The REAL reason we are failing

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

I think a big reason is we waste money on quantity over quality with our signings.

The summer City signed De Bruyne for £55m, we signed Memphis, Schneiderlin & Darmian for a combined £63m.

We dropped a combined £60m on Bailly & Lindelof. City got Laporte, a far superior player for £57m

On the other hand though, Lukaku cost us £75-90m (depending on who you believe) City got Sane & Bernardo Silva for a combined £80m, so you could just say our transfers are just shit overall.

 

[SAFMUTD]

First we must define what is failure, we are failing according to who? the fans surely, because from the board point of view we are doing great.

I said it already in the other thread but different from what us the fans want, the board goal is to qualify to the UCL. When that does not happen then it's a failure and then they change things. Since 2012 we have qualified for the UCL in every seasone except 2014-2015 (Moyes fired) and 2016-2017 (Van Gaal fired).

Unless we don't qualify to the champions league then, according to the board, we are not failing. So why change things if we are getting the results wanted? why expend more or change managers and players if we are achieving the goals? they won't they are happy as we are now.

Of course if we fail to qualify to the UCL there will be changes, including Mourinho's departure but lets not fool ourselves, they won't set up the team to win major trophies, they will set the team for top 4.

Even our players have that same mentality, I saw Chris Smalling saying something like "we should be in the top 4 and we are not behaving like a top 4 team". Right there you can see what they aspire to.

While City, Chelsea and Liverpool are fighting to be the champions we are fighting to get to the UCL, that's all the difference. The board, the players and the manager have the same goal, only us the fans have a different one. Maybe the ones wrong are us.

 

[glazed]

We won the league consistently under Ferguson because we spent the most money

Blackburn won the league in 95/96 because they spent the most money

Chelsea became a force in 2004 because they spent the most money

City are now the dominant force because they spend the most money

Analysis over

Leicester?

 

[Viral United]

The real reason is we are not well coach, and not well drill as team.

When we don't have ball
- Our defender don't know who is marking who,
- Don't know how to set up off-side trap,
- Don't know how to defend corner, or how to mark player in corner.

When we have ball
- Players don't know where are their teammates position will be and its make confusion, just watch City or Juve players they know where their teammates will be so they deliver accurate pass, we simply hoof it.
- can't make one good cross per game,
- can't put one good corner per game,

In overall what we do in training is not working or we are doing wrong training.
Heck at this point I wouldn't be surprise if some one call we don't do training at all.

 

[Ander herrera the warrior]

My Analysis

Positives of Sir Alex Ferguson

Has an assistant manager to take care of team training, he just watches and observe all the players and give appropriate feedback. Team performance to a certain extent, highly depended on who the assistant manager was.

Delegated the work very well, and has a dictatorship kind of role at man utd where he controls everything, the whole football club from the youth, scouting, signings etc.

Uses the whole squad well. In terms of tactics, many people will be surprised or unhappy at his line-up. But what he chose was based on the weakness of the opposition and how his players form are at current time, whether their exhausted or psychically not well, based on his extensive observation of them during training.

Negatives

He was always much ahead of his competitors till 2004. Even then he successfully did wholesome changes to the squad at the time where Chelsea through Kenyon was stealing some our targets. His real problem started when when abramovich bought over chelsea and the way football changed in terms of money. At this era, you need a agressive manager like mourinho who will buy players for immediate success.

Earlier we were buying all the best young players and developing them but then the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona all started to buy young players themselves. This was when he left the squad to become very weak, his signing of chicaritho for 7 million proved that. His quote was "there is no value in the transfer market" At this point of time he should be buying the next van nistelrooy for 50 to 60 million.

Jose mourinho joining the club

Mourinho was given a weak squad where he was expected to be backed 100 percent by the club. Do not under estimate how not signing one or 2 players could have a huge impact on the club. He wanted to sign perisic to create a 5-3-2 formation at utd. Remember how successful was his 4-5-1 at Chelsea those days? When he doesn't get the players he is unable to execute his desired formation (think how the likes of martial and rashford will benefit so much in this formation)

In short, I believe the board must back mourinho with huge amount of money as Alex Ferguson left the club in a bad position. Jose mourinho should learn from Alex Ferguson, the way he delegated the work and have a full control of the club including the youth team. He should get a very good assistant manager and sit back the way ferguson did. No player must start every game without fail. Watch how Alex Ferguson got the best out of all his players and not make players like lukaku and matic to be fully exhausted.

