The possibility of no European football for a year and a half

Bastian

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Of course, I'm desperate for us to navigate the Bilbao tie and win the thing. The benefits are huge and obvious.

I expect the mood to be very low if we get knocked out by Bilbao or later, and then we'd have a lesser budget to play with. But would we not use the opportunity to trim the squad (I've made a similar thread maybe twice before, I am aware).

If there is no European football next season and the club already has money available (according to reports) to push through on Cunha and Delap, before sales come into it, that's probably better than expected. There are of course serious doubts about Onana and the wing-backs, but I can imagine this XI here would be a good stepping stone towards building a truly competitive team:

-------------------------Onana
-----------Yoro------de Ligt-----Heaven
Amad----------------------------------------Dorgu
---------------Ugarte----------Mainoo
-------------Bruno--------------Cunha
-------------------------Delap

Question marks about the choice of striker, whether Dorgu is good enough, whether Onana doesn't need replacing, and if that midfield is too lightweight, etc. But it's a good start, almost from scratch.

Whereas with CL football there'll be a much bigger need for a big squad and we'll see less turnover in the market. As much as I'd be gutted to be out of Europe next season (especially when we are so close to getting there), there are opportunities too from that position.

Maybe this is just a preemptive attempt to cushion the blow, but if we don't qualify, I hope we speed things up by trimming the squad.

edit: When I see the title there on the main page it's a real downer. Sorry about that :lol:
 
I'd imagine this will be our main lineup:

Onana
Mazraoui De Ligt Yoro
Dalot Ugarte Bruno Dorgu
Amad Cunha
Delap
​
With the subs/competition being:
  • Maguire with de ligt​
  • Shaw when he's fit at LCB with Yoro rotating with Mazraoui, and Mazraoui rotating with Dalot. Martinez probably will take a bit of time to get back to form so not expecting much from him until late next season​
  • Casemiro if he stays, rotating with Ugarte or partnering him on occasion​
  • Garnacho competing with Amad, if he stays​
  • Amad occasionally going RWB, but definitely not as his main position​
  • Zirkzee rotating in the front 3​
  • Hojlund a backup striker or loaned out or sold (and Chido then the back up)​
  • Dalot flipping between RWB and LWB depending on who is fit, with Amass being eased in​
With European football I think we just need to address some depth issues more than anything, but without it this squad is definitely capable of getting CL football and shouldn't have excuses like now. If we do win the Europa league, then I'd say we need another wing back and to fix up the midfield depth/competition and deal with Onana.
 
In some ways I wouldn't mind having a season out of Europe because we're so bad it means less games we have to suffer watching.

It's also clearly gives a big advantage for your league season to be fresh, I would be interested to see us have a full season focusing on the league games. Will also give the manager more time to coach the team on how he wants to play.

Obviously I'd still give up a limb for us to win the Europa and play CL football next season.

We're not improving much unless we make some serious signings, those signings will be hard to come by if we don't win Europa as finances will be brutal with no European football.
 
Bastian said:
Of course, I'm desperate for us to navigate the Bilbao tie and win the thing. The benefits are huge and obvious.

I expect the mood to be very low if we get knocked out by Bilbao or later, and then we'd have a lesser budget to play with. But would we not use the opportunity to trim the squad (I've made a similar thread maybe twice before, I am aware).

If there is no European football next season and the club already has money available (according to reports) to push through on Cunha and Delap, before sales come into it, that's probably better than expected. There are of course serious doubts about Onana and the wing-backs, but I can imagine this XI here would be a good stepping stone towards building a truly competitive team:

-------------------------Onana
-----------Yoro------de Ligt-----Heaven
Amad----------------------------------------Dorgu
---------------Ugarte----------Mainoo
-------------Bruno--------------Cunha
-------------------------Delap

Question marks about the choice of striker, whether Dorgu is good enough, whether Onana doesn't need replacing, and if that midfield is too lightweight, etc. But it's a good start, almost from scratch.

Whereas with CL football there'll be a much bigger need for a big squad and we'll see less turnover in the market. As much as I'd be gutted to be out of Europe next season (especially when we are so close to getting there), there are opportunities too from that position.

