It seems that we’ve been rebuilding our scouting network for the past 4 or so years. If what I read is true that is. Supposedly we should be seeing the benefits in the coming years. Will be interesting to see how it unfolds if it’s all true.
The Mourinho Thread: Should he stay or go? | Sacked
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
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I really wish this comparison would go away. SAF was a builder who rebuilt clubs from the ground up, including a focus on taking up and coming players cheap or youngsters though the academy and making them the best they could be. That's what he did at Aberdeen and what he was doing at United, as could be seen in the excellent players he was picking up in the late 80s, the improvements in the scouting and the change in the drinking culture. That, by its very nature, takes time.
(also, who are these "many expensive signings that didn't work out?")
Mourinho is a short term results manager, who has never once undertaken a long term rebuilding job in his life, or even shown the inclination to do so. He buys for the now and he handles his players for the now, with no pretence of a long term vision . Indeed, we hired him because he is a short term manager, and we wanted a short term result. It didn't work out, such is life, but pretending he's something he's not is simply folly and comparing the two is pointless.
I love these “catch all” posts that manage to roll every possible excuse for Mourinho into one neat package, with a healthy heaping of dragging Sir Alex time with us through the mud to try and twist it in some way to justify Mourinho being here. Keep up the good work mate.
I find it disheartening that a failure to get top four is the only reason he will be sacked.
I don't think it will ever cross Ed Woodward's mind to sack a manager because of the quality of football on display and the lack of progress among players. Shit like that doesn't matter to him. He only looks and shit he can quantify like top four. This club needs a reorientation.
I don't think it will ever cross Ed Woodward's mind to sack a manager because of the quality of football on display and the lack of progress among players. Shit like that doesn't matter to him. He only looks and shit he can quantify like top four. This club needs a reorientation.
Spoiler that shit.
It's pretty amateur stuff. Woodward is clearly out of his depth. Every shite decision on and off the pitch the club is making is under him and until we remove him from the football side of things, it'll only get worse. He's the only constant in this train-wreck.
Come on now. Mourinho may have been more pleased if that hypothetical scenario came true but we were never challenging for the title with the mighty Lukaku and Ivan Perisic. Look at Lukaku's hold up play, his physique and his inability to dominate defenders. Not to mention his miserable first touch. He's a decent CF and goalscorer but decent doesn't create a team that can challenge this incredibly good City team. Neither does playing Perisic ahead of someone far more talented and now, frankly, better.
And I get your point regarding balance and the 'system', a point I raised with regards to Klopp. But it's about your vision and where it aims. Klopp and Guardiola's vision is aiming for the stars. Ours is old school archaic football that's aiming for scraping top 4. I was going to mention in a thread, maybe this one, that the blueprint of finding players to fit a cohesive system is inherently flawed when it begins with your number 9 being darn Lukaku. Put whoever you want around him. Unless it's Messi and Ronaldo this isn't a 'system' or a vision that leads to greatness IMO.
What exactly do you mean by 'not United players'
What is the characteristic of a United player.
Reason I ask concerns Luke Shaw who I see as a good fit for our squad.
I remain to be convinced about Martial as he only seems to play if he gets a pass to his feet and doesn't work anything like hard enough for the team.
I have made my views clear on Pogba.
He looks like a very expensive luxury and (thus far) only plays when the mood takes him. Jose has been very clear as to what he wants of him, so it is now up to Pogba.
Worse. The origin of the story is from The Sun.
We all have our thoughts and ideas, but Mourinho is the one who is paid huge money to make the right decisions. If Lukaku has all those faults, why did Mourinho want him as his center forward?
You're welcome.
Frankly, it gets exhausting reading this all over again. All of these have been answered thousands of times.
1) Mourinho is not a builder, never built anything long-term, never even spent more than three full seasons at any club.
2) It's 2018, not 1988. Football changed dramatically.
3) 'Swashbuckling' football would be 'reckless' - well we're currently playing dire football AND getting mostly shit results at the same time.
4) Keeping managers past their obvious expiration date on the off chance that they turn out to be the next Sir Alex Ferguson is idiotic.
