The general attitude of our players

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LoneStar

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Another thing that just crossed my mind. What would these players make of someone like Ten Haag if we hired him? He’s a promising coach with loads of potential, but he’s not coached in the big leagues (no disrespect to Ajax). He’s definitely no Sir AF or Pep in terms of pedigree. Would the players respond to him, or would we see the same moaning and complaining starting after a few weeks?
 

devips

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The squad is the highest paid in the league by a large margin, so maybe 2nd, 3rd and a few Semi-Finals isn't actually good enough. It blew the EL Final, and the moment we got 1st last season around Christmas it all fell to pieces and we finished miles behind City. They're bottlers, as soon as fans were allowed back into stadiums form dried up real quick.

There are plenty of sides that have finished 2nd or 3rd and never went on to win anything because they weren't actually good enough to win it. This was the year this side was supposed to take that step-up and deliver something and they've failed spectacularly. Jose's side finished 2nd with more points than we did last year and no one said that squad was good enough and no one should be moved on.
There had been no cup victories, nor league winning for these players, I concede. But that does not mean they have suddenly turned worthless. That is my point.
 

giggsziniho

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I think it’s plain to see that we can no longer only blame the manager. The players have displayed a poor attitude for a number of years. For me the very fact that they have to be told to run more is a disgrace. One thing that they should be doing at a bare minimum is give there all, we can argue about if they good enough but the lack of effort which is apparent it unforgivable.
 

Escobar

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Hopefully we can kick out the black sheeps and install a better mentality next season. Embarrassing
 

IrishRedDevil

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These poor babies. Imagine having to work until 5pm. The horror.
Those useless feckers :mad: Seriously the first player that complains should have their contract terminated. Why have they not been working until 5pm before now? All these years of failure they have been finishing early?

No doubt they want to be home before dark to watch tiktok videos.
 
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Shane88

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A nice cleansing fire in the summer hopefully.
I think it’s plain to see that we can no longer only blame the manager. The players have displayed a poor attitude for a number of years. For me the very fact that they have to be told to run more is a disgrace. One thing that they should be doing at a bare minimum is give there all, we can argue about if they good enough but the lack of effort which is apparent it unforgivable.
This is it.

They see what a foundation of hard work can do for teams like City and Liverpool and they think "Nah, not arsed." and they get away with it because Old Trafford coddles them.
 

Cloud7

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I am beginning to hate our players. It takes a lot for me to do that but this bunch is really coming close
I’m getting there myself, which takes a lot. Ole did a lot wrong and should have been tossed out a long time before he did, but since then we’ve seen a new manager come in and there’s been nothing. There’s barely been any more effort shown. There isn’t any drive or desire to try to salvage what has been a period of severe underperformance.

The bare minimum you ask for at a time like this is effort and we aren’t getting it on the field. Going by the manager’s words after the matches, and the way he looked during the match, this isn’t what he wants either.
 

Skills

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I think one of the challenges we've got is teaching players to just make runs to drag their man out of position. It's okay to not get the ball passed to you whenever you make a run, if it helps someone else get in a better position.
 

sparx99

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I think one of the challenges we've got is teaching players to just make runs to drag their man out of position. It's okay to not get the ball passed to you whenever you make a run, if it helps someone else get in a better position.
Selfless play. We mess up an awful lot of attacking positions because we fail to pass to a teammate in a better position. Ronaldo has always been this way so I think we all kind of expect it (and tbf he has earned the right to be greedy).

But Rashford and Greenwood etc all need to cherish assists. We simply don’t have enough players who sacrifice for the team. We always had them over the years in and around the squad.
 

goptun

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It was explained some years ago how Woodward's narcissistic tendency to overpay and to bring in narcissists like himself would lead to this, in particular the covert desperation that leads to posturing and the problems that in turn creates.

Protip: Narcissism has very little to do with the bratty/me-me thing most people think of it as. Those are extreme cases; think of them like a very large wart or a huge tumor that anyone can see. The vast majority of narcissists that one has to worry about are usually quite popular, very adept at using social leverage to get more people to 'like' them. They want to elevate themselves - through force or education etc. - to a position where they can reinforce their self-image via others and, crucially, be in a position to belittle others, as this also serves that primary drive of self-image reinforcement.

