The breaking of Manchester United

rcoobc

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Nearly a decade after SAF left, we're back with a near fresh start. At these times of change it's common to start thinking about what was and what could have been.

Was there a moment for you the broke us completely from the succeses of the previous two decades?

For me, I keep coming back to the idea that no one is bigger than the club. It's something that Sir Alex said over and over and why he was happy to ship out stars that he didn't think fit the club. But one person thought that they were bigger than the club, and that was SAF himself. Actually he thought that all managers were in a way. When he left, he wanted a new person to create a new Manchester United with new staff. As if the structure that had been built over the last 20 years didn't belong to United, it belonged to Sir Alex.

Weird thought but keep coming back to it.

Anyway, what was your moment that broke United for you?
 

Desert Eagle

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The Breaking began the day of the Strike on Shayol Ghul, when Lews Therin Telamon and his Hundred Companions along with a legion of soldiers attacked Shayol Ghul in an effort to seal the Bore into the Dark Ones' prison. They succeeded, but in the last moment the Dark One managed to taint saidin and sixty-eight companions along with Lews Therin went instantly mad.
 

Rocknrolla69er

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When the Glazers appointed investment bankers with little football knowledge or strategy to run a football club.
 

Grylte

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The Breaking began the day of the Strike on Shayol Ghul, when Lews Therin Telamon and his Hundred Companions along with a legion of soldiers attacked Shayol Ghul in an effort to seal the Bore into the Dark Ones' prison. They succeeded, but in the last moment the Dark One managed to taint saidin and sixty-eight companions along with Lews Therin went instantly mad.
The wheel weaves as the wheel wills…
 

Drizzle

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We were always going to decline post-SAF with the Glazers and Woodward in charge. That said, the appointment of an absolute nobody to replace Fergie was the point at which a potentially manageable decline became a fall off a cliff.
 

Tavern in the town

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The Breaking began the day of the Strike on Shayol Ghul, when Lews Therin Telamon and his Hundred Companions along with a legion of soldiers attacked Shayol Ghul in an effort to seal the Bore into the Dark Ones' prison. They succeeded, but in the last moment the Dark One managed to taint saidin and sixty-eight companions along with Lews Therin went instantly mad.
Beautiful reference.
 

Eddy_JukeZ

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I've been broken a few times since SAF. No really defining moment. There's just too many awful moments.

And SAF pretty much was Manchester United. Once he left, it's no wonder the empire completely fell apart. He was the club in every possible manner. The club foolishly(and maybe even SAF) thought it could be replicated with the Moyes hiring and then we lost our aura.
 

Red the Bear

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Not a single moment but a culmination of a series of events, by the time lvg got sacked i accepted this reality.
 

diarm

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The Breaking began the day of the Strike on Shayol Ghul, when Lews Therin Telamon and his Hundred Companions along with a legion of soldiers attacked Shayol Ghul in an effort to seal the Bore into the Dark Ones' prison. They succeeded, but in the last moment the Dark One managed to taint saidin and sixty-eight companions along with Lews Therin went instantly mad.
Woodward is Padan Fain and Murtough is Thom Merrilin.
 

youmeletsfly

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United ain't broken, it's just a business not performing on all fronts.

I love the club the same I did during SAF's tenure and I find it a bit stupid and idiotic that most of you fans are complaining non stop about everything. What happened to unconditionally supporting your team even if it's losing or not?
Bitching about every fecking thing that went wrong during the last 10 years is not doing anyone any good.

1. Focus on the future, it looks good.
2. Stop making dumb as feck threads. You're slowly turning the CAF into RAWK.
 

rcoobc

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The Breaking began the day of the Strike on Shayol Ghul, when Lews Therin Telamon and his Hundred Companions along with a legion of soldiers attacked Shayol Ghul in an effort to seal the Bore into the Dark Ones' prison. They succeeded, but in the last moment the Dark One managed to taint saidin and sixty-eight companions along with Lews Therin went instantly mad.
Blood and ashes
 

rcoobc

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United ain't broken, it's just a business not performing on all fronts.

I love the club the same I did during SAF's tenure and I find it a bit stupid and idiotic that most of you fans are complaining non stop about everything. What happened to unconditionally supporting your team even if it's losing or not?
Bitching about every fecking thing that went wrong during the last 10 years is not doing anyone any good.

