Would anyone explain why this season all went to hell?

[marktan]

As a Milan fan I consider myself an expert on mismanagement and mediocrity.


The CR7 return reminded me of our Kaka return in 2013.
A purely nostalgic and idiotic decision which went against the values of the team that had previously managed to finish in top 3.
The 2012 Milan team was a youthful, energetic team which compensated what they lacked in experience and talent with sacrifice and a strong unit.
You were going for high press and then you signed a 37 year old Cristiano Ronaldo?

Another thing which reminds me of our decade long mediocrity is the constant change of systems or "tactical revolutions", new gimmicks.
A classic British manager in Moyes, 90s totaalvoetball with Van Gaal, then ultra pragmatism with Mourinho, "the United way" with Solskjaer, now gegenpressing with Rangnick, next season modern totalvoetball with Ten Hag?
It's as if the club is ruled by the dumber half of online communities, who can't look beyond hype and end product. The players and coaches that the club is signing are the ones that create most fan excitement, initially at least. Corporate people with no football vision.

I don't think you'll get out of this cycle until your upper management give the keys to proper technical directors with a vision that doesn't depend on fan sentiments.
Rangnick was never good as a coach, as Milan fan I'm glad we dodged that bullet. But he might be able to steer you out of this in an executive non-coach role.

Good post, I agree with this. Too many signings of 'names' rather than any actual consideration of the fit and style of play of the player, and the team we should try to build. Very few of our signings recently have been good - even this summer out of Ronaldo, Sancho and Varane I'd consider none of them really necessary or good value for the spend.

It's not really rocket science on how to build a good team but our higher ups really try to make it look so. Liverpool and Real for example provide a good template for the type of players you should sign for each position. Curiously what changed at Milan recently? Maldini being good or other people? I've been very impressed with the signings you've made recently, a lot of young and technical players like Leao etc. In my opinion if you guys manage to sign a good striker and a RW, and keep Kessie or sign a good replacement you have a team that could grow into a strong contender in Europe.

 

[Charles Miller]

Group of players may be insufficient for a title race but it should do better. Manager is a theoretical and a philosopher of football(no sarcasm), it might work at some environment where he is highly respected, but its clearly not enough to deal with players that are all internationals, despite how we rate them in this site.

 

[AusRed]

Solskjaer not up to it. Unhappy squad. Long-term planner brought in to do a short term job.

Nail on the head!

 

[OverratedOpinion]

I will preface this by saying in all honesty I have no idea but it is something I have thought about a lot.

My best explanation is that Ole assembled a squad that was set up to do 2 things. Firstly play deep and catch teams on the counter, we did this as well as anyone in Europe and players like Rashford absolutely thrived. Secondly to rely on individual moments from players like Bruno, Pogba, Greenwood ect.

We got very good in those parameters but something (potentially the Europa League final) showed Ole that there is a limit to how far you can go with that. Due to realising this Ole decided to do something of a 180 and try to transform us into a more modern type of team. The issue with this was firstly he may not have been capable of the intricate sort of coaching that this requires and more importantly the squad that he had assembled was not suited to that at all.

This left us totally exposed in midfield with a defence and even a Goalkeeper who is not suited to defending on the front foot and an attack that didn't look consistently able to breakdown organised defences.

Rangnick then comes in and I think we are confronted with a coach who is absolutely the wrong person for the situation. I don't think he is a great coach and the thing he actually knows how to do well (intense pressing, high line ect.) is the absolute extreme version of what got Ole in trouble with the squads limitations. Add that to our confidence being at an all time low and quite a lot of "injuries" and it was a perfect storm for failure.

The above is the reason Ole probably would have done better because eventually he would have reverted to type but the limitations would have still been there so ultimately this pain was probably necessary and if not necessary it will hopefully at least be useful in the long run.

 

[always_hoping]

Start with the owners and work your way down for blame.

This...

 

[RedViv]

African shamans

That’s reserved for pep, shaman’s can’t curse shit.

 

[Irwin99]

The two times in recent years we finished 2nd never felt like we were the 2nd best team in England to me

Yeah I agree. People think it's Ole bashing or just being plain negative but it just never felt like we were that good; Jose's second place finish was very similar and, as others have said, that was a season with quite a few downs too ("Football heritage" and an FA cup Final defeat).

I remember we beat Liverpool 2-1 in 2018 at OT that year when Ashley Young had the game of his life against Mo Salah and Rashford got two but pretty much everyone could see where Liverpool were headed and that something wasn't quite right with us. You could see similar patterns last season.

