Solskjaer and Woodwards plan - When will it start, and is there even one?

[Josep Dowling]

Anyone complaining about cost cutting or lack of spend, clearly hasn’t been paying attention. We have absolutely spunked money over the last 6 seasons. We have the second highest wage bill in the league, and in terms of quality we barely have the players for a top 6 finish. With a better manager we could scrape top 4.

I completely agree with the massive purge going on of playing staff. To change the culture, a lot of overpaid shit has to be moved on. It’s the only way to put the club back on a sustainable path and then recruit effectively. It’s literally the only area where Solskjær has performed well. Every transfer out and every transfer in has been good so far. We need some additions, but after the last 6 years we should ONLY be signing players that adhere to clearly defined recruitment parameters. There is evidence that these finally exist.

For the record, this is absolutely not an endorsement of the management/leadership on any level. But when something is being done right, you still have to acknowledge it.

Young, Jones, Rojo, Bailly, Matic, Lingard, Mata all have to go as they are not of the required quality to even be squad players.

Lindelof, Shaw, Pereira, Fred, James are squad player quality. Not starters. I would sell Shaw if a good offer came in.

The Pogba circus has to leave town. It’s detrimental to the club and culture.

Smalling has thrived under a new challenge and should be allowed to leave. People forget how poor he’s been the last 2 years. I’m delighted it’s working out for him elsewhere. But it didn’t work here.

Greenwood and Williams have earned spots challenging for first team places over the next couple of years. Tuanzebe is a player I highly rate, but has to stay injury free.

Martial is starting quality but is still on the fence between that and rotational roles due to his inconsistency and injury record.

We need a starting CB, LB, CDM, AM, and RW. We need another CF for depth. That’s 6 players, 5 of very high quality. This squad is desperately lacking leadership and experience of players in their prime. Lots of young, developing, high potential players, and a few over the hill (Mata, Matic, Young) Players in their peak years are mostly extremely mediocre at best (Rojo, Jones, Lingard etc). We need a few players in their peak years (Eriksen, Koulibaly for example) or about to enter their peak years (Van Dee Beek, Fernandes). This squad has the worst blend of experience since the 80s.

This would only make sense if we were bringing players in at the same time and actually having some strategy in the transfer market. Spending £130m on two players, well known in the Premier League is not smart business. Surely buying players with low buy-out clauses makes far more sense, like Tielemans being available for £40m or even Minamino for £8m? Both walk into our first 11. The likes of Van Der Beek and Ziyech have buy out clauses, yet we have no interest. I'm sure in the summer we will pursue Sancho and Maddision for 3 months and neither will come because they will be too expensive or realise what a mess this club is in.

You cannot simply get rid of all the deadwood and not replace them with anyone. If there was a strategy surely they would have let Jones' contract run down to get rid of one of the CBs we were so desperate to sell, then our best bench option would not be on loan right now.

We need to be realistic and stop wasting so much money on one player. Pogba, Lukaku and Maguire have cost us over £270m in the last 4 seasons and none of them have been a success. £270m! Think of the players we could have bought with that money if we had a decent scouting system in place.

 

[RightSaidFredTheRed]

Anyone complaining about cost cutting or lack of spend, clearly hasn’t been paying attention. We have absolutely spunked money over the last 6 seasons. We have the second highest wage bill in the league, and in terms of quality we barely have the players for a top 6 finish. With a better manager we could scrape top 4.

I completely agree with the massive purge going on of playing staff. To change the culture, a lot of overpaid shit has to be moved on. It’s the only way to put the club back on a sustainable path and then recruit effectively. It’s literally the only area where Solskjær has performed well. Every transfer out and every transfer in has been good so far. We need some additions, but after the last 6 years we should ONLY be signing players that adhere to clearly defined recruitment parameters. There is evidence that these finally exist.

For the record, this is absolutely not an endorsement of the management/leadership on any level. But when something is being done right, you still have to acknowledge it.

Young, Jones, Rojo, Bailly, Matic, Lingard, Mata all have to go as they are not of the required quality to even be squad players.

Lindelof, Shaw, Pereira, Fred, James are squad player quality. Not starters. I would sell Shaw if a good offer came in.

The Pogba circus has to leave town. It’s detrimental to the club and culture.

Smalling has thrived under a new challenge and should be allowed to leave. People forget how poor he’s been the last 2 years. I’m delighted it’s working out for him elsewhere. But it didn’t work here.

Greenwood and Williams have earned spots challenging for first team places over the next couple of years. Tuanzebe is a player I highly rate, but has to stay injury free.

Martial is starting quality but is still on the fence between that and rotational roles due to his inconsistency and injury record.

We need a starting CB, LB, CDM, AM, and RW. We need another CF for depth. That’s 6 players, 5 of very high quality. This squad is desperately lacking leadership and experience of players in their prime. Lots of young, developing, high potential players, and a few over the hill (Mata, Matic, Young) Players in their peak years are mostly extremely mediocre at best (Rojo, Jones, Lingard etc). We need a few players in their peak years (Eriksen, Koulibaly for example) or about to enter their peak years (Van Dee Beek, Fernandes). This squad has the worst blend of experience since the 80s.

I have to say this is a very good post. The club are slowly making steps to clear the trash and bringing in the right quality and potential based on recent moves.

The real problem is the speed of transisition is very slow and this is likely the result of over paid players being very difficult to shift given in many cases they seem to be paid 2-6x as much as they should be.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the board/ managers have got a lot wrong over a long time and it's easy to see why they are slowing down to make the right moves.

Someone equivalent to a Fred in the current window might seem like a no brainer, we need a midfielder, but £50m is a lot of money and he is hardly setting the world alight. Some may suggest he is one of our current better midfielders, but that says more about our midfield than him!

Buying these high cost high potential players is a massive gamble and inevitably the board are inclined to maximise that value by holding on to them as long as possible and often past the use by date! The alternative is buying new players and starting the risk again at massive cost.

When you break it down as an example
GK...DDG costs say £350k per week, £91m over 5 years. DDG might be more error prone recently, but a replacement could cost £70m+ and want £200k per week or £52m so £122m cost over the next 5 years.

There is might be more residual value in buying the new keeper who is presumably much younger, so that would easily eat up the £31m gap, but you are left weighing up a new gamble that could completely flop versus someone already in the squad with proven quality, albeit signs of decline.

At the lower end of quality you have someone like Jones on maybe £100k per week so £26m. You'll struggle to get any quality at the price without going for pure youngsters who are some way off delivering. An equivalent squad player might be £30m + wages. As much as i want him gone you can understand the boards point of view. Yes its a gamble on him being less injured, but one that has plenty of potential pay back.