1. Focus on the future, it looks good.
2. Stop making dumb as feck threads. You're slowly turning the CAF into RAWK.
We are RAWK. We're the Liverpool of my youth. Delusions of grandeur.
 

MattyLT

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Not one particular moment, but rather the wear and tear of continuously, over time, allowing players to ram their collective cocks up the club's anus, without so much as offering a reach-around. That's all fun and games for a short while, but eventually there will be cracks, pops, aneurysms, and even leakage. Hopefully, Ten Hag will be able to tighten things up, but I suspect he'll sooner rather than later get eaten by player power as well.
 

ryansgirl

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For me, I keep coming back to the idea that no one is bigger than the club. It's something that Sir Alex said over and over and why he was happy to ship out stars that he didn't think fit the club. But one person thought that they were bigger than the club, and that was SAF himself. Actually he thought that all managers were in a way. When he left, he wanted a new person to create a new Manchester United with new staff. As if the structure that had been built over the last 20 years didn't belong to United, it belonged to Sir Alex.

Weird thought but keep coming back to it.
Anyway, what was your moment that broke United for you?
Some inaccuracies above. Sir Alex actually advised Moyes to keep key staff members that were nonetheless kicked out by the new manager but David Moyes confused being his own man to earn respect from the start with making changes for the sake of showing he was in charge, just like he did stupid micromanaging during his tenure to show the same.

Except all that proved he was not a manager equipped to deal with the key responsibilities of a Manchester United manager. Making silly rules for players who were proven winners such as the no chips rule showed the Moyes mentality.

Sir Alex didn`t think he was `bigger than the club` - he thought that player power was anathema to a successful club in the real sense and a club with as big a tradition and image as Manchester United. He proved that this was correct when he was appointed and proceeded to show the team that their bad habits were no longer to be tolerated and that being a club that won cup competition silver at times and went on good cup runs was the opposite of what Manchester United was about.

I remember the cries and banners of `Fergie Out` but luckily those running United kept their nerve and look what happened. He didn`t want Moyes `to make a new Manchester United`. He thought Moyes represented continuity and good, solid values of the kind United embraced.

I see why he thought that of Moyes but the real issue was Moyes` lack of success at the top - he was great with Everton but had never done what Sir Alex did with Aberdeen prior to being United manager nor turned around a situation at a club to win the title and then go on to more.
 

Fortitude

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The Breaking began the day of the Strike on Shayol Ghul, when Lews Therin Telamon and his Hundred Companions along with a legion of soldiers attacked Shayol Ghul in an effort to seal the Bore into the Dark Ones' prison. They succeeded, but in the last moment the Dark One managed to taint saidin and sixty-eight companions along with Lews Therin went instantly mad.
Well said.
 

ryansgirl

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United ain't broken, it's just a business not performing on all fronts.

I love the club the same I did during SAF's tenure and I find it a bit stupid and idiotic that most of you fans are complaining non stop about everything. What happened to unconditionally supporting your team even if it's losing or not?
Bitching about every fecking thing that went wrong during the last 10 years is not doing anyone any good.

1. Focus on the future, it looks good.
2. Stop making dumb as feck threads. You're slowly turning the CAF into RAWK.
Can you imagine the likes of so many of those posters on here witnessing United`s freefall after Sir Matt retired or the instability under Tommy Docherty and Big Ron? They would be even more hysterical than now. As for the first years under the then Alex Ferguson, some of these posters would have gone to the blue end of town.
 

Revaulx

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Nearly a decade after SAF left, we're back with a near fresh start. At these times of change it's common to start thinking about what was and what could have been.

Was there a moment for you the broke us completely from the succeses of the previous two decades?

For me, I keep coming back to the idea that no one is bigger than the club. It's something that Sir Alex said over and over and why he was happy to ship out stars that he didn't think fit the club. But one person thought that they were bigger than the club, and that was SAF himself. Actually he thought that all managers were in a way. When he left, he wanted a new person to create a new Manchester United with new staff. As if the structure that had been built over the last 20 years didn't belong to United, it belonged to Sir Alex.

Weird thought but keep coming back to it.

