Go look at the number of teams who have won UCL or EPL recently without playing high press. That should tell you that (a) Conte is the wrong man to win a title and (b) all our post SAF 'rebuilds' (if you can call the purchase of players primarily based on commercial rather than footballing criteria a build) were a waste of time. This is the first time we've tried to do things right. Given that City and Liverpool are half a decade ahead of us, don't expect it to be easy or quick. Shit - even Chelsea and Arsenal are ahead of us.
Seriously, will another 'rebuild' take us any closer to the title?
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We don’t need a complete overhaul. What we need is a proper transfer strategy and to address key areas of need this summer. It’s looking more and more like Ole’s tenure was largely miss so far in terms of making us genuine title contenders. For the price AWB and Maguire have failed to live up to expectations and they never will. Ronaldo, Telles and Cavani are doing as expected. The only signings you can say are largely successful have been Bruno and Varane. We still have to see what we have in Sancho, Amad and Pellistri. For the money spent this is simply not good enough. If the club remain obsessed in buying English (Rice) then we’ll continue to fail. We need to expand our search and be smart with our signings. The next manager will help dictate that but we need someone stronger and smarter than Murtough. For what it’s worth, we need two central midfielders, CB and a striker to be in the conversation next season for the title along with the shifting of deadweight.
I wanted Conte because we have forgotten how to win and what it feels like. Even If we landed one major trophy due to Conte's hustle, it would have changed the atmosphere of mediocrity a bit. Conte is not for any long term project. It's a known fact
What rebuild ? Players who failed under multiple United managers are still in the club. Instead of healthy and highest competition level sport institution we became clinic for troubled players with mental & physical issues.
Experienced lads are in many cases needed, but If you constantly build squad with stop gap options like Matić or Ighalo, you can't expect to have any foundations for major success. We'll be forced to rebuild anyway after Martial, Pogba, Lingard, Pereira leaving and having still in mind finding solution for aging Edinson & Ronnie, especially in intense league such as PL.
We didn't even calibrated our wingbacks and midfield just yet, but decision who to hire as manager will be key here indeed. Not having another Class 92 in the academy will definitely force us to spend, this time way more smart than before.
All I can say City, Pool & Chels will at least stay strong if not grow stronger while we flounce in basics like having trouble with finding the right coaching setup and full time manager to begin while our key players getting older with each passing reign. In many cases I can definitely agree, sometimes nothing can be fixed with money, especially if upper level can't find the football plan from almost 10 years.
You missed out the £450 million spent to win feck all over the last 3 years
I feel you are getting confused thinking that money spent equals quality.
Just because we spent 80m on Maguire, 40m on Donny, 50m on Wan Bisaka. That doesn’t translate into having 170m of talent. You need to forget how much has been spent and focus on how good the players actually are.
Just because we spent 80m on Maguire, 40m on Donny, 50m on Wan Bisaka. That doesn’t translate into having 170m of talent. You need to forget how much has been spent and focus on how good the players actually are.
It wouldnt though. We finished 2nd and won 2 trophies under Mourinho and the atmosphere didnt change
Instead of building a team with the dearest British and/or well known players we can find, (because well they got to be good right?) Why not build a team with players that have shown they can play well in that role and those tactics. So instead of spunking £80 mill on a slow CB, look further than the British Isles on a Greek/Swedish/South African CB for example who suits the tactics/role and costs less than half that. The senior scouting system needs changing if all they can find from hundreds of RBs is a £55 mill player whose only skill is to last ditch tackle.
No. We're not winning another title ever again in my opinion. Some sort of European Super League, or some such reorganization of European football will come along before we could ever pull ourselves together sufficiently to be a serious club again.
Nope
Sit back for 10+ more years and enjoy the ride..
Sit back for 10+ more years and enjoy the ride..
We are going to have to shift our focus to more intelligent recruitment through extensive data analysis. That said, there is no way getting around that the best players will still cost a lot of money. I believe that a balanced investment strategy of established stars, ready for the next step, coupled with data driven recruitment of less heralded gems, is the way forwards. It's the only sustainable model.
