Never felt so alienated from the club

Red_toad

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Ten Hag isn't just inheriting a broken squad. He's inheriting a jaded fanbase too.
Ten Hag will be fine and (if he's given enough control) he'll sort out the issues and bring it his 2/3 players who establish a more serious dressing room. Fans will be fine next season as they'll be fully behind him, some may wish to wallow in never ending depressive internet threads and moan about everything, but next season is a pretty much entire new start. We'll have a brand new management team and a lot of new coaches and a few new players. I'm very much looking forward to it.
 

I Am Zlatan

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I agree with the OP. For literally decades, I didn’t miss watching a game basically. As things turned bad, the habit sustained me and I watched anyway. This last month, I’ve usually found something more worthwhile to do with my time.
Same, I still watch though, but definitely starting to wonder if the hassle of watching every game is worth it currently.. the worst part is, I barely remember any of the games, because they’re mostly the same reprieve zombie like football especially the past few seasons.
 

Judge Red

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We still have significantly more Twitter followers than Liverpool and City. The gap is huge.

The Glazers think we’re winning,
 

utdalltheway

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The business of Man Utd might be doing ok but they need to focus on the football side, not just on the business.
It’s sad because it was a great club. And it can be again if the guys at the top (not the Glazers) get it right.
 

ashneel

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We were taking the piss out of the scousers for being wank for 30 years.. we've covered already a third of that being a joke ourselves.
 

Mr Pigeon

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One day we'll be free from the Glazers; keep the faith. It will require a sustained, collective effort from the fanbase to get them out. We all know what utter scumbags the Glazer family are. It's now time to force change.
I'm interested to learn what the strategy is to kick the Glazers out? Wave some green and gold scarves around and then get five people to walk out of the stadium in protest seems to be the usual strategy.

I really don't see the Glazers going. It's modern football. Modern football means parasites owning the club, and we have to accept that and adapt. If we try and pretend that we're special and exempt from that rule then we'll just continue being in the mess we're in. Look where our high and mighty attitude has gotten us since Fergie left; we're fodder for the "plastic" City and "also-rans" Liverpool because we cling on to this notion that we can live in the past.
 

FortBoyard

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I mean let's be slightly realistic here. We were in the champions League this year, and we are still in the top 6. Sounds very fairweather to stop supporting, we will be back, question is how long.
 

youmeletsfly

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How so? There are no “we will win the league next year” or “Maguire is better than van dijik” threads. If anything, this board is more grounded than rawk.

Yes the pessimism is off the charts but the club’s players, coaching and the board have given the fans little cause for optimism, not just this year but for close to a decade.
Nah man, it's RAWKish, for a few months now actually.

These fecking idiot fans can't stop moaning about stuff they can't control, the same fans that 10 years ago were supporting the club no matter what. This is exactly the type of stuff you would have seen 10 years ago on RAWK, utter garbage.

This club is going through one of the biggest transitional stages in its entire history and, for once, it is doing the right thing not buying players in January, not panic appointing a random manager instead of Rangnick, firing that amateur Ole guy and his staff, firing head of scouting etc and all these lunatic forum warriors do is complain and complain and complain.

Why the feck is it so hard to understand that, the moment RR was appointed, the club waved goodbye to this season? If I can see it and you can see it, what the hell do you lot think happens with the players, are they blind or what?

This being a bad season is exactly what the club and the next manager needed in order to shift the culture. At least we got to see which players are onboard or not and, especially, who has the balls and the quality to step up.

At the moment, we know which players downed tools, which leaked to the media, which are leaving, which ones are good enough (about 2 out of 20, but hey, .. life). It's absolutely as it should have been for very simple reasons:
- the ones leaving can feck off anyway
- the ones downing tools and and not giving a feck (eg: Rashy) have no future at the club if they don't turn it around next year
- fans are finally starting to see how unprofessional the club and the overall setup has become because we only had "club men" around (fecking nepotism FC).

TLDR: It's absolutely fine, please stop creating low iq threads and just look forward to the future, moany pricks.
 

Tom Van Persie

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I agree with Fortune here. To be successful again we need to be united and bring back the siege mentality that we used to have under SAF. That has been missing for the last nine years.

 

Dansk

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I'm honestly quite optimistic about the future. There have been a lot of changes to the club structure in the last year, and we're getting a manager with tons of potential. Of all the managers making names for themselves in recent years, he's by far the most likely candidate to become the next top-tier manager. We're getting rid of many players who need to be gone, and I get a clear sense that the board has finally realized that things can't go on the way they have. It would be self-sabotage to let it continue like that, and they know it.

We're not winning the league next year, but I genuinely think we'll be back as title challengers and CL regulars in three years. I feel positive about it in a way I haven't done since SAF retired. Things look very grim right now because this season has been the culmination of a lot of problems, but I don't see how it could possibly not get better. New men are in charge, a new plan is about to be embarked upon. It's like how an addict has to hit rock bottom before things can begin to turn around. I really think so.
 
