He a teenager compared to our current forwards.This thread made me realise that van Persie was 29 when we bought him and he was then "old" for many
The Transfer Playbook of Sir Alex Ferguson
- Thread starter andersj
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Nothing about being on the same page.
The simple fact is Ole paid more credence to attitude rather than anything else.
The fact that Ole said this to be the case is strangely oblivious to you. (It's true)
But that's cool with me!.
Again, saying something and actually doing it are two different things. I understand what he said, but he didn’t do it effectively.
There is no evidence in the actual squad and the atrocious performances he produced at the end suggest that he didn’t. Heads dropped and we got smashed by some very average sides.
In other words, the squad he built don’t have the right mentality. Therefore, it needs to be the focus from here on in.
In short, what he said wasn’t what he did, which is also the case with the style of play and whatever coaching he tried to implement. Said one thing, but the evidence is very much to the contrary.
Very true, but can still be done. Not as many chances to get it wrong but pay up and get them.
Tin hat time - I’m not saying he wasn’t the best, a generational (covered a few generations actually) manager, with man management skills second to none. But he had the luxury of being able to sweep up the best, proven, PL talent consistently over a ten year period or more.
If you made it at any PL team and Fergie came for you then you went. And nothing the clubs could do would stop it happening; they just couldn’t afford to say no
Again part of that was the pull of him and United but he could simply buy the best there was.
Imagine a young Rooney coming through at Everton even now. Even in their current position they could afford to simply say no to crazy bids; and there would be half a dozen clubs able to throw record breaking deals at such a player too.
Back then he was straight in with his record breaking bid for a 17 year old and before you knew it Rooney had joined. Only United had the cash then to do that. It happens now and there’d be a long queue of suitors, both here and abroad.
So yes he had a great eye for talent and amazing management skills but, let’s not forget, also had a practically free run at the very best talent out there. Will never be like that again for a single team on its own. Not in England that’s for sure.
If you made it at any PL team and Fergie came for you then you went. And nothing the clubs could do would stop it happening; they just couldn’t afford to say no
Again part of that was the pull of him and United but he could simply buy the best there was.
Imagine a young Rooney coming through at Everton even now. Even in their current position they could afford to simply say no to crazy bids; and there would be half a dozen clubs able to throw record breaking deals at such a player too.
Back then he was straight in with his record breaking bid for a 17 year old and before you knew it Rooney had joined. Only United had the cash then to do that. It happens now and there’d be a long queue of suitors, both here and abroad.
So yes he had a great eye for talent and amazing management skills but, let’s not forget, also had a practically free run at the very best talent out there. Will never be like that again for a single team on its own. Not in England that’s for sure.
I think the key is identifying them earlier. For example, if we want to sign the likes of Maguire, we can't afford to let them go to a Leicester, they have to be identified and signed whilst they are at Hull.
In SAFs time, we could afford to let the likes of Carrick and Ferdinand get their big transfer to Tottenham / Leeds, see how they got on and then make a move. That's just so expensive now.
Bellingham would be one player Fergie would have brought in.
Man, you are doing Nani a disservice. Get some bold on his name.
Don't think anything you have said is really true, we have plenty of 'winners' throughout the squad, mentality is not an issue at all with the team.
A team with Bruno, Cavani, Ronaldo, Pogba, Varane isn't really going to struggle mentality wise!!
SAFs best ever signings for me are
Cantona - transformed a team that didn't look like winning the league to winning it. You won 5 out of 6 league's with him, the only 1 you didn't he was banned. His record for assists/goals per game is on par with Bergkamp. Seems criminally underrated on here. Maybe the best ever signing.
Keane - clearly had the highest standards of arguably any United player ever, which controlled matches due to his perfection but also rubbed off on every other player I'm sure
CR7 - no comment needed
Rooney - see above
Vidic - vital elite level CB
Stam - see above
Rio - see above, plus a ball playing great
The other players maybe all really good but they didn't contribute as much to the long term success.
By the last few windows of signings SAF and United had lost there way in the market. Carrick aside you could argue he didn't sign a top midfielder since Keane. Veron being the Pogba of his generation. Then you had his long term replacements for Vidic and Rio being Smalling and Jones. That's too much of a drop off to your defensive core. RVP was always going to have a drop off with his injury history too. Although I wonder if he plays through the pain barrier for SAF, which he probably didn't think was worth doing for Moyes.
SAF probably sells Rooney instead of giving him that monster contract. He was rumoured to be available at that time.
1 thing I will say, SAF would of kept Zaha and got far more out of him.
Cantona - transformed a team that didn't look like winning the league to winning it. You won 5 out of 6 league's with him, the only 1 you didn't he was banned. His record for assists/goals per game is on par with Bergkamp. Seems criminally underrated on here. Maybe the best ever signing.
