Yeah and to be fair, the thread title was just the name of the article. Personally i believe LvG did a lot of damage as well, but most of the blame has to go to Ed and co, mostly for ramping up our wage bill with little to show for it
The true cost of the Mourinho era and how badly the club has been run
- Thread starter Bobcat
- Start date
Yup. They did seem to learn their lesson in 2018 in fairness, shouldn’t have taken 5 fecking years though.
Jose would have been more successful with the ageing squad of Fergie ie come in right after his retirement rather than a mid-table club manager like Moyes. The more jaded places would still have listened to Jose. And Jose would have squeezed as much out of that ageing Fergie squad before leaving himself.
Because Martial was a young promising player at that time. We know he has failed to perform consistently in 2021 but when Mourinho took over he could have backed Martial and strengthened other areas. Or tried Martial while signing a much cheaper player to Lukaku.
What was most laughable was Mourinho signing Bailly for £30m and Lindelof for £30m.. then not being able to get either of them to function in his team properly, then coming to Ed Woodward and saying, 'I'm gunna need Harry Maguire'.
Now, I'm no big fan of Woodward, but I'm glad he rightly told Mourinho to feck off. Jose had already splashed massive amounts on a defensive duo and couldn't get either of them to function. AWFUL management.
Now, I'm no big fan of Woodward, but I'm glad he rightly told Mourinho to feck off. Jose had already splashed massive amounts on a defensive duo and couldn't get either of them to function. AWFUL management.
No, that makes no sense whatsoever. Mourinho saw then what we all saw now, and he's been utterly proven correct that Martial wasn't ready to play as a number 9 for Manchester United.
Well to be fair, that's exactly what Guardiola did with Laporte, Stones and his full backs.
If Ole wants another midfielder this Summer because DvB didn't work out, I hope like hell Ed doesn't tell him to feck off.
Scapegoat Fc
Ridiculous when it's clear just how many people are culpable for the mess.
1. Fergie for choosing Moyes
2. Gill for letting him
3. Gill for leaving at the same time as SAF
4. Glazers for letting him (if they could stop him I'm unsure but seems they didn't try)
5. Moyes
6. LVG for ripping the squad to pieces, selling very useful players such as Chicarito, Nani, Rafael, hell even Zaha would have been a useful squaddy, and replacing them with utter shite like Darmian, Depay, Falcao, Schneiderlin.
7. Glazers and Woodward for hiring him and giving him that control over transfers.
8. Mourinho for basically being Mourinho and doing his short term thing.
9. Glazers and Woodward for hiring him and being so surprised after 2 seasons that he was being himself, that they changed the entire way transfers were decided upon.
ole and the transfer committee have mostly got it right in my book. The 40M wasted on RVB is a waste, but we should get 30M back when we trade him in the summer. I can't see him getting a second season, we'll sell him while his stock is OK.
Hopefully we'll offload Rojo and put Jones out on loan for two seasons.
This summer will be the most important transfer window for a few years, we need a propper striker, right sided winger and a centre half who can head the ball when Bailly is broken. I would be tempted to offload Lindelof as well, as I just don't see him ever being good enough.
Hopefully we'll offload Rojo and put Jones out on loan for two seasons.
This summer will be the most important transfer window for a few years, we need a propper striker, right sided winger and a centre half who can head the ball when Bailly is broken. I would be tempted to offload Lindelof as well, as I just don't see him ever being good enough.
I generally stay out of the whole in/out debate. I popped in to make a point about how this article highlights that there are more factors to consider than the knee jerk reactions we get after any unfavourable result. Thanks for confirming that it is probably best to maintain a low profile on this matter given the number of whoppers we have posting.
The desperate victim blaming of Mourinho is truly a sight to behold. Get over it, he's gone now and you don't have to cry about it anymore.
The problem is the board/transfer mixers that don't connect to the playing aspect of what the club is, not what managers have and haven't done.
Fix the front end and the managers will be able to take care of the football.
The end.
The problem is the board/transfer mixers that don't connect to the playing aspect of what the club is, not what managers have and haven't done.
Fix the front end and the managers will be able to take care of the football.
Of course there are more factors, I don't think anyone would deny that.
