That's the feeling I'm getting too. The level of rebuild Rangnick was asking for must not have sat well with the need to take millions in dividends out of the club each year.
Murtough and Ten Hag on Utd squad
- Thread starter ehsanul
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Yep, Rangnick will have told them how big the rebuild needs to be and they don`t fancy it so Ten Hag will do the do the best with whats left of this squad and a few editions.
Of course, Arnold wasn't involved in the football side till just now. I wouldn't group him with anyone else.
I hope they’re fecking joking about that second place finish bollocks. If anything that was the anomaly
How the feck can these people sit in meetings and say “we’re also frustrated, but judge us in 5 years”. They’ll sack Ten Hag before the end of the season if we lose 10 games in a row and nothing will happen to those goons.
Certainly not the most encouraging words going into the summer transfer window, just hope it’s them putting a bit of a positive spin on it publicly but behind closed doors they know this squad isn’t up to standard and needs a major shake up, or else I really fear for ETH.
Yep, another false dawn.
We're basically left pinning all our hopes on ETH been the next SAF, and be good enough to make a success of things despite of the shitshow that goes on behind the scenes.
I have a really bad feeling this summer is going to be a complete shambles.
Multiple times over the past week we’ve heard this is a ‘decent squad that finished second’, Ragnick has left and a position we’ve needed to strengthen for years seems to be targeting a player who doesn’t want to join the club.
You can have ETH, Pep or whoever managing the club, whilst it’s a circus behind the scenes we’ll never get back to the top.
Let’s say ETH doesn’t work and we’re mid table in January? what then? sack another manager after he’s spunked another summer budget on players the next manager doesn’t want? meh load of shite.
Multiple times over the past week we’ve heard this is a ‘decent squad that finished second’, Ragnick has left and a position we’ve needed to strengthen for years seems to be targeting a player who doesn’t want to join the club.
You can have ETH, Pep or whoever managing the club, whilst it’s a circus behind the scenes we’ll never get back to the top.
Let’s say ETH doesn’t work and we’re mid table in January? what then? sack another manager after he’s spunked another summer budget on players the next manager doesn’t want? meh load of shite.
Behind the scenes has changed a lot. ETH is having a week off. Give it time. Don't judge the new organisation on the same based on the old one.
We seem to be clearing out all the deadwood apart from clown shoes himself Murtough
Or Rangnick had zero credibility having come in and been absolutely abysmal in his work with the club, to the point it isn’t unfair to say there wasn’t a single positive in that time.
You make it sounds like this is a "Damned if we do, damned if we don't" summer. Whether we buy new players or not, you'd find a negative perspective.
To me, the jury is still out regarding this summer. What should be used as a metric for this summer's success is not the stardom level of players we bring in. It's how the profiles of these upcoming signings fit with our game-plan vision.
I guess you are having bad feelings about this summer because of a mismatch of all our scouting elements throughout these months: Ralf Rangnick mostly suggested Bundesliga gems, while Ten Hag seems to prefer nimble, technical players from Holland/Erendivisie (I'm not even mentioning another side that is our scouts's recommendation which consists mostly British players or trendy Premier League "proven" stars).
How we would fare next season depends a lot on this summer. If Ten Hag targets players based on their profiles and how they would fit in his philosophy, then I'm all for giving him and our board the benefits of doubt this summer. Rangnick wanted our team to press for the ball high-up on the pitch and immediately progress the ball vertically within 10 seconds, hence we had rumours with targets like Nkunku, Haidara... Ten Hag, on the contrary, prefers his team having fluent buildup from the back (More similar to City than Liverpool). Based on the rumours we get after his appointment, I think the profile of players we scouted have been quite consistent with Ten Hag's brand of football:
- 1 DLF (De Jong)
- 1 CDM (Kante)
- 1 CB (Pau Torres)
- 1 RB (Timber)
- 1 CF (Nunez/Nkunku)
- 1 RW (Bergwijn/Antony)
It is not hard to picture to an extent the kind of football Ten Hag wants to build here. How successful it would be is still a question. But the way our team have conducted transfer business until now has at leaset earned them this summer to me:
1) We revoked Pogba's contract offer. The old United under Woodward would have caved in to Pogba's demands immediately after there were links regarding Pogba to City. Would have looked no different from PSG and the way they handed everything to Mbappe on a silver platter. But the current United board didn't fall for Pogba's bait.
2) We seem to not plan on dithering the whole summer for De Jong. Instead we stepped up and told him to make up his mind, so we could move on to other targets. This is how a top club supposedly operates and conducts themselves in business.
3) Even taking Erik ten Hag on-board was something the current United reign should be credited for. An up and coming manager, who everyone thought was destined for Manchester City, joined United because he supposedly believed in the "project" we want to build here. REAL great men search challenges, not comfort. Ten Hag having the gut to join such a massive job like United (Even cutting short his old Ajax contract earlier by tens of days) really earned my respect. And I'm sure his workaholic, obsession-to-football attitude would rub on our players. We definitely need them to step up in both their games and their mentality.
Just some early signs, I know. But those are enough to give us hope this summer and realize things are NOT that doom-and-gloom like in the past few days.