Very good summary of Mourinho and what he actually offers. We brought him in to do the job in a particular way and from his history it’s clear that this would be a short term fix. He has followed his usual pattern but failed to achieve his usual success in the second season. It’s now going wrong and his short term effect has collapsed, there is no positive to be had by him remaining.
Can already see that his entire plan for next season would rest completely on being allowed to outspend everyone else and buy whoever he wants. Failure to do so would result in more tantrums and blaming everyone but himself.
Ferguson wouldnt have quit on the season before it started, you can’t compare him to Mourinho. He’s even already started saying already he can’t compete for years unless the other teams stop investing and get worse.
Well its hypothetical - truth is players (esp young ones) are expected to step up after moving to a big club and Lukaku hasn't .
2 years before ,if you had told me this would be our line up, I would have been quite happy
Valencia - Smalling -New CB- Sandro
Pogba - Matic
Willian - Mata - Sanchez
Lukaku
Thing is Lukaku and Pogba hasn't done any favors to him . Neither has Ed who could have provided him the players he wanted ( atleast a like to like replacement- not signing William/Perisic was fine but then who was our backup option?)
Dont get me wrong, Jose has been a mess but I do think Ed also should have done better on certain things.
To be honest, who can blame Mourinho and the board for thinking that we don't mind this malaise? We cheer Mourinho's name and boo Pogba after Mou disses him. Our outward showing of support for Mourinho will obviously make the board indecisive about getting rid of him.
Can we just please get a manager who shows love for the club and fans and brings harmony and positivity both on and off the pitch? Someone who gives youth an opportunity and wants to impose our style on the opponent and not let the opposition play. I hate seeing and feeling the negativity around this club that Mourinho has created, I hate how he has tried to turn fans against a variety of players and I don't like seeing our fans rabidly attacking one another over every little thing. We've seen this story before with Jose, why are we trapping ourselves in this nightmare.
Can we just please get a manager who shows love for the club and fans and brings harmony and positivity both on and off the pitch? Someone who gives youth an opportunity and wants to impose our style on the opponent and not let the opposition play. I hate seeing and feeling the negativity around this club that Mourinho has created, I hate how he has tried to turn fans against a variety of players and I don't like seeing our fans rabidly attacking one another over every little thing. We've seen this story before with Jose, why are we trapping ourselves in this nightmare.
If we send an empty bucket around the next game labelled '10 million pay off price for Jose' - do you think that would be enough to get woodward thinking that we could not care a single string about Jose's contract and pay offs?
Just wondering who you think will be in their job the longest, Theresa May or Jose Mourinho ?
Depends on when they go out of Europe.
give it a try.With us getting a potential thumping from the bin dippers on Sunday I’d say Theresa might be a bit more secure.
Jose by several months, wish they’d go together before Christmas, but miracles like that don’t happen.
It is?. I feel dirty now.
Former players can say whatever they want, they aren't contracted by the club and owe nothing to the manager. Former players aren't in the changing room while tactical instructions are being handed out either, pogba is and his comments make it look like Mourinho is setting us up to be too defensive.
When Pogba plays for Deschamps he has the luxury of having Umtiti/Varane/Kante behind him, at Juve he had the best defensive line in world football along with Pirlo/Vidal. His weaknesses were made up for. And let's not act like it's been all rosy for Pogba in either camp, he was taken off in games before the world cup because of really poor performances and their was a huge debate about his role/position in the team.
You're trying to downplay Mourinho's fault but you're fighting a losing battle. He he identified Lukaku as a player worth getting and he's failing to get the best out of him. There's one thing called command responsibility, you can't just absolve Mourinho saying who knew he'll turn out to be like this.
Why do people that are defending Mourinho always feel the need to exaggerate like this? Have I in any way implied it's all Mourinho's fault for what's happening to the club?
Pogba said that we should attack, something echoed by former players and even Mourinho at times. I don't see the problem of it rather then the usual Mourinho causing friction were there is none. He makes Pogba look undisciplined when its really not the case. The man worked with Conte who I assure you is a control freak both when he was a player and especially now that he's a manager. No manager had ever complained about Pogba apart from Mourinho.
