The fanbase's role in the erosion of standards

[Shinjch]

Could be argued that fans have allowed standards to drop by letting the players off too lightly for too long and thinking a new manager will fix everything with another clean slate for players and a culture that continues to disappoint.

The manager will go by the end of the season, which is fair. So many players need to go too before we have a squad that can compete for top honours year in and year out.

 

[Lay]

Remember when Moyes received a standing ovation when he was losing every week

 

[black country red]

It’s called supporting your team god forbid we ever get to that stupid waving of the white handkerchiefs

 

[NewGlory]

feck off

+1

The OP should be nominated for the most masochistic post of the year award

 

[tjb]

Not just that, the glazers don’t give a flying f**k what the fans think.

You have to have a low IQ to think that United fans have been anyway responsible for anything relating to the United managers.

I didn't subscribe to this, until this season. Other fanbases would have consistently booed, waved white flags and indicated displeasure. All ours have publicly done is blame players. This long descent into disaster this season is proof of a passive fanbase. Madrid fans would have forced action in November. Ours have needed to see everything fall apart. This is not to say that ultimately it doesn't fall on ownership, who should have made a move earlier. There's just simply no pressure at this club. Hopefully the new structures helps in this regard.

 

[spiriticon]

The worst fan excuse is "It's not the managers fault, these group of players are 6th position quality at best"

I've seen this nonsense excuse rolled out for Ole and ETH now. In both cases, these managers finished in the top 4 in the previous season.

 

[Red Regista]

I think the fans are letting the players and manager off the hook far too easily.

It's Manchester United and we don't boo players, but this lot is a bad joke, my daughter's under 7 team has more passion and hunger than these p****
And Ten Hag should be informed that he's horribly out of his depth. If the owners/ directors can't do it, it's up to the fans to let him know imo.

 

[Gabriel Djemba-Bebe]

It’s called supporting your team god forbid we ever get to that stupid waving of the white handkerchiefs

This.

 

[Salford_Red83]

It’s called supporting your team god forbid we ever get to that stupid waving of the white handkerchiefs

God forbid we're ever as successful and dominant as Real Madrid!!

 

[Salford_Red83]

I think the fans are letting the players and manager off the hook far too easily.

It's Manchester United and we don't boo players, but this lot is a bad joke, my daughter's under 7 team has more passion and hunger than these p****
And Ten Hag should be informed that he's horribly out of his depth. If the owners/ directors can't do it, it's up to the fans to let him know imo.

Why?

Why should we not?

Why should we not demand higher standards?

Yes we ARE Manchester United, one of the biggest clubs in the world with a legacy of dominance and winning. Why have we suddenly forgotten all of that? Why does it take over a decade of mediocroty for fans to maybe start voicing their concerns and start booing?

What makes us so special that "we don't boo"?

It's pretentious nonsense and we should be demanding more from these players, that manager, the owner, the club. Everyone.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

It’s called supporting your team god forbid we ever get to that stupid waving of the white handkerchiefs

The biggest club in the world with twice as many European Cups as the next team? Yes, God forbid we aspire to be more like them.

 

[Stadjer]

The worst fan excuse is "It's not the managers fault, these group of players are 6th position quality at best"

I've seen this nonsense excuse rolled out for Ole and ETH now. In both cases, these managers finished in the top 4 in the previous season.

That 4th place could have been overachieving from our team and/or other teams underachieving (Liverpool last year). Other teams improving (Spurs, Villa) or what not. Just claiming this squad isnt 6th plac quality because they did finish higher last year is lazy.

How many of our players would be starters for Spurs, Liverpool and Aston Villa? Really not as much as you would think. This is a squad that would fight for place 3 till 6 and when important players are injured the quality of the squad becomes even less.

 

[Rightnr]

It plays a part for sure, irrespective of terrible owners but United fans just want to complain and keep filling the Glazers' pockets.

 

[AndySmith1990]

It’s called supporting your team god forbid we ever get to that stupid waving of the white handkerchiefs

Yeah we'd prefer to sit on our high horses sucking ourselves off for being better fans than everyone else

 

[Bilbo]

I often wondered at what point the cafe would finally disappear up it's own arse

 

[Red in STL]

It’s called supporting your team god forbid we ever get to that stupid waving of the white handkerchiefs

+1 - some of our fans are so entitled

 

[Mike Smalling]

What are fans supposed to do differently that would still be supporting the team, and how would it help?

We’re not gonna make McTominay a good midfielder or fix Rashfords seeming mental difficulties by booing them.

The erosion of the standards starts with the ownership.

 

[Utd heap]

I called Rashford a lazy nobhead at Wembley today so I look forward to our title run next year on the back of it.

 

[MancunianAngels]

I think the fans are letting the players and manager off the hook far too easily.

It's Manchester United and we don't boo players, but this lot is a bad joke, my daughter's under 7 team has more passion and hunger than these p****
And Ten Hag should be informed that he's horribly out of his depth. If the owners/ directors can't do it, it's up to the fans to let him know imo.

We booed the manager that won us our first trophy post Fergie in 2016.