Think that this summer we could potentially sell or lose: Mata, Matic, Bailly, Henderson (loan), Martial, Pogba, Lingard, VdB, Cavani, and maybe even Ronaldo. That's 10 first team players. The squad is over bloated, so not all have to be replaced, but we are likely looking at at least 4-5 incomings, including a CB, two midfielders, a forward, and potentially a fullback. If we blow most of our budget on Rice and Tchouameni - which I would - then we are going to have to use sensible, intelligent recruitment to sign a suitable CB and FW.
We only need to look at how Liverpool have recruited, to see that it is very possible with a good manager, and data driven recruitment, to be competitive for the title. So I am not giving up hope yet.
Think that this summer we could potentially sell or lose: Mata, Matic, Bailly, Henderson (loan), Martial, Pogba, Lingard, VdB, Cavani, and maybe even Ronaldo. That's 10 first team players. The squad is over bloated, so not all have to be replaced, but we are likely looking at at least 4-5 incomings, including a CB, two midfielders, a forward, and potentially a fullback. If we blow most of our budget on Rice and Tchouameni - which I would - then we are going to have to use sensible, intelligent recruitment to sign a suitable CB and FW.
We only need to look at how Liverpool have recruited, to see that it is very possible with a good manager, and data driven recruitment, to be competitive for the title. So I am not giving up hope yet.
Not unless that rebuild coincides with Pep and Klopp being killed in a freak gasoline fight accident.
This gets thrown around here more often than I thought. For what its worth - I wouldn't talk about "another" rebuilt, it is rather one big rebuilt starting with SAF already and never really finishing. Under SAF the team was in need of re-juvenation, Rooney, Rio, Vidic, Carrick, Evra - you name it, all of their careers came to an, and their replacements didn't really take the trajectory that was hoped (Smalling, Jones, Welbeck, Zaha). When SAF stepped down, Moyes had a big task, take over from one of the most competent managers ever and take over a squad in need. He didn't do much, his targets seemed erratic, the less said about it, the better. LVG took over, he cut the grass, got rid of quite a few players, added new ones with potential and instilled a new possession heavy style. Had we continued with him, he would have completed his rebuild but we didn't. We disrupted that rebuilt by going for Mourinho and giving him lots of decisions to make. He axed a few of LVGs players, added new ones, got rid of the possession heavy approach and added... well his approach. He went for different players, looked for different things in youth players. And he crashed and burned. Then we got Ole. A more individualistic approach, less constraints, more transitions. He more or less took over the Mourinho players and created something new. Aiming for the right characters, hoping to achieve the same thing as Fergie by selecting the right players who then will figure out the system on the fly. While Ole talked about pressing and quick attacking football, he added Maguire and AWB finally even Ronaldo. And here we are... sitting on a mixture of players picked by various managers, asked to play different football styles.
As others have said, a club built consists of a recruiting strategy, an idea about how to play a match, the right players and the right manager to glue everything together. We had no recruiting strategy for quite some time and to be perfectly honest, while the hopes are high, we don't know if that has already changed. With Ralf we have someone who has an idea on how to play, but he will be gone in a couple of months so do we have an overall idea on how to play? Can't answer that positively as we are missing the information. Do we have the right players? That depends on the system because the best players don't help you when you cant utilize them. I'd say we have pretty good players but what we are missing (due to all this mess) is a backbone of players who are leading figures - not just for their characters, but because their performance levels are mostly stable. It kind of is a hen and egg issue - what comes first? The system? Do you select players based on the system? Or do you select the system based on the available players? Again very difficult question. But the key task right now is get rid of variables. Either choose a manager or a DOF who will decide on general playstyle (attacking, defensive, proactive, reactive, high block, low block). Then add players to the roster that fit that playstyle. Let the leading figures emerge from the squad by having a good composition of great players in their prime years, bolstered by hungry talents with the potential to get in to the starting eleven and older players who lost the fight for a spot in the starting eleven.
As some have stated, our competitors are years ahead... We can't just throw money at the problem, some of the processes are organic. Lets hope, we have the decision makers in the club who understand that and will now built a foundation for the next cycle. We have very promising players in the team, Rashford, Greenwood, Sancho... maybe Dalot, Henderson, McTominay. There is great potential for new success but he have to get our act together. And we shouldn't just restart over and over because we don't like the results in a certain period of time.