In most cases its probably not impossible to understand the boards rationale for every decision. The problem is how few decisions seem to be going well.

We've gone for experienced players who have failed, potential players who have failed, promoted players who have not been good enough. We have tried a bit of everything, except maybe getting the top end of the market.

The problem with the top end of the market is the scales have become business breaking. Mbappe/ Kane/Salah might be what £200m. To fill your squad with guaranteed winning quality is unsustainable. 10-15 years ago it wasn't. Rooney, Ferdinand, Cole, etc were some of the best available whether potential or actual ability. These players would inevitably be in those top tiers. A 16 year old Rooney is now probably equivalent to £120m for Sancho!

And players this young don't always succeed. Remember Francis Jeffers, a fee of around £11m back in 2001 was a fair gamble with 18 goals in 49 for Everton. He left for £2.6m. A massive percentage loss. Whilst there is more money in football the ratios are seemingly distorted given the additional competition. More teams fighting for the best players. Getting it wrong can ruin a team for many years.

If Man Utd was an aspiring club spending big without the history to boot (think Blackburn and Leeds in previous times), we would be heading for bust. We couldn't keep spending our way out of it.

And this is the dilemma. Our debt increased recently, maybe dollar related, but it did. How much do the Glazers gamble on massive investments when it risks destabilizing the whole business.

I think we are in a period of taking stock. Stretch out the use of what we have, invest in long-term players with very high probability of delivering 7/10 performances each week. Wan Bisaka and Maguire might not be giving us as many 8-10/10s as we'd like, but they are rarely short of 7/10.

James is an investment potential who for age and price in todays market is equivalent to a free bet! If he turns into a anything approaching Sancho it's a major performance boost, at worst you can probably sell for what we brought him for and maybe even more for the experience.

The only risk to this is offering him a new contract on disproportionate salaries to his current ability at any point in time. This is where we often get it wrong and for all the criticism regarding Herrera this is maybe an example where we tried to hold our ground to avoid overpaying. It might have lost us some value, but if he declined we'd all be moaning that he is overpaid with only one or two good seasons. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

So what next...
It's tough to actually know. Players like Bruno Fernandes feel like a no brainer as statistically a beast, but if he didn't bring that to the Premiership (even Shevchenko couldn't) then you are left with another expensive piece of dead/ rotten wood for £60m plus whatever crazy salary is agreed.

You can see why the board thus consider how they can get Maddison. £80m+, might not have the same potential to bring as many 8-10/10 performances as a Fernandes might, but may rarely drop below a 7/10. The more 7/10s you have the more likely you get synergy benefits.

Currently we have a squad with too many players capable of moments of brilliance, but often poor/ average. We need more players who are frankly just reliable and good. The brilliance is then the cherry on a good squad. And generally if you have a team of 7/10s that by default turns into 8/10 because everyone is working in unison.

It's an interesting challenge, but one the board and Ole need to work harder, faster and more aggressive at. One or two right moves will easily pay back to ensure we have a chance at trophies and top 4. Its easy though to see why they don't seem to be doing things quickly.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

This would only make sense if we were bringing players in at the same time

You cannot simply get rid of all the deadwood and not replace them with anyone

That depends, doesn't it? If the club (Woodward and Ole) are willing to essentially write off an entire season in order to get the house in order, you absolutely can do the above.

It's the old argument: "Getting rid of X was right, but not replacing him was madness." That only holds true if the premise is that we're supposed to be there or thereabouts at all times.

As I've said before, if Woodward holds Ole to the "4th or bust" principle - Ole is very likely royally fecked (and also possibly incredibly naive), and the entire situation is just a huge mess. The idea that we're - slowly - moving in the right direction is 100% predicated on the club as a whole being willing and prepared to take some ugly hits in the short-term.

As for the money spent on individual players, that's a different discussion. But when assessing Maguire, in particular, you have to take several factors into consideration: his age, the likelihood of him being viable as part of a team that's a genuine contender (when other pieces are in place), his wages, etc. Everyone knows we overpaid for him - as we will likely do again if we go for "PL proven" players (but doing so may be the right call nonetheless).

 

[pascell]

You know for a fact they haven't.

That's the worrying thing

 

[Roboc7]

Woodward has presided over failure and decline and is still dishing out contracts to deadwood. Ole has only had one successful spell as a manager in Norway and is outdated and not even remotely qualified. It doesn’t matter whether they have a plan or not, it’s not going to be a success.

 

[simonhch]

So we have spunked loads of money in the last 6 seasons and the players have not performed. How many players that we signed are actually still here?

How much have we spent in the last 2 years? Considering we have sold alot as well.

So lets sell and cut the squad down the bear bones and not sign anyone because we have spent so much money in the past and nothing come of it?

You selectively took a paragraph out of context to make your point. I specifically said further on that reinforcements were required, and listed the positions where they were required.

 

[tjb]

There's a plan, and I understand that they are waiting to make the right buys as opposed to what was going on before, but they need to realize that we are in a spot where the level of talent we have currently is insufficient for any plan to be successful. At the start of the season, we were not strolling through games, but had a lot of control against the teams we were playing. Our main problem was that we were not creating chances. Pogba got injured and we stopped controlling these games, and we faced a new problem. Not only were we not able to create chances, but we now faced a situation where we could not control games due to an inability to retain possession, now consistently exposing some of Lindelof's defensive weaknesses. This was an issue of depth, but it also highlighted some of the deficiencies we had in the starting line up.

a. without Pogba, we had no source in midfield that was capable of creating the platform to retain possession, as none of our other midfielders are good off the ball or are capable passers - an issue of depth
b. with Pogba and moreso without him, we had no other creative source in the starting 11. Rashford and Martial are forwards as opposed to creative sources. And James is too young and unproven to be given such a responsibility. We do not have a starting level no. 10, no capable depth in that position, nor a starting level right winger.
c. Our defence still has weaknesses. Lindelof should not be a starter for us. Hopefully Tuanzebe can prove more capable.

 

[Steamboat Willy]

Ole could publically put pressure on the board by saying he’d like some new players, the squad is small and strung out and needs reinforcements.

instead he sits there pretending everything is fine and that only the top 2% of players in the world could improve this squad (massive BS).

It seems ole has been given reassurances and
He will stay in the job until Woodward decides, so he will be happy sitting with a 30% win ratio.

there’s no pressure for him to ensure the squads and results improve quickly.

Don’t you think he’s asking for better players already behind the lines? What would it help to do it in public, except making his own position more unsecure? Did it help José in any way? If he truely believes he’s the right man to bring back to club to former glory, then why, why in the world should he de facto give away his own job to someone else, who ain’t getting anyone either? It’s extremely naive to think it would help anything going public. Especially when about 1 billion fans already yells for new players to come, while being pissed of because of the board.