 

[horsechoker]

I called Rashford a lazy nobhead at Wembley

Ooh you're hard

 

[Salford_Red83]

+1 - some of our fans are so entitled

What a patheticly ridiculous take

 

[CloneMC16]

It’s called supporting your team god forbid we ever get to that stupid waving of the white handkerchiefs

I definitely wouldn't want to be a fan of a club that has standards and wins the Champions League every other season. That sounds terrible.

We still have fans that want Ten Hag to stay. The Glazers never needed to do anything when the fans have been mostly content with watching garbage on a biweekly basis.

 

[BenitoSTARR]

Booooooooooooooo.

Right that’s top 4 sorted.

Booooooooooooo.

Title challenge.

Boooooooooooo.

Title won.

Booooooooooo.

Domestic treble.

Booooooooooooo.

Quadruple.

BOOOOOOOOOOOO.

feck me Shaw is fully fit.

 

[Ole'sgunnarwin]

We're the most patient fans in England. Too patient. No other manager of a big club survives the car crash of this season.

People will point to the matchday thread, I've seen it way worse in other clubs.

 

[Gabriel Djemba-Bebe]

What are fans supposed to do differently that would still be supporting the team, and how would it help?

We’re not gonna make McTominay a good midfielder or fix Rashfords seeming mental difficulties by booing them.

The erosion of the standards starts with the ownership.

It feels odd that this even needs explaining to people. People on here seem to think that if we had booed our players after every bad performance since Fergie retired then we would have a couple more league titles and Champions League trophies to show for it. The lack of ambition comes from the parasitical owners and filters down. The fans really don't have that much of an influence on setting standards unfortunately.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

The problem is our rebuilds, they are painstakingly fecking slow.
For each manager even two Summer windows into the job, they are faced with having to play far too many of the previous blokes purchases. Today for example, 6 of the outfield players were there under Ole, and 2 players are from our youth setup.
We then end up giving managers at least two full seasons yet often fire them anyway when the rebuild is nowhere near complete and because the rebuild has always been solely tailored for the current incumbent, we start at square one again after 2-3 years.

Compare that to Pep/City and his first two transfer windows.

Stones
Sane
Jesus
Gundogan
Bravo
Nolito
Laporte
Mendy
Walker
Bernardo Silva
Ederson
Danilo
Douglas Luiz

We’ll be much better when we appreciate how far behind we are, sell some saleable assets and give a manager 2 huge windows full of pure quality that the club (DoF) have chosen for their vision of football.

If a manager can’t get the players playing then with a full new squad of quality, you don’t need wait any longer to fire the fella.

 

[spiriticon]

That 4th place could have been overachieving from our team and/or other teams underachieving (Liverpool last year). Other teams improving (Spurs, Villa) or what not. Just claiming this squad isnt 6th plac quality because they did finish higher last year is lazy.

How many of our players would be starters for Spurs, Liverpool and Aston Villa? Really not as much as you would think. This is a squad that would fight for place 3 till 6 and when important players are injured the quality of the squad becomes even less.

The fact that they have done it before means that finishing higher isn't unprecedented. Yes you could argue who's overachieving and underacheiving around us, but that argument also applies to us. We are very much underachieving this year, and also in Ole's last year.

We must do better.

 

[Yagami]

The thing is, match going fans will happily abuse our players. I remember going to games where the things you'd hear about Nani - one of our best players at the time - would make the much ridiculed match day threads on here tame and coherent.

The manager always gets away Scott free, though. With Sir Alex, totally understandable. Everyone else? Baffles me.

Even Arsenal have higher standards with their managers than us.

 

[Red in STL]

What a patheticly ridiculous take

And why is that?

 

[hobbers]

The problem is our rebuilds, they are painstakingly fecking slow.
For each manager even two Summer windows into the job, they are faced with having to play far too many of the previous blokes purchases. Today for example, 6 of the outfield players were there under Ole, and 2 players are from our youth setup.

Largely because the Glazers and their bankers settled on the system of making no more than 3 signings in a summer, and never working on more than one deal at a time. Something that has to change because it's criminally inefficient.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

This thread is proof a good number of our fans have straight up lost the plot and live in utter delusion.

 

[Red in STL]

This thread is proof a good number of our fans have straight up lost the plot and live in utter delusion.

How on earth did it take you this long to figure that out

 

[mu4c_20le]

This thread is proof a good number of our fans have straight up lost the plot and live in utter delusion.

Some of them clearly don't follow all our games, even if they've been supporting the club a long time.

 

[simonhch]

Yes, our fans are very passive. It’s a quality that we have a supportive fan base that isn’t completely knee jerk - at least in the stadium - but there’s also an acceptance of utter mediocrity that creates an environment that doesn’t demand excellence. There’s no cauldron of pressure to succeed here, like there are at some top clubs. That’s not even debatable. Some see it as a quality, others as a deficiency. That part can be debated all day, but what is true is that players and managers have been supported well by match going fans, long past their poor performances deserved it. That has its own rewards and curses.

In Fergie’s time, the insistence on excellence in everything, came from within the management structure. Next season it’s going to have to come from the new technical and executive structure. Wherever it comes from, it needs to come from somewhere. You can’t have a passive and supportive fan base, and a passive and supportive management structure. Somebody needs to take accountability for exacting the highest of standards.