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I agree with Fortune here. To be successful again we need to be united and bring back the siege mentality that we used to have under SAF. That has been missing for the last nine years.

One hundred per cent. We need to re-discover our identity, but that's much easier said than done. The owners aren't football fans, let alone United fans. Worse than that, they haven't even tried to buy into the traditions of the club; they don't care about anything beyond revenue, taking hundred of millions out of the club. We knew this from the day they arrived, of course, but we still had Fergie to uphold standards on and off the pitch. In the subsequent years everything has been allowed to fall into decline - even the state of the stadium is symptomatic of what's happened. The malaise has now even spread to the players: multi-millionaires who don't give a toss, more concerned about their lifestyle and public profiles.

The fans still care as much as ever, but their passion isn't reciprocated by those entrusted to deliver progress, and there lies the disconnect. That gap between the fans and those employed by the club is why I've never felt so alienated from United. None of them get it, and don't even care to. It isn't about form or lack of trophies; it goes way beyond short term fluctuations but is systemic and now endemic. Once this kind of rot has set in, it's very difficult to reverse.
 

Abraxas

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I think one or two need to get a grip, quite frankly. This is football, over extended cycles you can have really poor sides. Poor decisions leading to poor outcomes and it starts to perpetuate itself, and then you have the double whammy of your rivals being exceptionally good which pulls them further away.

The fans become demoralised, the players already are demoralised or are the wrong types to begin with leaving you in a depressive hole. It becomes a very difficult ship to turn a club. Winning clubs tend to keep doing well until something big changes, and struggling clubs tend to struggle.

We've been poor in the past, Liverpool know better than any set of fans how painful periods after sustained success can be. You have to accept it, yes we should demand more but some people have entered a perpetually morose state and to be honest if you don't find enjoyment in it, do something else. It is fairly clear the club are now trying things so you either support the club as it rebuilds with some kind of positivity or you become part of the problem.
 
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I think one or two need to get a grip, quite frankly. This is football, over extended cycles you can have really poor sides. Poor decisions leading to poor outcomes and it starts to perpetuate itself, and then you have the double whammy of your rivals being exceptionally good which pulls them further away.

The fans become demoralised, the players already are demoralised or are the wrong types to begin with leaving you in a depressive hole. It becomes a very difficult ship to turn a club. Winning clubs tend to keep doing well until something big changes, and struggling clubs tend to struggle.

We've been poor in the past, Liverpool know better than any set of fans how painful periods after sustained success can be. You have to accept it, yes we should demand more but some people have entered a perpetually morose state and to be honest if you don't find enjoyment in it, do something else. It is fairly clear the club are now trying things so you either support the club as it rebuilds with some kind of positivity or you become part of the problem.
To use a Manchester analogy, I've gone full Joy Division and way past morose. :D

You can find me sitting beside the ship canal in the rain, United scarf on, clutching a Kafka novel.
 

Ralph1386

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It wont get much better next season, unless we change half the squad
We could bring prime Maradona into this club and the club would ruin him a few months later. I don’t think it’s about players and managers anymore. As long as the club is being run for the Glazers to take dividends out of it, it won’t matter who we sign and who we sell.
 

Flexdegea

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Everything is rotten, everything - the owners, the board, the players. Only the fans remain from our once great club. God help Erik Ten Hag, because this is beyond terrible. I'm a fourth generation Red and attended my first game in 1986; I can honestly say this is the most disheartened I have ever been. My dad attended his first game in 1964 and says the same. The club is hollowed out, devoid of any passion or direction. I fear for the future; we are at a fork in the road now: either we sort ourselves out very soon or we just fade away for many years. It isn't the club I grew up with; we seem to be just an income stream for absentee and reviled owners, without a plan and without a care. I'm at a loss, there is no sense of solidarity or belief any more.

Sorry to break it to you but the club been thru way worse that what we experiencing at the moment.


If we start winning matches next season your be 100% back on board and the club will feel like yours again.
 

DickDastardly

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Yeah for some people it means a lot
I didn't say it doesn't.

Means the world to me too.

The only thing i said that's this was expected at some point in life, it's a normal cycle.

Surely no team can sustain the level of winning constantly - this is not an individual competition.
 

elnorte

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Ten Hag will be fine and (if he's given enough control) he'll sort out the issues and bring it his 2/3 players who establish a more serious dressing room. Fans will be fine next season as they'll be fully behind him, some may wish to wallow in never ending depressive internet threads and moan about everything, but next season is a pretty much entire new start. We'll have a brand new management team and a lot of new coaches and a few new players. I'm very much looking forward to it.
Given your views on Harry Maguire, I think that tells us how much value we should place on your wider opinions.
 

Stookie

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I feel like this about football in general really. Ill always support United but recently the missus and I have been going to watch our local team. Now, the standard is really shite but there’s an honesty there. There’s players giving their all. And in winter there’s nowt like standing on a freezing terrace with a bovril from the crappy burger van. I used to love going to watch United in the 80s and even though they were not at the top it was a magical experience. All that’s gone now.
 

