Why have we been so crap for so long?

Daengophile

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We have, for several reasons, ended up with an oversized squad full of players that are:

Too old
Too young/inexperienced
Not good enough
Bad attitude
Uncommitted
Injured all the time
Think they are in charge
Poor skills
Overpaid and reluctant to leave
Don't fit the manager's requirements

Etc.

Until all this has been sorted out we shall continue to be a jumble sale of individuals that we expect wonders from and sorting it out is clearly not something that can be achieved in a January transfer window

We need a DOF to set out an "Inventory" of positions, skills, ages throughout the club

Coaches at all levels need to be teaching the same style of play. Loanees also need to be at clubs with similar styles

This will all take years unless we are ruthless
 

amolbhatia50k

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The issue is that we don't have that singular vision and direction on and off the football pitch, and desire for excellence.

Football has moved towards pressing and high level possession play, whereas we picked Jose and Ole who play old school footy and hence we're now a mishmash of a collective that isn't geared to win trophies. We have a bunch of players who are used to sitting back and hitting teams on the break, and then others like AWB and Ronaldo who I'm not sure suit a modern system. I still feel a top coach could transform us within a year or so but we are shit at identifying those and we'll probably give Rangnick 2 years.
 

#07

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We're not set up to win, we're set up to be a brand exposure platform.

We sell the club to sponsors based on its profile. We buy players to enhance that profile. We seemingly tell players we'll use the club's profile to enhance their profile and maximise their earnings.

We are more of a media company than a football team. A content producer whose reason for existing is to provide enough of a reason for people to tune in, so that the advertising revenue keeps flowing.

Given the way the club positions itself I don't expect to be successful. Why would it be? If you are a player at this club, with one of the best paid squads on earth, you'd look around and say: 'I don't know why we're paid so much but it clearly isn't for winning titles.' The obvious thing to take from that is the Board doesn't primarily value on the pitch success. If it did we'd not be making players so rich off the back of no title since 2013.
 

JebelSherif

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So true.

You'd think someone would have pointed out that it's not the best idea to still have a legend's influence still around hanging off the shoulders of every following managerial appointment.
It didn't work for Sir Matt and doesn't seem to be working now with SAF's influence.
Yes - and there is one small but significant difference between then and now: executive boxes.

Why the heck doesn't fergie at the very least watch the games from one of those - when bad things happen Sky or the BBC just love to find him in the crown looking angry or bemused.... or does he secretly like the attention and the fact people might be thinking '....well it wouldn't have happened back in his day'.

P.S. He actually under-achieved in Europe, in my opinion, during his time and dare I say it over-achieved in the domestic competitions. There wasn't the strength and wealth of that many other clubs he was up against at that time, compared with now.
 

Pretzels81

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Personally, I think we have not signed ANY of the TopTop players of the 2010s decade, with the exception of Van Persie, DDG, and possibly Pogba (who at least was a TopTop player with Juve and seemed like a great signing/return).
 

luffy7

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We just overpaid those lazy feckers for too long. Any other excuses written here is bs. No way we cant the beat bottom 5 with ease. As if other lower clubs have no problems of their own.
 

Nou_Camp99

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I am in no way knocking getting British players. But I think a huge problem we have is the British players we have are not good enough. My team would be De Gea, Dalot, Bailly, Varane, Telles, Van De Beek, Fred, Sancho, Cavani and Ronaldo. The only British players that should play would be Jadon Sancho and Mason Greenwood. I rate Mason Greenwood but I don't think he is ready to be starting yet. Would be on the bench for me. I think the British Cliche is a huge problem. Maguire and now Shaw have given horrible interviews. Basically need a British cull at the club. But sadly it won't happen.
Why should Sancho play? He's been absymal.
 

Tom Van Persie

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Personally, I think we have not signed ANY of the TopTop players of the 2010s decade, with the exception of Van Persie, DDG, and possibly Pogba (who at least was a TopTop player with Juve and seemed like a great signing/return).
Di Maria? He was coming off a man of the match performance in the CL final and was considered one of the top players in Europe. Falcao was viewed as one of the best strikers around when we got him in on loan.
 