 

[Handré1990]

Because Moyes is not and never was a manager of United's stature. Because Van Gaal was past it and because Mourinho is past it at the highest level.
Obviously United have issues of their own which the club should work on, but a manager/coach who is top tier (in the here and now, not in the past) should be able to overcome that.

You just might be on to something.

 

[Burgah]

There are a few reasons:

Fergie was a genius and impossible to follow. After he left a bit of the aura of United vanished with him. This was made worse by appointing Moyes which eventually made us into a laughing stock. Getting Moyes to follow Ferguson and having to endure his weak personality compared to the boss killed us a bit.

All of our managers post fergie have been a bit outdated with Mourinho maybe being the most modern, but still not good enough. Pep, Klopp and Poch. All young innovative coaches. Sure, Poch and Klopp haven't won anything, but their teams make other teams nervous to play them, and I feel we miss that with our style of football.

Social media also plays a part. During Mou's best days SM wasn't as big and his psychological tricks on the players worked better when it was easier to ignore the media if you had a bad game. Now it's everywhere, youtube, Twitter, maybe they get made into a meme, these things can be the slight imbalance in one's mentality that makes the difference. Especially when you are supposed to be playing for the mighty and feared Manchester United. And it seems most of our players are active on social media.

I don't know. Its a mix of things. Maybe we're just shite.

 

[Listar]

One reason I can think of is Mourinho wasn't backed in the summer. As I said in the beginning of the season, because he was not backed, there is an already made excuse. He should have been backed and then deserve the sack with the current position. Right now we are just blaming everyone but if the conditions were prepared for the manager to succeed, there is only one person to blame.

 

[Nr.7]

This latter is what all top clubs do now. City, Liverpool and Barcelona in the past always "spend more money on the same positions we spent last season cause those players turned out shit so those players will sit in the stand while we splash another 50 million".

This is what it takes now to get to the top.

Yes, of course, but the difference is if you do it with a plan/vision or panic.

 

[suhaylah]

Hire Wenger as coach, Zidane as DOF and get in a manager who'll decide about tactics, line up selection on match day and specially who believes that attack is the best form of defense.

 

[Murray3007]

My Analysis

Positives of Sir Alex Ferguson

Has an assistant manager to take care of team training, he just watches and observe all the players and give appropriate feedback. Team performance to a certain extent, highly depended on who the assistant manager was.

Delegated the work very well, and has a dictatorship kind of role at man utd where he controls everything, the whole football club from the youth, scouting, signings etc.

Uses the whole squad well. In terms of tactics, many people will be surprised or unhappy at his line-up. But what he chose was based on the weakness of the opposition and how his players form are at current time, whether their exhausted or psychically not well, based on his extensive observation of them during training.

Negatives

He was always much ahead of his competitors till 2004. Even then he successfully did wholesome changes to the squad at the time where Chelsea through Kenyon was stealing some our targets. His real problem started when when abramovich bought over Chelsea and the way football changed in terms of money. At this era, you need a agressive manager like Mourinho who will buy players for immediate success.

Earlier we were buying all the best young players and developing them but then the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona all started to buy young players themselves. This was when he left the squad to become very weak, his signing of chicaritho for 7 million proved that. His quote was "there is no value in the transfer market" At this point of time he should be buying the next van nistelrooy for 50 to 60 million.

Jose Mourinho joining the club

Mourinho was given a weak squad where he was expected to be backed 100 percent by the club. Do not under estimate how not signing one or 2 players could have a huge impact on the club. He wanted to sign perisic to create a 5-3-2 formation at utd. Remember how successful was his 4-5-1 at Chelsea those days? When he doesn't get the players he is unable to execute his desired formation (think how the likes of Martial and Rashford will benefit so much in this formation)

In short, I believe the board must back Mourinho with huge amount of money as Alex Ferguson left the club in a bad position. Jose Mourinho should learn from Alex Ferguson, the way he delegated the work and have a full control of the club including the youth team. He should get a very good assistant manager and sit back the way Ferguson did. No player must start every game without fail. Watch how Alex Ferguson got the best out of all his players and not make players like Lukaku and Matic to be fully exhausted.

we have backed Jose with huge amounts of money and majority of his signings have been terrible.

What a shite, we walked the league in Fergies last season,

 

[stepic]

Leicester?

Anomaly

Analysis over

 

[golden_blunder]

Maybe the reason LVG also failed is because we didn't believe hard enough

The philosophy itself has to convince the fans and their philosophies have been complete mismatch with fan expectation

His philosophy was boring. feck him

 

[Vadim]

We've got to stop being obsessed with how long a manager stays here. Look around. Chelsea, City etc all have different managers every 2-3 years. It's how it is now.