 

[Bilbo]

I have to say this is a very good post. The club are slowly making steps to clear the trash and bringing in the right quality and potential based on recent moves.

The real problem is the speed of transisition is very slow and this is likely the result of over paid players being very difficult to shift given in many cases they seem to be paid 2-6x as much as they should be.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the board/ managers have got a lot wrong over a long time and it's easy to see why they are slowing down to make the right moves.

Someone equivalent to a Fred in the current window might seem like a no brainer, we need a midfielder, but £50m is a lot of money and he is hardly setting the world alight. Some may suggest he is one of our current better midfielders, but that says more about our midfield than him!

Buying these high cost high potential players is a massive gamble and inevitably the board are inclined to maximise that value by holding on to them as long as possible and often past the use by date! The alternative is buying new players and starting the risk again at massive cost.

When you break it down as an example
GK...DDG costs say £350k per week, £91m over 5 years. DDG might be more error prone recently, but a replacement could cost £70m+ and want £200k per week or £52m so £122m cost over the next 5 years.

There is might be more residual value in buying the new keeper who is presumably much younger, so that would easily eat up the £31m gap, but you are left weighing up a new gamble that could completely flop versus someone already in the squad with proven quality, albeit signs of decline.

At the lower end of quality you have someone like Jones on maybe £100k per week so £26m. You'll struggle to get any quality at the price without going for pure youngsters who are some way off delivering. An equivalent squad player might be £30m + wages. As much as i want him gone you can understand the boards point of view. Yes its a gamble on him being less injured, but one that has plenty of potential pay back.

In most cases its probably not impossible to understand the boards rationale for every decision. The problem is how few decisions seem to be going well.

We've gone for experienced players who have failed, potential players who have failed, promoted players who have not been good enough. We have tried a bit of everything, except maybe getting the top end of the market.

The problem with the top end of the market is the scales have become business breaking. Mbappe/ Kane/Salah might be what £200m. To fill your squad with guaranteed winning quality is unsustainable. 10-15 years ago it wasn't. Rooney, Ferdinand, Cole, etc were some of the best available whether potential or actual ability. These players would inevitably be in those top tiers. A 16 year old Rooney is now probably equivalent to £120m for Sancho!

And players this young don't always succeed. Remember Francis Jeffers, a fee of around £11m back in 2001 was a fair gamble with 18 goals in 49 for Everton. He left for £2.6m. A massive percentage loss. Whilst there is more money in football the ratios are seemingly distorted given the additional competition. More teams fighting for the best players. Getting it wrong can ruin a team for many years.

If Man Utd was an aspiring club spending big without the history to boot (think Blackburn and Leeds in previous times), we would be heading for bust. We couldn't keep spending our way out of it.

And this is the dilemma. Our debt increased recently, maybe dollar related, but it did. How much do the Glazers gamble on massive investments when it risks destabilizing the whole business.

I think we are in a period of taking stock. Stretch out the use of what we have, invest in long-term players with very high probability of delivering 7/10 performances each week. Wan Bisaka and Maguire might not be giving us as many 8-10/10s as we'd like, but they are rarely short of 7/10.

James is an investment potential who for age and price in todays market is equivalent to a free bet! If he turns into a anything approaching Sancho it's a major performance boost, at worst you can probably sell for what we brought him for and maybe even more for the experience.

The only risk to this is offering him a new contract on disproportionate salaries to his current ability at any point in time. This is where we often get it wrong and for all the criticism regarding Herrera this is maybe an example where we tried to hold our ground to avoid overpaying. It might have lost us some value, but if he declined we'd all be moaning that he is overpaid with only one or two good seasons. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

So what next...
It's tough to actually know. Players like Bruno Fernandes feel like a no brainer as statistically a beast, but if he didn't bring that to the Premiership (even Shevchenko couldn't) then you are left with another expensive piece of dead/ rotten wood for £60m plus whatever crazy salary is agreed.

You can see why the board thus consider how they can get Maddison. £80m+, might not have the same potential to bring as many 8-10/10 performances as a Fernandes might, but may rarely drop below a 7/10. The more 7/10s you have the more likely you get synergy benefits.

Currently we have a squad with too many players capable of moments of brilliance, but often poor/ average. We need more players who are frankly just reliable and good. The brilliance is then the cherry on a good squad. And generally if you have a team of 7/10s that by default turns into 8/10 because everyone is working in unison.

It's an interesting challenge, but one the board and Ole need to work harder, faster and more aggressive at. One or two right moves will easily pay back to ensure we have a chance at trophies and top 4. Its easy though to see why they don't seem to be doing things quickly.

Good post. Well worth the time it took to write it. Particularly like the line about the club using this season to take stock. I feel exactly the same way. Get our ridiculous wage bill under control and make room for better players. If it takes only one lean season to correct the 6 years of bad recruitment then I'd extremely pleased.

IMO if we can get a top 4 finish or win the Europa with this squad it will be every bit as impressive as anything else that has been achieved since Ferguson

 

[Bilbo]

That depends, doesn't it? If the club (Woodward and Ole) are willing to essentially write off an entire season in order to get the house in order, you absolutely can do the above.

It's the old argument: "Getting rid of X was right, but not replacing him was madness." That only holds true if the premise is that we're supposed to be there or thereabouts at all times.

As I've said before, if Woodward holds Ole to the "4th or bust" principle - Ole is very likely royally fecked (and also possibly incredibly naive), and the entire situation is just a huge mess. The idea that we're - slowly - moving in the right direction is 100% predicated on the club as a whole being willing and prepared to take some ugly hits in the short-term.

As for the money spent on individual players, that's a different discussion. But when assessing Maguire, in particular, you have to take several factors into consideration: his age, the likelihood of him being viable as part of a team that's a genuine contender (when other pieces are in place), his wages, etc. Everyone knows we overpaid for him - as we will likely do again if we go for "PL proven" players (but doing so may be the right call nonetheless).

Good post

 

[ivaldo]

@simonhch and @Chesterlestreet nailed it.

 

[Tel074]

I personally will give up on any belief ive had all season if we do not buy players this month .
I've been totally Ole in and mostly because I want to believe we actually have a plan for once .

The summer wasn't perfect but we got rid of a fair few players and brought in 3 decent signings . So my belief was we would continue this in the January window but now I'm doubting we will sign anyone at all and if we don't then I seriously worry about our future

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

Ed's plan = get the season tickets renewed and pray Ole raises the mood and league standing slightly in preparation for his next conference call.