Maybe this is just a preemptive attempt to cushion the blow, but if we don't qualify, I hope we speed things up by trimming the squad.

edit: When I see the title there on the main page it's a real downer. Sorry about that :lol:
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You mean a season. Pure dramatics with the title.
 
Sky1981 said:
Onana is a guaranteed 5 game lost a season at his current form
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I'm at the same point with him. He needs to be moved on. But somehow I am less worried by him here in a season without European matches than with us in the CL and playing twice every week.
 
I don't imagine you're far off with the the team you listed (Maz starts over Heaven currently).

I do think we will replace Onana whatever happens. Even if we can't shift him, I can see us buying a steady keeper in his 30s for a cheap fee.
 
OverratedOpinion said:
I don't imagine you're far off with the the team you listed (Maz starts over Heaven currently).

I do think we will replace Onana whatever happens. Even if we can't shift him, I can see us buying a steady keeper in his 30s for a cheap fee.
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I hope so. With Heaven, it's not that I think he's already proven himself, he's obviously been promising for the very brief spell he managed before getting injured, it's just about making sure we have a backline that has the pace required to push up properly. Of course, de Ligt isn't fast, but he's better in that role than Maguire who takes way too many touches and always slows things down, and if he's flanked by two fast centre backs so much the better.
 
Amorim's tenure at United is done if he doesn't win the Europa. As soon as the team loses frequent games next season, heads will drop.
 
Redstain said:
Amorim's tenure at United is done if he doesn't win the Europa. As soon as the team loses frequent games next season, heads will drop.
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That will entirely depend on what it looks like on the pitch. If things start to click and improve then I'd imagine he will get at least a full season.

If we are still in 14th after a few months then he will lose his job regardless of what happens in the Europa league this season.
 
He has signed on for a project that I am sure is only being considered as starting in the summer, when he originally said he wanted to come. I think people will be surprised by how much we change the squad in the summer.

I actually think that Sancho, Rashford, Antony, Garnacho and Mainoo will all leave, and we will see quite a sizeable rebuild.

I really want to win the Europa and speed up what we are doing, but I can also see the benefits of longer periods of coaching with new players.

I think we will be dramatically better next season, Europe or not.
 
Contrary to the thread title - if we were to win the Europa and play UCL next year while Shitty stumble and end up playing Europa at the same time. Wouldn't that be lovely!
 
If we qualify for Champions League through winning the Europa it would probably be the biggest footballing miracle I would have witnessed since Leicester won the Premier League. We are not a good team and realistically are probably the worst team left in the Europa this season, a year out of Europe while financially disastrous would help with the rebuild next season, we could finish 17th this year and with new players coming in, it’s imperative that we concentrate on getting it right first and foremost in the premier league, who wants to witness another season like this one ? And maybe next year there won’t be three teams worse than us
 
Without a stronger midfield, we will be without European football for much longer than 1.5 years.
 
It’s already been reported that Delap wants to move to a club that offers European football next season, so you can take him out of any potential line ups should we fail to win the Europa.
 
In a weird way, I would be more interested by the summer window if we did not win Europa because, I would assume, that with less money there’d be more of a focus on lesser known young player Amorim would then develop. Something he apparently did very well at Sporting.

I agree with @Maluco that this summer we’ll see a lot of new faces and exits and it will be near impossible not to improve on the domestic campaign this coming year with or without Europe. I think we’ll be tracking a lot of £20-30m young guys on lower wages and, hopefully, looking at some bargains/frees to add a few bodies in key positions.
 
The club needs to have already planned for being out of Europe, I'd be very surpised if they're not prepared for this. As a fan, obviously everything hinges on this but we have no right to be where we are. Similarly we have no right to win it, we're living on a prayer.
 
ShinjiNinja26 said:
It’s already been reported that Delap wants to move to a club that offers European football next season, so you can take him out of any potential line ups should we fail to win the Europa.
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The upside of not winning Europa so
 
Onana
Mazraoui Maguire Yoro
Amad Ugarte Mainoo Dorgu
Bruno Cunha
Delap

If it will be 95 m on Cunha and Delap and we sell Rashford+Antony for ~50m in total, maybe there's room for replacing Onana too? He's 29 so maybe he can be sold for 10-15m.

