berbatrick said:
I think there's a bit of a manger cult among fans. Particularly at United for obvious reasons.

The alternative explanation for what you're seeing is that teams get found out in the next season, other coaches figure out their weaknesses, players leave and their replacements don't fit as well, players grow old, lose form, .....
In our case this season, it's a combination of multiple key injuries and absences, an ageing midfield base, a new tactical plan that completely exposes that ageing midfield base, and finally a lack of belief.
In Leicester's case, probably the players did drop off, after an insane, improbable year that will define their entire lives.



Multiple managers have had a free reign to totally overhaul the squad in their first two years, and they've all done it. Every time the assumption is that the lazy players got the mangers fired....but half the players are sold, and 2 years again the lazy gene starts getting expressed again in a new set of players. It doesn't make sense.
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We have never had an adequate clear out from the word go, there is always some residual poison left over which festers and eventually corrupts the whole dressing room. We have kingpins that have survived Van Gaal, they will be hinting to others that it's ok they have seen it happen before and the manager will soon fall.

The worst thing we could have possibly done was to refuse to listen to Rangnick, he saw through the traitors and said we needed an open hear surgery but we chose plastic surgery instead. Even if we sack Ten Hag, we will be saying the same things in 18 months time.
 
I once was really into the statistical/analytical side of betting and if you go on google scholar you can find statistical evidence that there definitely is a new manager effect. It gives a boost for the first 6 games in charge basically - and then the “new manager effect” fades. Ole was a prime example of this I guess.

Not that it concludes you should sack a good manager, but this effect is probably a normal reason/logic of boards to why you should try a new manager. Also this effect might mask the decision making long term as you’d think you’ve just appointed a good manager when you see a visible effect in the first 6 games.
 
Tarrou said:
we keep changing managers and nothing changes

we keep changing players and nothing changes

it’s almost as if there is some other constant variable that might be the issue

can’t think what it might be though
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We should look carefully at what happened to Liverpool in the 90s and 00s as this is exactly where we are now.

Players and managers are coming to a club they know is only good enough to be second best.
Whilst Fergie was in charge other teams withered and hid, defended and tried but failed.
Same with Pep. Unfortunately he is too good so until he leaves City our players and manager are mentally weaker.
 
RedCoffee said:
We should look carefully at what happened to Liverpool in the 90s and 00s as this is exactly where we are now.

Players and managers are coming to a club they know is only good enough to be second best.
Whilst Fergie was in charge other teams withered and hid, defended and tried but failed.
Same with Pep. Unfortunately he is too good so until he leaves City our players and manager are mentally weaker.
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But there were Arsenal and Chelsea that rivaled SAF's United. The Liverpool you mentioned and this club current share a similar issue: stuck in past glory bubble. All talk about being big club on legacy of past glory, but currently stagnant with incompetent people in important roles after already left behind after doing "our way" long period.

It maybe impossible to find a SAF or Pep to build a dynasty, but it's still very possible to be a current top team while challenge and win here and there.
 
It's a domino effect and a cycle that is really hard to break.
Mediocre FC -> Oh look we got a new manager -> Players start performing -> Oh look we get new players as well -> Players drop their performance, which is normal but then they go back to -> Mediocre FC anyway, always has been, might as well give up -> Repeat

The only way to break the cycle is by having a new owner that don't tolerate subpar performances. You play like shit? out. We get new ones. And keep doing it until we have a good squad both in ability and mentality. Will cost a lot but that's the only way.
 
AneRu said:
We have never had an adequate clear out from the word go, there is always some residual poison left over which festers and eventually corrupts the whole dressing room. We have kingpins that have survived Van Gaal, they will be hinting to others that it's ok they have seen it happen before and the manager will soon fall.

The worst thing we could have possibly done was to refuse to listen to Rangnick, he saw through the traitors and said we needed an open hear surgery but we chose plastic surgery instead. Even if we sack Ten Hag, we will be saying the same things in 18 months time.
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Each manager has completely changed the XI within 1-2 years of starting out.

LvG got rid of Evra, Rio, Vidic, Evans, Cleverley, Anderson, Nani, Kagawa, Welbeck, Hernandez, and brought in Shaw, Herrera, Blind, Schweinsteiger, Schneiderlin, Darmian, Lingard, Martial, and Rashford (with AdM and Falcao coming and going)

Jose got rid of Rooney, Blind, Darmian, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, and brought in Bailly, Pogba, Lukaku, Dalot, Fred, McT, and Sanchez (with Mkhi coming and leaving).

Ole got rid of Smalling, Valencia, Young, Lukaku, Bailly, Sanchez, and brought in Maguire, AWB, Greenwood, Bruno, DvB, Telles, Henderson, Varane, Sancho, and Ronaldo (with Cavani and James coming and leaving).

