Statement by Manchester United (more than a week ago at a fan forum event)

[jackal&hyde]

It's not a statement made after the West Ham game ffs...

ESPN are being cheeky here, this was some club spokesman speaking at a fan forum over a week ago, no statement has been put out.

They are not just cheeky they are drama merchants that are trying to manipulate fans emotions after a bad result to generate traffic. They should be banned as a source for anything football related. They don't even bother making a link or giving a date from when this was said, just a picture.

Gives people more opportunity to be angry i guess.

 

[Camilo]

Hahaha!!! Joke of a club. JOKE.

 

[golden_blunder]

It was from a spokesperson who participated in a fan forum more than a week ago. I mean, he's obviously going to say that when questioned by the fans. Pretty normal stuff that the press are gleefully spinning as a response to yesterday's defeat. It's not really an official statement being put out.

Ok that makes sense

 

[Camilo]

An official statement.. why? What a weird move.

Bankruptcy imminent.

 

[The Firestarter]

Surely thread title should be updated that it's not actually a club statement?

 

[arthurka]

Sorry but we are a sad sad bunch, we are a laughing stock .

 

[FootyGirl88]

If it was recent it would have been posted on the club's Twitter page.

 

[TrueRed79]

Is this actually for real? Like seriously, i'm not playing dumb?

 

[AshRK]

This shows that the club knows results are unacceptable and fans are getting irritated. That's a good thing in my opinion.

That's the first thing I also thought. Better to have some reaction than absolutely nothing.

 

[Catt]

Bankruptcy imminent.

It's not an official statement. And why would the club go bankrupt? Do you think before you write?

 

[Catt]

Is this actually for real? Like seriously, i'm not playing dumb?

No, not official statement.

 

[RedNed77]

If it was recent it would have been posted on the club's Twitter page.

Yep, it also doesn’t look like an official statement as it’s not in our usual format and is not signed off by anyone.

As for the contents, it’s not really anything you wouldn’t expect the club to say or anything we wouldn’t have surmised. Genuinely nothing to see here, move along.

 

[TrueRed79]

No, not official statement.

Officially the banter club for the ages.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

Most pointless statement ever, it’s basically saying nothing.

 

[Sanche7]

The feck

 

[clarkydaz]

I was raging at the state of the club but this has completley put my mind at rest

 

[Eric's Seagull]

Load of crap.

 

[bosnian_red]

We need a summer like Citys summer after Pep finished 4th. They got rid of a ton of players and recruited like crazy

We should have done it this summer but I do think we needed to clear out and make space first. Our wage bill cant have helped but we are not making it better either with Martial and Rashford on insane money

Yeah the clear out was needed, and we still need part of a clear out but its not that bad I think. Sending some of them out on loan shows that it is just hard for us to sell players because of past mistakes, but it is what it is. Yes we'll have struggles this season, but I simply can't say that last summer wasnt a positive one because it absolutely was. It just wasn't enough, but still far better than pretty much every summer post Sir Alex. Yes we still need a lot of investment, but heres the thing; every club always needs investment - each and every summer. We just need to play catch up for one summer and do it properly.

• Sign Sancho, or if not possible another true right winger who will be an automatic starter
• Sign Maddison, or if not possible another automatic starter as the attacking mid
• Sign a holding midfielder who will be an automatic starter
• Sign quality depth for the striker position to give us something else if needed (someone like Haller wouldve been very good IMO)

Yeah, that's £300m that we're looking at assuming nobody significant goes. But that's what is needed if we want to be a top team again. Top teams need basically £100m most summers to simply maintain their level and refresh certain parts. We need an extra £200m to get to where we should be, and then the standard refresh investments on top of that. Probably wouldnt be enough to get Ole into winning the title, but it would be enough to get us competitive, playing like a top team and in position for a future manager to actually turn us into title winners. So I dont have an issue with Ole being here overseeing this transition while we look for that top manager, because we know what needs to be done regardless of manager and who knows, it might all work out anyway.

 

[prateik]

ESPN can go feck themselves.

