It's a long piece by Mark Ogden but a very enjoyable read IMO nonetheless.
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Ogden: Six years of mistakes, bad signings and wasted money. Last night was a positive step for Manchester United, but how have they fallen so far?
- Thread starter Adnan
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What's his diagnosis of how far we have fallen?
https://www.espn.com/soccer/manches...the-inside-story-on-how-everything-fell-apart
Haven’t seen this posted anywhere. Mark Ogden article for ESPN FC detailing how it all fell apart post-SAF.
Madwinger would have loved this part about Kagawa:
Haven’t seen this posted anywhere. Mark Ogden article for ESPN FC detailing how it all fell apart post-SAF.
Madwinger would have loved this part about Kagawa:
Clearly wrote that expecting Spurs to beat us and Jose to get one over on us.
Utd won but he's thought ah feck it I'll post it anyway.
We are a shambles and he'll have a lot of valid points but he's also always overly keen to stick the boot in I think
He wrote about how Arsenal had shown Utd the right way to replace a managerial legend in appointing Emery for example
Utd won but he's thought ah feck it I'll post it anyway.
We are a shambles and he'll have a lot of valid points but he's also always overly keen to stick the boot in I think
He wrote about how Arsenal had shown Utd the right way to replace a managerial legend in appointing Emery for example
Sports journalist is the easiest job in the world in a way. Well - after celebrity news journo I guess.Clearly wrote that expecting Spurs to beat us and Jose to get one over on us.
Utd won but he's thought ah feck it I'll post it anyway.
We are a shambles and he'll have a lot of valid points but he's also always keen to stick the boot in.
He wrote about how Arsenal had shown Utd the right way to replace a managerial legend in appointing Emery for example
I was just about to post that - good article!
It’s a bad timing mix of mixture of bad management at the top with no vision, poor managers & awful recruitment.
Having 1 of these could knock us off top 2, having 2 a battle for top 4, having all 3 leads us to where we are now
Having 1 of these could knock us off top 2, having 2 a battle for top 4, having all 3 leads us to where we are now
Let's not despair, there are good times to come. Part of enjoying the part of being a fan is watching your team be built from ashes and rise to the top and this is what we didn't really get as United fans for decades. Not that we can complain about it. This is why, perhaps, fans of other teams seemed happier when their team wins something which we took for granted, almost like a right of ours and if United under Ferguson didn't win it was seen as a hit even if we fought till the very last minute of the last game. This is a humbling experience for us, but also one that will make United support rally around the next manager who makes it all come together and I believe Solskjaer will get us this success. I know some will call me crazy, but with him there is no rushing to get things happen in an instant, no sense of over-confidence, but a slow and steady moving forward, getting it done behind the scenes. He, as a player, endured long frustrating times on sidelines due to injuries, if anyone knows things take time it's him. I hope us fans can understand that a bit better now.
Managers have come and gone -- Solskjaer is the fourth hire since Ferguson -- a staggering £840 million ($1 billion) has been spent, and largely wasted, on players. Mistakes have been made in the boardroom and only now are we hearing talk of a "cultural reboot" within Old Trafford.
This is the problem in a nutshell.
Had we spent that money wisely, on players more structurally suited to the manager's desired system and the club as a whole - rather than signing the biggest name available - our situation would be very different.
Never dawned on me about Kagawa and Mata. We bought a number 10, played him out wide then bought another and done exactly the same 
Feck off @Adnan
It’s great to look back over the last six years and count all the silly mistakes made along the way which has led to the current state.
Such a good article they posted it twice.
Woodward is the problem, as any sensible United fan knows.
I blame @Adnan
This is such a nonsense of a postClearly wrote that expecting Spurs to beat us and Jose to get one over on us.
Utd won but he's thought ah feck it I'll post it anyway.
We are a shambles and he'll have a lot of valid points but he's also always overly keen to stick the boot in I think
He wrote about how Arsenal had shown Utd the right way to replace a managerial legend in appointing Emery for example
Going to explain or just insult?
Reads as if it was written in anticipation of a Utd defeat tbh
Edit already pointed out
Edit already pointed out
People need to forget about what he said about Arsenal and Emery and focus on the actual piece he has wrote.
He touches on how Ferguson had done the ground work on the Thiago Alcantara deal only for Moyes to dither on making the decisive call due to not being convinced on the player. He also talks about the clueless nature of Moyes and his coaching methods which alienated the players. One example being the Bayern game where he instructed the players to kick the ball against the shins of the Bayern players to win corners.
Van Gaal and Mourinho's tenures are also scruitinized and interesting tidbits are posted regarding both and their time at the club. Woodward is also scruitinized and he also touches on how the club have gone from wanting a DoF to currently not prioritising one.
He touches on how Ferguson had done the ground work on the Thiago Alcantara deal only for Moyes to dither on making the decisive call due to not being convinced on the player. He also talks about the clueless nature of Moyes and his coaching methods which alienated the players. One example being the Bayern game where he instructed the players to kick the ball against the shins of the Bayern players to win corners.
Van Gaal and Mourinho's tenures are also scruitinized and interesting tidbits are posted regarding both and their time at the club. Woodward is also scruitinized and he also touches on how the club have gone from wanting a DoF to currently not prioritising one.
Some interesting quotes from the article
Kick the ball off bayern player shins to win corners?! Amazing
Seems a totally pointless article to me. There's nothing in there we don't already know.
We've wasted money on bad signings, Moyes was totally out of his depth, Van Gaal's tactics were dull and overly complex, Mourinho was toxic, Woodward is crap and too concerned with his image.