ETH has got rid of DDG, Mata, Telles, Fred, Pogba, Ronaldo, Greenwood, Elanga, and has brought in Martinez, Malacia, Casemiro, Eriksen, Antony, Onana, Amrabat, Reguilon, and Hojlund, and is trying to get rid of Maguire and McT.

All these guys have been here for 2-2.5 years, this is a massive amount of turnover. 5 first teamers in+out every season is a lot, it is not plastic surgery. I wouldn't be surprised if we had the most transfer activity outside Chelsea's insanity (which is a cautionary example of replacing the entire squad every 2 minutes).

All these managers have been given the money to re-make the team in their own image inside 2 years...and I would say, the vast majority of signings have not worked out. Injuries, dreadful from the 1st minute, or mediocre a few games in, or slowly sinking into the team's mediocrity.

The common thread, looking at the utterly depressing list of signings, is the lack of a common thread - no vision, betting insane on someone the manager saw or some awful scout recommendation, with the direction of the squad turning 180 degrees every time a new manager comes in.

I will also add, about our managers:
Moyes: after United, failed utterly at Real Sociedad, historic failure at Sunderland, and revival at West Ham, 8 years after the sack. Based on this record and based on what we know from his time, fair to say that he was never up to the job.

LvG: no job for a very long time, decent job with the Dutch team. Hard to say if he was the right man for the job, but it's not like he's definitely proved the club wrong after leaving.

Jose: awful at Spurs, mediocre (despite massive spending) at Roma, pointing towards yet another 3rd season strop. His time here ended badly, and he hasn't redeemed himself elsewhere.

ETH: tbd

So, if the fault was the players all along, why aren't these managers revolutionizing football at their new jobs, or getting hired by Real?
 
It's not the players in the sense that the OP suggests, it's the players that we don't have or the profiles that we don't have. United since Carrick left has lacked a game manager, a calming presence in possession and someone that can organize the team around him, top teams tend to have several players like that and currently we maybe only have Varane providing that. The other thing is that we only have one consistent creator in Bruno.

When everyone is fit and in form everything is good but if one of Bruno or Varane are out(or out of form) we are kind of doomed because we don't have a complete backbone.
 
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The "meta" in the premier league has shifted after Pep Guardiola arrived to very pass oriented.
United players dont pass.
Well, they try to pass, and on every 10th attempt they just pass the ball directly to the oponent and loose the ball.
Or they try something "smart" and loose the ball.
Or they try to give that goal scoring pass every pass, and again loose the ball (im looking at you Bruno)

The other reason is that this team kinda suck.
The physical attributes and skillsets of the players are all over the place, or just plain mediocre.
Just look at each at the players and see what each of them has to offer and what their downsides are..
Its a bad team.
Its that simple.

We need to buy players that match the current meta (passing) and they need to have skillsets that matches the position they play, and not be injury prone.

How many in the starting 11 matches this requirement? Maybe only a few?
 
JPRouve said:
It's not the players in the sense that the OP suggests, it's the players that we don't have or the profiles that we don't have. United since Carrick left has lacked a game manager, a calming presence in possession and someone that can organize the team around him, top teams tend to have several players like that and currently we maybe only have Varane providing that. The other thing is that we only have one consistent creator in Bruno.

When everyone is fit and in form everything is good but if one of Bruno or Varane are out(or out of form) we are kind doomed because we don't have a complete backbone.
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Basically this, the football structure at our club isn’t right, we scattergun transfers to the manager rather than how the club wants to play football which is why every manager coming in then has to spend millions buying players to fit their brand of football, which after two years gets binned and rinse and repeat.
 
Wazzaduke33 said:
It’s a squad built from 4/5 differing ideas across 4/5 regimes. We’ve never allowed a full cycle to develop over 3 + years. Klopp got 3 to win his first trophy, binning Moyes after 8 months was tragic, that’s where it all went wrong and it’s never been rectified. He had feck all to spend Moyes, nothing, regardless of what you think of him he’s a good manager and proved it pretty much everywhere he’s been
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He had a squad of champions! He was showing the likes of Rio videos of Jagielka on how they should defend. He finished 7th with them. Absolute madness that not only we still have people thinking sacking Moyes was "tragic" but that people still haven't learned giving a manager "a full cycle to develop" is not what the recipe for success is. Especially when said managers include the likes of Moyes and Solskjaer in our case. What if the manager is the wrong fit and you give him 5 years and a billion pounds to spend, what then?
 