Hammondo

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We lack a football culture that brings any consistently after SAF.

We require modernization in our football.

Because of the first, we have failed the second.
 

Tom Van Persie

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Yes - and there is one small but significant difference between then and now: executive boxes.

Why the heck doesn't fergie at the very least watch the games from one of those - when bad things happen Sky or the BBC just love to find him in the crown looking angry or bemused.... or does he secretly like the attention and the fact people might be thinking '....well it wouldn't have happened back in his day'.

P.S. He actually under-achieved in Europe, in my opinion, during his time and dare I say it over-achieved in the domestic competitions. There wasn't the strength and wealth of that many other clubs he was up against at that time, compared with now.
- 1983 Cup Winners Cup (with Aberdeen)
- 1983 Super Cup (with Aberdeen)
- 1991 Cup Winners Cup (coming off the European ban)
- 1991 Super Cup
- Two Champions Leagues
- Seven CL semi finals (won four lost three)
- Two finals (beaten by one of the best sides we've seen)

Decent record if you ask me. And if you think we were successful because of our wealth then you really are clueless. But hey don't let me stop you from rewriting history.
 
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Pretzels81

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Di Maria? He was coming off a man of the match performance in the CL final and was considered one of the top players in Europe. Falcao was viewed as one of the best strikers around when we got him in on loan.
Van Gaal ruined them.
 

chisnall_red

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We're not set up to win, we're set up to be a brand exposure platform.

We sell the club to sponsors based on its profile. We buy players to enhance that profile. We seemingly tell players we'll use the club's profile to enhance their profile and maximise their earnings.

We are more of a media company than a football team. A content producer whose reason for existing is to provide enough of a reason for people to tune in, so that the advertising revenue keeps flowing.

Given the way the club positions itself I don't expect to be successful. Why would it be? If you are a player at this club, with one of the best paid squads on earth, you'd look around and say: 'I don't know why we're paid so much but it clearly isn't for winning titles.' The obvious thing to take from that is the Board doesn't primarily value on the pitch success. If it did we'd not be making players so rich off the back of no title since 2013.
this
 

alexthelion

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Do you even watch freaking football. Braindead comment when Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan Bissika, Scott McTominay and Marcus Rashford have been abysmal. Only player who you could say is Van De Beek but he hasn't been given a chance. Bailly is better than Maguire, Dalot is better than Wan Bissika and I would even play Elanga over Rashford.
Absolute codswallop. OK, Maguire/AWB haven't been at their best this season but they are still far better overall than those alternatives.

Rashford I agree needs to be dropped, but not for Elanga, who has yet to prove he even belongs in the first team.

I really don't get why there's a lot of anti-English sentiment on this forum.
 

Abraxas

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Bad managers. Bad footballing structure that puts the managers in place and procures players.

There isn't one party to blame, you can say the Glazers are responsible for hiring key staff and therefore have final responsibility. However the managers themselves have been given so much latitude in the market and they've bought us dud after dud after dud and then failed to produce a side. We've given these guys the ultimate faith...until we didn't. Maybe that's a failing model, maybe not, but whatever way you assess it they made poor squads.

Recruitment and management are everything in footballing terms and we've made errors and then compounded them.
 

Hammondo

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- 1983 Cup Winners Cup (with Aberdeen)
- 1983 Super Cup (with Aberdeen)
- 1991 Cup Winners Cup (coming off the European ban)
- 1991 Super Cup
- Two Champions Leagues
- Seven CL semi finals (won four lost three)
- Two finals (beaten by one of the best sides we've seen)

Decent record if you ask me. And if you think we were successful because of our wealth then you really are clueless. But hey don't let me stop you from rewriting history.
You have to mention how many seasons this is over.
 

