What have been your worst predictions and projections for United/players these last 5 years?

Fortitude

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I can't quite believe we're the predicament we're in and if you'd told the me of 5 years ago that United would be reaching a shocking nadir in 2022, I don't think I would have believed it.

My worst projection by far was thinking: Shaw, Pogba and Martial would form a super flank for us. How that tanked... boy did it tank - visions of a flank to rival Cole, Pires, Henry turned into a steaming, giant turd.

Another is probably one a lot of us share in believing the acquisitions of: Sancho, Varane and Ronaldo allied to what was already here would be the beginning of our ascendancy to a real force in football again... :p

Finally, Ralf... I believed he would finally get us coached and up to speed after so many years of neglect, but nope, somehow he's exposed himself as inflexible at the least, and out of touch at worst. Our disgraceful players, accepted, it's still not what I expected from Rangnick.

So what are yours? Players, concepts, systems managers, league placements or trophies, what has gone horribly, horribly awry from what you believed would happen?
 

Luffy

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Recently the worst prediction I made was to think Utd would draw against Brighton away. Then we lost 0-4. As for the more general predictions, I rarely was wrong, except for doubting my opinion about Ole when he started his first winning run of games. But I predicted he would be sacked and he was sacked. I was right about Shaw and Fernandes not being genuinely world class players. I didn't get into debate about them because I don't want to waste my time that way. As for Ten Hag, I think he will win us a couple of trophies, but he won't be winning us the league. I can see him getting sacked in 2 years.
 

Smithy89

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Legit thought Sancho was the best young winger in the world, what i get for watching Bundesliga. Also thought Mctominay was decent until realised he's fecking useless.
 

roonster09

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There were few games where Shaw, Pogba, Martial combined superbly on left side, I thought we are set for years.

Couple of years later, in 2019-20 season when Martial, Rashford, Greenwood had very good seasons, I though they will be the attack that will bring us back to the top (with top coach)

There are many, almost all the positive takes since SAF retired can be added to this thread, with rare exceptions.
 

Tavern in the town

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Thinking our midfield problems were over after we signed Schneiderlin and Schweinsteiger. 7 years on and our midfield is as shite as ever.
 

Red the Bear

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Greens goes without saying....
Surprisingly i was much more cynical 5 years ago , thought we would be shit forever and yet ole made me think he could pull off a proper title challenge (i always felt uneasy about whether he suited us or not the moment the honeymoon period wore off but the emotions attachment was enough to blind me to it).

I also didn't think Rashford would turn so soulless but that's about it i think.
 

R77

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After that PSG game I thought Tuanzebe would go on to be a beast for us.
 

Murder on Zidane's Floor

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I wanted to us to sign Maguire and Lukaku.

Thought our issue was beating the small teams in a low block under Mourinho and Lukaku is a flat track bully so made sense to me that he would score a hatful against the bottom 12 teams and that would get us 50-60 points and then as we played like shithouses but got results against the top teams, I thought we'd get up to the top three spots and compete - OH HOW WRONG I WAS.

Maguire, well I wanted him from Hull as he carried the ball and looked like an all action CB who could be had on the cheap. Alas, I still was fine with him signing from Leicester - in hindsight - whoops
 

wolvored

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VG coming and that transfer window when we spent a fortune at the time. Was expecting us to play like City do. Since then i havent got my hopes up for any of the managers since. I hope rather than expect TH will buck the trend
 

TMDaines

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I think I have predicted United’s top four status incorrectly for each of the last four seasons.
 

Loon

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Thought Maguire would be utterly solid and reliable if unremarkable for us. A real Gary Cahill. Thought Varane would be his Steve Bruce (brain).
 

Revaulx

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VG coming and that transfer window when we spent a fortune at the time. Was expecting us to play like City do. Since then i havent got my hopes up for any of the managers since. I hope rather than expect TH will buck the trend
We played some lovely football that first LvG pre-season, which really got my hopes up.

I’ve had zero faith in the club being capable of bringing in appropriate players ever since Moyes. Let’s hope that’s finally changing.
 

Bebestation

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Thought Lingard’s movement was so good that he would be a great support striker :lol:
 

Raw

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Really thought we'd win the PL in the last 5 years or so. The idea that we would go almost 10 years without one seemed very ridiculous to me.
 

BaneIsPain

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If you tell me after winning Europa League and finishing second the following season, we would be back to 7th (potentially) this weekend.
I wouldn't believe you for a second, and I thought we were a few personnel to win the league.
What a huge blunder over and over again.
 

Lynty

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I thought Rashford - Martial - Sancho would be on par with Mane - Firmino - Salah

I also said Chong would have a better career than Greenwood...oh wait.

Dig up the relegation thread, there was many who genuinely thought we were going to get relegated at one point.
 

Random Task

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Another is probably one a lot of us share in believing the acquisitions of: Sancho, Varane and Ronaldo allied to what was already here would be the beginning of our ascendancy to a real force in football again... :p
Yeah, this.

It's bizarre how we went from finishing a comfortable second in the league and reaching a European final to this pitiable laughing stock within 12 months.
 

berbatrick

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There were few games where Shaw, Pogba, Martial combined superbly on left side, I thought we are set for years.

Couple of years later, in 2019-20 season when Martial, Rashford, Greenwood had very good seasons, I though they will be the attack that will bring us back to the top (with top coach)
same for both of these. most embarrassing one for me was thinking darmian has solved the RB problem after his debut.
 

anant

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Thought Rashford will have as good a career as Mbappe (if Mbappe stayed at Ligue 1)

I expected a lot better from Schneiderlin and thought him+ Herrera would mean our midfield was set for few years. Also, expected Januzaj to become a world beater, Depay as well.