Again, one of the easier ways to spot one is that they'll be 'magnanimous' to people who kiss up to them, cultivate a benevolent image (note that they're of 'higher' social status in this construct; this is absolutely crucial) but also routinely engage in belittling behavior - i.e. even something as 'innocuous' as calling others 'twats' - but done routinely, and always coupled with that 'I'm in a position to do so' element, or behavior such as indirectly dissing their club - and then have their cultivated acolytes defend them. This "benevolent/'higher status' figure who has to put up with the twats" behavior is one of the easier signs to spot.

It happens everywhere, but in an 'elite-level' organization, you run into several particular foibles stemming off from their drive to say the right/popular thing whilst in reality their main drive is only that self-image reinforcement. One of the main foibles in such an environment is that these people are 99.9999% of the time less-capable than their would-be peers. To the average person, it's "oh wow, that person's way smarter than me/a financial wizard surely (s)he belongs at the top." But to the actual people at the top, these people are painfully clearly recognizable as second-rate or just that one tiny-but-important smidgen short of first-rate.

A good majority of the time, they simply can't get in due to this. But if one ever does manage to get into an elite organization - such as in Woodward/Pogba's case - it can cause issues like we're seeing now.

Anyways, tl;dr, it's impossible to create an environment where it's "a privilege to play for the club" when you overpay. This poisons even those with the proper mentality, steering them towards 'everyone else is doing it, feck it.'

Posted years ago about how De Gea's contract was quite possibly the result of a dressing-room culture war with De Gea feeling a need to 'unseat' Pogba as top-earner to try and steer the club mentality in a better direction. (Yes, it's a messed-up position for someone to have to be in, to want to stand up for what's right, but then paradoxically having to 'make more money' to try and quell the bad influence of a posturing non-alpha. Remember, narcissists use their 'higher status' in subtly negative ways. 'Normal' people don't think like this and particularly don't like the negative aspects, and have a hard time dealing with it as a result.)
Fantastic post!
 

The Hacker

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Should introduce performance related pay. For every good value add decision and outcome on the fields you get a bump. For anything thats thoughtless and negative to the team and the play, you get nothing or docked.

They don’t seem motivated by winning, climbing the table or anything we would think. So, take their guaranteed cash away. See if that makes them wake up.
 

hobbers

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Ole builds a squad overflowing with "United DNA".

Also a squad that gets upset when you try and make them train in the dark.

Squad needs properly gutted. And the only cultural reset we need is on our wage structure.

Hopefully we're at least guaranteed to get rid of Pogba and Lingard in the near future. Then we get started turfing out the other no marks on hyperinflated wages like Martial and Henderson.
 
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SER19

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If you think of some of the goals we've conceded in recent years. The regular careless maguire touch, the cowardly pogba handball v west ham, the de gea stubbed toe v arsenal. There are plenty more examples if i put my mind to it i think we could get a truly embarrassing list that speaks to players who simply don't have that edge of the best
 

Hoof the ball

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You know what's more infuriating about all this?

That for 30 minutes vs. Palace we had the best press I've seen from a United team in about a decade! In a fecking decade! And since? Possibly the worst I've seen from them. How is it possible to go from such a brilliant instance of it to not at all?

It's not as if Ralf is telling them to not do it.

Ralf: More of what you did against Palace, please!

The squad:
 

Ali Dia

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Looks like we are only kind of pregnant…

Also that’s where Klopp and Edwards have wiped the floor with us and everyone else. They found competitors first and foremost that don’t seem to need the reassurance of league leading wages to feel “valued”

I hope Ralf pulls the carpet from underneath these guys. We need warriors sprinkled with a little bit of quality and not the other way around
 

Hoof the ball

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Also, all this reminds me of the time when those cnuts refused to check Louis van Gaal's emails with the video analysis in them for each player. That pissed me right off because look now; everyone is doing video analysis review. LvG was instituting that back in 2014/15! Because of some pampered players, the club couldn't modernise under LvG as it could have, and we wouldn't be so far behind the curve now.
 

That_Bloke

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The problem is from the management, rewarding average players with huge contracts, what do you expect?

Not forgetting Ole's inability to instill discipline for the 3years , he massaged their dramatic ego,
Look at the likes of Rashford, he behaves as if he is "undroppable" irrespective of his crap performances lately, look at his body language when he looses the ball.
Where went fergie's hairdryer

Ralf got a lot to do , not just in tactics area but also in man-management aspect
Not trying to whine but Conte would have enforced passion , discipline and energy into this squad.
Ralf looks soft
Rangnick doesn't look soft, he pretty much has his hands tied as he's just the interim manager, so it's an uphill battle to get the players to put in a shift. If they don't want to, there's nothing much he can do this season, especially with no real leadership in the dressing room. It will take more than a couple of weeks to undo what's been allowed in years and even if he fails to do so, I'm confident that he'll do his job upstairs.