 

[Cassidy]

Yeah the clear out was needed, and we still need part of a clear out but its not that bad I think. Sending some of them out on loan shows that it is just hard for us to sell players because of past mistakes, but it is what it is. Yes we'll have struggles this season, but I simply can't say that last summer wasnt a positive one because it absolutely was. It just wasn't enough, but still far better than pretty much every summer post Sir Alex. Yes we still need a lot of investment, but heres the thing; every club always needs investment - each and every summer. We just need to play catch up for one summer and do it properly.

• Sign Sancho, or if not possible another true right winger who will be an automatic starter
• Sign Maddison, or if not possible another automatic starter as the attacking mid
• Sign a holding midfielder who will be an automatic starter
• Sign quality depth for the striker position to give us something else if needed (someone like Haller wouldve been very good IMO)

Yeah, that's £300m that we're looking at assuming nobody significant goes. But that's what is needed if we want to be a top team again. Top teams need basically £100m most summers to simply maintain their level and refresh certain parts. We need an extra £200m to get to where we should be, and then the standard refresh investments on top of that. Probably wouldnt be enough to get Ole into winning the title, but it would be enough to get us competitive, playing like a top team and in position for a future manager to actually turn us into title winners. So I dont have an issue with Ole being here overseeing this transition while we look for that top manager, because we know what needs to be done regardless of manager and who knows, it might all work out anyway.

Agree with most of that, although I think we may need more than 300m, depending on the assessment of some of the players we already have during this season.
For instance we probably need a LB (more than probably) we likely need another CM along with the holding mid (depending on the assessment of McTominay and Fred)

That is even before assessing whether Martial can be our main number 9 and weather Rashford and James are good enough options at LW

 

[BaneIsPain]

The biggest lie. Shame on them

 

[dev1l]

ESPN can go feck themselves.

Just boycott them...

 

[acnumber9]

I’m not sure what big difference it makes if it was an official statement or something given out at a fan forum. It’s the same manipulative propaganda either way and it contains the same buck passing.

 

[NotoriousISSY]

Oh no

 

[Vault Dweller]

Agree with most of that, although I think we may need more than 300m, depending on the assessment of some of the players we already have during this season.
For instance we probably need a LB (more than probably) we likely need another CM along with the holding mid (depending on the assessment of McTominay and Fred)

That is even before assessing whether Martial can be our main number 9 and weather Rashford and James are good enough options at LW

I think the clear out was absolutely needed, and the likes of Lukaku and Sanchez absolutely needed removing. We needed more in the summer but I also accept that we can't sign everyone we need in one window. Over the next 3 windows or so I think we are looking at a centre mid or two (at least one starting midfielder anway), a striker to add depth, a left back (Shaw will do this year but I think we need much better there), and a right-sided player.

Will cost a lot of money undoubtedly, but address those and I think we part of the way there. It's a shambles the now, and there are several issues I have with the squad and club, but I still think we will get there. It will just take a while, this is no quick or easy fix.

 

[freeurmind]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[MyOnlySolskjaer]

Is the spokesman Souness?

 

[JohnnyKills]

I wish i lived in Manchester so i could at least play my part in getting rid of Ed. There is nothing much we can do from abroad.
Match going fans should fill the stadium with banners for the owners to get rid of Ed.

or just not go.

 

[bosnian_red]

Agree with most of that, although I think we may need more than 300m, depending on the assessment of some of the players we already have during this season.
For instance we probably need a LB (more than probably) we likely need another CM along with the holding mid (depending on the assessment of McTominay and Fred)

That is even before assessing whether Martial can be our main number 9 and weather Rashford and James are good enough options at LW

Agree there, though in midfield the only for sure we need is a holding mid, and the 2nd mid is dependent on where we play Pogba. If he is best as the most advanced, then we sign a #8 like Saul, if he is best as the 8 then we sign Maddison to be the most advanced. So its 2 midfielders, just I go back and forth on what the 2nd midfielder needs to be. If Pogba goes then we need 3 new midfielders, though we'd understandably give McTominay the chance at being box to box where he is actually good IMO. Agree with left back, though again, it's a position that we won't look at for a few years until the midfield and right wing/rest of the attack are sorted, because he is decent at least, while Young/Rojo are ok as depth (and we have some promising youngsters).