Anyway, what was your moment that broke United for you?
Did he?

The view at the time was that he’d recommended Moyes because he believed that Moyes was the one to carry on the SAF tradition. He was fully expecting Moyes to retain the existing staff, and was surprised and disappointed when he didn’t.
 

Offside

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Fresh start my arse. Will be the same shite stinking it up next year.
 

Revaulx

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Can you imagine the likes of so many of those posters on here witnessing United`s freefall after Sir Matt retired or the instability under Tommy Docherty and Big Ron? They would be even more hysterical than now. As for the first years under the then Alex Ferguson, some of these posters would have gone to the blue end of town.
Well you obviously weren’t around at the time. Just because social media wasn’t there for people to bellyache on doesn’t mean there was an absence of bellyaching.

I was 13 when I started to be a regular at OT, a couple of weeks before Wilf got the push. The support was riven between the “he’s crap; sack him and get Sir Matt back in” camp and the “yeah it’s been disappointing but he’s inherited an ageing and declining squad and hasn’t been backed with signings at all” lot.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with mulling over the past’s mistakes. Where I do agree with you is the negativity of so many posters in other threads dismissing the changes that are taking place since Richard Arnold took over from Woodward as “just PR”. Which is clearly no more “PR” than the appointment of The Doc a few months short of 50 years ago.
 

ryansgirl

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Well you obviously weren’t around at the time. Just because social media wasn’t there for people to bellyache on doesn’t mean there was an absence of bellyaching.

I was 13 when I started to be a regular at OT, a couple of weeks before Wilf got the push. The support was riven between the “he’s crap; sack him and get Sir Matt back in” camp and the “yeah it’s been disappointing but he’s inherited an ageing and declining squad and hasn’t been backed with signings at all” lot.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with mulling over the past’s mistakes. Where I do agree with you is the negativity of so many posters in other threads dismissing the changes that are taking place since Richard Arnold took over from Woodward as “just PR”. Which is clearly no more “PR” than the appointment of The Doc a few months short of 50 years ago.
You do go back! What was it really like to witness the decline of United into a relegated team? I`m guessing that back then the Premiership was such a different entity that while United`s fall was a bad time it wasn`t seen as the end of the world the way things go now in the ballooned mega salaries/corporate focused Premier League.
 

ryansgirl

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Probably when I saw Ole crying on camera to be honest.
Damn, when did that happen? I feel for Ole and was with him until that dreadful final when players were run ragged while others were kept on the bench when suitable subtitutions and tactical changes could have been made. He had also made those mistakes in some other games but that final epitomised Ole`s tactical limitations.
 

Murder on Zidane's Floor

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Damn, when did that happen? I feel for Ole and was with him until that dreadful final when players were run ragged while others were kept on the bench when suitable subtitutions and tactical changes could have been made. He had also made those mistakes in some other games but that final epitomised Ole`s tactical limitations.
His goodbye interview.
 

Revaulx

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You do go back! What was it really like to witness the decline of United into a relegated team? I`m guessing that back then the Premiership was such a different entity that while United`s fall was a bad time it wasn`t seen as the end of the world the way things go now in the ballooned mega salaries/corporate focused Premier League.
As with most things it wasn't that straightforward. I was only 10 and very much a TV-only fan when we won the European Cup in '68, so my time as a "real" fan began when it was obvious to everyone that the team was well on the slide. Just like now, there were those who just blamed the manager, and others to whom it was obvious that Sir Matt's continuing interference and the owners' unwillingness to invest were the real culprits. Sounds familiar, eh?

The relegation generated mixed feelings as well. The Doc came in just before Christmas '72, took an axe to the squad and kept us up at the end of the season by way of turning us into a team of cloggers. We started the following season in a similar vein, but some tine in early '74 started to play really nice football and put together a decent string of results. Sadly the goals dried up in the last few games and sure enough we were relegated. The nice football and much improved performances definitely created a feeling of optimism for the future though, which considerably softened the blow.