Personally, I’ve always liked having a supportive fan base, but once we had endless shite on the field and endless shite in the dugout and in the executive suite, it ceased to work as a benefit for us.

I will say that I can’t abide this repetitive insistence every year of needing 7, 8, 9 etc new players. It’s just a way of shifting the blame for failure onto whoever fits that person’s personal agenda. The failure is collective and systemic, and to change that, you need reform at the very top. Specifically, a top class coach, and a focus, intelligent and driven football structure. With that in place, two to four astute signings and getting the best out of what we already have, should be more than enough to have us competing again. Any structure or coach who can’t accomplish that, under those parameters, has no business being here. There are teams competing with much lesser squads than the one we have. A great coach should always be able to make a team much greater than the sum of its parts, and the response to failure can’t always be that we need to replace all the players. That’s just lazy bollocks.

 

[Freak]

It’s called supporting your team god forbid we ever get to that stupid waving of the white handkerchiefs

goodness me - that’s a silly example to compare to considering how successful that club is.

 

[Salford_Red83]

And why is that?

It perfectly encapsulates this threads argument.

The fan base is "so entitled" so we shouldn't complain and be happy with our lot? Which leads to lower standards from the fans, to a point where some are still saying that our worst manager post Fergie should be give more time??

It's so annoying when we just get told we've been "spoiled" and should be "happy with where we're at".

No we shouldn't. We should be demanding more!

 

[CloneMC16]

It perfectly encapsulates this threads argument.

The fan base is "so entitled" so we shouldn't complain and be happy with our lot? Which leads to lower standards from the fans, to a point where some are still saying that our worst manager post Fergie should be give more time??

It's so annoying when we just get told we've been "spoiled" and should be "happy with where we're at".

No we shouldn't. We should be demanding more!

It is actually crazy to me that a certain selection of fans believe that we're entitled for wanting better. We're in 7th place. Probably should be lower based on our actual performance levels. Only 47 goals scored in 32 games. Everybody above us has scored 20+ more. Out of the CL in the group stage. Not even just that, but finishing last in a group that should have been an easy 2nd place finish. Out of the EFL in the 3rd round.

Emery took over a Villa side that were in relegation form under Gerrard. He has them in 4th place in 18 months. They're also in the SF of the Conference League. Postecoglou went to Spurs and instantly changed their style of play. They finished last season 8th. They're now 5th. They have the same amount of points they ended last season with, with 6 games to go.

Wanting Ten Hag sacked for terrible performances doesn't make us entitled. Why should we give the benefit of the doubt to a manager that has taken us backwards? I don't understand how any fan can watch this and not be demanding change.

 

[Fallon d'Floor]

Yes, our fans are very passive. It’s a quality that we have a supportive fan base that isn’t completely knee jerk - at least in the stadium - but there’s also an acceptance of utter mediocrity that creates an environment that doesn’t demand excellence. There’s no cauldron of pressure to succeed here, like there are at some top clubs. That’s not even debatable. Some see it as a quality, others as a deficiency. That part can be debated all day, but what is true is that players and managers have been supported well by match going fans, long past their poor performances deserved it. That has its own rewards and curses.

In Fergie’s time, the insistence on excellence in everything, came from within the management structure. Next season it’s going to have to come from the new technical and executive structure. Wherever it comes from, it needs to come from somewhere. You can’t have a passive and supportive fan base, and a passive and supportive management structure. Somebody needs to take accountability for exacting the highest of standards.

Personally, I’ve always liked having a supportive fan base, but once we had endless shite on the field and endless shite in the dugout and in the executive suite, it ceased to work as a benefit for us.

I will say that I can’t abide this repetitive insistence every year of needing 7, 8, 9 etc new players. It’s just a way of shifting the blame for failure onto whoever fits that person’s personal agenda. The failure is collective and systemic, and to change that, you need reform at the very top. Specifically, a top class coach, and a focus, intelligent and driven football structure. With that in place, two to four astute signings and getting the best out of what we already have, should be more than enough to have us competing again. Any structure or coach who can’t accomplish that, under those parameters, has no business being here. There are teams competing with much lesser squads than the one we have. A great coach should always be able to make a team much greater than the sum of its parts, and the response to failure can’t always be that we need to replace all the players. That’s just lazy bollocks.

Great post. I fully agree with your first 3 paragraphs in particular.

Tbh, some of the regular match going fans have a big presence on Twitter/X and I can't stand their views. Scott Paterson, Paul Manc Born and Bred, etc.

Some fans are holier than though and have smugness/arrogance when talking to others. There's a real top red mentality.

 

[golden_blunder]

This thread is proof a good number of our fans have straight up lost the plot and live in utter delusion.

A lot of todays fans are football manager addicts who think things are easily resolved by spending millions in one window

 

[tomaldinho1]

A lot of todays fans are football manager addicts who think things are easily resolved by spending millions in one window

Yeah but why don't we just sign Mbappe, Bellingham and Palmer with the funds raised from selling McT, Maguire and Lindelof?