Rista said:
He had a squad of champions! He was showing the likes of Rio videos of Jagielka on how they should defend. He finished 7th with them. Absolute madness that not only we still have people thinking sacking Moyes was "tragic" but that people still haven't learned giving a manager "a full cycle to develop" is not what the recipe for success is. Especially when said managers include the likes of Moyes and Solskjaer in our case. What if the manager is the wrong fit and you give him 5 years and a billion pounds to spend, what then?
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why can Barca and Madrid have nobody managers and win trophies? One of the lowest profile managers of Bayern Was the one who could crack the champions league. Why didn’t we just sign Mancini or pelligrini if it’s just simply about getting managers who can win the league?

If Pep joined United in 2013 and Woodward signed Fellaini in the summer he joined, how do you think we would have done that season? How do you thing our league winning squad would of felt with those sort of reinforcements? There was a reason Pep didn’t want to be United manager, if he ever said he’d be our manager whoever was in charge would have been sacked. It’s because Pep only joins sure thing projects and united , even though it could spend as much as anybody, is not a sure thing.

Some of you just don’t seem to get this. Managers can make mistakes and maybe they weren’t ever going to work out, but our club undermines our managers time and time again. Our club , managers and squad is setup to fail, do you understand that?

Not just that, our club is just signing (and extending contracts of) players with different mental attributes that lead to a dysfunctional culture that makes a managers job borderline impossible.

It doesn’t matter who is the manager of a club if the club itself doesn’t match the ambitions of the players it’s signing.
 
I think there's three factors to this:

1) Football players are paid stupid money. I would guess more than the manager in a lot of cases. With that comes massive egos and the sense of entitlement/self importance. A lot of them, as you can easily tell from the on and off field behaviour, are basically massively precious man babies. So as soon as things aren't going well or as soon as there's a hint of the manager doing something that the players don't think helps them, in a lot of cases they're going to stop listening to him and do what they want/sulk. In many cases they'll undermine the manager publicly now we have social media, agents, journalists etc. who'll all help spread playground rumours. This is what you have to deal with as a manager now and it's almost impossible in some cases as the club's most valuable assets are the players. This problem is amplified for United due to overpaying half their players and having greater exposure than almost any other team.

2) Football is an extremely unprofessional sport considering its probably the most popular and high earning in the world. This is linked to above point. Football players are paid obscene amounts of money and actually not that much is expected in return. They can still go out and get lashed every weekend, use an injury as an excuse to go on holiday to Dubai, refuse to come on as a sub then feck off for half a season and just come back when they feel like it, appear visibly fat in pre-season, moan about playing too many games, moan about not playing enough games, moan about it being the ref's fault every time they put in a half arsed performance and it causes them to lose, moan about time wasting, moan about time being added on due to time wasting, try to cheat constantly and then moan when it doesn't work, moan when the exact same cheating does work but not in their favour. All of these things would be the death of a professional athlete in most other sports. Football mentality seems to always be based around making excuses to hide behind or trying to short cut your way to a victory, as opposed to sacrifice, self reflection and self improvement. If you breed a culture of weak mentality, then what you end up with is players who have weak mentalities. Hence why a team loses a few games and when the trust in the manager goes and it comes down to self pride, ends up nearly getting relegated, or goes 2 goals down and ends up losing 6-0 despite doing ok up until that point. Hence why as soon as things aren't going well the excuses and finger pointing appear left, right and centre. Hence why you end up with an England captain who sleeps with his team mate's wives and racially abuses other English players and tries to lead a player mutiny in the middle of a world cup, and still doesn't thinks he's been victimised when he's (very) belatedly punished for it. This is what mangers are up against.

3) Most managers are just ex footballers. The barometer and order of priority for deciding if someone is a good manager or not seems to go a) were they a decent footballer, b) did they used to play for us, c) have they got some kind of coaching badge I suppose. There is no requirement or criteria to actually be any good at managing people, or managing a football team, or even knowing anything about managing. Frank Lampard couldn't manage a team of bickering middle aged admin assistants, yet he is put in charge of Chelsea FC, twice. Steven Gerrard's main priority when managing Villa seemed to be to get himself in with the local mafia. So you end up with egotistical footballers being managed by an ex egotistical footballer. So a bunch of weak minded players who aren't going to listen to someone as soon as they start demonstrating they might be a bit of an idiot, being managed by a weak minded manager who is a bit of an idiot. Obviously there are exceptions to this. I would say Ten Hag is one. In a lot of cases the exceptions (i.e. managers who's background/reputation is actually built on being a good manager or having good levels of knowledge) are the managers who actually do well and don't fall on their sword the second a few results or performances go wrong, but even then sometimes the dressing room egos will win. Especially if the manager doesn't have either the reputation or sufficient power by the club to command any discipline.
 
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Currently it's injuries/suspensions that are having the biggest effect on the team..

Mentally the squad players have always shown fragility so it's not a surprise as soon as a few bad results happen the cry babies start flapping their gums again.
 