Rashford Martial Sancho
Pogba Maddison
Holding mid
Shaw Maguire Lindelof Wan Bissaka
De Gea

James Greenwood Lingard
Mctominay Gomes
Fred
Young Jones Tuanzebe Dalot
Romero
​

I actually really like this group, and I'm confident at least 1 of Martial/Rashford will be fine as long term starters, and I'm confident with Greenwood too. So maybe Martial goes left, Greenwood goes up top and Rashford and James are squad players. On top of that, I do think we need striker depth as a more experienced option but we don't need a crazy big investment for that, would be a signing like Haller, Mandzukic a few years ago, Dzeko a few years ago, etc. After that, we transition Shaw into the 2nd choice left back and sign a new left back, or have one of the youth step up into a role or whatever. The 3 main investments are the 2 midfielders and the right winger, which seem blatantly obvious and at least for the #10 and the right winger there are 2 no brainer signings who are both young, talented, English and one even supposedly a United fan. There's no excuses for not getting them. The holding midfielder might be as vital as any position, and a Carrick type would be perfect, but we don't need someone younger for that necessarily. We have the youth there in Garner, we need a ready made player there.

 

[Marcelinho87]

I wish i lived in Manchester so i could at least play my part in getting rid of Ed. There is nothing much we can do from abroad.
Match going fans should fill the stadium with banners for the owners to get rid of Ed.

Why can't you see this is on the Glazers not Ed?

Ed is brilliant at the commercial side of things so why not move him there and get a football guy in doing that side? The reason is the owners don't give a toss about the football side so if they did magically fire Ed they would replace him with somebody cut from the same cloth.

 

[Brophs]

Might have to crack one out to that statement later. Pure filth.

 

[matt10000]

Actually I don't think we are as commercially successful as we should be at this point. We are actually declining from where he took us relative to other big clubs. Since he became CEO I do not believe he has improved us as much as he should have relative to other clubs

Ah didnt realise that...get rid then

 

[tenpoless]

Our spokesman is a flag. No wonder why We're in such shit that Jones was allowed to say "Getting sacked in the morning".

 

[Castia]

'Investment to the youth area in the past 5 years.....'

Is that Ed trying to get some credit for our squad having so many youth players around the first team

Good Lord....

December/Jan we'll start to hear talk of a football director coming in to excuse no spending in the winter window then around March they'll start dropping hints at big money getting spent to drum up season ticket sales.....same shit every year.

 

[momo83]

Fixed It.

Everyone that matters at the club, the Glazers and Ed, is focused on competing for and winning the most lucrative sponsorship deals and marketing contracts in world football.


To do that we have invested in the squad to ensure that we don’t fall outside of the top 6 and stay relevant.


At the same time we have realised that investing in our academy will save us more money then buying players and allow us to have more profitable assets on our books that we can later sell on for significant profit. We’d like to thank Chelsea for giving us this idea, as we previously tried and failed using the Real Madrid Galaticos model.


We are not looking at buying world class players because quite frankly they don’t want to come to us and if any were foolish enough to want to we wouldn’t want to pay.


We now realise that we cannot continue gaining world leading marketing and sponsorship deals based on our history and past success alone. The commercial deals of our rivals are catching up with us and in the instances of Real Madrid and Barca now surpass us. So we have looked at Liverpool and City and realise that there is a correlation between in the pitch success and the value of commercial deals. Therefore from now on we have decided that we will try to invest in players and that can bring us some football success, maybe top 4 and the odd cup here and there.

 

[Andersonson]

Most pointless statement ever, it’s basically saying nothing.

And its not a statement from the club, so....

Jesus christ guys. You buy everything thats posted online

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Much ado about nothing. Of course clubs make generic statements to assure fans and investors. (If it's actually real)

Anyway, I'm not bothered about our investment. It's far more important that we are a well run and managed football club than our spending being 150 or 250 million pounds.

 

[antohan]

Actually I don't think we are as commercially successful as we should be at this point. We are actually declining from where he took us relative to other big clubs. Since he became CEO I do not believe he has improved us as much as he should have relative to other clubs

He had a successful model that leveraged global appeal. The latter dwindles with our post-SAF form, so it's a double whammy effect of being crap and letting others copy your model, putting better football and results on the table, which in turn keeps the gap widening.

 

[Castia]

Biggest laughing stock in English football?

Mike Ashley and Newcastle look genius compared to our lot.

 

[Catt]

Mike Ashley and Newcastle look like genius compared to our lot.

Of course they don't.