Giggsy13

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A fear of being bold and obsessing over the past to start with. Conte for example was not in serious contention to take over the job despite his resume. That is prime ineptitude. We care more for our owners brittle feelings and being told they’re shit over long term success. We need someone ruthless like Roman, someone who will prioritize success over everything, that is ultimately what Man United is, the drive to win things and be the best. We are a far cry from Fergie days.
 

Volksie316

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All I have to say on this, is that Sir Alex was a freaking genius!

How the feck, did we win our last title, with the squad we had, at the time?

We have that same squad now, under Ole or Ralf, it would easily struggle to finish in the top half.
 

Seij

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Poor recruitment: Haphazard, with no apparent strategy or vision behind it. We're just scrambling to buy whoever is available most of the time, seemingly regardless odlf how they'd fit the squad.

Substandard coaching: Obviously I'm not privy to what's going on at Carrington but what other explanation is there for almost every player turning to shit at United, for regularly looking awful at even the very basics of football?

Club culture: Or, more specifically, the apparent lack of one. We keep underperforming players for too long, give too many chances to both players and managers, there doesn't seem to be a demand for excellence. 'Potentially good enough for top 4' is the bar these days.

Lack of identity: Ties in with the recruitment issue. We don't have a clear idea of what we even want to be, what sort of football we're aiming to play. It's just all over the place, changing on the whims of each manager.
I thought all of those things were fixed by Ole. United culture, DNA, identity, etc. Great team building, etc.
 

Slysi17

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Absolute codswallop. OK, Maguire/AWB haven't been at their best this season but they are still far better overall than those alternatives.

Rashford I agree needs to be dropped, but not for Elanga, who has yet to prove he even belongs in the first team.

I really don't get why there's a lot of anti-English sentiment on this forum.
It's not codswallop. Maguire and Wan Bissaka haven't performed for well over a year. Maguire and Wan Bissaka being far better than Bailly and Dalot is cadswallop due to 2 big reasons. They have been rubbish and still play.While Bailly and Dalot have hardly played. Aaron Wan Bissaka may have potiental to be a good defender but the modern full back needs to be good at attacking too which he isn't. His ball control/first touch is abysmal, passing is shoddy and can't cross a ball to save himself. Harry Maguire meanwhile is slow, panicks when defenders with pace run at him and when chasing the loose ball. Plus makes defensive mistakes. Instead of whinging about this anti-english sentiment, how about the club invest in English players that are actually good. Like Jude Bellingham. Harry Maguire and Aaron Wan Bissaka wouldn't get near Manchester City's, Liverpool's or Chelsea's side. I would argue they wouldn't even get into Arsenal's team.
 
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Dansk

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Poor recruitment: Haphazard, with no apparent strategy or vision behind it. We're just scrambling to buy whoever is available most of the time, seemingly regardless odlf how they'd fit the squad.

Substandard coaching: Obviously I'm not privy to what's going on at Carrington but what other explanation is there for almost every player turning to shit at United, for regularly looking awful at even the very basics of football?

Club culture: Or, more specifically, the apparent lack of one. We keep underperforming players for too long, give too many chances to both players and managers, there doesn't seem to be a demand for excellence. 'Potentially good enough for top 4' is the bar these days.

Lack of identity: Ties in with the recruitment issue. We don't have a clear idea of what we even want to be, what sort of football we're aiming to play. It's just all over the place, changing on the whims of each manager.
In principle I agree, but it still just doesn't compute for me. There are too many things that don't make sense in these answers.

Poor recruitment: Has it really been that bad, if we look at the signings at the time they were made? The lack of solid CMs is undeniable, granted, but I'm not sure which options we've failed to take. For the other positions, our signings haven't been worse on paper, at the time, than so many other big clubs. The players just seem to forget how to play football once they arrive. We've had a remarkable number of promising youth players come up through the ranks, but once they get settled into the squad, they invariably fail to remain exciting. We've signed loads of expensive players for whom we had to compete with other big clubs, and the same thing happens: they turn to shit either immediately or after a promising first season.