I don't want one manager here for 10 years. I don't care if we have a new one every two years. Just get a DoF in, a long term strategy, sell the crap like Jones, bring in gifted, young, exciting players for the future and build around that.

Football IS that simple.

 

[djembatheking]

The reason we are fecked is the owners are businessmen and are not prepared to gamble huge sums in an over inflated market to "try" and better an incredibly strong City team . Why bother , top 4 is as good as a close second to them . Us fans want to see us competitive and winning stuff but there is nothing we can do about any of it .
I see it getting far worse before it gets better , this next summer could see us lose De Gea and Martial if they have aspirations of trophies and extended contracts for Young , Jones and the like . Jose won't walk , he will either get top 4 and stay or miss out and be sacked , good business for the club .
Sad times .

 

[Raees]

The OP couldn't be more wrong tbh. It is the failure of the board and the manager to respect the values and traditions of the club that we are in this mess.

We have become a soulless, rudderless institution which is obsessed with making money in the short term and with no appreciation for what the club stands for on the pitch.

 

[do.ob]

The reason we are fecked is the owners are businessmen and are not prepared to gamble huge sums in an over inflated market to "try" and better an incredibly strong City team . Why bother , top 4 is as good as a close second to them . Us fans want to see us competitive and winning stuff but there is nothing we can do about any of it .
I see it getting far worse before it gets better , this next summer could see us lose De Gea and Martial if they have aspirations of trophies and extended contracts for Young , Jones and the like . Jose won't walk , he will either get top 4 and stay or miss out and be sacked , good business for the club .
Sad times .

14/15 - 18/19:

 

[Raw]

14/15 - 18/19:

What's with the crazy amount of arrivals and departures for the Italian clubs?

 

[jontheblue]

The OP couldn't be more wrong tbh. It is the failure of the board and the manager to respect the values and traditions of the club that we are in this mess.

We have become a soulless, rudderless institution which is obsessed with making money in the short term and with no appreciation for what the club stands for on the pitch.

Exactly this

Can you imagine SAF being influenced to buy a player based on his social media presence

Then when they do sign Pogba (and I'm not suggesting for one minute he's not a talented player) who is it exactly in today's team that's supposed to set him the example of how to behave on and off the pitch ? Or is Pogba supposed to set the example ?

 

[do.ob]

What's with the crazy amount of arrivals and departures for the Italian clubs?

They have (or had) some scheme going where they loan out over 9000 players each year.

 

[Ander herrera the warrior]

we have backed Jose with huge amounts of money and majority of his signings have been terrible.

What a shite, we walked the league in Fergies last season,

He signed Van Persie who was on his last year of contact for 29 million which helped us massively to win the league. Look at what happened to rvp after that?

Arsene wenger is cunning when it comes to selling players, he kinda know when a player is coming to end. Look at the way he sold thierry henry to barcelona for 50 million, rvp and sanchez to us. They turned out to be duds very soon.

Alex ferguson should have done more to let the squad be in a better shape before retiring

 

[Murray3007]

He signed Van Persie who was on his last year of contact for 29 million which helped us massively to win the league. Look at what happened to rvp after that?

Arsene wenger is cunning when it comes to selling players, he kinda know when a player is coming to end. Look at the way he sold thierry henry to Barcelona for 50 million, rvp and Sanchez to us. They turned out to be duds very soon.

Alex Ferguson should have done more to let the squad be in a better shape before retiring

Henry wasn't sold for 50m, as for the RVP thing the whole squad went down hill with Moyes, Wenger wanted both RVP and Sanchez to stay they decided they were leaving because either they wanted 1 big last contract or they thought they could win more elsewhere,

from what I read Ferguson had player lined up and Moyes just needed to rubber stamp them but never, positive Strootman was one of them for example. cant remember but sure there was another 2 linked as well.

 

[redmanx]

Ignorance

Im amazed nobody has blamed our situation on Brexit.

 

[redmanx]

Leicester?

We didn't have huge amounts of money in the 90s which we dominated, wining the treble 98/99; it was when the Glazers arrived in in 2003 we had money to burn.

 

[Irish Jet]

A lot of people harp back to the good old days of Ferguson but the rot had largely set in under him. Getting the last quality years from Rooney, RVP, Rio and Carrick papered over cracks that were apparent from the moment Ronaldo and Tevez left. We haven’t been a top European side since.