3 signings doesn't seem a lot to ask for. Ultimately I'd like a better full back too, maybe Quenda. We really don't get enough attacking output out of this system.
 
ShinjiNinja26 said:
It’s already been reported that Delap wants to move to a club that offers European football next season, so you can take him out of any potential line ups should we fail to win the Europa.
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Reported by who? Unless there's a direct quote, I'd be sceptic as to why he wouldn't move to one of the biggest clubs in the World. He'd have better offers probably, but to rule out a move for United just seems stupid.
 
I remember that year Chelsea had their worst season with no Europe and won the PL the year after!

Not saying it will happen but things can turn around quickly
 
If we don't qualify for the Champions League, I'd sign Ramsdale, a 2nd choice keeper, a 3rd choice keeper, Frimpong, Angel Gomes, Welbeck (seriously) and Delap.

I'd sell Onana, Bayindir, Malacia, Shaw, Antony, Rashford, Sancho in addition to Heaton, Lindelof, Evans and Eriksen being released/retiring.

I'd also loan out Hojlund rather than sell him.

Completely cut down the wage bill whilst improving the squad enough.

If we do win the Europa, I'd sign Cunha instead of Welbeck and maybe look at extra centre back. I'd also sell Dalot and maybe look for an additional wing back who can maybe play multiple positions.
 
Maluco said:
He has signed on for a project that I am sure is only being considered as starting in the summer, when he originally said he wanted to come. I think people will be surprised by how much we change the squad in the summer.

I actually think that Sancho, Rashford, Antony, Garnacho and Mainoo will all leave, and we will see quite a sizeable rebuild.

I really want to win the Europa and speed up what we are doing, but I can also see the benefits of longer periods of coaching with new players.

I think we will be dramatically better next season, Europe or not.
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There's no way both Garnacho and Mainoo leave.

Mainoo is wanted by admission of the manager, Ratcliffe also said something about not selling youth to fund the squad. Anthony, Rashford and Sancho is more than enough in outgoings to bring in two additional attackers excluding the striker. Also consider that anything upwards of 30 million for Marcus is hugely beneficial for PSR.
 
To be honest, not having Europe next season would be good in terms of a "reset". We'll still have budget for some players, maybe get some free signings in and be forced to blood in some youngsters which could go either way. I'm sure a lot of our players have European competition clauses too in their contracts so the overall bill should come down.

It is the most likely scenario so we should make our peace with it.
 
I'd rather beg Caoimhin Kelleher to sign for us with the risk of us being rejected, than have that absolute clown in goal.

He has the ego but not the talent. His parading about infront of Lyon fans after going up by one 2 weeks ago is enough for me to say get rid of.
 
ROFLUTION said:
Reported by who? Unless there's a direct quote, I'd be sceptic as to why he wouldn't move to one of the biggest clubs in the World. He'd have better offers probably, but to rule out a move for United just seems stupid.
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Lets consider the reality. We could potentially finish one place above where he will be finishing with Ipswich, with no European football and currently on a downward trajectory. I don't think "one of the biggest clubs in the world" or because we are Manchester United washes in this scenario if we are up against teams who can offer European football (which it is reported he wants) and are looking in better positions.
 
astracrazy said:
Lets consider the reality. We could potentially finish one place above where he will be finishing with Ipswich, with no European football and currently on a downward trajectory. I don't think "one of the biggest clubs in the world" or because we are Manchester United washes in this scenario if we are up against teams who can offer European football (which it is reported he wants) and are looking in better positions.
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You mean like Cunha?
 
Xeque_279 said:
To be honest, not having Europe next season would be good in terms of a "reset". We'll still have budget for some players, maybe get some free signings in and be forced to blood in some youngsters which could go either way. I'm sure a lot of our players have European competition clauses too in their contracts so the overall bill should come down.

It is the most likely scenario so we should make our peace with it.
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I really can't understand the reasonings behind this. Amorim is on a 18 month contract. Does anyone realistically think INEOS will trigger his extra year if he finishes poorly this season and is 10-12th in the following campaign?

United have been absolutely abysmal in a solely domestic environment and fans think only competing in that same environment will improve the team? Not only is it nonsensical, it will ramp the pressure up for Amorim. Look at Villa for example, If Emery doesn't have that run in the UCL his current 7th league position would be under far more scrutiny. The perception around Villas season is inherently more positive because of European football not in spite of it.