Ole's plan = continue playing basic outdated underdog football and string together some wins to keep his dream job.

Basically just mediocrity feeding mediocrity.

 

[Rbrown0806]

No it's not a press briefing by Woodward, just ask the people in the Van De Beek thread, even though the evidence of it happening multiple times over multiple seasons is right there.

It's January and we're paper thin, targets should have been "considered" months ago, if we're only considering them now then it's a complete joke.

The whole club has become a joke. £800m spent and we have ended up mostly with rubbish. The only plan is for the Glazers to maximise profits through marketing. I'm afraid Ole is way out of his depth, nice guy that he is. We should have identified and offered on players on Jan 1..but we haven't.. as usual.

 

[soapythecat]

I have to say this is a very good post. The club are slowly making steps to clear the trash and bringing in the right quality and potential based on recent moves.

The real problem is the speed of transisition is very slow and this is likely the result of over paid players being very difficult to shift given in many cases they seem to be paid 2-6x as much as they should be.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the board/ managers have got a lot wrong over a long time and it's easy to see why they are slowing down to make the right moves.

Someone equivalent to a Fred in the current window might seem like a no brainer, we need a midfielder, but £50m is a lot of money and he is hardly setting the world alight. Some may suggest he is one of our current better midfielders, but that says more about our midfield than him!

Buying these high cost high potential players is a massive gamble and inevitably the board are inclined to maximise that value by holding on to them as long as possible and often past the use by date! The alternative is buying new players and starting the risk again at massive cost.

When you break it down as an example
GK...DDG costs say £350k per week, £91m over 5 years. DDG might be more error prone recently, but a replacement could cost £70m+ and want £200k per week or £52m so £122m cost over the next 5 years.

There is might be more residual value in buying the new keeper who is presumably much younger, so that would easily eat up the £31m gap, but you are left weighing up a new gamble that could completely flop versus someone already in the squad with proven quality, albeit signs of decline.

At the lower end of quality you have someone like Jones on maybe £100k per week so £26m. You'll struggle to get any quality at the price without going for pure youngsters who are some way off delivering. An equivalent squad player might be £30m + wages. As much as i want him gone you can understand the boards point of view. Yes its a gamble on him being less injured, but one that has plenty of potential pay back.

In most cases its probably not impossible to understand the boards rationale for every decision. The problem is how few decisions seem to be going well.

We've gone for experienced players who have failed, potential players who have failed, promoted players who have not been good enough. We have tried a bit of everything, except maybe getting the top end of the market.

The problem with the top end of the market is the scales have become business breaking. Mbappe/ Kane/Salah might be what £200m. To fill your squad with guaranteed winning quality is unsustainable. 10-15 years ago it wasn't. Rooney, Ferdinand, Cole, etc were some of the best available whether potential or actual ability. These players would inevitably be in those top tiers. A 16 year old Rooney is now probably equivalent to £120m for Sancho!

And players this young don't always succeed. Remember Francis Jeffers, a fee of around £11m back in 2001 was a fair gamble with 18 goals in 49 for Everton. He left for £2.6m. A massive percentage loss. Whilst there is more money in football the ratios are seemingly distorted given the additional competition. More teams fighting for the best players. Getting it wrong can ruin a team for many years.

If Man Utd was an aspiring club spending big without the history to boot (think Blackburn and Leeds in previous times), we would be heading for bust. We couldn't keep spending our way out of it.

And this is the dilemma. Our debt increased recently, maybe dollar related, but it did. How much do the Glazers gamble on massive investments when it risks destabilizing the whole business.

I think we are in a period of taking stock. Stretch out the use of what we have, invest in long-term players with very high probability of delivering 7/10 performances each week. Wan Bisaka and Maguire might not be giving us as many 8-10/10s as we'd like, but they are rarely short of 7/10.

James is an investment potential who for age and price in todays market is equivalent to a free bet! If he turns into a anything approaching Sancho it's a major performance boost, at worst you can probably sell for what we brought him for and maybe even more for the experience.

The only risk to this is offering him a new contract on disproportionate salaries to his current ability at any point in time. This is where we often get it wrong and for all the criticism regarding Herrera this is maybe an example where we tried to hold our ground to avoid overpaying. It might have lost us some value, but if he declined we'd all be moaning that he is overpaid with only one or two good seasons. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

So what next...
It's tough to actually know. Players like Bruno Fernandes feel like a no brainer as statistically a beast, but if he didn't bring that to the Premiership (even Shevchenko couldn't) then you are left with another expensive piece of dead/ rotten wood for £60m plus whatever crazy salary is agreed.

You can see why the board thus consider how they can get Maddison. £80m+, might not have the same potential to bring as many 8-10/10 performances as a Fernandes might, but may rarely drop below a 7/10. The more 7/10s you have the more likely you get synergy benefits.

Currently we have a squad with too many players capable of moments of brilliance, but often poor/ average. We need more players who are frankly just reliable and good. The brilliance is then the cherry on a good squad. And generally if you have a team of 7/10s that by default turns into 8/10 because everyone is working in unison.

It's an interesting challenge, but one the board and Ole need to work harder, faster and more aggressive at. One or two right moves will easily pay back to ensure we have a chance at trophies and top 4. Its easy though to see why they don't seem to be doing things quickly.

Great post mate. It’s nice to read a constructive and sensible post.
I fear your maturity will be slaughtered by the usual crowd.

 

[Rbrown0806]

Ed's plan = get the season tickets renewed and pray Ole raises the mood and league standing slightly in preparation for his next conference call.

Ole's plan = continue playing basic outdated underdog football and string together some wins to keep his dream job.

Basically just mediocrity feeding mediocrity.

Spot on I'm afraid. All that's happening now is the club managing the expectations of the fans. Another few seasons and they will be trying to persuade us that we have done well to stay in the PL!

 

[Rbrown0806]

Woodward's plan is simple and obvious- lower expectations from the fanbase so much that finishing in the upper half of the table would be seen as a successful season. Invent some BS excuses like "3 year plan", "rebuilding", "United way" etc etc. Unfortunately, it works. A good portion of our fanbase is fully behind it. Ed probably can't believe how easy it was. With LVG and Jose there was a constant pressure from the media, our ex players, fans etc. With Ole it's completely different, everyone just spouts this rebuilding nonsense and it's fine. Just like Liverpool hit the jackpot with Klopp, Ed did with Ole.

Solksjaer's plan is from his own fantasy world and reminds me of the fantasy lineups our fans like to create. Young, pacy, fit team created purely to counter attack. If the opposition closes all the space for counters, like 90% of the teams in PL do, we are fecked. But it's okay. Winning is not our primary objective anyway.