We let City build an incredible squad almost unopposed – We held all the cards in 2010 – We could have pushed for Toure, Silva and Aguero even if it mean signing trash like Robinho and Nasri to ensure we had the best squad in the country – We didn’t have to sign them but certainly bully City into spending more. We had the monopoly, blew it and our squad has been filled out with mediocrity since. The writings on the wall when replacing world class talent with Michael Owen and Valencia and the trajectory has been going one way since. It’s got to the point of desperation when signing players – Exemplified by the Sanchez saga where now it’s us having to pay substantially more to get players over City. Ripping apart the youth structure and selling our best academy product were the icing on that cake of shite.

That is where the failing started and efforts to rectify it have been chaotic. No semblance of a strategy in the transfer market – A mixture of young, old, big and small – You can see the opposing philosophies all over the pitch when we play. It’s been a shambles. None of the managers have got it right but Woodward has been the consistent figure who should be responsible for ensuring there’s a plan beyond big names.

 

[devilish]

In my opinion, our biggest problem is the club's inability to strengthen the football side of the board. We can't have accountants or marketing men with zero idea about football to handle the football side of things. Its simply not their area of expertise.

This is not a vote of no confidence towards Woody as things were degenerating long before he took control. Gill with his 'value' signings and absolute distaste of working with super agents meant that we couldn't replaced quality with quality which lead to top players like Scholes, Giggs, Ronaldo, Rio and Vidic being replaced by erm Cleverley, Young, Valencia, Smalling and Jones. Its also not a vote of confidence towards Mourinho whom, similarly to his predecessors should have had the spine to tell it as it is. That's why the club paid top salary for top experienced managers. I guess none of them were really keen of having football people asking questions like why we're handling new contracts to 38 year olds, why we're paying ridiculous money for a tall Championship like midfielder from Everton, why we're giving ridiculous salaries to some has been from Bayern or if it makes sense to buy a CB every year.

There are many successful models in football that we can copy. We can take the full spending spree utilised by Shitty or rely completely on youths as Ajax does. The former is financially in-achievable as we're not financed by some oil rich regime. The latter, will turn us into Wenger's Arsenal. I know some people will criticise me again for it, but the only model I can think of that can work for us is the Juventus model.

Juventus work with less budget then we do and yet they had been successful for the past 6 decades. They method is pretty simple

a- they isolate the football side (ie lead by Marotta) from the money side (whose currently lead by Agnelli).
b- they try to bring the very best in the jobs (football CEO, DOF etc)

The football side is currently managed by Marotta. He's got plenty of experience in the role having covered a similar role at Varese, Venezia, Sampdoria and now Juventus. He brought the DOF from Sampdoria ie Paratici. Meanwhile a legend sits on the board making sure that the club's values are kept in place. Juventus could have gone for the typical 'Juventus is perfect' romantic (Ferrara reminds me alot of Gary Neville) but instead went for a pragmatist (ie Nedved) who loves the club but is realistic enough not to be carried away by stupid morals that doesn't make sense.

Having experienced people in their specialised fields means that

a- they are excellent in their jobs. No manager or agent would be able to take them for a ride.
b- they have plenty of contacts. This means they can handle a huge staff turnover (Juventus signs about 6-7 players a year and they get rid of that many players). This means players are kept on their toes and the club is able to quickly identify and offload the deadwood at a decent price.
c- these people have little contact with the players which is a good thing as there's little risk of emotions getting over their better judgement. For example Del Piero was asked to leave long before he wanted to simply because his salary didn't justify his performance. Ultimately the club came to an arrangement but only after he accepted a massive cut in his salary.

If you ask me, we should do our very best to sign Marotta as joint CEO allowing Woody to focus on what he knows best ie make money. SAF should be given a role within the board with Scholes acting as his replacement when the time is right. A DOF should be hired with
Zorc, Berta, Tare, Paratici and Campos being my favourites while Mitchell should be signed as head of recruitment.

 

[Lentwood]

we have backed Jose with huge amounts of money and majority of his signings have been terrible.

What a shite, we walked the league in Fergies last season,

I have to pull this up because it is a nonsense argument that is bought up far too regularly on this forum. Even if you believe that SAFs last title-winning squad was a good one (which I think is debatable), you surely have to acknowledge that the core of these players where long gone even by the time LvG took over?

Scholes, Giggs, Evra, Ferdinand, Vidic, Rooney and RvP all played in almost every single game in SAFs last season in charge. By the time LvG took over, Evra, Giggs, Scholes, Ferdinand and Vidic had all departed and RvP and Rooney had both declined alarmingly.