If its a dynasty you want then the current method of giving it 4 games of form and then sending a posse after the manager isn't the way to go about it.

There are few if any examples of it working elsewhere without patience & luck.

Pep Masters had an army of (Barca) workers at City well before he got there, setting up the environment where he could come in and be a success.

We haven't had that at United and to expect ETH to change this is a season is delusional.
 
Chumpsbechumps said:
why can Barca and Madrid have nobody managers and win trophies? One of the lowest profile managers of Bayern Was the one who could crack the champions league. Why didn’t we just sign Mancini or pelligrini if it’s just simply about getting managers who can win the league?

If Pep joined United in 2013 and Woodward signed Fellaini in the summer he joined, how do you think we would have done that season? How do you thing our league winning squad would of felt with those sort of reinforcements? There was a reason Pep didn’t want to be United manager, if he ever said he’d be our manager whoever was in charge would have been sacked. It’s because Pep only joins sure thing projects and united , even though it could spend as much as anybody, is not a sure thing.

Some of you just don’t seem to get this. Managers can make mistakes and maybe they weren’t ever going to work out, but our club undermines our managers time and time again. Our club , managers and squad is setup to fail, do you understand that?

Not just that, our club is just signing (and extending contracts of) players with different mental attributes that lead to a dysfunctional culture that makes a managers job borderline impossible.

It doesn’t matter who is the manager of a club if the club itself doesn’t match the ambitions of the players it’s signing.
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Bizarre post on topic of David Moyes who utterly failed in every concievable way during his time. Manager not being the sole problem of this club is irrelevant. Moyes did terribly and was completely out of his depth in the way he set the team up.
 
Rista said:
Bizarre post on topic of David Moyes who utterly failed in every concievable way during his time. Manager not being the sole problem of this club is irrelevant. Moyes did terribly and was completely out of his depth in the way he set the team up.
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There was nothing bizarre at all about the post, you just completely missed the point.
 
It is the players and it has everything to do with contracts. De Gea, Jones, Mata, Tuanzebe, Lingard are all recent players who are without a club at the moment. Even if we want to see our most prized assets today (Ex: Rashford), we will find it difficult to find someone who will pay a massive fee plus those wages. Look at any of our players, despite some favorable attributes (Age, PL experience, homegrown status), we still find it hard to get a decent offer for any of them and because of those stupid wages, the players are happy despite not playing.
 
We have not really built a team since SAF left, he added to successful teams, we have just constantly changed the squad while not building a consistant team ethos.
 
I was going to say pretty much the same thing.
If it was just the players, Pogba for instance, most all of them have been moved on over the years.
I do think that the very high wages has something to do with it. And we know that is a big reason why United find it so hard to get rid of some of them.

I do agree it has a lot to do with culture and lack of players with the right character.
And like some, I do believe that Ten Hag is trying to get it sorted out.
 
Of course, it's the players, they are the ones who cross the white line.

Mostly when managers make changes to a winning team, it's possible to lay the blame with them, especially if the changes are in the region of 7+. Virtually every manager (including SAF) since the PL started have made such levels of changes, even when injuries didn't figure, things like 'game time' 'resting players', 'trying different formations/styles', etc. have been used. This usually happens when it's a cup match or the opponent is considered not to present too much opposition.

Whatever the reason as SAF use to say " I only put out teams I feel can win'. If this statement is true, then it is all down to the players to back their manager; unfortunately what happens is that in Cup games against lower opposition, managers in fact pick many players who are on their way out, hoping they will 'put themselves in the shop window' so to speak. This rarely happens and players play well within themselves.

Years ago when I first went to Old Trafford, players talked about "playing for and then keeping the shirt", they knew they had to perform every game, cup, league, even friendlies, to earn a place in the first team and to keep that shirt. Of course squad systems and numbering on shirts now mean nothing except to identify who the player is who is wearing the shirt, never mind what position or responsibility they are supposed to have.

Times have changed no doubt, the PL changed everything, mostly for the good, but it allowed 'carpet-baggers' like the Glazers to move in and make money.

However, one thing never changes when players walk across that line with a United shirt on they are representing millions across the world, it's all up to them, but sometimes you just wonder if anybody has told them that?
 
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Manchester United is a final destination. Players come here, get the fat contracts, there are minimal competitive expectations placed on them, and they are coddled and protected no matter what, contract extensions are practically a given. So, why even bother then? It's the easy life.
 
It’s the same anywhere, managers are much easier to fire than 11 players. Football is becoming more and more about managing personalities who are probably incredibly unrelatable and immature, kids who are millionaires in their teens and richer than many of the coaches who try to motivate them. United just happen to have been below where we’d hope to be for so long we’ve seen a number of managers come and go and ‘lose’ a dressing room but it happens elsewhere as well.
 
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