Unfortunately you are dead right. A root and branch clear out has to start with the Glazers. The fans should stop going...let them play to an empty stadium for a few weeks/months. We aren't going to win anything this season anyway. The only way the Glazers will go is if they see their income draining...then they will sell to the highest bidder.

 

[Kostov]

Depending what fans think is the plan. Someone expecting that Woodward actually has a plan of running this football club as a successful footballing story, they are clearly fecking deluded. Ole is just out of his depth, his plan until his contract is up is probably starting Jesse Lingard repeatedly till he scores or assists a goal, he hasn’t got a clue about much else.

 

[Web of Bissaka]

There was a plan?

 

[Son]

I believe people are overreacting with the wage bill issue due to us still having to ship a few players out. It’s work in progress.

Once Mata, Lingard, Rojo, Jones, Pogba, Sanchez and Young have left it will probably look better. We made mistakes. Pogba and Sanchez are on giant contracts. I hope Pogba stays personally as he’s been worth the money more than not on the pitch.

Young has had a decent season so it’s not such a heinous act they’ve offered him a one year extension as cover even if he doesn’t want to take it. He is a better player than Shaw currently and maybe the club realises this but gave him reduced terms and a purely squad role.

The club needs to announce a few quality midfield signings soon as possible then in the summer bring in a top creative player to get the fans back on side.

This season is a write off but some of our fans are losing their minds that we got smashed by City with a midfield of Periera, Fred and Lingard starting. I blame our manager and board for that but it’s hardly surprising we got spanked.

A few things they have got right this season though...

 

[devilish]

Woodward's plan is to make as much money out of the club as possible. I can see him shift into selling the club at the highest price possible in their near future. Ole's plan is to stick to the job as long as possible. He knows that its only a matter of time that he's shown the door.

 

[devilish]

Why do people criticise Ole for transfer negotiations? These are not the times of Sir Alex Ferguson, who was like the Godfather in British football and could phone some clubs or players to convince them to join in just one conversation.

The problem lies with Woodward, Judge and all the other incompetent twats that have no idea what they have been doing since being appointed at the club. Absolute clowns, the lot of them.

He spent 130m on the new Steve Bruce and the full back whose useless when going forward. A less naive manager would have distributed the money to make sure that he wouldn't end up with a non existent CM and RW. Sure negotiations are made by Woodward and Judge, however given that we've got no DOF, its up to the manager to come out with less expensive options.

 

[DoomSlayer]

He spent 130m on the new Steve Bruce and the full back whose useless when going forward. A less naive manager would have distributed the money to make sure that he wouldn't end up with a non existent CM and RW. Sure negotiations are made by Woodward and Judge, however given that we've got no DOF, its up to the manager to come out with less expensive options.

I'm sure Ole went and negotiated those deals himself instead. It's not like we have a scouting department or a whole board of incompetent people, who have no idea what decisions to make. Another fault of Ole is he hasn't hired a DOF, as you mentioned, how dare he not get anyone in, Mourinho would have done that by now, like he has at Spurs.

 

[devilish]

I'm sure Ole went and negotiated those deals himself instead. It's not like we have a scouting department or a whole board of incompetent people, who have no idea what decisions to make. Another fault of Ole is he hasn't hired a DOF, as you mentioned, how dare he not get anyone in, Mourinho would have done that by now, like he has at Spurs.

I think that most of the fault lies straight on Woodward/Judge's laps. They negotiate the contracts, they refuse to hire a DOF, they came out with this idiotic 'let contracts run till the very end before negotiating BS' and they hired Ole in the first place. However Ole isn't out of fault here.

a- the way United are set up, he's the one giving the go ahead regarding staff. That include scouts.
b- he has a final say on all transfers and Ole made it quite clear that he won't be signing players he know nothing about.
c- if the manager ask for expensive players then you can have Marotta/VDS/Levy as CEO with Paratici/Campos/Rangnick as DOFs and Mitchell as head of recruitment. Those players will cost the club huge amount of money. Maguire and AWB were always going to cost the club alot of money.

For all we know the scouts might be doing their job only for Ole to turn these transfers down mainly because he doesn't know anything about those transfers. Which might explain why we only signed players from the UK and were only truly interested in either players everyone knew that were good (ex Dybala) or players whom Ole personally coached (Haaland).

 

[M16Red]

I think that most of the fault lies straight on Woodward/Judge's laps. They negotiate the contracts, they refuse to hire a DOF, they came out with this idiotic 'let contracts run till the very end before negotiating BS' and they hired Ole in the first place. However Ole isn't out of fault here.

a- the way United are set up, he's the one giving the go ahead regarding staff. That include scouts.
b- he has a final say on all transfers and Ole made it quite clear that he won't be signing players he know nothing about.
c- if the manager ask for expensive players then you can have Marotta/VDS/Levy as CEO with Paratici/Campos/Rangnick as DOFs and Mitchell as head of recruitment. Those players will cost the club huge amount of money. Maguire and AWB were always going to cost the club alot of money.

For all we know the scouts might be doing their job only for Ole to turn these transfers down mainly because he doesn't know anything about those transfers. Which might explain why we only signed players from the UK and were only truly interested in either players everyone knew that were good (ex Dybala) or players whom Ole personally coached (Haaland).

Bull, do you think Ole doesn't want to win and he knows we will not win with this squad being so thin. Jose and LVG have both spoke about the lack power in transfers - unfortunately woodward's measured on the bottom line not the quality on the pitch.

 

[DoomSlayer]

I think that most of the fault lies straight on Woodward/Judge's laps. They negotiate the contracts, they refuse to hire a DOF, they came out with this idiotic 'let contracts run till the very end before negotiating BS' and they hired Ole in the first place. However Ole isn't out of fault here.

a- the way United are set up, he's the one giving the go ahead regarding staff. That include scouts.
b- he has a final say on all transfers and Ole made it quite clear that he won't be signing players he know nothing about.
c- if the manager ask for expensive players then you can have Marotta/VDS/Levy as CEO with Paratici/Campos/Rangnick as DOFs and Mitchell as head of recruitment. Those players will cost the club huge amount of money. Maguire and AWB were always going to cost the club alot of money.

For all we know the scouts might be doing their job only for Ole to turn these transfers down mainly because he doesn't know anything about those transfers. Which might explain why we only signed players from the UK and were only truly interested in either players everyone knew that were good (ex Dybala) or players whom Ole personally coached (Haaland).

When you have a bunch of people, who are overseeing a 7th season in a row of total underachieving, there is no way in hell we should be blaming those below them.