Wednesday at Stoke

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I wish I could say this is rock bottom but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if this stinking lot got themselves relegated next season. My joy for the game is gone.

I would strongly consider selling or releasing every last senior team player.
 
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I feel like this about football in general really. Ill always support United but recently the missus and I have been going to watch our local team. Now, the standard is really shite but there’s an honesty there. There’s players giving their all. And in winter there’s nowt like standing on a freezing terrace with a bovril from the crappy burger van. I used to love going to watch United in the 80s and even though they were not at the top it was a magical experience. All that’s gone now.
I think you make a good point. It's difficult to relate to half a million per week players who are like movie stars. Of course things change, but money is everything now; that's just the game is at the elite level. I had great sympathy for the FC United guys, and I wouldn't criticise them, but it wasn't for me. No doubt they will now say they told us so back in 2005; that it was going to end up this way, the soul of the club being killed. Perhaps they were right and I buried my head in the sand.
 

Remember the geese

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We could bring prime Maradona into this club and the club would ruin him a few months later. I don’t think it’s about players and managers anymore. As long as the club is being run for the Glazers to take dividends out of it, it won’t matter who we sign and who we sell.
I actually think we can still be successful with the Glazers at the helm. Money will not be an issue, so providing that we have a world class manager and our new recruitment team make the correct decisions, then surely we can succeed. Is this delusional?
 
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I actually think we can still be successful with the Glazers at the helm. Money will not be an issue, so providing that we have a world class manager and our new recruitment team make the correct decisions, then surely we can succeed. Is this delusional?
It isn't just about trophies, is it? Maybe it is, but there are far more problems at United than results. Of course, success on the pitch makes a world of difference; it can cover the cracks, but success is far more difficult when a club is dysfunctional, as we are witnessing now.
 

Zen86

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I actually think we can still be successful with the Glazers at the helm. Money will not be an issue, so providing that we have a world class manager and our new recruitment team make the correct decisions, then surely we can succeed. Is this delusional?
Woodward was the problem, rather than the Glazers. Yes they’re parasites and yes they’re taking money out of the club etc etc, but investment hasn’t really been the problem, rather the personnel they hired to run the club. FSG are cut from the exact same cloth.
 

Desert Eagle

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It'll pass soon enough. A couple new starting midfielders is the first step By the start of the 23/24 season the team will be unrecognizable from what we had this year.
 

lex talionis

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We can't give up on United.

Ted Lasso isn't much of an authority on football but he is right about the one thing that above all is important to be right about -- it's the hope that keeps you alive.
 

BlueHaze

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Oh you bunch of drama queens.

We're a bit down.

It's a cycle of football.
A cycle of life.

We will rise.
I think after a season where you've lost 4-1 to Watford and 4-0 to Brighton people have plenty of reasons to be dramatic.
 
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It'll pass soon enough. A couple new starting midfielders is the first step By the start of the 23/24 season the team will be unrecognizable from what we had this year.
I wish our problems could be solved so easily, but we need fundamental change in all aspects of the club, which is far easier said than done.

We can't give up on United.

Ted Lasso isn't much of an authority on football but he is right about the one thing that above all is important to be right about -- it's the hope that keeps you alive.
We won't give up on them, but we need to see big changes. Number one, we need people running the club and playing for the club who actually give a shit about the club and the fans.
 

Remember the geese

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It isn't just about trophies, is it? Maybe it is, but there are far more problems at United than results. Of course, success on the pitch makes a world of difference; it can cover the cracks, but success is far more difficult when a club is dysfunctional, as we are witnessing now.
Oh yeah, definitely. In a perfect world we would be free from the Glazers, but I don't think that our results on the pitch need to necessarily be a reflection of our owners. Providing that funds are given in addition to having a streamlined, competent, recruitment team and a top class manager.
 

Remember the geese

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Woodward was the problem, rather than the Glazers. Yes they’re parasites and yes they’re taking money out of the club etc etc, but investment hasn’t really been the problem, rather the personnel they hired to run the club. FSG are cut from the exact same cloth.
Yeah, this is precisely my thinking.
 

Huddsred

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The younger players that came up from our academy etc should be ashamed and need to go watch some documentaries on United and Robson and Charlton and Ferguson.
They're all millionaires by the time they're 20 and will be surrounded by flunkies and hangers on. They need strong leadership and they're not getting any.
 

glazed

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He ruined everything, tarnished what greats like Moyes and Van Gaal built
Who would have imagined those twin towers of glory could be toppled so easily?

Woodward was the problem, rather than the Glazers. Yes they’re parasites and yes they’re taking money out of the club etc etc, but investment hasn’t really been the problem, rather the personnel they hired to run the club. FSG are cut from the exact same cloth.
A common error around here. Not every capitalist has the same strategy. Woodward put commerce before football. And now we see the result.