Also its not as if the club didn't financially backed Mourinho. They gave him 400m for god sake. Maybe he should had invested it wisely instead on spending it on donkeys like Lukaku and Matic.
I think its more a case of Mourinho trying to deflect attention on himself by throwing players under the bridge. He did it before with Martial and Shaw. Its amazing because Matic had been performing far worse then Pogba and yet he keep playing every game and no bad word is said about him. Such attitude is only set to create friction in the team.
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That was the lowest of low abuse to Jose.
seriously its amazing how the guy expect his players to be mindless and emotionless robots who take everything with a smile over their face while he can't stop throwing them under the bridge in a bid to deflect criticism over himself.
Exactly, imagine if one of our players gave the interview along the lines of: "Mourinho? Yes, he is a decent coach, but you know compared to other top coaches his results are clear we are mid-table. We are in our 3rd season with him, but we still have no idea how we are supposed to play and what to do in the final third. We were hoping to at least have a solid defence but we are leaking goals left, right and center. Do you believe that we the players are the problem? Do you think that we are the lazy cnuts? See how we perform for our National Teams, and compare this to how it ended up for Mourinho at Real and Chelsea. See the trend? Then who is the problem then?"
All of the above is truth, however, certain things are meant to be kept inside of a house. Our players can do it, Mou can not. Moreover, players are not robots, the negativity and cuntishness of their manager effects them too.
Woodward needs to not ever make a football decision for United again as much as Jose needs to go . If these two things happen the club can progress.
You should add "I don't understand this obsession about the three fingers. Sure he got kicked out by Real and Chelsea but he's still here for the time being right?"
On a serious note, the tragedy of it all is that he don't mind throwing people under the bridge while speaking about how thick skinned he is when in reality he's not. Pogba's comment about us needing to attack more is something everyone agrees upon including himself. Yet he interpreted it as criticism to him which caused a series of knee jerking reactions and friction between him and his most talented midfielder, the man he had previously spent 90m+ upon.
Three fingers stand for - me, myself and I.
Those former players were also singing praises for Matic last season, calling it a masterstroke by Mourinho and making fun of Conte for letting him go to his rivals... Same with Lukaku last season.
Didn't they also rip into Pogba after his Southampton performance? Come to think of it, aren't these former players criticizing Pogba's performances quite often?
You’ve taken a really good, well-thought out and articulate post and replied with a load of lazy rubbish
This “**** of the manager” and “**** of Sir Alex” has to stop. SAF made loads of mistakes and spent loads of money on crap players. In his 4th season in charge, he finished 13th. He was lucky that he inherited the Class of 92 lads and he was lucky that Utd could outspend all of our competitors for a big chunk of his tenure.
That all being said, he was still the greatest club manager in football history. What’s my point? You have to look beyond the bare results. I guarantee you would have been part of the “Ferguson Out” brigade in ‘88 and had our Board at the time listened to those fans we would probably never have dominated English football for 20yrs
I never said they are geniuses although i do wonder if they are that stupid to take united to 8th place after spending 400m. Only someone truly special can do that
He's still in charge? FFS
Appreciate your input but
Thanks you Cloud7 for your appreciation of my good work I will try to keep it up.
However, if you want to avoid coming across as someone with a less than average intelligence, I would recommend spending time to read and understand posts before making sweeping generalisations about them.
At no point have I dragged SAF time with us through the mud, in fact I said that he is the greatest manager of all time. What I did do is point out the fact that SAF was given time, money to invest and allowed to make the odd mistake or two in the transfer market in order to rebuild the squad and even with the backing it wasn't until his fourth season that we looked like a title challenging side.
That is fact NOT dragging SAF through the mud and is NOT twisting SAF time with us to justify Mourinho being here.
Feel free to point out the facts that have been twisted if you feel my comments are unjustified!
And your point is...?
Should we give six years to every manager in the hope that they might turn out to be Sir Alex Ferguson?