Woodward and his employees at board level are the ones who make the final decisions on literally everything, all the responsibility lies with them and if they ever thought Ole can be like Sir Alex, they are even more incompetent and plainly stupid than I could imagine.

We need to stop saying Woodward, Judge are mainly at fault and then go on with a "but such and such", it doesn't work like that. Ole is not good enough for the long term, however he didn't appoint himself, he doesn't and can't make any decisions in terms of the financial part and negotiations. It's crazy to expect that and it shouldn't be how a big club works, unless we have a generational level of manager with loads of experience and connections all around the world. Mourinho supposedly had that, but he is past it, like you said it in another thread, and is a miserable feck in general, who can't deal with having to develop a side steadily, so instead opts for sacrificing the long term in favour of achieving some short-term success.

 

[devilish]

Bull, do you think Ole doesn't want to win and he knows we will not win with this squad being so thin. Jose and LVG have both spoke about the lack power in transfers - unfortunately woodward's measured on the bottom line not the quality on the pitch.

Read again what I said. I repeat, most of it is Woodward's fault. However United are in a mess. You can't expect the club to bring 6-7-8 players at 60m-80m a pop because Ole only wants players 'who understand what United is all about'. That's crazy.

 

[devilish]

When you have a bunch of people, who are overseeing a 7th season in a row of total underachieving, there is no way in hell we should be blaming those below them.

Woodward and his employees at board level are the ones who make the final decisions on literally everything, all the responsibility lies with them and if they ever thought Ole can be like Sir Alex, they are even more incompetent and plainly stupid than I could imagine.

We need to stop saying Woodward, Judge are mainly at fault and then go on with a "but such and such", it doesn't work like that. Ole is not good enough for the long term, however he didn't appoint himself, he doesn't and can't make any decisions in terms of the financial part and negotiations. It's crazy to expect that and it shouldn't be how a big club works, unless we have a generational level of manager with loads of experience and connections all around the world. Mourinho supposedly had that, but he is past it, like you said it in another thread, and is a miserable feck in general, who can't deal with having to develop a side steadily, so instead opts for sacrificing the long term in favour of achieving some short-term success.

As said, most of it is Woodward's fault. He was the guy who hired Ole in the first place just in the same way he hired LVG and Mou both of whom were past it and had either retired/are/were doing badly elsewhere. However one need to see the whole picture here. Its naive to think that some guy who got his arse spanked at Cardiff and who gave the go ahead for two decent but faaaar from WC players despite knowing it would cost us a bomb is the man to get United out of this mess. We can't have a manager whose got no plan B, who allowed the likes of Smalling and Lukaku to leave only to bring a slight improvement on the former on crazy money and who couldn't come out with an alternative to Longstaff in midfield is the right man. The guy is clueless as his boss is.

I'd tell you, if by some miracle the club gets a top football CEO and a top level DOF then Ole would be the first name to be shown the door.

 

[M16Red]

For all we know the scouts might be doing their job only for Ole to turn these transfers down mainly because he doesn't know anything about those transfers. Which might explain why we only signed players from the UK and were only truly interested in either players everyone knew that were good (ex Dybala) or players whom Ole personally coached (Haaland).

I was responding to this, I agree with you On Woodward.

But I don't think Ole wouldn't want new players, I think he does - as we all do.

 

[PoTMS]

Remember when we beat City and some sanctimonious smart ass opened up a thread - can you see the plan? No. There's no fecking plan. There's no future contingency. There's no evidence of actual coaching. There's nothing. United are in tatters.

 

[nothingman96]

I have to say this is a very good post. The club are slowly making steps to clear the trash and bringing in the right quality and potential based on recent moves.

The real problem is the speed of transisition is very slow and this is likely the result of over paid players being very difficult to shift given in many cases they seem to be paid 2-6x as much as they should be.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the board/ managers have got a lot wrong over a long time and it's easy to see why they are slowing down to make the right moves.

Someone equivalent to a Fred in the current window might seem like a no brainer, we need a midfielder, but £50m is a lot of money and he is hardly setting the world alight. Some may suggest he is one of our current better midfielders, but that says more about our midfield than him!

Buying these high cost high potential players is a massive gamble and inevitably the board are inclined to maximise that value by holding on to them as long as possible and often past the use by date! The alternative is buying new players and starting the risk again at massive cost.

When you break it down as an example
GK...DDG costs say £350k per week, £91m over 5 years. DDG might be more error prone recently, but a replacement could cost £70m+ and want £200k per week or £52m so £122m cost over the next 5 years.

There is might be more residual value in buying the new keeper who is presumably much younger, so that would easily eat up the £31m gap, but you are left weighing up a new gamble that could completely flop versus someone already in the squad with proven quality, albeit signs of decline.

At the lower end of quality you have someone like Jones on maybe £100k per week so £26m. You'll struggle to get any quality at the price without going for pure youngsters who are some way off delivering. An equivalent squad player might be £30m + wages. As much as i want him gone you can understand the boards point of view. Yes its a gamble on him being less injured, but one that has plenty of potential pay back.

In most cases its probably not impossible to understand the boards rationale for every decision. The problem is how few decisions seem to be going well.

We've gone for experienced players who have failed, potential players who have failed, promoted players who have not been good enough. We have tried a bit of everything, except maybe getting the top end of the market.

The problem with the top end of the market is the scales have become business breaking. Mbappe/ Kane/Salah might be what £200m. To fill your squad with guaranteed winning quality is unsustainable. 10-15 years ago it wasn't. Rooney, Ferdinand, Cole, etc were some of the best available whether potential or actual ability. These players would inevitably be in those top tiers. A 16 year old Rooney is now probably equivalent to £120m for Sancho!

And players this young don't always succeed. Remember Francis Jeffers, a fee of around £11m back in 2001 was a fair gamble with 18 goals in 49 for Everton. He left for £2.6m. A massive percentage loss. Whilst there is more money in football the ratios are seemingly distorted given the additional competition. More teams fighting for the best players. Getting it wrong can ruin a team for many years.

If Man Utd was an aspiring club spending big without the history to boot (think Blackburn and Leeds in previous times), we would be heading for bust. We couldn't keep spending our way out of it.

And this is the dilemma. Our debt increased recently, maybe dollar related, but it did. How much do the Glazers gamble on massive investments when it risks destabilizing the whole business.

I think we are in a period of taking stock. Stretch out the use of what we have, invest in long-term players with very high probability of delivering 7/10 performances each week. Wan Bisaka and Maguire might not be giving us as many 8-10/10s as we'd like, but they are rarely short of 7/10.

James is an investment potential who for age and price in todays market is equivalent to a free bet! If he turns into a anything approaching Sancho it's a major performance boost, at worst you can probably sell for what we brought him for and maybe even more for the experience.

