The shadow left by SAF
Who/what in your opinion is currently holding the club back?
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
The fanbase for giving up protesting/raising awareness of the Glazer ownership. The power is with the people; the problem is the fanbase isn't determined/collective enough to force change like the Scousers were with Hicks and Gillett. The likes of MUST need to do a lot more also.
The huge injection of money into the sport has ruined our financial advantage we gained during SAF’s tenure. Now that we do not have the financial might to bully teams into selling their best players for peanuts we can’t outspend to extent that we did before. 10/15 years ago you used to be able to spend £60m and get 4 decent players (maybe 2 first team, 2 squad) now £60 struggles to get you a first team centre back. It costs too much to overhaul a team in the current climate and the owners now won’t spend the initial overlay to do as such.
I see, thanks for the info.
Who. The current coaching set up.
I am not talking about the past. Can't do anything about that.
But the current coaching team are in my opinion failing to:
Get the best out of the squad and individual players. What has happened to James, DDG, Pogba to name just a few.
Transform United into a high performing team. 66 points is hardly high performing.
Evolve the tactics before and during the game. What is our playing style? And why do we find it almost impossible to break teams down.
We are certainly not better than the sum of our parts.
Which is the same for 99% of all clubs, across all sports, the only ones that it doesn't apply to; PSG, Chelsea, City et al, are all backed by dodgy money.
I don't understand why fans insist that title winning side wasn't good. We blew City away that season and finished on our record points total. It was a good team but of course an aging side. There was definitely enough there to work with. Is it SAF's fault Woodward and Moyes fecked up the first summer?
SAF left Moyes with talented players to develop too. He bought Zaha in January for the next manager to work with and Moyes never gave him a chance.
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No imo not. Barca, Madrid, Juve, Bayern, ATM, Inter etc. their objective is silverwares.
I don't know about other sports but imo for most football clubs their main objective is football. They make money to pay for their projects, to aim for a higher place in the football world. Actually very few set money is their primary objective. Unfortunately we're one of those.
True you can't change the past, but far so called better top managers have also failed with some/most of these players in the points you make out, so hence why I said its time too start looking at the players.
As for the players you mention, DDG decline started well before Ole came, look at his woeful performances leading up to and including 2018 wc, James, well look at when he was good, first month he was here, he was on fire, a time when most players are getting use to playing at a higher level, a month a bit later is when the decline in him started, when players are back up to standard, Pobga was not great either under serially winner Jose.
So again, begs the question, if two top winners like LVG and Jose couldn't do it and now to some, ole is not also able to, when are the attitude of the players going to be question or are we on a never ending policy of blame whoever the manager is ?
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If you think the pressures the fans put on the club online does not influence decisions then you must be even more naive.
i agree, the fanbase is too broad and divided. it was reaching feverpitch earlier this year when Woodward was getting stick, as soon as we signed Bruno it completely disappeared. Then you see fan channels saying Glazers out while wearing the latest utd shirt
Disagree. They are in a small minority and being vocal on the CAF, Reddit and Twitter. They are not important. Right now, it is 100% the Glazers! We are being parked with indecisive ignorance. And the only one who is going to pay is Ole. And the Club.
Woodward being too much of a dick. And Ole being too much of a pussy.
You've got porn on in the background haven't you?
Wrong strategy.
Glazers strategy is to stay in the top 4 so we qualify for champions league. They only spend significant transfer money when United drop out of the top 4. When United finish in top 4 position they will save funds to pay dividends or pay off debt. All the time they give fans the impression that loads of players are about to sign or that signings were just missed. Given this strategy, United will not get to the top again only targeting top players like Jadon Sancho. We need a director of football to plan and manage player resources for the very long term (5 years). Glazers don't really know what they're doing.
A) One approach United could take could be to turn the club into a loan warehouse, like Chelsea are and City and Liverpool seem intent on becoming. But this is not the only approach we could take.
B) We could also target top world youth and play them like Dortmund. But instead of selling them when they reach top level we'd keep them. Having said that, selling Dembele was surely a wise move by Dortmund.
Glazers strategy is to stay in the top 4 so we qualify for champions league. They only spend significant transfer money when United drop out of the top 4. When United finish in top 4 position they will save funds to pay dividends or pay off debt. All the time they give fans the impression that loads of players are about to sign or that signings were just missed. Given this strategy, United will not get to the top again only targeting top players like Jadon Sancho. We need a director of football to plan and manage player resources for the very long term (5 years). Glazers don't really know what they're doing.
A) One approach United could take could be to turn the club into a loan warehouse, like Chelsea are and City and Liverpool seem intent on becoming. But this is not the only approach we could take.
B) We could also target top world youth and play them like Dortmund. But instead of selling them when they reach top level we'd keep them. Having said that, selling Dembele was surely a wise move by Dortmund.
The decision makers at the club, they got it wrong in the first place from SAF's successor, allowing SAF to pick his successor. No other club does that even when replacing a legend. A lot of that was down to not having football people involved in running the club. Would Bayern have allowed their previous manager to pick David Moyes. No chance.
If Glazers replaced Woody with CEO who understood football, like VDS at Ajax, could this be fixed? Maybe split the CEO job between football and commercial side giving VDS responsibility for running football side of things, and Woody keeping his banking expertise for commercial contracts & debt management. Woody could set things like budget for player & technical staff salaries & fees. VDS would spend the money and run a transfer kitty pot which Woody wouldn't be able to steal from.
Yeah it could probably be put right pretty easily.
A year on, the question remains.
It's easy to point to Ole - he is holding us back on the pitch ultimately.
However I think he's merely a symptom of the bigger problem - the poor running of the club. Successive poor managerial appointments, no sense of planning in footballing structure or recruitment. The aura of stability, or the acceptance of mediocrity, leading to delayed decisions in replacing staff and players.
Where does the buck stop? It's probably the Glazers right?
It's easy to point to Ole - he is holding us back on the pitch ultimately.
However I think he's merely a symptom of the bigger problem - the poor running of the club. Successive poor managerial appointments, no sense of planning in footballing structure or recruitment. The aura of stability, or the acceptance of mediocrity, leading to delayed decisions in replacing staff and players.
Where does the buck stop? It's probably the Glazers right?
All of the above, yeah. I think we've somewhat tried to rectify some of the above with Murtough's appointment, but we're playing catchup and left it far too late.