Most of the posters seems to agree on the following points:
1. Mourinho will get the sack when top 4 is out of the picture.
2. Not one single entity is solely to blame for the predicament we are in.
3. We should appoint a DoF asap(people disagree regarding the amount of authority given to the DoF and the manager.)
What we are currently are disagreeing on:
1. Mourinho will get the sack when top 4 is out of the picture.
2. Not one single entity is solely to blame for the predicament we are in.
3. We should appoint a DoF asap(people disagree regarding the amount of authority given to the DoF and the manager.)
What we are currently are disagreeing on:
- The amount of blame the players, the board, Woodward, the current and previous managers should take.
- The actual quality of the players in the squad.
Cheers for the advice. Will try to take it on board so that I come off better in the future and don’t offend you
The whole gist of your post is implying that the only reason Sir Alex was that good is because he as given time and money, ignoring the fact that he was given time because he was rebuilding the club from top to bottom, and those in charge could see the progress he was making, despite there being hiccups along the way. Progress isn’t as simple as just league position, no matter how much people try to cling to that on here.
Case in point last season. Sure second place was the highest finish we had since SAF, but what was it being built on? So many games were won because we happened to be extremely efficient, something that isn’t sustainable. There were no improvements in style of play, the team wasn’t looking better as a unit, there wasn’t much to look at and say that “this is progress. This team is going to be even better next season” besides the second place finish, which was precisely the only thing that Pro Mourinho people pointed out when this point was raised.
Sir Alex brought raised a sleeping giant with a drinking culture that didn’t win a league in 26 years. He didn’t take over one of the richest clubs in the world and then proceed to spend more than almost every club in the world, then moan and complain that he can’t do better because he needs more money spent. That you would try to imply that all ang manager, Mourinho or otherwise, needs is time and backing and they would emulate the great man is dragging his name through the mud.
Unfortunately for you, you didn’t try hard enough.
At no point did I imply that the ONLY reason Sir Alex was that good was because he was given time and money. I actually implied that despite the fact that he was a genius, the best manager in history and had just had amazing success with Aberdeen, he was given time, money to invest and allowed to make the odd mistake or two in the transfer market in order to rebuild the squad.
I haven’t got the statistics but I think we were pretty competitive in the transfer market and spent more than most if not all our rivals in SAF first three seasons
I didn’t say that all any manager Mourinho or otherwise, needs is time and backing to emulate the great man. I said that there are only four or five managers in the world that are good enough to manage us and we have one of them and should give him time to rebuild properly.
I still fail to see how this is dragging SAF through the mud.
I was around back then and didnt want Fergie out, so not sure what you're getting at. And I can't really agree with much of what you say. United didnt have loads of cash back then, as is well documented of the era. Indeed he was running a profit on transfers up til the 98-99 season. He didnt inherit the class of 92 and get lucky, we'd won the title twice by the time they arrived in the first team, and they only arrived at all because he completely revamped the youth academy in the late 80s. As for his (senior) purchases, in his first 3 seasons he bought
Brian McClair
Steve Bruce
Jim Leighton
Mal Donoghy
Lee Sharpe
Ralph Miline
Mark Huges
Gary Pallister
Neil Webb
Paul Ince
Danny Wallace
Mike Phelan
By my reckoning that's 1 famous failure, 2 journeymen, 3 good players and 6 fantastic buys that would eventually take us to the title. I'd kill for that hit rate now. Fergie made plenty of mistakes but the foundational work he was doing back then was apparent even at the time, and that was what kept him in the job til he won the Cup in 90.
You say we should look beyond the results, I totally agree. I see no such rebuilding work happening at United under Jose, and that's precisely why I think he's done. On the pitch there's no signs of long term development. We have no discernable style of play, no signs of us taking on any of the modern styles of football that are proving so effective. The squad is a bit of a mishmash at the mo and he's continually struggled to motivate them. And his only solution seems to be offering more of the same. Off the pitch is nothing to do with Mourinho and he shows no interest in doing it anyway, so nothing there can be said to support his continued stay.
I mean, if you can point to anything that suggests that Mourinho has a long term plan in place and he's inching towards it for the overall betterment of the club, however slowly, then let me know. Because right now I dont see anything of the sort.
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