The only risk to this is offering him a new contract on disproportionate salaries to his current ability at any point in time. This is where we often get it wrong and for all the criticism regarding Herrera this is maybe an example where we tried to hold our ground to avoid overpaying. It might have lost us some value, but if he declined we'd all be moaning that he is overpaid with only one or two good seasons. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

So what next...
It's tough to actually know. Players like Bruno Fernandes feel like a no brainer as statistically a beast, but if he didn't bring that to the Premiership (even Shevchenko couldn't) then you are left with another expensive piece of dead/ rotten wood for £60m plus whatever crazy salary is agreed.

You can see why the board thus consider how they can get Maddison. £80m+, might not have the same potential to bring as many 8-10/10 performances as a Fernandes might, but may rarely drop below a 7/10. The more 7/10s you have the more likely you get synergy benefits.

Currently we have a squad with too many players capable of moments of brilliance, but often poor/ average. We need more players who are frankly just reliable and good. The brilliance is then the cherry on a good squad. And generally if you have a team of 7/10s that by default turns into 8/10 because everyone is working in unison.

It's an interesting challenge, but one the board and Ole need to work harder, faster and more aggressive at. One or two right moves will easily pay back to ensure we have a chance at trophies and top 4. Its easy though to see why they don't seem to be doing things quickly.

Great post, insightful and constructive. This post should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to put his/her two cents in on this topic.

 

[DoomSlayer]

As said, most of it is Woodward's fault. He was the guy who hired Ole in the first place just in the same way he hired LVG and Mou both of whom were past it and had either retired/are/were doing badly elsewhere. However one need to see the whole picture here. Its naive to think that some guy who got his arse spanked at Cardiff and who gave the go ahead for two decent but faaaar from WC players despite knowing it would cost us a bomb is the man to get United out of this mess. We can't have a manager whose got no plan B, who allowed the likes of Smalling and Lukaku to leave only to bring a slight improvement on the former on crazy money and who couldn't come out with an alternative to Longstaff in midfield is the right man. The guy is clueless as his boss is.

I'd tell you, if by some miracle the club gets a top football CEO and a top level DOF then Ole would be the first name to be shown the door.

You are saying the same thing over and over again, even though I admitted Ole is most probably not going to achieve success in the long term. I do think he would get us top 4 with more competent footballing structure, but that's not enough at the end.

Whoever comes to manage us will not be able to bring any glory days back if we don't have massive changes on board level and restructure all of the existing departments.

 

[Massive Spanner]

What the hell are you lot talking about? We've already seen the plan, don't you remember?

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/do-you-see-the-plan-yet.452166/

 

[Rusholme Ruffian]

condescending mushroom eating consipracy theoretical fans many of you. Go to sleep. If someone have "no clue" it would be the lot of you sorry unintelligent fecks.

Oh look, another Norwegian.

 

[NYAS]

So basically, the conclusion of this thread is that people have made a presumption (likely only a coping mechanism) that there’s a general agreement within the club to waste this season if it means getting the squad cleaned out. Although most who have said this have also admitted that for this plan to be acceptable, major “right kind of player” investment is needed to plug the holes.

Well, let’s have this discussion again in the summer, when the above condition is inevitably not met. I’m sure the excuse will be something to do with it being a Euros summer and thus “difficult to get deals done”.

 

[devilish]

You are saying the same thing over and over again, even though I admitted Ole is most probably not going to achieve success in the long term. I do think he would get us top 4 with more competent footballing structure, but that's not enough at the end.

Whoever comes to manage us will not be able to bring any glory days back if we don't have massive changes on board level and restructure all of the existing departments.

I agree with your last sentence but I don't share your optimism about Ole. His coaching is miserable, he's got no plan B, his transfer acumen is very limited and on top of that he seem to appease the idea of giving job for the boys. I mean, someone like him whose got zero experience should be surrounding himself with experience and people who are clearly knowledgeable in the game and how the game is being run. Instead he still has Carrick and Mckenna beside him + he got Phelan whose a bit of a dinosaur these days. The guy is a championship level manager.

 

[devilish]

I was responding to this, I agree with you On Woodward.

But I don't think Ole wouldn't want new players, I think he does - as we all do.

of course he want new players. He may be out of depth at this level but he's not suffered a lobotomy.

 

[M16Red]

of course he want new players. He may be out of depth at this level but he's not suffered a lobotomy.

God I hate this season. I've been saying that for way to long.....

 

[devilish]

God I hate this season. I've been saying that for way to long.....

Most of my arguments go within this lines

Poster: Woodward is at fault
Me: Yes most of the fault lies in his laps but he isn't the one picking tactics etc. Ole is out of depth
Poster: Damn you..stop blaming it on Ole. It's not is fault that our board is incompetent
Me: As said, most of it is Woodward's fault but again, Ole is out of depth
Poster: You're pro Woodward then?
Me: No...listen most of it is Woodward's fault
Poster: Ah ok, I agree. As you said Ole is great.

 

[Lentwood]

OK, so my opinion on the whole debacle is as below, please stick with it. It's not intended as a defence of Ole (or Ed for that matter) and I also understand that this is just MY interpretation of what is currently going on at Manchester United.

The Sacking of Jose Mourinho

I'm going to start here because I personally believe that this was a bit of a watershed moment for the club. The noises that have come out of OT since Mourinho was fired are that their was no breakdown in the personal relationship between Ed and Jose and I personally believe that. I have always thought Jose was a fantastic manager and I've been a bit of a Jose fanboy over the years, reading pretty much any book I can find on him and his management style. I also agree with Jose that his 2nd-placed finish with Utd ranks as one of his greatest achievements. I staunchly defended that opinion at the time. HOWEVER. In Jose's third season at the club, for whatever reason, he seemed to lose sight of the objectives the club had laid out for him. Lest we forget, he had spent £400m in two seasons, on top of the money spend by LvG and Moyes. Nevertheless, Jose continued to demand further investment. Fine, that's all well and good, no issue with that. However, it's the targets Jose seemed to be interested in that were a concern, as was the total breakdown in his relationship with some of the players. Whether it was having to sit in 2nd and watch Pep be lauded as a genius at the top of the table or whether it was a genuine belief that we were close to a title-winning side, Jose pushed and pushed the Board to sign players like Matic, Perisic, Boateng, Willian etc....all good players but on the cusp of 30 and not likely to be investments that would take the club forward long-term. In doing so, he totally alienated much of the current squad, publicly criticising them when he didn't get what he wanted and pulling silly stunts like playing Herrera as part of a back three in a 0-3 home defeat against Tottenham. On top of all of this, the results on the pitch suffered and we were sat in 6th. So we had a manager who had alienated his players, who seemingly had a different vision for the club than the Board and who wasn't getting results on the pitch, it was only ever going to end one way!