The teams remaining in the Europa league are Glimt, Spurs and Bilbao. In previous years it would have been a more competitive Sevilla, A Madrid, Inter / Atalanta.

Ruben doesn't have a future at United with just playing the league next season. The only outlier would be an improvement beyond comprehension and if Dorgu is the barometer of how this squad improves there will be far more 'Dorgus' in the team with no qualification for Europe. People need to think critically about the implications this season and how they translate into the next. Because even Amorim has highlighted the significance of winning the competition, which means it's likely a sentiment shared by his superiors.
 
astracrazy said:
What about him? Has it been reported he wants European football?
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No, but any reasonable guy will consider a move to a big club. If the deal is good enough and you get regular game time. If the report is to be trusted, regular game time is what he also wants. Can he be no 1 at Chelsea? Or Newcastle. Probably not as easy as he can at United.

I find it hard to trust that european football weighs that much, unless it is champions league football. He's 22 and he will eventually get plenty of european football, whatever that is. For such a hot and young prospect "European football" sounds like a stupid thing to prioritize over regular playing time.
 
ROFLUTION said:
No, but any reasonable guy will consider a move to a big club. If the deal is good enough and you get regular game time. If the report is to be trusted, regular game time is what he also wants. Can he be no 1 at Chelsea? Or Newcastle. Probably not as easy as he can at United.

I find it hard to trust that european weighs that much, unless it is champions league football. He's 22 and he will eventually get plenty of european football, whatever that is.
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So it is irrelevant to mention him then. We are talking about Delap and it being reported he wants European football. You think "because we are one of the biggest clubs in the world" would be the pull, I'm explaining why in this scenario, with this player, I don't think it is. Of course, its only reports so it could all be nonsense.

I don't think players generally put plans/wants on hold for eventually. I think if a player wants something and can get it they do.
 
Redstain said:
I really can't understand the reasonings behind this. Amorim is on a 18 month contract. Does anyone realistically think INEOS will trigger his extra year if he finishes poorly this season and is 10-12th in the following campaign?

United have been absolutely abysmal in a solely domestic environment and fans think only competing in that same environment will improve the team? Not only is it nonsensical, it will ramp the pressure up for Amorim. Look at Villa for example, If Emery doesn't have that run in the UCL his current 7th league position would be under far more scrutiny. The perception around Villas season is inherently more positive because of European football not in spite of it.

The teams remaining in the Europa league are Glimt, Spurs and Bilbao. In previous years it would have been a more competitive Sevilla, A Madrid, Inter / Atalanta.

Ruben doesn't have a future at United with just playing the league next season. The only outlier would be an improvement beyond comprehension and if Dorgu is the barometer of how this squad improves there will be far more 'Dorgus' in the team with no qualification for Europe. People need to think critically about the implications this season and how they translate into the next. Because even Amorim has highlighted the significance of winning the competition, which means it's likely a sentiment shared by his superiors.
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With or without Europe the expectation next year would be to finish in the european places. Even with a decent run in Europe, finishing "10-12th" will most probably lead to a sacking, this season is an outlier.

I'm just talking about the positives of not having Europe, which I already mentioned, along with lesser fatigue/injuries in the squad. Don't think there's a single United fan out there that would not want us to win the cup, but let's be honest, even if we do somehow beat Bilbao, Spurs have been a real bogey team for us since Ange got there.
 
Maluco said:
He has signed on for a project that I am sure is only being considered as starting in the summer, when he originally said he wanted to come. I think people will be surprised by how much we change the squad in the summer.

I actually think that Sancho, Rashford, Antony, Garnacho and Mainoo will all leave, and we will see quite a sizeable rebuild.

I really want to win the Europa and speed up what we are doing, but I can also see the benefits of longer periods of coaching with new players.

I think we will be dramatically better next season, Europe or not.
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I actually saw a video which said that Amorim sold or loaned 25 players in his first season at Sporting :eek:

I don't see why he wouldn't do that here either. He probably avoided it this January because it was too soon to change what was pretty much Ten Hag's season.

I think alot of us for example were wondering why Antony didn't have many games at RWB even though he looked decent there.