At Moyes and Van Gaal it’s nothing more than simple indifference. Genuine anger at Jose Mourinho and what his tenure did to this football club.
So why would you suggest my post is fuel to the ole out brigade?
Its not victim blaming. Its clear that he made a lot of decisions that were short sighted and self serving, for as long as the club allowed it to happen. The minute we stopped his toys were hurled from his pram and he pretty much forced us to sack him and pay him off.
If he gets it worse than LVG then it's probably because he's a bit of an arse who thought we were privileged to have him rather than vice versa. He deserves to be remembered in a poor light
I think when a thread is made about the issues at the club, issues that Mourinho himself inherited I might add. When that gets used as a defence of how Ole is doing, it's always likely to cause some posters to want to argue the merits of that, and the thread quickly becomes a thread where they is an Ole debate, something Leftback and his buddy complained about as though it's an utterly one-sided thing.
Thats the biggest issue with the Cafe these days. Every subject, even non United related, can be twisted back to Ole in/out if the desire is there, and because people are obsessed by it the desire is always there
Tbh I don't really agree with this.
First of all, any football club that lets its finances be run by a manager (who should be an expert in football, not finances), only has itself to blame. I don't think our club does this anyway...or any club for that matter.
The blame is solely with those who run the club, and has been evident ever since Moyes got here.
Who remembers what Moyes' transfer targets were that summer? Ronaldo, Bale, and Fabregas. The club genuinely had him believing those were attainable players. The football man doesn't deal with finances. They simply get told what's possible and they build their plans around that. Unfortunately for Moyes he actually believed Woodward that such transfers were possible because he was now at the biggest club in the world.
Mourinho wasn't short sighted. In fact, he bought mostly fairly young players, and he even promoted youth. Remember how apparently Mctomminay was only given a chance because of his height? Because it was apparently impossible for mourinho to actually play a young player for any other reason.
Jose used to get slated for not playing rashford and martial enough...even though now it has become evident that neither of them is actually ready to be the main #9 at our club, and they're several years older and more mature. He evidently had good reason not to fully trust them back then. A player like Zlatan was absolutely necessary and there really were no better options at that moment.
The Paul pogba purchase being "blamed" on mourinho I'm not even gonna get into. There wasn't a single person who thought it was a bad idea at the time and had he performed better over the years it wouldn't even be included in this article. Calling that buy shortsighted is only possible with hindsight.
First of all, any football club that lets its finances be run by a manager (who should be an expert in football, not finances), only has itself to blame. I don't think our club does this anyway...or any club for that matter.
The blame is solely with those who run the club, and has been evident ever since Moyes got here.
Who remembers what Moyes' transfer targets were that summer? Ronaldo, Bale, and Fabregas. The club genuinely had him believing those were attainable players. The football man doesn't deal with finances. They simply get told what's possible and they build their plans around that. Unfortunately for Moyes he actually believed Woodward that such transfers were possible because he was now at the biggest club in the world.
Mourinho wasn't short sighted. In fact, he bought mostly fairly young players, and he even promoted youth. Remember how apparently Mctomminay was only given a chance because of his height? Because it was apparently impossible for mourinho to actually play a young player for any other reason.
Jose used to get slated for not playing rashford and martial enough...even though now it has become evident that neither of them is actually ready to be the main #9 at our club, and they're several years older and more mature. He evidently had good reason not to fully trust them back then. A player like Zlatan was absolutely necessary and there really were no better options at that moment.
The Paul pogba purchase being "blamed" on mourinho I'm not even gonna get into. There wasn't a single person who thought it was a bad idea at the time and had he performed better over the years it wouldn't even be included in this article. Calling that buy shortsighted is only possible with hindsight.
I thought that it was a bad idea and I wasn't the only one. I also don't see it as something that should be used to blame anyone, most transfers are failures and my preferred alternatives were flops themselves.
Considering what Martial is doing now as a 25 years old nulber 9 I won't hold my breath imagining what would have happened back then if he gave him the main role when he was still only 21 or something.
This is quite honestly such an amount of bullshit that i'm not really sure where to begin...I honestly have no idea why people can't debate this properly.