First and foremost is to find (or buy) a leader who can reign in the dressing room, secondly to get rid asap of the players who want to leave as they're understandably much likely to create a rift. Same for players who are surplus to requirements and should've never been extended in the first time. It also seems to be that a number of players are also dissatisfied with their game time, so they need to know in no uncertain terms where they stand. Ole's allegedly false promises to these players have certainly played a big role in the latest dressing room atmosphere.

Whilst I personally think that RR was a great appointment, I think that you missed out on Conté, because even if he'd fallen out with the board later, he'd have drilled that lot into shape and wouldn't have taken shite from anyone in the dressing room. You'll absolutely need a (permanent) manager with a very strong personality, some trophies in his cabinet, and the full backing of of the board, to clear the dressing room out and undo the rent seeking behaviour that has festered since SAF left. The players need to be reminded what it means to play for one of the biggest clubs in the world, but it can only come when the board considers anything else as title challenge and a couple of trophies in season as a failure. Not top 4 and CL participation BS.
 
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sugar_kane

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The dressing room clique theory is interesting, I actually think there is one large central clique of mainly Spanish/Portuguese/Brazilian players who make up the majority of the dressing room and the remaining players are all individuals on the fringe.

The first group clearly exists as you can see it from all the social media interactions, meals out etc.

Because this is such a large, seemingly inclusive group it doesn't seem that damaging a scenario but the issue is it contains a lot of players who weren’t getting a chance under Ole (Telles, Bailly, Dalot, Mata) this likely created a strong sense of disharmony and unhappiness in the core group.

On the fringes you then have the individuals like Ronaldo, Pogba, Martial, most of the English players, who just treat playing for United as a well paying job rather than feeling part of a community - this also likely feeds into a weird fractured feel in the dressing room.

Just a theory of course, but it's clear things aren't right behind the scenes.
 

PoTMS

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All I can say is I thank God we didn't play Brighton and Brentford when we did. Both teams are exactly the type of team we'd normally struggle against in the best of times and in the current circumstances would've badly exposed us.
 

hobbers

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The dressing room clique theory is interesting, I actually think there is one large central clique of mainly Spanish/Portuguese/Brazilian players who make up the majority of the dressing room and the remaining players are all individuals on the fringe.

The first group clearly exists as you can see it from all the social media interactions, meals out etc.

Because this is such a large, seemingly inclusive group it doesn't seem that damaging a scenario but the issue is it contains a lot of players who weren’t getting a chance under Ole (Telles, Bailly, Dalot, Mata) this likely created a strong sense of disharmony and unhappiness in the core group.

On the fringes you then have the individuals like Ronaldo, Pogba, Martial, most of the English players, who just treat playing for United as a well paying job rather than feeling part of a community - this also likely feeds into a weird fractured feel in the dressing room.

Just a theory of course, but it's clear things aren't right behind the scenes.
I don't think there are any big cliques, there are lots of little ones. Bruno/Fred/Telles/Dalot. Mata/De Gea. Rashford/Lingard.

Our key players don't seem to like each other. Ronaldo, Bruno, Maguire and De Gea. Or at least, they're not keen on each other and they all hate Maguire. And Ronaldo/Bruno seem to have a real contempt growing for Rashford/Greenwood.
 

Glorio

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I don't think there are any big cliques, there are lots of little ones. Bruno/Fred/Telles/Dalot. Mata/De Gea. Rashford/Lingard.

Our key players don't seem to like each other. Ronaldo, Bruno, Maguire and De Gea. Or at least, they're not keen on each other and they all hate Maguire. And Ronaldo/Bruno seem to have a real contempt growing for Rashford/Greenwood.
I disagree that there's any real dislike considering Bruno annoyingly tried to find Rashford every time he made a run, no matter how difficult and unlikely it was to come off. I say this having been of the opinion prior to the last game that Bruno and all portuguese players have a mental block when it come to Ronaldo. He's their idol and they seem to try and find him regardless of other options - it limits Portugal and seems to be limiting us too. While the long balls annoyed me, it was refreshing to see Bruno actively looking to feed Rashford with Ronaldo on the pitch.

For his part, you could say Ronaldo is more accommodating of Bruno than the rest of the players, period, he death stares anyone else. And of course no one questions Ronaldo himself.