Substandard coaching: Indeed, but what's the explanation for the fact that the players often do just fine when they're playing for their national teams? It's not as if they spend enough time on international breaks to where their NT coaches can completely transform them, only for them to instantaneously revert to shit once they return to the club. I'm inclined to agree that we don't appear to have great coaches, but at the same time, I have to feel that it can't just be that. Players spend 90% of their time training with the club's coaching staff, and if these were so incompetent that it literally ruins the players, they wouldn't magically do fine the moment they go play for their national teams or their next club after leaving. But routinely they do.

Club culture: We're on our fifth manager in nine years, so I'm not sure how much more often we could realistically have changed them. Keeping underperforming players has certainly been a problem, but at the end of the day, practically every player at this club ends up underperforming. Almost none of the signings work out. Something like 75% of our players for the last decade can be categorized as an "underperforming player who should be moved on," and that's not something any club could do. I don't think the issue is so much with keeping players who aren't performing, it's with whatever it is that causes practically every player to underperform at United.

Lack of identity: How many clubs can genuinely be said to have a meaningful overall identity, if we're being honest? Almost every team plays the way their current manager tells them to play. I think people overrate this notion of identity as a permanent thing. What identity has Real Madrid got? Can't Liverpool be said to play to the whims of their latest manager? What's City's identity besides buying an endless cavalcade of stars and having a competent manager? This idea of "football DNA" is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. Every club just does whatever it thinks gives the highest chance of success. It's just that this hasn't worked at United for a long time. With a revolving door of managers and staff for the better part of a decade, are we to believe that absolutely none of them had an ounce of "identity" in them? What are the odds of that? If anything, Ralf was supposed to be Mr. Identity. It's literally all he's known for.
 

Slysi17

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Why should Sancho play? He's been absymal.
Oh look he has. Not denying that one. It's just the lack of options. I mean who do you play out of Mason Greenwood, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Jadon Sancho. Greenwood isn't a wide player really and Marcus Rashford has been awful. I mean you could be bold and play Amad Diallo but he has hardly played and isn't experienced.
 

tomaldinho1

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Terrible managerial appointments leading to scattergun transfers.

The few times we have hired players who have been electric at their previous clubs or incredibly highly rated, Pogba, Sanchez, Depay, ADM, Maguire, AWB, Fred etc. we've made them all worse, that's not just bad luck. Sancho and Varane sadly might fall into this bracket as well in the future and then there's the non sensical short-term signings like Cavani, Ronaldo, Ighalo, Matic who are just too old, too expensive and it's barmy to think they were the only options available. It's genuinely as if we can't accept where we are as a club and feel just one more big name will somehow knit it all together.
 

Slysi17

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One thing I don't absolutely get is why we play some games with only one creative player. The only player we had who was creative was Jadon Sancho. And we were basically screwed since he played awful and so we had no one to create chances for the forwards. It happened on numerous occassions under Ole. Bruno Fernandes was the only creative player. And again opposing teams would nullify him or he would play awful so would create sod all chances for our forwards. That's why I don't get the notion of oh Ronaldos the problem. Whether its been Cavani or Martial as well, we aren't creative.
 

Dansk

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All I have to say on this, is that Sir Alex was a freaking genius!

How the feck, did we win our last title, with the squad we had, at the time?

We have that same squad now, under Ole or Ralf, it would easily struggle to finish in the top half.
People overstate how poor the squad was in 2012-13. It was not bad at all.

DDG
Evra, aged 30-31
Rio, 31-32
Vidic, 31-32
Valencia
Promising youngsters Phil Jones and Smalling, who both started well and looked like the next generation of defenders
Chicharito, a fantastic super-sub
Rooney, 27-28
Carrick, 31-32
Nani, an excellent player at the time
Ashley Young in his best years
RVP with thirty goals that season
Experienced seniors Giggs and Scholes to advise younger players and were fine with playing very seldom

That's an amazing core of players. Some were getting a bit old, but it's not like 30-32 is ancient for world class defenders, and RVP took the league by storm that year. Of course we had the likes of Cleverley and Bebé, but any club has dross on the bench. Some of the veterans began to leave when Fergie did, and many players were clearly unenthusiastic about playing for Moyes, but it's kind of a myth that SAF left him with a crap squad. It wasn't the perfect team, but it was certainly more robust than any we've had since.
 