Moyes wasn't fooled by Woodward. The manager, Moyes, identified the players he wanted an insisted those were the players he wanted, to the point where the deal to sign Fellaini was pushed to the last minute just because Moyes didn't like the signal he would send out if Fellaini was his first signing. There's an abundance of quotes from Moyes on the subject, and how important he felt it was to wait as long as possible on Bale and Fabregas because that was the level of players he wanted.
"You can ask my staff - the last thing I wanted was for Marouane Fellaini to be my first signing," Moyes told Radio 5 live. "I knew, coming from my old club, the look was never going to be good.
“When I first went in to United my real target was Gareth Bale,” said the 53-year-old, who did not last a full season in Manchester. “I felt all along that Gareth Bale was a Manchester United player and I fought to get him [from Tottenham] right up until the last minute. We actually offered him a bigger deal than Real Madrid but Gareth had his mind made up on going to Madrid. He was, though, in my mind, the player I really wanted.
The quotes on Fabregas are close to being the same.
If you don't understand McTominay, who clearly wasn't ready, and Mourinho's use of him, there's not much hope to be honest.
Moyes didn't have a clue what he was doing, his vacation, lack of preperation walking into the job. I really don't think he had the slightest clue just how difficult the job really is, and that he thought it'd be easier than at Everton
Great bullshit detector on the Moyes stuff Bob, I strongly approve.
The culpability is all down to the hierarchy at the club who talked for years of the importance of an appropriate transition plan post Fergie and did absolutely nothing.
Did they completely revamp the structure of the club? Split up Fergie's role into multiple specialist roles? Add a Technical Director/Director of Football? Put former players in key backroom roles at the club to maintain "the United way"? Have the next manager work next to Fergie for 12 months? Hire top class first team coaches to ensure continuity?
No. They hired David Moyes as a like for like Fergie replacement.
That’s not the point though. At the time we couldn’t know what a disappoint Martial has turned out to be. We had a finite budget which Mourinho chose to use on Lukaku. Had he spent £30m
On Raul Jimenez or Giroud or someone else and given Martial a go along with having a veteran presence then he could have spent elsewhere on the squad.
The transition plan wasn't a complete revamp of the entire structure of the club.
It's easier said than done. Fergie's tenure at the club cemented the managers role at the club, changing that over night as soon as Fergie retired was never going to work. If you'd ask fans, or anyone for that matter, a year before he retired if anyone thought it'd be a good idea to limit the managers role at Manchester United and appoint a sporting director to take care of identifying players to sign, contracts to extend etc, the answer would be quite easy to guess.
Fergie had a large say in Moyes being appointed manager, Fergie wanted his assistants to remain with the club and continue in their role under Moyes.
It would instantly be interpreted as the Glazers taking advantage of Fergie leaving to give the managers less control.
How many didn't take the piss out of Liverpools structure when Rodgers was there and he kept arguing over player signings...
Thread and article title are total nonsense.
He didn't do any long term damage. He won 2 cups with a 2nd place finish. What little damage he did after his implosion was easily fixed by his successor.
The biggest mistake in the post SAF era was LVG wasting 300 million on a bunch of flops and letting some useful players go. Mourinho's transfer record is significantly better, even though it was guided by short-term thinking.
In the summer of '15, City bought De Bruyne and Sterling for 140M, while we spent that same amount on Martial, Depay, Schneiderlin and Schweinsteiger. It takes years of good management and planning to build a title winning squad.
Our club is poorly run now that our manager is an ordinary human. The sooner we realise this and stop blaming our previous (world class) managers and/or the owners, the better.
He didn't do any long term damage. He won 2 cups with a 2nd place finish. What little damage he did after his implosion was easily fixed by his successor.
The biggest mistake in the post SAF era was LVG wasting 300 million on a bunch of flops and letting some useful players go. Mourinho's transfer record is significantly better, even though it was guided by short-term thinking.
In the summer of '15, City bought De Bruyne and Sterling for 140M, while we spent that same amount on Martial, Depay, Schneiderlin and Schweinsteiger. It takes years of good management and planning to build a title winning squad.
Our club is poorly run now that our manager is an ordinary human. The sooner we realise this and stop blaming our previous (world class) managers and/or the owners, the better.
This thread really should be "This is what happens when you don't employ a Director of Football".
