My gut feeling says it'll be worse than 2013.
Will we be ready for 6th August?
- Thread starter Offsideagain
- Start date
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
It's frustrating, but I feel the same way. Everyone hyped up about ETH, so my feeling goes, "well he'll play against relegation for half a season" until we pull the plug and Rooney takes over who barely saves us from relegation and gets the full time job.
Man, these past years really have made me cynical.
I'll be keeping my expectations very low.
fecking hell, remember when people thought 03-06 was the bad times.
fecking hell, remember when people thought 03-06 was the bad times.
Me too. Murtough is still learning on the job and I don't think the improvements we're making to our scouting approach have come soon enough for this window. It will be a messy window and I can see us only bringing two players in.
It’s going to take a lot longer than a preseason to get the coaches ideas working.
Don’t expect too much from this season aside from progress
Don’t expect too much from this season aside from progress
I've already accepted we won't get many of our top targets and ETH will have to work with a squad that's not near what he needs. Besides FDJ, there's nobody making me think "we gotta get him." So I"m just hoping we secure UCL for the following season and we go after some top players like Jude Bellingham
I think it depends on what your definition of ready is?
I mean the players all being well will have a full pre season, with no injuries. Hopefully there will be a few additions to the squad as we need some reinforcements for the players leaving this summer.
In that sense I think we'll be ready, anything less will have to be seen as a bad start and failure from the club's perspective as I'm sure ETH will expect to get at least 2 or 3 players in as a minimum.
If you mean ready as in the players adapt to ETH and the style of play he wants, then no.
This will take some time, most of the season in fact. He can get a basic style of play and formation, but in terms of coaching the players individually and as a team, this is a process that will take a while.
Even the great managers take time to work out what they can get out of players, who they can work with, who they can't. Even if you put ancelotti, Klopp or Pep in, they won't transform utd into contenders in one year.
Why anyone expect ETH to be any different or even on a par with those is beyond me. He's untried outside of Holland which as a league is not much stronger than the championship in truth. This season is a gamble, he's the biggest risk we've taken but one I think we sort of have to risk because we've tried every other approach. If he doesn't work out, we maybe need to accept we're stuck in the wilderness for sometime. I just hope he's the one.
I mean the players all being well will have a full pre season, with no injuries. Hopefully there will be a few additions to the squad as we need some reinforcements for the players leaving this summer.
In that sense I think we'll be ready, anything less will have to be seen as a bad start and failure from the club's perspective as I'm sure ETH will expect to get at least 2 or 3 players in as a minimum.
If you mean ready as in the players adapt to ETH and the style of play he wants, then no.
This will take some time, most of the season in fact. He can get a basic style of play and formation, but in terms of coaching the players individually and as a team, this is a process that will take a while.
Even the great managers take time to work out what they can get out of players, who they can work with, who they can't. Even if you put ancelotti, Klopp or Pep in, they won't transform utd into contenders in one year.
Why anyone expect ETH to be any different or even on a par with those is beyond me. He's untried outside of Holland which as a league is not much stronger than the championship in truth. This season is a gamble, he's the biggest risk we've taken but one I think we sort of have to risk because we've tried every other approach. If he doesn't work out, we maybe need to accept we're stuck in the wilderness for sometime. I just hope he's the one.
If MCT remains first choice in our midfield, we'd be far from being in an ideal position to start the season. Only hope then is for Fletcher to get out of retirement
After signing Sancho, Ronny and Varane last season I had hope and expectation. This season I’m just not going to expect anything . Just a top 4 finish and a cup win that’s not too much to ask
I may sound negative to some but after 9 years of failure I can't understand anyone who can be hyped up about ten Hag or any other manager except for maybe Pep/Klopp, we're just a mess and it's hard (to me at least) to have any expectations anymore about United. We've spend so much money only to become worse over the years.It's frustrating, but I feel the same way. Everyone hyped up about ETH, so my feeling goes, "well he'll play against relegation for half a season" until we pull the plug and Rooney takes over who barely saves us from relegation and gets the full time job.
Man, these past years really have made me cynical.
Hopefully, it goes something like this...
FdJ will be done quickly once the window opens; that'll pave the way for persuading our other targets to join the project, the likes of Nunez, Timber, Torres or whoever we end up with (that EtH is happy with), up to the £150 odd million or whatever it is we've 'officially' announced we're spending this window.
Martial, DvdB and other returning players can join Rashford and the rest to begin EtH's fitness and coaching regime as soon as possible, integrating the new players as they arrive and making the most of pre-season games to be as ready as we can be for the opening game.
Then, the Glazers pull a cheeky £90 million out of their (United's) back pocket and slap it down in front of Moyes and we add Rice to the squad, just in time to join the last couple of pre-season games.
Job done, statement made.
FdJ will be done quickly once the window opens; that'll pave the way for persuading our other targets to join the project, the likes of Nunez, Timber, Torres or whoever we end up with (that EtH is happy with), up to the £150 odd million or whatever it is we've 'officially' announced we're spending this window.
Martial, DvdB and other returning players can join Rashford and the rest to begin EtH's fitness and coaching regime as soon as possible, integrating the new players as they arrive and making the most of pre-season games to be as ready as we can be for the opening game.
Then, the Glazers pull a cheeky £90 million out of their (United's) back pocket and slap it down in front of Moyes and we add Rice to the squad, just in time to join the last couple of pre-season games.
Job done, statement made.