Now once you've taken that list of players in, look at it again. How much money would it cost in today's market to replace those players with genuine like-for-like players of equal experience and calibre?

The fact is, whether by SAFs mis-management, Woodwards incompetence or the Glazers purse-tightening (or probably all three) we allowed, over a period of 4-5yrs, all of our best and most experienced players to leave the club without finding adequate replacements

Every manager we have had since has been well behind the 8-ball, chasing around desperately in the transfer market trying to fill 7/8 positions whilst our rivals methodically add one or two quality players a year to already established squads.

What should have been happening is that we replace these players one-by-one as they leave. Scholes retires, we spend £50m on a midfielder, Ferdinand leaves, we spend £50m on a CB etc....but we didn't. To compound all of that, the brilliant business brains at our club failed to spot that when the new TV deal came in and clubs effectively became self-sustaining overnight that the cost of players would go up! Duh! If the Glazers/Woodward had had any foresight they would have spent £500m on ten players in 2014 and then could have added one or two steady signings a year. Instead we're trying to replace 7/8 players at a time when an average CB costs you £75m

Total lack of vision and strategy from SAF, the Glazers and Woodward. The people absolutely not to blame for this debacle are Moyes, LvG and Jose (although that's not to say they can't be critiqued for individual decisions they have made whilst recognising the context/circumstances those decisions where made under)

 

[Mcking]

Clickbait title!

Straight out of The Mirror playbook.

 

[Siorac]

14/15 - 18/19:

Holy shit, West Ham at 10th! In terms of value for money they are probably even worse than us!

 

[Lentwood]

Holy shit, West Ham at 10th! In terms of value for money they are probably even worse than us!

Those stats are totally meaningless because they start at an arbitrary point in time (2014).

Are football clubs built in 4-yrs? No.
Did clubs spend money before that? Yes.
Has there been a huge inflationary effect on transfer fees caused by the new TV deal? Yes

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. 'Facts' without context are totally useless

 

[Siorac]

Those stats are totally meaningless because they start at an arbitrary point in time (2014).

Are football clubs built in 4-yrs? No.
Did clubs spend money before that? Yes.
Has there been a huge inflationary effect on transfer fees caused by the new TV deal? Yes

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. 'Facts' without context are totally useless

The original point was that the Glazers are unwilling to gamble huge sums of money in an overinflated market. That's what that picture was in reply to. It kinda shows that we spent a feckload of money in a very inflated market. In fact, we are the second biggest spenders in this inflated market. We just have nothing to show for it, unfortunately.

 

[do.ob]

Those stats are totally meaningless because they start at an arbitrary point in time (2014).

Are football clubs built in 4-yrs? No.
Did clubs spend money before that? Yes.
Has there been a huge inflationary effect on transfer fees caused by the new TV deal? Yes

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. 'Facts' without context are totally useless

First of all it's five years/summer windows. I picked that because most long-term player contracts are five years and UEFA also uses five year rankings. It seems like a logical timeframe to pick, but I just used a dropdown menu on tranfermarkt, you can create such a table yourself with the parameters you see more fitting, though I doubt United's position is going to change much unless you go into the later Ferguson years.

 

[Smores]

There's a lot of different reasons it isn't one bollocks slogan aka "the united way".

For me the biggest two are the manager but also that our squad is largely still those who were failures under Moyes and LvG. You can't keep playing those who have let you down time and time again then expect to compete at the elite level. We need to get rid of the trash and strengthen the entire squad.

Rashford, Fellani, Mata, Young, Valencia, Smalling, Rojo, Jones, Herrera are all Europa league level. That's too many in a squad looking to really compete for titles.

 

[dannyrhinos89]

The real reason we are failing is:

Managers tactics are out dated and he’s obviously too stubborn to change it. Combine that with the fact Most of the squad aren’t good enough to be playing for united in the first place, Average players = Average performances = Average results.

 

[Foxbatt]

Jose is never going to play the kind of game SAF got us playing. Now Jose is trying to combine that way and his way. It could be one of the main reasons why we are failing to get any sort of decent football. We never had two wingers for a long time. When Valencia was on the wing, we had Ronaldo who is not an out and out winger but a bit more like Martial who comes inside. When we had Giggs, Beckham on the right was not a typical winger but a right sided midfield player.
Jose should either stop this sort of United way and use what he knows best and win games or he should go if he cannot do that.

