Nemanja Matic| BBC says deal agreed
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
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Loads of tomorrows papers carrying the Roman Matic United story
Lots of posters seem fond of repeating this argument recently, but it seems a bit dubious to me. van Gaal doubtless had ample scouting reports available on Schweinsteiger, as well as past experience of working with him - was that a good signing? Likewise Bravo and Guardiola - was that a good signing? How would questioning those signings have been any different to questioning this one? Managers can make bad decisions, even if they do have a scouting network.
Whoa the pages have rocketed in this thread, is something actually progressing with this?
I'm just saying that Matic is basically a player Jose knows he can control and who will follow his orders to a T, even if he can only do it about half as well as he could 3 years ago, where as the other options might need to catch on a bit to his demands but long term would be much better for us than a player already past his best.
Spurs can probably afford to hold out for more money since City helped themselves to Walker.
Of course, we have young inconsistent players, and to win the league he needs players with experience who can be relied upon with regularity. I didn't claim he had no interest in young players, i disagreed with the notion that Matic was being bought for any other consideration than winning the league. That has to be his top priority, that is how he has done it before, and it's what he has to do again if he wants to be given the time to plan for the future.
I'm not denying that managers don't weight their choices based on their knowledge of certain players they know and trust. That's broadly applicable in just about any line of work. If you've had a positive experience working with someone then you're likely to view the prospects of working with them again quite favorably.
I don't see how you get from that claim to saying that questioning the choice of Matic as our new midfielder means you think Mourinho is "ignorant and incompetent ".
Christ alive, those stats are meaningless. Differrent systems, playing alongside differrent players in differrent leagues with totally differrent styles of play. You might as well compare "stats" between Jonny Wilkinson with Paton Manning. You only need to watch Matic for a few matches to see he's better.
Its pretty straightforward. The act of questioning his pursuit of Matic or Perisic, when as others claim, other "better" players are available is a direct implication that they think Mourinho and staff are either ignorant of the availability of other players or on the other extreme, so incompetent that they are deliberately not taking action despite knowing other players are available. Obviously both are complete nonsense and deserved to be called out.
So it would have been right to "call out" people criticising the signings of Bravo and Schweinsteiger? Or does this logic only apply to Mourinho for some reason?
Not sure about Bravo but I supported Schweinsteiger (as did most on here) at the time.
Yeah, but you were wrong and the critics were right. So what's your point?
They all play the same role in their teams, being the metronome and trying to control the game with their passing. All 3 play in a team that dominates against most opponents. Stats aren't meaningless. Clubs are using them more and more to assess players in recent years.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...clubs-computer-analysts-managers-data-winning
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/sports/soccer/arsenal-arsene-wenger-analytics.html
I hope Mourinho sees more in him, if he is truly after him. He definitely seems to be declining.
The point is the manager has overarching ability to buy whoever he chooses. Doesn't mean the choices work out each time, but the choice is the manager's alone. United are in the present, exclusively Mourinho's domain, not some crowd funded project where random punters on the internet get to say who he should buy. He has a strategy and is looking for certain players to fill certain roles.
As for Schweinsteiger, I wasn't wrong. Turns out we changed managers and he wasn't in Mourinho's plans.
Saying posters who dont want Matic are all just muppets wanting a new shinny toy is wrong though, a lot of us are just regular posters who've seen Chelsea and Matic the last couple years and haven't been impressed compared to his earlier form at Chelsea.
Also you make the point of bringing up Schweinsteiger, Mourinho wanting Matic (As he's worked with them before and trusts them) isn't a million miles away from LvG wanting Schweinsteiger (For those same reasons), both aging players 29 vs 30 who's performances have regressed before a move here.
Just this time the press are saying we would have the luxury of paying up to 50mill for the player.
Not worth the 50 that is being reported.
Not wanted, not needed
Even a 35 year old Carrick is better.
Even a 35 year old Carrick is better.
Who has the right to call the shots in the transfer market is a totally different question - literally no one is saying that Woodward ought to sign the players that some poster on Red Cafe recommends.
But the point you've been making is that the manager always knows best and their decisions should never be criticised, whereas cases like Bravo show that even accomplished managers can get things badly wrong - even with plenty of specialist and inside info. Schweinsteiger demonstrates this too... despite your admirably stubborn attempts to claim he was flourishing under van Gaal.
Bastian cost 3m euro.
It was worth the gamble and everyone knew it was a gamble.
It was worth the gamble and everyone knew it was a gamble.
Saved me having to type. Fancy people having an opinion, bloody muppets the lot of them.
I didn't claim he was flourishing under LvG. I supported him coming here and feel he could've contributed more than the likes of Fellaini last year. He's probably not the best option if you want to illustrate a player who didn't work out. Choose Liam Miller, Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson for that.