Amorim probably has the mindset of - your 100% right for me or your out.

I'm not sure how I totally feel about that but it's kind of something we have been lacking that was brought up by Rangnick. However Amorim clearly doesn't just give a shit if a player is mentally good enough for him, he has to fit the system down to a Tee.

I hope he doesn't sell every player that doesnt fit his system though because we need some tactical versatility. Us only being able to play one brand of football 24/7 will hopefully lead us to be the best team in the world at playing that tactic, but we might have weaknesses that arr constantly targeted by the opposition aswell.
 
Bastian said:
Of course, I'm desperate for us to navigate the Bilbao tie and win the thing. The benefits are huge and obvious.

I expect the mood to be very low if we get knocked out by Bilbao or later, and then we'd have a lesser budget to play with. But would we not use the opportunity to trim the squad (I've made a similar thread maybe twice before, I am aware).

If there is no European football next season and the club already has money available (according to reports) to push through on Cunha and Delap, before sales come into it, that's probably better than expected. There are of course serious doubts about Onana and the wing-backs, but I can imagine this XI here would be a good stepping stone towards building a truly competitive team:

-------------------------Onana
-----------Yoro------de Ligt-----Heaven
Amad----------------------------------------Dorgu
---------------Ugarte----------Mainoo
-------------Bruno--------------Cunha
-------------------------Delap

Question marks about the choice of striker, whether Dorgu is good enough, whether Onana doesn't need replacing, and if that midfield is too lightweight, etc. But it's a good start, almost from scratch.

Whereas with CL football there'll be a much bigger need for a big squad and we'll see less turnover in the market. As much as I'd be gutted to be out of Europe next season (especially when we are so close to getting there), there are opportunities too from that position.

Maybe this is just a preemptive attempt to cushion the blow, but if we don't qualify, I hope we speed things up by trimming the squad.

edit: When I see the title there on the main page it's a real downer. Sorry about that :lol:
Click to expand...
I'd be totally up for a season without Europe. Money and prestige is certainly in danger but lets face it, if thats the main objective, then a lot of stuff from this season should have been avoided. I can't imagine us missing Europe to have that huge influence on the budget and even if, we've seen us fail with much money to spent maybe it is time to be forced to be more smart. When I see the talks on here about Quenda (earlier) or Dibling or Osimhen or Gyokeres though, I think, most fans haven't taken an issue with our devastating "splash the cash" approach and only consider it problematic that we spent it on "the wrong players".

stretford ender58 said:
If we qualify for Champions League through winning the Europa it would probably be the biggest footballing miracle I would have witnessed since Leicester won the Premier League. We are not a good team and realistically are probably the worst team left in the Europa this season, a year out of Europe while financially disastrous would help with the rebuild next season, we could finish 17th this year and with new players coming in, it’s imperative that we concentrate on getting it right first and foremost in the premier league, who wants to witness another season like this one ? And maybe next year there won’t be three teams worse than us
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Not sure about disastrous but no matter what happens in EL this season, it is still "imperative that we concentrate on getting it right first and foremost" and that should be the uncontested main objective for next season. Drill a new mindset into players, a new workrate, new mentality and so on. I've not seen yet a rundown or quantification about what it would mean to sit out for a year, I have a hard time understanding why so many stress that point into oblivion. Obviously more money is better than less money but this alone is worth absolutely nothing.

Rood said:
I remember that year Chelsea had their worst season with no Europe and won the PL the year after!

Not saying it will happen but things can turn around quickly
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Don't think that this is too suprising. To be perfectly honest I don't know about the context for Chelsea when it happened but it makes a huge difference whether you have a week of rest and prep time ahead of this-weeks-game compared to travelling, less rest, less preparation. We aren't just left behind the pack because our players are worse than "theirs" or our manager or whatever. We missed modernizing the way we play football. And while for a while we could get by because we still had very good individual talent it came to a sudden halt last season and especially this one. Basically all our rivals play with plan where all* their players fit in. We haven't seen that since LVG... And it has a devastating effect because it makes our players look worse than they are.
A timeout to focus on ourselves is maybe exactly what we need. The difference whether we can spent 80 million or I don't know 40-50 million is as detrimental than not finally forcing a step forward.
 
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