VivaRonaldo85

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The wrong people in charge of the club, resulting in a lack of any discernible strategy (other than to make money through commercial arrangements) and manifesting itself in poor and non-complementary managerial appointments. As a consequence, we have an ill-balanced squad, and, in contrast to our heyday under Fergie or to City who have the luxury of purchasing players from a position of strength to add to a settled team, we are permanently in fire-fighting mode. As we continue to hope in vain that player x, y or z is the missing piece of the jigsaw and and then have no clue how to assemble the puzzle, it starts to feel like one of those anxiety dreams where you end up further and further away from your destination.

Eight years and counting. By this stage in the post-Busby cycle (slightly before my time), we had at least had the Doc.years. This time round it’s been joyless.
I agree with this. We are blindly meandering to a Liverpool style decline in the 90s and early noughties. We all laughed when it took them 30 years to win a title. It will be 9 years for us this year in what feels like a blink of an eye with absolutely no signs of a title round the corner any time soon - if anything this could arguably be seen as the worst season post Fergie (apart from maybe the Moyes season) and we have never felt further from a real title fight.
 

Josep Dowling

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United has had great success under two managers who were long term and had full control over the everything. The club has tried to follow the same pattern giving out ridiculous long term contracts to managers and so much control, to a point we need a full clear out with every new manager because of the varying styles each one has had.

Football has moved on dramatically since Sir Alex retired and the competition has caught up and surpassed United on and off the pitch. The use of a director of football allows there to be some consistent recruitment policy for a style in which the club wants to play. Instead we have let the manager dictate everything leading to the mess we are in yet again. The latest being Ralf trying to play 4-2-2-2 when we have an abundance of wide players. We just signed the most promising RW in the world for £79m and now we don’t play with wide players!

It all starts from the top. The Glazers are not interested enough to put the right structure in place. Woodward is still lurking in the background when he should have already gone. And then we keep employing unqualified coaches and back room staff. We still don’t have a director of football. They hired Fletcher for a similar role with absolutely no experience or contacts in the game to work for United at that level. Now suddenly he’s on the sidelines as a coach. The entire set up at United is amateurish compared to our rivals.

Couple that with City having unlimited funds, Chelsea in a similar position and Liverpool getting their act together the club’s terrible situation is exemplified. If we were in La Liga for example, the club’s resources would be enough to at least make the Champions League without concern. We don’t have that luxury in the Premier League. The situation is only going to get worse with Newcastle funded by the Saudis. I don’t think we will get our act together for years.
 

PeteManic

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Apologies for adding another thread to the long list of threads discussing this.

Since Ferguson retired, I've never personally felt that we've played really good football for a sustained period of time. I can only think of the beginning of Mourinho's second season where we were winning every game 4-0 but apart from that we just haven't been any good.
Under Moyes we were generally crap, under LVG we played slow boring football and even under Ole, I felt we always flattered to deceive and never really dominated teams the way we used to.

Why is this? I can't remember the last time I got any realy joy out of watching this team. When I watch videos from the Fergie era of the likes of Rooney, Tevez, young Ronaldo, Scholes, Park, Evra et al playing great football, it feels like watching a different club.

How do we get back to that? We've spent so much money but yet on thepitch it's the same, sludge, uncomitted, slow tempo football especially at home.
Other teams got better.

Despite Fergie's narrative, he left in 2013 because he saw City coming. Liverpool have done well with Klopp but especially with their recruitment. Chelsea have just been Chelsea with their money injections.

United have been shit because the other teams have gotten much better. That is one part of it. The other part is that recruitment has been very very poor. Incredibly poor.
 

Siorac

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In principle I agree, but it still just doesn't compute for me. There are too many things that don't make sense in these answers.