EtH will have a lot of work to do. A hell of a lot
Remaining players
Returning loanees
Up and coming youngsters
New players
All to assess and make a hasty decision on
Club tours with circus games at inconvenient locations around the globe will be a hindrance
Gonna be an interesting couple of months
Remaining players
Returning loanees
Up and coming youngsters
New players
All to assess and make a hasty decision on
Club tours with circus games at inconvenient locations around the globe will be a hindrance
Gonna be an interesting couple of months
The rational approuch would be: not signing any player now. Wait for ETH to check which players can operate under his system. Then, in the next window, we sign specific profiles. Not necessarily big names, but system players. Its cheaper and probably more efficient.
By all accounts it takes ETH a while to get his teams functioning to his liking. Not a chance this group will be ready in August.
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I think you are expecting abit too much. It a not going to be easy to beat the likes of Conte Spur and finish top 4 next season, let alone a trophy. They have better team than us this season, they will have more money to spend this summer, and likely to sign better players too with a CL football. They also have a manager good at getting results and familiar with PL, with well prepared game plan for next season.
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How much time does ETH have with the players? Fitness and tactics take a lot of time.
We are yet to sign even one player in a squad that needs at least five to be relevant in the league next season. Of course we won't be ready.
I see people here are once again making cynical transfer predictions out of thin air and unwarranted negativity just like with Sancho, Varane and Ten Hag when everyone thought it was PR for Pochettino.
For the record I don't expect us to make all our signings by pre season. I reckon we make 4 signings in total with 2 through the door by pre season(FDJ and Timber/a ST) with the other two happening in between pre season.
As for tactics it'll take at least 2yrs before we fully function as a Ten Hag team
For the record I don't expect us to make all our signings by pre season. I reckon we make 4 signings in total with 2 through the door by pre season(FDJ and Timber/a ST) with the other two happening in between pre season.
As for tactics it'll take at least 2yrs before we fully function as a Ten Hag team
We should be aiming to get 3/4 players in by pre season though… it’s not impossible. Other clubs can manage it so we should be able to. I think your right with the tactics, we’ll probably see some improvement in his first season but we won’t hit top gear for a couple of years and until he gets all the players he wants and needs to make his system work.
Reason I've said 2 is due to the budget. If FDJ(which I'm now expecting to happen after initial skepticism) is one of two deals we complete by pre season a second deal will use up something close to or the full £120m budget. We'll have to make sales first for any additional signings which will take some time.
Argh ye, fair enough.
I’m with you here and it’s depressing. No doubt Shaw gets injured in game week one and then we are relying on Dalot and Telles at full back. The squad needs two midfields, a CB, two full backs and a substitute striker.
I’d go as far as saying the current squad is mid-table to bottom half. Our results the second half of last season were shocking and the team didn’t put up any fight. Any sign of poor results early on this season their heads will drop again.
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Our starting 11, is not actually that bad, but you are right our overall squad is about mid table level.
The likes of Telles, Fred, McTominay, Dalot etc, would not even make out rivals' bench, let alone starting eleven.
I agree with the needs you mentioned, but as United have briefed, they want "evolution" not "revolution"
Going to be a very long summer ahead.
You will surely get some CMs in for first game, De Jong obviously a serious link so probably waiting until nations league ends.
With defence and attack have enough to put the existing combinations out and see if Ten Haag can get more out of them in first 3 games before a signing or two late on in the window I suspect.
i don't even think there will be any 'new manager bounce'. eth will struggle with this rabble. Squad has the movement of a legless chicken. No attacking the space, or occupying it. He's got alot of work to do.
Damn. I thought the whole 'monitored' and 'considered' was just a Caf meme. You know it's bad when even the troll pages have joined in the banter.
Nah..
Knowing how the Glazers work, we will likely haggle until 31st August and pay double the asking price for 2 40 year old strikers
My sarcasm was lost on you
Obviously. It’s hard to tell amongst this current lot of posters
Am I the only optimistic one here?
No. We shouldn't even be thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about what ETH can achieve by 6th August.
We won't be challenging, we won't be playing attractive football, we won't win a trophy, we'll still lose to poor sides and we'll still get tanked at least once or twice by City and Liverpool.
I know full-well what this place is like. Posters who are now claiming we need to 'give ETH time" will be calling for his head by October, claiming that it's "all about coaching" and citing "lack of progress".
You can't undo a decade of rot and mismanagement from the Board in 6 weeks. If we want the real change we say we do, it's going to take 2/3 seasons before we start seeing the team challenging imo.
We have our own version of the boom-bust cycle every summer.
Our monitoring targets early optimism through to calls that we should calm down as the window isn't even open.
Player turn us down, yeah but we never wanted them anyway.
Then it's we've got to preseason there's still time stop moaning....season hasn't even started.....window isn't closed yet....finally it'll be yeah but there was no one worthwhile anyway. Clever lines about no point signing players for the same of it.
Our monitoring targets early optimism through to calls that we should calm down as the window isn't even open.
Player turn us down, yeah but we never wanted them anyway.
Then it's we've got to preseason there's still time stop moaning....season hasn't even started.....window isn't closed yet....finally it'll be yeah but there was no one worthwhile anyway. Clever lines about no point signing players for the same of it.
No but I didn’t expect us to anyway. New structure, new manager, lots of work to do within a tight budget, season starts earlier than usual etc.
Probably.
I have no doubt ETH will name a starting XI for the August 6 fixture.
How many more players are gonna post pictures of themselves doing weights?
We have Rashfird, AWB, & Amad so far.
I'd rather have pictures of them doing shuttle runs and long distance running considering how unfit they appeared to be on the pitch.
We have Rashfird, AWB, & Amad so far.
I'd rather have pictures of them doing shuttle runs and long distance running considering how unfit they appeared to be on the pitch.