Cant compare a declining Mourinho to a top of his game Conte. If you feel they would have had the same impact on our team then I don't agree.
I do tend to agree that rebuild is a dumb term. It should mean changing 10-15 players in one go.
The fact is football teams are always in flux with players ageing, in form, out of form, young players emerging, signing that work and don’t, injuries and of course managers coming and going.
If you ever stop looking to improve your squad then you are already falling behind. It remains one of Sir Alex’s biggest errors that he didn’t buy midfielders for years at the end of his time. I think in many ways we continue to pay for that now.
The fact is football teams are always in flux with players ageing, in form, out of form, young players emerging, signing that work and don’t, injuries and of course managers coming and going.
If you ever stop looking to improve your squad then you are already falling behind. It remains one of Sir Alex’s biggest errors that he didn’t buy midfielders for years at the end of his time. I think in many ways we continue to pay for that now.
He wouldn't win anything big. His football is too old fashioned.
Not comparing managers, the atmosphere was still shit after trophies and 2nd I am on about.
Yep, we have a good core. Just need a new manager and 2-3 players that balance the team out and who have the right mentality.
Not with these clowns in charge. I don't mean the Manager.
Is abstaining from throwing more money at it going to bring us closer?
Strictly speaking, this is a non-issue. If your squad is largely good enough to compete, given the right coaching, then you don't need a rebuild. If it isn't, then there is simply no alternative to it. It doesn't matter how much money you've already spent or how you've done with it or what you deserve - if it still needs wholesale fixing, it still needs wholesale fixing, and there is no way to do wholesale fixing that doesn't involve spending big money.
You can discuss whether the squad is good enough that you can win it, with some tweaks rather than wholesale changes. But if you don't think it is, then there's nothing to discuss. It's either rebuild, or continue losing. Whether you already spent 1 billion or ran a net transfer profit makes no difference to that.
Spending money without getting better doesn't show that spending money doesn't work. It does. That's why there is no such thing as a football club that is dominant over a long period of time without having spent big money. It just doesn't automatically work. Hence, the solution is not to do something other than spend big money, but to improve your spending decisions.
In any case, I don't think this squad requires another rebuild. We need to upgrade in a couple of critical areas, but otherwise I suspect we have the pieces.
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Others will disagree I'm sure, but personally I feel way more optimistic about the squad we have now as opposed to the squad that Jose left behind.
The aim should be first of all to reach a regular level of performance, get close to 80 points over 2-3 years, score 80 goals in a season. Look like a functional team that works together. Then work from there. And you might nick a title in a weak year and go from strength to strength. Realistically it might not be enough to beat Guardiola's City for a few years, but he'll eventually get bored (you hope).
Same here. Get us a viable right back and whatever the midfield needs for balance (and for replacing Pogba), and it's not looking bad, potentially.
You’ve named 10 signings and 3 are British. Hardly an obsession.
It seems some supporters and possibly the club too are stuck on signing Rice. For £100 million? No thanks. And yes we only signed two Englishmen but both have been incredibly underwhelming. We would be further ahead if some common sense prevailed and we went for Dias instead.
I wouldn’t disagree, but we did try that with Lindelof who played for the same club and position as Dias. We also tried that mid range kind of signing with Bailly and it hasn’t worked.
The scouting just needs to do a better job, or at least the person directing the scouting needs to be clearer about the profile of player. For example, we want to play a high back line, the defender we sign can’t be Maguire. Same for AWB, the stats were there to show he wasn’t going to be effective in a top team, for some reason the scouts, or the people reading the scouting reports, seemed to ignore them.
Depends who over see's the rebuild
The focus since SAF retired has always been on buying players and judging managers after x amount of transfer windows. That’s a narrative that’s been mostly peddled by Gary Neville, in reality no club gives a manager 3 years before they start judging him. The right to spend and be given a window must be earned by a manager showing improvement with what he has.
So in the case of Rangnick, he’s shown improvement based solely on what he has. He’s earned the right to spend money this winter. If the improvements and form continues and he’s made permanent manager then he’ll have earned the right to spend money in the summer. If next summer he continues to progress then he’ll have earned the right to another window.