Keane - clearly had the highest standards of arguably any United player ever, which controlled matches due to his perfection but also rubbed off on every other player I'm sure
CR7 - no comment needed
Rooney - see above
Vidic - vital elite level CB
Stam - see above
Rio - see above, plus a ball playing great
The other players maybe all really good but they didn't contribute as much to the long term success.
By the last few windows of signings SAF and United had lost there way in the market. Carrick aside you could argue he didn't sign a top midfielder since Keane. Veron being the Pogba of his generation. Then you had his long term replacements for Vidic and Rio being Smalling and Jones. That's too much of a drop off to your defensive core. RVP was always going to have a drop off with his injury history too. Although I wonder if he plays through the pain barrier for SAF, which he probably didn't think was worth doing for Moyes.
SAF probably sells Rooney instead of giving him that monster contract. He was rumoured to be available at that time.
1 thing I will say, SAF would of kept Zaha and got far more out of him.
And I don’t think anything you said is true, regardless of what Ole said. I completely and totally disagree like I told you before. Mentality has been an issue for years at Manchester United. I think you are completely wrong. We don’t win semi-finals and finals because we aren’t winners.
Results, performances and the issues within the squad provide far more evidence of the issue than what Ole said in pressers. People can say anything, especially to the media.
Getting in likes of Ronaldo and Cavani at the end of their careers to paint over the cracks doesn’t change that.
Like I said, we aren’t on the same page. You think Ole has done what he said and looked at players characters and I don’t think he has. The evidence backs up my point of view far more than it does your own.
Not quite sure how so to the bolded part!!?
We haven't won finals/semi finals because we simply aren't good enough to, nothing to do with mentality issues in my eyes.
But we obviously differ on this, so each to their own, your view is just as valid as mine, and I respect it.
Thats what I am getting at mate. You see it as an ability issue, but I feel like the up and down form, leaking of information, behaviour problems and lack of effort comes from mentality issues.
I don’t think it’s ability because we lose to teams like Istanbul, Young Boys, Leicester and Sevilla in some of those crucial games. It suggests a squad with serious mentality issues to me.
As you suggest, we are seeing the issue from completely opposite viewpoints and that’s ok.
You mean Batistuta?
Although i must say, Dave Bautista as a United player would be...
Hard to deduce from that any particular theme except that generally speaking he did not procure stars that were established on the world stage. They always had a bit to prove even if they were relatively safe bets through PL performances. So that's possibly one key take away.
I'm not sure there is anything definitive such, at it's essence it is relatively simple in that good players produce good signings, it is how you produce an ability to interpret the data you're getting that is the difficult part. That requires technical acumen on behalf of the staff.
For example, we could look at it statistically by looking at ages, tier the clubs they're coming from and maybe you'd get a particular pattern but ultimately a very large part of it simply comes down to judgment. You can say it's a good idea to target according to a profile but if it produces duds because the analysis is subpar then what do these general "rules" mean?
You can group a whole bunch of recent signings into a category that probably isn't too dissimilar to what Fergie did at various times, whether it is buying British, or buying players at a certain age, but the problem is we've got it wrong. So is the problem the profiles or the judgment? It's clear you need both, a profile informed by club direction and squad composition. But then you need expert analysis. We're cocking up the latter as often as the former.
I'm not sure there is anything definitive such, at it's essence it is relatively simple in that good players produce good signings, it is how you produce an ability to interpret the data you're getting that is the difficult part. That requires technical acumen on behalf of the staff.
For example, we could look at it statistically by looking at ages, tier the clubs they're coming from and maybe you'd get a particular pattern but ultimately a very large part of it simply comes down to judgment. You can say it's a good idea to target according to a profile but if it produces duds because the analysis is subpar then what do these general "rules" mean?
You can group a whole bunch of recent signings into a category that probably isn't too dissimilar to what Fergie did at various times, whether it is buying British, or buying players at a certain age, but the problem is we've got it wrong. So is the problem the profiles or the judgment? It's clear you need both, a profile informed by club direction and squad composition. But then you need expert analysis. We're cocking up the latter as often as the former.
UmmmmYou mean Batistuta?
Although i must say, Dave Bautista as a United player would be...
, well to be honest I could do with either Gabriel or David.With all due respect, I don't know if this is the accurate summary of ASF era, but as far as opinions go, I have to agree with "avoid players who have 'made it'" at least in this phase of our development. We have benefited, during SAF's period by buying some of those, but I wouldn't go for that today.
I would take it as far as to say: I will be more than happy if we don't pay more than 50-60MM for anybody. 70M at most, until we have won something real. Think who we have paid that much for recently (Maguire, Pogba) and I would argue that while not useless, they have been very bad investments. Compare that to much more reasonably priced Bruno Fernandes.
No Haaland (not that he would join us in a million years anyway), no Declan Rice, no galacticos, please.