The Appointment of Ole as 'Caretaker'

After the Mourinho debacle, I believe Ed learned a lesson - namely that the manager has to share the vision of the Club and the Board. Many members of this forum had misgivings about the appointment of Jose at the outset and pointed out that his management style was not likely to fit well with 'traditional' United values. Now, I firmly believe that when Ed gave Ole the job as caretaker, he fully intended it to be that and only that. I don't believe that at the time the decision was made, Ed had any intention of giving Ole the job full-time. Now, we all know what happened next. The United players, with the criticisms of Jose ringing in their ears and a burning desire to prove him wrong went on a winning run the like of which we haven't seen since the days of SAF. We were accused of beating just cannon-fodder but that simply wasn't true. We beat Arsenal away, Spurs away, PSG away and Chelsea away during this period, as well as getting a creditable home draw with Liverpool that ultimately cost them the title. I defy any fan on this forum to say that after the PSG win, they didn't warm to the idea of giving Ole a chance. With no other obvious replacements putting their hand in the air, why not give Ole a stab at the job permanently? However, I repeat, I don't think this was ever the plan at the outset.

The Permanent Appointment of Ole

We all now what happened next. Shortly after being appointed as permanent manager, results began to suffer, culminating in one of the most embarrassing, spineless performances in the club's History away at Everton (0-4) where the players simply threw in the towel. In his press conference after the game, Ole was rightly furious and stated that some of the squad that day would never play for United again. Once again, I believe that the fans fully-supported this. We had all called for a clear-out time and time again. We had a bloated, unbalanced, 'FrankenSquad' put together by five managers, which was desperately short on character and quality. Results didn't improve as the season drew to a close and I believe this would have strengthened Ole's resolve to re-build the squad, almost from scratch.

Summer 2019

The clear-out began. Fellaini has been allowed to leave in January. Herrera left on a free after we allegedly offered him a much-reduced salary. Valencia was allowed to leave on a free. Smalling and Sanchez went on loan to Italy. Lukaku was allowed to join Inter permanently on British transfer deadline day. Darmian was sold back to Italy. Now, we can debate whether the some of these players are better than what remains at the club i.e. Lukaku is a better striker ran now than Mason Greenwood, however, it's hard to argue that the vast majority of fans weren't happy to see these players go, with the exception maybe of Herrera who tended to split opinion.

As for in's, the club's primary signings were Maguire and AWB for a combined £130m, with another £15m spent on Dan James, a young winger from the Championship. Again, we can debate the individual performances of these players but I think it's hard to argue that they haven't all come in and played their part.

Now, the Football Manager and FIFA players on here don't seem to understand here that they are getting exactly what they asked for. I keep reading posts like 'why weren't these players replaced?' or 'why did Ole let these players go if we didn't have replacements lined-up?'. Well, my friends, I believe you misunderstand how football actually works, in reality, as opposed to clicking buttons on a screen and buying/selling a player in 5 minutes. There are a HUGE number of moving parts involved in ANY deal, in or out. I can't be bothered to go into them all here, but it was ALWAYS going to be the case that it was going to have to get worse before it could truly get better. Had we lined up this season having just added Maguire to last year's squad, I'm sure we would be currently sat in 4th now, however, is that really what we want as fans? Do we want a gradual one in, one out policy to maintain our current position as borderline top four candidates? I'd argue not. I'm totally happy with a bit of short-term pain for long-term gain. Let's clear the decks and then work to bring in the right players, rather than panic buying every fancy sounding but mediocre player available on the market. Many fans seem not to understand this, but the criteria for a Manchester Utd player isn't 'better than Lingard', or 'better than Pereira', it's Scholes, Van Nistelrooy, Ronaldo, Rooney, Ferdinand etc....and unfortunately this calibre of player does not become available that often and certainly will not be cheap!

Season 2019/2020

Of course, there have been some very tough times this year.....but I'd argue not necessarily more tough than five out of six seasons post-SAF. We've got a very young starting XI and not only that, once you scratch the surface and we pick up one or two injuries, we're bringing in teenagers! I don't think posters understand how HUGE that step-up is for a teenager or player in their early 20s to carry the weight and expectations of a team like Manchester United. Remember, when the likes of Giggs, Beckham and Scholes came through, they were surrounded by Keane, Cantona, Bruce, Schmeichel, Pallister, Irwin etc...we've nowhere near the calibre of player or leader in this current squad. We've got McTominay (23), Rashford (22), Martial (24), Greenwood (18), Williams (18), AWB (21) and James (22) all playing regularly this season, supported by the likes of Chong, Tuanzebe and Gomes....it's hardly a surprise we're inconsistent is it! Add to that the fact that our one truly world class player has barely kicked a ball all season AND we went on a particularly dreadful run whilst Martial was injured for two months and I really don't think it's been anywhere near bad enough to justify all of the doom and gloom. Let me ask posters this, where Mane, Salah, Henderson, Van Dijk etc....all complete players at 22/23....no, of course they weren't. Players usually hit their prime at about 26-28 and we have very few players actually in that sort of age bracket and at the right standard.

Reasons for Optimism

I've listed seven players above who could feasibly form part of this Manchester Utd squad of 23 for seven/eight seasons+ now. Add in Dean Henderson, Tuanzebe, plus the fact that Lindelöf and Maguire are only 26 and you can see that we're now talking about having to bring in quality in each window, as opposed to quantity. Pogba has barely kicked a ball this season, we will improve significantly for either a) getting him into the team regularly or b) selling him and spending that money on another quality player. Remember, with all the turmoil and all the problems we've had, we're still 5th, above Spurs and Arsenal, and whatever anybody says we still have pulling power when it comes to attracting quality players. My message to the fans would be forget January, the club are right, it's a poor time to sign players. Let's allow Woodward and Ole the Summer of 2020 before we really judge whether last summer really was a turning point or just n attempt to cut-costs, as some would have us believe (makes zero sense to me but that's a tangent I'm not willing to go off on). IF Woodward and the team can bring in three/four quality players next Summer then we're really not that far off. Now, obviously on the flip-side, IF we only add one or two signings, fans probably have a right to be very unhappy, as this is clearly not enough. I really do think we're not doing any harm by just letting this play out, cut through all the hyperbole, spin and panic and we're in a much, much better position than some would have us believe. It just needs patience, and when I say patience, I don't mean one or two games unfortunately, I mean one or two seasons. That's the reality after making so many bad decisions over the years and spunking so much cash on dross and mercenaries