In fact I think the only new thing in that article is the kick the ball into Bayerns shins thing, which is admittedly very funny.
We've wasted money on bad signings, Moyes was totally out of his depth, Van Gaal's tactics were dull and overly complex, Mourinho was toxic, Woodward is crap and too concerned with his image.
In fact I think the only new thing in that article is the kick the ball into Bayerns shins thing, which is admittedly very funny.
Someone at the Harvard business school will write their graduate thesis on one of the greatest episodes of failed executive leadership in sports history. It's been a disaster, though we're still no New York Knicks.
Mind boggling we actually thought Moyesy was good enough for our club.
Sorry mate..
Sure - I mean it's a long piece covering our decline since SAF's retirement and painstakingly goes into the mistakes during Moyes, LVG, Mourinho and Ole eras. It has nothing to do with one result, which albeit excellent doesn't mask how badly we're doing this year. It speaks about the structural issues that United have as an organization and its inability to move with the times. It gives some insights into Woodward, and how he's perceived by his peers, and then it makes the point that the choices of managers and the lack of a DOF have massively contributed to our downfall.
And the Emery comment is kind of a cheap shot; I mean Moyes took a team that finished 1st by +11 points and managed sixth, Emery took a fifth placed team and finished fifth (and made the EL final). It wasn't a perfect choice considering how the next season unfolded, but objectively speaking Arsenal did better with Emery than we did with Moyes and all the turds that followed him. Anyways, don't want to derail the thread on Emery / Arsenal.
ABSOLUTELY - and these quotes are damning:
"It was chaos under David Moyes," one former United player told ESPN FC. Another recalled how the "training was s--- in Australia" during the early weeks of the Scot's reign.
"He told us that he would make us fitter. We had just won the Premier League by 11 points, but we were a group of players who would always strive to be better, so we bought into it," said a former player. "But training... was boring and unchallenging. Under Sir Alex, we would warm up in boxes, with one-touch passing, and it was intense and competitive. Under David, it became two-touch and our technique diminished.
"One big factor in David not succeeding at United was that he took too long to realise what he had inherited. The team had stopped pressing under Sir Alex. We began to defend deeper due to the age and experience of the team, but David came in and thought we could play fast-paced football. We couldn't and we made a terrible start that we, and he, never recovered from."
In his autobiography, "#2Sides," Rio Ferdinand claimed that Moyes failed to connect with the United players. "Moyes's innovations mostly led to negativity and confusion," Ferdinand said. "The biggest confusion was over how he wanted us to move the ball forward. Some players felt they kicked the ball long more than at any time in their career. The whole approach was alien.
"Sometimes our main tactic was the long, high, diagonal cross. It was embarrassing. In one home game against Fulham we had 81 crosses! I was thinking, why are we doing this? Andy Carroll doesn't play for us!" By the time United sacked Moyes, less than 12 months into a six-year contract, United had fallen from being champions to a team that was unable to qualify for European competition.
"Sometimes our main tactic was the long, high, diagonal cross. It was embarrassing. In one home game against Fulham we had 81 crosses! I was thinking, why are we doing this? Andy Carroll doesn't play for us!" By the time United sacked Moyes, less than 12 months into a six-year contract, United had fallen from being champions to a team that was unable to qualify for European competition.
He must have loved Tony Valencia
As I've said I don't think there's anything in the article we didn't already know anyway so I don't see the point of it. I don't really think there's any new insight or perspective there other than the win corners by kicking the ball into their shins tactic by Moyes.
And I totally disagree with Emery being better than all of our managers post Fergie, he was just as bad as Van Gaal and Mourinho, although yeah he was better than Moyes. But who could ever be worse than Moyes?
It was also clearly written with the intention of posting it post defeat to Spurs to add to the doom. I'm not saying last night masks how bad we've been, not at all. We're still in real trouble.
Any sensible fan understands the problems run waaaaay deeper than Ed Woodward.
Moyes also was also under the impression that moves for Ronaldo, Fabregas, and Bale were underway. Woodward even told him that the club were just waiting to press the button on whichever deal he wanted to do.
It is simple. We took it for granted that Post-Fergie, the success would just continue on as normal. A lack of understanding of just how big a gap Ferguson's retirement would create.
It's a long ass title for something that has so little substance in it.
Ogden also states in the article that Woodward did put forward the idea of a DoF to Mourinho. Quite a few reputable Journos have said the same.
It's truly mad to read that.
That Moyes was naive enough to believe we'd just casually set up three football world shattering moves and he just had to say yes to one?!
There’s nothing new in there (aside from perhaps some of the stuff about Di Maria) but a good summary in chronological order - that’s about it.
"Great lad, Juan, but we didn't need him," a first-team player told ESPN FC. "We had Shinji Kagawa at the time and he was a really popular, well-respected player within the dressing-room. Moyes didn't know how to use him. He didn't trust him. But Shinji was quicker and more direct than Juan, who actually had the effect of slowing the team down."
And that was 6 years ago, if he's not just making up quotes.
And that was 6 years ago, if he's not just making up quotes.
What is missing at the end of the article? PAID by WOODWARD
One figure at a leading Premier League club told ESPN FC that Woodward suffers from "jockstrap syndrome" in that he's too easily dazzled by the association with big-name players and agents.
"Ed's problem is that he doesn't know what he doesn't know," one source told ESPN FC. "He means well and wants United to be Premier League and European champions again, but he thinks he has the solution to everything. He doesn't, United don't, and he needs to hire the right people in key positions. He's also too nice. One problem that both he and the Glazers share is that they lack a hard edge. That is not the case at City or Chelsea, or with Levy at Spurs."