Off point:
Something I always found weird - really random too. When Martial used to play, even when he stunk up the place, no one ever seemed to give him an earful.
 

GazTheLegend

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I think one of the challenges we've got is teaching players to just make runs to drag their man out of position. It's okay to not get the ball passed to you whenever you make a run, if it helps someone else get in a better position.
Ronaldo does this 30x a game. Our players are just too shit to see it.


This thread is a good example of what's wrong and quite how fecked we actually are. Fred, Rashford etc simply get the weight wrong on passes over and over and over and over again.
 

Ixion

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This thread is a good example of what's wrong and quite how fecked we actually are. Fred, Rashford etc simply get the weight wrong on passes over and over and over and over again.
Rashford himself makes runs like that every single game, its why he gets on the ball so often to lose it. Cavani got picked out for a couple of chances in 45 minutes too, it's a low bar if that is Ronaldo's highlight reel from the game.
 

Yorkeontop

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They've had free reign for so long playing that improvised style, it's understandably made some of them less capable of actually applying themselves to a set of instructions. Throw in a run a patchy form and you get a rather frustrated footballer.
 

MartinRed

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The attitude of the players is the same as the attitude of the board.They don't give a feck about what is happening on the pitch.
 

Rocknrolla69er

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Ronaldo does this 30x a game. Our players are just too shit to see it.


This thread is a good example of what's wrong and quite how fecked we actually are. Fred, Rashford etc simply get the weight wrong on passes over and over and over and over again.
This is exactly what my point was, and why we need 2 cms who can complete those passes. It's where alot of frustrations coming from and Brunos as bad as Fred and Rashford and Mctominay half the time with his passing.
 

Redfrog

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These poor babies. Imagine having to work until 5pm. The horror.
Now I get why we are so poor when we are playing the evening.

Now explain me why we are so poor when playing afternoon…is it always raining or windy or a bit cold ?

Rangnick should program another shift at 10pm as well.
 

RedDevilQuebecois

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Maybe they are thinking RR is only here 6 months we neednt worry. RR should go into the dressing room demand who is spreading the leaks. If no one owns up say to Maguire you are captain you will not play again and will train with the reserves until you grass them up. If no one owns up by next week Rashford you will suffer the same fate. Do this and stick by it and it would turn back to doing whatever the manager asked in no time. Thats the only way imo. Drastic, put noses out of joint, well thats whats needed with these snivelling embarrassing moaning worst group of players ever.
This. We have lost that army-like sense of unit discipline for way too long while other clubs built theirs over time, and it's time to go back to that by all means necessary. I would even sacrifice goats to get Roy Keane in so he can knock sense (litterally) into players' brains.

If the lazy blokes among the players think that Rangnick is locked in with them, they are grossly wrong. They are the ones locked in with him, a man who will make sure their lives will be miserable when their sense of comfort will be lost forever.
 

hobbers

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Ronaldo does this 30x a game. Our players are just too shit to see it.


This thread is a good example of what's wrong and quite how fecked we actually are. Fred, Rashford etc simply get the weight wrong on passes over and over and over and over again.
This is why I sympathise with Ronnie behaving like such a twat at the end of games.

He's played with Scholes and Rooney, then Modric and Kroos, and then Pjanic and Dybala (quite a step down there). And now he has Fred and Rashford. It'd boil your piss to want to win a game of football and have those clowns trying to weight passes into you after 15 years of the best midfielders supplying you.
 

Jericholyte2

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I was talking with some mates about this and we raised this idea, parallel to the ‘not being held to account’ argument is that they have never been ‘punished’ for failure.

The likes of Salah and KdB have failed at big clubs and then had to go back and rebuild their reputations. The likes of Kane etc went out on loan to lower league clubs to taste ‘real’ football.

The likes of McT, Rashford and Greenwood should have been sent out on loan to play 40-50 games a season in The Championship and faced the physical nature of that league, before being given the reigns at Man Utd’s first team. But they weren’t, they’ve been ‘raised’ on a fast-track pathway for any decent academy prospect (remembering a Rashford wasn’t the No.1 prospect from the academy at the time he made his debut) and then been left in 1st team roles that they’re not ready either physically or mentally for. Then on top of that, when they’ve done ‘OK’, with sporadic good performances, they get new contracts at a bump of 50-100k a week extra!

These players haven’t had to break a sweat to end up in the United 1st team and now we’re seeing the dirty side of that.
 
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