Poor recruitment: Has it really been that bad, if we look at the signings at the time they were made? The lack of solid CMs is undeniable, granted, but I'm not sure which options we've failed to take. For the other positions, our signings haven't been worse on paper, at the time, than so many other big clubs. The players just seem to forget how to play football once they arrive. We've had a remarkable number of promising youth players come up through the ranks, but once they get settled into the squad, they invariably fail to remain exciting. We've signed loads of expensive players for whom we had to compete with other big clubs, and the same thing happens: they turn to shit either immediately or after a promising first season.

Substandard coaching: Indeed, but what's the explanation for the fact that the players often do just fine when they're playing for their national teams? It's not as if they spend enough time on international breaks to where their NT coaches can completely transform them, only for them to instantaneously revert to shit once they return to the club. I'm inclined to agree that we don't appear to have great coaches, but at the same time, I have to feel that it can't just be that. Players spend 90% of their time training with the club's coaching staff, and if these were so incompetent that it literally ruins the players, they wouldn't magically do fine the moment they go play for their national teams or their next club after leaving. But routinely they do.

Club culture: We're on our fifth manager in nine years, so I'm not sure how much more often we could realistically have changed them. Keeping underperforming players has certainly been a problem, but at the end of the day, practically every player at this club ends up underperforming. Almost none of the signings work out. Something like 75% of our players for the last decade can be categorized as an "underperforming player who should be moved on," and that's not something any club could do. I don't think the issue is so much with keeping players who aren't performing, it's with whatever it is that causes practically every player to underperform at United.

Lack of identity: How many clubs can genuinely be said to have a meaningful overall identity, if we're being honest? Almost every team plays the way their current manager tells them to play. I think people overrate this notion of identity as a permanent thing. What identity has Real Madrid got? Can't Liverpool be said to play to the whims of their latest manager? What's City's identity besides buying an endless cavalcade of stars and having a competent manager? This idea of "football DNA" is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. Every club just does whatever it thinks gives the highest chance of success. It's just that this hasn't worked at United for a long time. With a revolving door of managers and staff for the better part of a decade, are we to believe that absolutely none of them had an ounce of "identity" in them? What are the odds of that? If anything, Ralf was supposed to be Mr. Identity. It's literally all he's known for.
1. Poor recruitment in the sense that we're all over the place when buying players. Solskjaer talked about high line and pressing and pro-active football, and playing out of the back - then bought players like Wan Bissaka and Maguire who were completely unsuited for that. That sort of thing.

2. International football is a different kettle of fish, more emphasis on player quality and less on systems and team cohesion because they simply spend a lot less time together. And most of our departing players don't become magically good at their next clubs. Some do OK, some do even worse. Those who do well generally do it in teams with strong, system-oriented managers - like how Conte managed to make use of our misfits. That's good coaching right there.

3. Five managers in nine years isn't a lot if you consider how massively, unbelievably we underperformed. It's hard to overstate how bad we've been considering the resources wasted. We aren't proactive enough when it comes to managers, we always wait until things are broken beyond repair, and seemingly don't even weigh our options until then. Why wasn't Van Gaal booted in December 2015 when we literally couldn't score a goal for weeks? Why are we giving new contracts to players who have proven time and time again that they aren't good enough?

4. Football DNA is indeed mumbo-jumbo. Identity, however, isn't, at least not necessarily. Real Madrid do have an identity: they sign established star players by any means necessary, and build on the 'glamour' of that. City pretty much built their entire club on the idea of getting Pep Guardiola. You can, of course, succeed without a strong, dominant vision like that; Chelsea or even Liverpool are indeed proof of that. But then you need vastly better recruitment and coaching, and a certain ruthlessness that we just don't have - instead we offer a new contract to Jesse Lingard.

By themselves, each of these points are debatable but the mistakes and flaws I'm talking about here add up and snowball. That's partly why 75% of players could be categorised as underperforming: they come into a broken club to begin with.
 