The broader point is that fans don't know what is in Mourinho's strategy, what characteristics he's after when he evaluates positional needs and the players who may fill them. Given that, you can't just randomly offer up players you like and then get angry that Mourinho isn't buying them. Its his call based on what he wants.
The only way it would make any remote sense to me is if we are targeting a top player like Weigl for next summer and plan to move Matic into Carrick's role as squad player then, when he retires.
His head is on the chopping block anyway. You can't spend money like we have and not expect to be under massive pressure to win the league. If he doesn't win the league this year he is going to have be very close to winning it, and semi's at least in the CL to keep his job imo.
It doesn't matter whether we agree with him, we know nothing of any real relevance in comparison with Jose, but we do know he will obviously want to give himself the best possible chance of winning the league and keeping his job. That's why he is sticking his neck out for what he feels he needs, he has belief in himself to determine exactly what is needed to win, and if he gets that then he will deliver success. Whether it works out for him this time, who knows? By May we could easily be calling for his head, or yet again hailing his genius. Let's hope it's the latter.
This actually makes sense. I wouldn't have been surprised to see us pursuing Weighl this summer if it wasn't for his injury.
Well if I just wanted to take it to extremes of bad decisions I could ask whether people should have been "called out" for their incredulity about Bebe, but I decided to stick with more similar situations of managers re-signing players they've had previous successful relationships with.
As for your broader point, Bravo was chosen for fitting a certain set of positional needs - it doesn't change the fact that the sceptics were right. Not to mention the fact that it is obviously legitimate to question managers' ideas about positional needs. Plenty of people were quite sceptical about van Gaal's insistence on left footed centre backs for the left side of central defence (Mourinho seemingly being one of these people).
These critics may be right or wrong, but it's daft to just close down criticisms of signings or systems by saying van Gaal/Mourinho has a master plan and he's the manager so he knows best. They are perfectly capable of having debatable tactical preferences and fallible views on how to fulfil them. Enough of this "so you think you know more than Mourinho, do you?" stuff.
Agreed but 50 still seems way to high to be real.
That's not what @Raoul seems to be saying. I think he is saying it's just as stupid to say 'why we can't we buy Fabinho/ Nzonzi who is obviously better' when there may be a particular reason to target matic. It's not like Jose or the scouts don't know the existence of these players.
It's a soothing theory but in that case wouldn't it make sense to sign a stop-gap who had at least some of the passing attributes of Carrick and Weigl, rather than planning to switch to a system with a destroyer for one season only and then abruptly shift to playing with a deep, playmaking midfielder. Can't help but feel that the simpler explanation is that Mourinho simply has a tactical preference for fielding one negative midfielder as a defensive shield.
I wouldn't mind either way tbh. By playing a proper shield we'd be allowing Pogba to flourish who is our best player after all. Either way, whether or not Matic is a player the fans want, he's being bought in for a specific purpose and specific role. Whether or not it works is where the staff earn their money.
I'm not sure how that is a different argument. The implication still seems to be that we can't criticise a manager's decisions unless we have intimate familiarity with their reasoning and knowledge (which will never have), so we should defer to the manager's expertise. We don't know the reasoning that led Moyes to believe that Fellaini was the best player to improve our midfield, but I still think that it was legitimate for people to question it.
It was one thing spending £75 fecking million on Lukaku but paying £50m in the same window for a 28 year old DM is sheer lunacy. If we spend another £45m on Perisic as well - another 28 year old jobber - then we're fecked. Absolute madness.
This shows (if prices are correct) a total lack of foresight or planning of any kind. Not saying Matic isn't a player we need but the price is outrageous.
This shows (if prices are correct) a total lack of foresight or planning of any kind. Not saying Matic isn't a player we need but the price is outrageous.
You can criticize but you can't criticize with any credibility since you don't really know what Mourinho is attempting in the next year in terms of building not only a great squad but also a group of players who can galvanize around a mentality he wants instill here. You have to remember that United are Mourinho's project and what individuals fans want in terms of players we like, won't likely be who he wants to buy.
No one is closing down anything, otherwise this thread would be closed. The overarching point is that the manager's opinion means infinitely more in terms of reality than the opinions of random people on the internet.
Let's do this. Balance, balance, balance...
Maybe Mourinho knows no f… planning is going to help him secure his job in, say, two years from now if he doesn't land a Premier League title or a Champions League. Besides, the squad is full of young promising players who can't be trusted to to help him do that (Shaw, Martial) right away.
Is it possible to credibly criticise any manager or does this logic only apply to Mourinho?
You can criticize any manager you want, but that criticism isn't immune from being questioned.
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