Instead of focusing on windows and rebuilds we need to focus on improving what we have because a manager improving what he has is the biggest indication that he’ll improve the players he signs.
So in the case of Rangnick, he’s shown improvement based solely on what he has. He’s earned the right to spend money this winter. If the improvements and form continues and he’s made permanent manager then he’ll have earned the right to spend money in the summer. If next summer he continues to progress then he’ll have earned the right to another window.
Instead of focusing on windows and rebuilds we need to focus on improving what we have because a manager improving what he has is the biggest indication that he’ll improve the players he signs.
Agree with this, especially the last part. The mistake United made with Ole is that they became too desperate for him to succeed, it was also cynical because having Ole at the helm shielded them from criticism and he did achieve set targets.
From a squad building perspective the Ole rebuild was based on the wrong principle, it focused more on an acceptable character that would fit in and less on the technical demands of the modern PL. The players we bought were not fit for purpose at the top echelon of the game and opposing managers have figured out that if you apply enough pressure the lack the mental fortitude and technical skill to do the basics.
That is absolutely damning.
No idea how Ole survived for as long as he did.
We have 2 decent RBs already - Dalot and Wan Bissaka.
How many RBs does a team need?
Conte is one of the most winningest managers in the last few years. He won the title with Chelsea only a few seasons ago.
Ole on the other hand, was useless at winning trophies, despite spending so much money.
6 years is a long time. City and Liverpool are on another level now.
It appears you have an agenda against us signing English players.Yes I agree AWB and Maguire haven’t lived up to their price tag but what about Fred, Lindelof, Pogba, Lukaku etc.
I remember people crying out for us to sign Van de Beek over Grealish because Grealish was overpriced at £70m and VdB was the better option at £40m. Our transfer strategy has been poor.
Yes I have an agenda paying over the top for average English players and average players in general like Maguire and AWB. I have no problem paying for players like Sancho or Grealish or Bellingham who have shown world class ability and potential. The former two who we spent £130 million on because they were English and played in the EPL aren’t even close to world class. They’re bang average and not good enough for a club like United.
What is a rebuild these days anyway? has there been a club whose rebuild remained relevant up to these days, in the past decade? especially when there's a change of manager? every new manager almost always means another rebuild. So can another rebuild take us any closer to the title? ONLY IF the manager will be successful enough to keep on improving the squad as he sees fit until we actually challenge for the title.
If for any reason he gets the sack. A new manager will almost mean another rebuild. So the term rebuild is no more than a new manager. That's what it seems to me anyway. It all depends on the manager now. We all thought Ole did the rebuild well (and it did seem look that way) and the cherries on top were top class players like Ronaldo, Varane, Sancho to challenge. But then we had a very bad spell, he got the sack (and rightly so) and we're back to square one. The proof of this is we're already talking about another rebuild.
I hate to say this but we really are waiting for our Klopp moment. Only then can there be a rebuild where it ends up with United constantly challenging for PL title.
If for any reason he gets the sack. A new manager will almost mean another rebuild. So the term rebuild is no more than a new manager. That's what it seems to me anyway. It all depends on the manager now. We all thought Ole did the rebuild well (and it did seem look that way) and the cherries on top were top class players like Ronaldo, Varane, Sancho to challenge. But then we had a very bad spell, he got the sack (and rightly so) and we're back to square one. The proof of this is we're already talking about another rebuild.
I hate to say this but we really are waiting for our Klopp moment. Only then can there be a rebuild where it ends up with United constantly challenging for PL title.
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Depends on who does it.
The clock should start only when the midfield is seen to be being upgraded.
If we sell all our players and say bought all Bayern players and their coaches, we may be closer to the title. (Assuming City, Chelsea, Liverpool won’t sell any of their players to us, buying the whole Bayern could be more realistic)
I’m not disagreeing they are bang average, just seems you are picking them out for being English when you could also point out the fact we spent close to £160m on Fred, Lukaku and Lindelof.
Won't matter who is manager here with this board and the Glazers. They are full of promises and pulling the wool over our eyes.