Expected a lot more from Telles when he signed for us as well
 

Dazzmondo

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Thought Januzaj would be a star for us. Tbf he's had a decent and underrated career with Sociedad but he certainly never reached the heights I expected of him
 

roonster09

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same for both of these. most embarrassing one for me was thinking darmian has solved the RB problem after his debut.
How did I forget Darmian, yeah he was vey good in the first few games. I thought we had best FB pair in 2015-16.
 

OnlyTwoDaSilvas

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It's just outside the 5 years, I think, but I thought Morgan Schneiderlin was exactly what we needed, and what we had needed for years prior. I was fearful of Arsenal getting him because I thought he was exactly what they needed too.

I still believe he was an excellent player at Southampton. Then he joined us and he was just... nothing. Somehow we managed to get back what we paid for him from Everton, some of our best transfer business to date, and he continued to be nothing. It was almost like he signed for United and though "yep, this is it now, I've made it" and just stopped trying.


I also thought Fosu Mensah and Paddy McNair would have very good careers. They both put in a handful of solid performances towards the end of 15/16. TFM had some horrible injury setbacks, and I guess I was just plain wrong about McNair, though he's a solid Championship player, which is a good level of course, though I really thought he'd be PL quality, whether with us or elsewhere.
 

Lynty

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Thought Januzaj would be a star for us. Tbf he's had a decent and underrated career with Sociedad but he certainly never reached the heights I expected of him
Yep, forgot about that.

Thought he'd be world class.
 

kthanksbye

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We played some lovely football that first LvG pre-season, which really got my hopes up.

I’ve had zero faith in the club being capable of bringing in appropriate players ever since Moyes. Let’s hope that’s finally changing.
This. The kind of football were were playing in pre season was so good, pass and move kind of.
Then we got a few results against big teams in the league under LvG and I thought that's it, in Neville's words, "the penny has dropped"

When we signed Jose I thought, it's going to be ugly but this is it, we're going to compete for trophies.

Ole I was never confident about. Knew it was going to be a disaster sooner or later.
 

Trex

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I expected Martial to reach Balon d'or level due to his level in his first season.

After Pogba debut vs Southampton, I thought we had signed the most complete midfielder ever.

I thought we were guranteed to win a league title under Mourinho.

I saw Memphis legs and assumed we have signed the love child of CR7 and Ronaldo Nazario.
 

el3mel

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I thought Pogba would be the new Man United icon after Rooney.

Well, he was an icon indeed, an icon of us being shit.
 

Offside

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The biggest false dawn for me was 2015. We weren’t great under LVG in 14/15 but we had two good runs where we played really well - including the best performance at Anfield I’ve ever seen from a United team.

Schneiderlin was everything we all wanted in midfield along with the wet dream signing of BFS. Darmian looked like the RB position was sorted for years and Memphis looked like the hottest young player in the world. Don’t get me started on Martial - he looked so so good at that age.

I was fully on board with all of those signings and every single one of them disappointed.
 

CraftySoAndSo

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I thought Scheniderlin was a brilliant buy and would be excellent for us. As someone else said Arsenal were rumored to be in for him as well and thought we'd done great beating them to him.

I also thought Fosu-Mensah could have been at least a good squad player for us as i liked him a lot. I don't know how much injuries stunted him though.

My biggest one was Depay though, thought we'd finally found our rightful number 7. Although him bulking up i think was the worst thing he could have done, if he hadn't i maintain he would have been a lot better.

It's too early to call predictions on things that have happened in the last year or so. It's unfair to judge Sancho, yes he ain't been great but the club has fallen apart in his first season so hard to judge him properly.
 

diarm

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As others have said, I remember that day we announced Schneiderlin and Schweinsteiger together and thinking "we've finally sorted a midfield that has been crying out to be fixed for years".
 

FrankDrebin

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I never understand why Depay felt the need to bulk-up so ridiculously.
 

sunama

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Legit thought Sancho was the best young winger in the world, what i get for watching Bundesliga. Also thought Mctominay was decent until realised he's fecking useless.
Sancho is actually pretty good.
The problem is that when we buy players, they join MUFC and they turn to crap.
Darmian was unbelievably good when he first joined, About 2 months in, he turned to crap.
Wan Bissakka was great when he joined. 8 months later, he began to fall off and now is crap.
Miki was fantastic when he joined us. Player of the year in Germany. A few months later, he turned to crap.
Bruno is the latest player who turned to crap. He was arguably our best player for 18 months from the time we bought him, but now many fans want him sold.
I can continue, but you get the point.

The other issue I have is players bought from Dortmund. I've noticed that they have a 100% failure rate when we bring them to MUFC. Kagawa. Miki. Sancho is still in progress.
 

sunama

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I never understand why Depay felt the need to bulk-up so ridiculously.
This issue of players becoming too heavy has been repeated many times and our fitness coaches have to take the blame here. I would absolutely fire every single fitness coach and replace them (and I don't like firing staff, but they are so woefully bad that they simply can't be re-trained to do their job to good standard).
Lukaku was the worst. He was fat in MUFC. He went to Inter. Inter identified that he was too fat and told him to lose weight...which he did and he became athletic and a top striker. This allowed Inter to sell him to Chelsea for a big fee.

Rooney also suffered. He got too fat, became unfit and his performance fell off a cliff.