The wonderful football and good results picked up again immediately at the start of the following season, and visiting a load of new grounds in the Second Division was also tremendous fun for the legions of travelling hooligans - sorry: fans - so we got over it all pretty quickly :)
 

Revaulx

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Damn, when did that happen? I feel for Ole and was with him until that dreadful final when players were run ragged while others were kept on the bench when suitable subtitutions and tactical changes could have been made. He had also made those mistakes in some other games but that final epitomised Ole`s tactical limitations.
Yeah. My hope, having suffered in the previous season's semis, was that he'd learn from these mistakes. My fears that he hadn't were fully realised in the Europa final.
 

CarbonStoolBites

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When Moyes was appointed.
I knew he would be an absolute disaster, bizarre that people who know far more about football than me, let alone the greatest manager of all time didn’t.
But then again, I would have never thought we would be here where we are now almost a decade down the line.
 

Bobski

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The Breaking began the day of the Strike on Shayol Ghul, when Lews Therin Telamon and his Hundred Companions along with a legion of soldiers attacked Shayol Ghul in an effort to seal the Bore into the Dark Ones' prison. They succeeded, but in the last moment the Dark One managed to taint saidin and sixty-eight companions along with Lews Therin went instantly mad.
My Brothers...


2 sentences giving more back story than the Amazon shit-show.
 

Irrational.

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We were broken the summer after Fergie left and we fecked about only to buy Fellaini for more than his time-sensitive release cause.
 

IWat

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The LVG press conferences was the time I think we became a bit of a laughing stock.
 

Frank Grimes

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2017/18 we finished second and reached the FA Cup final but it was obvious that city were levels above us. Mourinho wanted 4 players in that summer and all we got was Matic and Dalot. We lost Carrick, Fellaini and Blind from the squad.
Mourinho wanted Martial out and Perisic in. Perisic would have been a much better player for Lukaku and United in general.

I also think Mourinho had fallen out with Pogba at this stage over his insistence to do his injury rehabilitation in the USA the previous season. After our disappointing transfer window the writing was on the wall for Mourinho, despite him reaching 3 finals in previous 2 seasons.

When Mourinho got fired after a bad start to 18/19 it was the least surprising thing ever, what happened next was when I knew we were fecked. In comes Solskjaer in the middle of our easiest run of the season. Cardiff, Huddersfield and the mighty Bournemouth were put to the sword. Then the jammy win over PSG had the fans in a frenzy and it was obvious our dumb board were going to give him the job on a full time basis. The end of the season finished disastrously but Ole was at the wheel.
Our worst decision since Ferguson retirement was given Solskjaer the job imo, especially when our competitors had Klopp and Guardiola.
 

Skills

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If it all works out under Ten Hag, we should rename ourselves as Manchester Reunited
 

youmeletsfly

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Can you imagine the likes of so many of those posters on here witnessing United`s freefall after Sir Matt retired or the instability under Tommy Docherty and Big Ron? They would be even more hysterical than now. As for the first years under the then Alex Ferguson, some of these posters would have gone to the blue end of town.
I know, you'll be seeing them next year calling "ETH out" after he finishes 5th.
 

leon24

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The moment when Moyes said we must aspire to be like Man City in an interview
 

Revaulx

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I see why he thought that of Moyes but the real issue was Moyes` lack of success at the top - he was great with Everton but had never done what Sir Alex did with Aberdeen prior to being United manager nor turned around a situation at a club to win the title and then go on to more.
From the moment rumours of his appointment emerged I was certain that Moyes was as much a Glazer choice as SAF's. Here was a manager who had consistently got Everton to fifth or sixth while spending relatively little and was good at identifying and nurturing cheap signings. I reckoned their thinking was that if that was what he could achieve at Everton, with a bit more to spend he'd consistently make second to fourth at United; a sufficient target for the Glazers.

I was absolutely not expecting that his first season would be a total car crash, and frankly was glad that it was. I was confidently expecting him to finish about third, everyone to accept that third was a decent result given the age of the squad (which would have been fair enough), and expectations to have been permanently lowered.

It was the signing of Mata, surely the most unMoyesey player available, that made me realise that Ed Woodward was playing Director of Football and that Moyes didn't stand a chance. I had hoped that a manager with a bigger top-level reputation would be able to push Woodward back into his box, but neither LvG nor Jose succeeded. I was reasonably happy to see Ole given a go, but also certain he was doomed to fail, as by then I realised we didn't stand a chance while Woodward was in charge.