I wish this myth that van Gaal got rid of useful players would die. Look at what they all went on to when they left. All were the correct decision to sell.
My only disagreement at the time was Evans, he was in a terrible slump and in hindsight probably needed the move but I thought that he was a potentially valuable squad member. A bit like Brown or O'Shea back in the day.
At least that's the only one that I remember being a bit disappointed about.
I was actually most disappointed about Welbeck at the time, I was gutted
. That was the correct decision in the end.Evans - Key CB at top 4 challenging Leicester, replaced with Rojo (£16m + Nani on loan)
Keane - Key CB at top 4 challenging Everton, England squad regular
Zaha - Palace's best player, linked with £50m+ moves pre pandemic.
Sold for £15m between them. That's just 3 without mentioning others like Rafael replaced with Darmian.
Fair enough if you don't rate them but any argument that he replaced them with better while spending a fortune doing it you won't win.
Summary of my rant.
I guess for things to change we have to hope Woodward gets bored, retires and the Glazers don't have any other friends
I think we just looked at how much worse their replacements were and how much they cost: Falcao for Chicharito, Depay for Zaha, Di Maria for Nani, Rojo for Evans, Darmian for Rafael etc.
You've written a lot and none of it actually disproves what I wrote?
You showed quotes where Moyes thought Bale would be beneficial to United and believed that he was an attainable target...that's literally what I wrote. The manager says "I want player X" and then Woodward get to work to make it happen. Moyes isn't the one that negotiates the contract, he's not the one that deals with finances. He gets told by Woodward "I think we can make this happen" and that's as far as it goes. This all goes in line with all the "wonderland" and "watch this space" phrases we've heard Woodward use at the beginning of his tenure. He firmly believed he can get anyone he wants because he can throw money around. As far as Moyes believing that Bale would have been a top signing to our team, I think most of us would have agreed with that at the time.
Now, if Woodward was telling Moyes all summer that the deal is very unlikely, we should look at other options instead, and Moyes chose to ignore that, then yes that would be on the manager. However your quotes don't really show that. They show a manager who believed Bale was attainable.
As for the McTominay line, please. Your argument would only hold if he got relegated back to the bench and was never seen from again once Mourinho left. I always thought he had good reason to be in the squad and his talent was pretty evident to me. Just because you only saw height doesn't mean Mourinho did as well.
Yeah that's fair enough, my point was only to illustrate that your opinion at the time would have been in the vast minority.
If we had perisic and maguire we could have won the league. Something tells me Maguire would have played his heart out for him and same with Perisic, like Herrera did.
we needed about one more Mourinho players and a flair player on the wing or a clinical striker to be quite devastating. If we had signed Cavani then, proper winger to feed him and a CB we would have been something else. There were clear holes Mou knew were there.
The problem wasn’t so much who he sold but who he replaced them with. They were all worse players. He didn’t just get rid of players who had done well for United, he got rid of players who were winners, who understood what playing for United took. He got rid of mentality as much as talent.
Oh no the replacements were poor there's nothing to disagree about there.
I did rate them as players but van Gaal did the right thing selling as I think some of them had come to the end of their time. Rafael and Hernandez's careers nose dived as soon as they left.
As for Evans, without Ferdinand or Vidic by his side he was useless. Has been decent at Leicester though.
Ehm....Moyes was personally involved, speaking to both players on the phone over the summer, and you quite literally have a summer full of quotes from Moyes underlying the importance of trying to sign them until the end. Connecting the dots isn't all that complicated.
Pinning this solely on Woodward, and pretending that all Moyes did was hand him a list of mint players and all he heard back was how Woodward was confident of fixing it and that the players would be signing, no problems on the horizon, is pretty fecking absurd. Woodward had just taken on the role, you have a new manager who is insisting that both players are ready to join and that we should stick with trying to sign them until the end, and you expect Woodward to go against him? Good luck.
In terms of McTominay, at the time he wasn't ready and Mourinho used him to prove a point, like when he played him as a defender while leaving Bailly on the bench...The player he is today has very little to do with the way he was used under Mourinho.
I'm not sure you can say he did the right thing selling though when he replaced with worse. Doing nothing instead would have had us in a better position.