 

[wolvored]

I think he was a panic hire and also a safe win in 2 seasons hire at the same time. Moyes was given a 6 year contract and fergie / the board thought he could be minded into fergie lite. Moyes then changed everything and that's when the rot started. VG was the only big name available on the cheap and also with his pedigree they thought he could turn it round. He didn't so Mou was then gettable and a guarantee of winning the league, which was why he was appointed. I think and hope they will put more diligence into the next appointment, even getting a dof in first to get the right fit for 'the Utd way'

 

[ForestRGoinUp]

Manager aside, we have many average players earning high wages that can't be moved. And we keep extending them. Did I read this morning that Ashley Young is wanting assurances before signing his extension? There we are.

 

[sunama]

But why hire him in the first place if the board want a certain style of play. They should have known they're never going to get that with Mourinho

Woodward wants guaranteed Top 4 finishes. No ifs. No buts. Jose is one of the best people available who can deliver this.
Regarding playing style - do people honestly believe that Woodward cares about how we transition from defence-midfield-attack? Do you honestly think he cares about how many chances we create per match? Or how many shots on target we get?

Put simply, Woodward wants to maximise our marketability (and profit) and believes that top 4 finishes (and CL qualification) will allow him to do that. He has also studied the AFC playbook of getting top 4 and maximising revenue, while reducing outgoings. Wenger helped the AFC owners to earn A LOT of money. That club was a money-maker, while Wenger was present. 4th place is all that was required and Wenger spent the bare minimum to achieve it.

Does attacking football earn us more money? Nope.
Does CL qualification earn us more money. Yep.
Does spending less money on transfers increase our profits. Yep.
Does buying Galactico class players increase our marketability (and profit). Yes.
Does having a star manager in charge of us increase the likelihood of us getting CL qualification. Yes.

If in doubt, just follow the money.

PS, there are some people on this forum who say that if we don't win the league and continue finishing in 4th place, our profits will tumble. The evidence is actually to the contrary. Since we became a top 4 club, our profits, notariety and marketability have actually increased. I know a lot of you are frustrated and want us to win, but with Woodward in charge, winning on the pitch is not so important. The only thing that matters to him is the revenue, expenditure and profit. Everything else is secondary.

PPS. There are some on here who actually believed that Woodward didn't buy players because he didn't like Jose's shortlist. What is more believable - Woodward's explanation OR that perhaps he wanted to save money this Summer, to balance the books and ensure our profit margin is higher, when the next set of results are published?

 

[sunama]

Manager aside, we have many average players earning high wages that can't be moved. And we keep extending them. Did I read this morning that Ashley Young is wanting assurances before signing his extension? There we are.

From what I recall, the person in charge of contracts is Matt Judge. I believe that this man has an accountancy/financial background and has no interest in on-pitch football performances.
It sounds like I am making this all up, but this is what our club is actually doing.

If it makes business sense, then A.Young will be offered a new contract, irrespective of his performance on the pitch.
And this is one of the reasons why I believe every manager will fail to win the league, at MUFC. I simply don't buy the argument that every manager who joins us, underperforms, because they turned shit. LVG and now Jose are basically making do with what they have and constraints placed upon them. With this in mind, they have come up with a playing style which will enable them to get the highest points finish, using players like Smalling, Jones, Valencia, Young, etc.

 

[Murray3007]

I have to pull this up because it is a nonsense argument that is bought up far too regularly on this forum. Even if you believe that SAFs last title-winning squad was a good one (which I think is debatable), you surely have to acknowledge that the core of these players where long gone even by the time LvG took over?

Scholes, Giggs, Evra, Ferdinand, Vidic, Rooney and RvP all played in almost every single game in SAFs last season in charge.

stopped reading after I read this comment because its completely false, Evra and RVP did play in majority but the rest never, infact I am pretty sure Vidic, Rio, and Evra barely played in the same defence that season due to injurys, Moyes had a big decision to make that summer and he failed, a new CB should have been brought in or one of Smalling, Jones or Evans, should have been made the number 1, with Rio or Vidic one should have went and the other being phased out, same with Evra. Rooney should also have went that summer, Ferguson had set it all up for Moyes to get rid of him but he never took the opputunity and infact gave him a crazy new contract.

we are what 5 years down the line and have no central core, which is key to any side, we have gave Jose a lot of money and so far how many of his signigs have been actually any good ? infact I am positive I read a comment on sunday that only 2 of the 11 players for the game v city were jose signings? which says a lot considering we were really needing re built when he arrived.