VidaRed

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Because the likes of lingard are spreading poison within the club.
 

romufc

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Players think they are Manutd. That is the problem, the likes of Pogba, Lingard, Rashford have too much free reign.

Average players being paid WC wages.

Lingard, Henderson, Maguire, Shaw, Martial, Rashford, Pogba, DDG, AWB all paid at least 2x what they should be on.

None since getting contracts have shown any sign of improvement, none have put together more than 6 months worth of good form.

No accountability, they come out saying we are hurting and we need to do better, only to go into the next match with no intensity.

Rashford is a prime example, he is Manutd through and through yet, when the chips are down his effort levels are 0.
 

Irwin99

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No direction, clueless owners and the foundations SAF left were not great despite his dominance of the league. I genuinely feel bad writing that last part but I feel it's true; lots of players in the 30+ range and a future core of Jones, Smalling, Evans, Rafael, Tom Cleverly, Kagawa, Danny Welbeck. Look where all their careers went.
 

Zlatanator

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When you are changing managers every few years then you need a top player in each position.
If you want to develop the squad and a certain style of play you need a young squad.
City, Chelsea, Real Madrid are the examples here.
 

el3mel

Full Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2016
Messages
43,735
Location
Egypt
Not having a proper plan of rebuilding.

The poor recruitment is the major reason for us going down hill. Yes, our managerial appointments weren't the best but the main problem is we have been signing players for the sake of it and not based on actual step by step plan of rebuilding the squad.

We wasted ton of money and we're still where we're. If we actually put an actual proper plan, under a certain proper manager, and stick with it, we would have been back within 3 years max post Fergie.

But no, we kept on doing haphazard signings and going from style to the complete opposite.
 

glazed

Eats diamonds to beat thermodynamics
Joined
Sep 30, 2012
Messages
7,526
The Glazer business model. The fans are also to blame for permitting it through an over abundance of loyalty.
 

Lee565

Full Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2019
Messages
4,978
Glazer's obsession with commercial success where they forget that we only became such a commercial powerhouse because of our dominance on the field. Believe these past 7 odd years of mostly awful football and lack of silverware will catch up with our commercial income when you have liverpool and man city winning silverware whilst playing great attacking football.

You have to ask what is it that we lack that other big clubs like man city, chelsea, liverpool have that we don't and that is director of football who knows what they are doing, we have had woodward who has handed stupid contract extensions to players and managers when they were either unnecessary or unwarranted, he has been responsible for all the failed managerial recruitment and awful transfer business. Now look at man city, Chelsea and liverpool who are able to sell squad and average youth players players for 20+ million, as well make profits on selling their more senior first team players.
 

simplyared

Full Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2017
Messages
4,349
Location
somewhere ouside the UK
It's history repeating itself. What we have witnessed since Sir Alex stepped down is the same as when Sir Matt retired. Two brilliant men who when leaving there posts left behind dressing rooms that needed makeovers. Tommy Doc, who brought a lot of young talent to the club could have succeeded if he'd been allowed to continue. Unfortunately that not being the case we have just continued with recruiting unsuitable managers for the job. Could well have been different if we had gone for Klopp!
 

allen7

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Apr 11, 2015
Messages
597
My opinion on this is,
Primary
Raise of wealthy clubs like chelsea, city - they snapped all our potential players, managers with a bigger paycheque and perks. So it’s impossible for any major club to match them because of their desperation to success

Secondary
Manager selections and overall imbalance in club hierarchy like CEO sees the commercial side and doesn’t care about on field success

I feel liverpool will go thorough a same patch when klopp resigns.
 

Sandikan

aka sex on the beach
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
Messages
52,710
My opinion on this is,
Primary
Raise of wealthy clubs like chelsea, city - they snapped all our potential players, managers with a bigger paycheque and perks. So it’s impossible for any major club to match them because of their desperation to success

Secondary
Manager selections and overall imbalance in club hierarchy like CEO sees the commercial side and doesn’t care about on field success

I feel liverpool will go thorough a same patch when klopp resigns.
When was the last time we missed out on a player or a manager due to wages or fee?