 

[RacingClub]

I think there was a bit of "The Emperor's New Clothes" around United at the beginning of the season.

To outsiders (and some of the fanbase) there were obvious issues with your club.

Ole was/ is a bad manager.

Your coaching wasn't up to standard (and it was obvious when you played a team like Brighton that they were coached better than you) and you relied on individual brilliance.

Your players didn't work hard enough and they were spoiled / entitled. They achieve (relatively) nothing and are treated like world beaters.

Your signings were scattergun at best and not really working towards a "Vision". (I have no problem with the Ronaldo signing on the face of it but you have absolutely no players who can cross a ball consistently for example).

Anyone who voiced any of these issues was accused of "not getting behind the team" and after a winning match were mocked for talking about "Passages of play". (To a certain extent this still goes on in various threads where posters are desperate for a "GOTCHA" moment)

Basically the ones who said .. "Hold on a minute I can see the clubs ballsack!" Were shouted down by the other fans who were purring about the imaginary stitchwork on the invisible jacket that was your opening weeks of the season.

This led to the idea that you were ready for a title challenge and when it didn't come the wheels fell off.

All of a sudden the nudity was revealed, arsehairs and all.

Ever since then it's just been toxic but the toxicity has also started to make fans exaggerate about how bad the situation is.

It reminds me of how Garth Southgate managed expectations leading up to the World Cup and how eventually fans grew frustrated with the wool being pulled over their eyes when players like Sancho/ Grealish sat on the bench during the Euros.

I think that rumours of your demise have been greatly exaggerated and you will be in the top 4 come this time next year.

 

[OL29]

As a Milan fan I consider myself an expert on mismanagement and mediocrity.


The CR7 return reminded me of our Kaka return in 2013.
A purely nostalgic and idiotic decision which went against the values of the team that had previously managed to finish in top 3.
The 2012 Milan team was a youthful, energetic team which compensated what they lacked in experience and talent with sacrifice and a strong unit.
You were going for high press and then you signed a 37 year old Cristiano Ronaldo?

Another thing which reminds me of our decade long mediocrity is the constant change of systems or "tactical revolutions", new gimmicks.
A classic British manager in Moyes, 90s totaalvoetball with Van Gaal, then ultra pragmatism with Mourinho, "the United way" with Solskjaer, now gegenpressing with Rangnick, next season modern totalvoetball with Ten Hag?
It's as if the club is ruled by the dumber half of online communities, who can't look beyond hype and end product. The players and coaches that the club is signing are the ones that create most fan excitement, initially at least. Corporate people with no football vision.

I don't think you'll get out of this cycle until your upper management give the keys to proper technical directors with a vision that doesn't depend on fan sentiments.
Rangnick was never good as a coach, as Milan fan I'm glad we dodged that bullet. But he might be able to steer you out of this in an executive non-coach role.

Well said.

 

[Glorio]

Mismanagement of the footballing side from top to squad without a coherent plan leading to a disjointed squad, with overinflated egos and a few disgruntled want away players. And some point it catches up to you, and in our case, it all came to a head this season.

Much as Ronaldo has singlehandedly saved us in the past few months, I reckon he was a huge catalyst to the implosion. His ultra-professional, win or die attitude was probably a shock to the kind of cozy atmosphere Ole aimed to build. I think it was needed, but obviously in the short-term may have been a factor in causing the sharp decline as the sheltered players didn't necessarily react positively.

Apart from the period after lockdown, have we ever really looked decent over 3 consecutive games? Not really.
In comes Rangnick, who I have a lot of respect for as a footballing expert and a straight shooter, however, he's not a manager at this level, and it shows

 

[SAFMUTD]

A combination of players lacking quality like Dalot, Lindelof, Telles, McTominay, Elanga, Maguire, Wan Bissaka, Matic, Mata, with entitled losers that downed tools because they feel they're not treated with the respect they deserve like Lingard, Rashford, Pogba, Cavani.

First with an unqualified manager that coached vibes followed by a manager more interested in getting the problems afloat instead of rescuing the season.

 

[Nicolarra90]

We replaced an irregular manager with a worst one.

That's it.

 

[R.N7]

Culmination of not having a real manager for three seasons.

 

[Blood Mage]

Ole found himself out of his depth when our exciting new signings forced him to play more progressive, attacking football. Then Rangnick came in and tried to implement pressing football with players who weren't suited to it nor enthusiastic about it. A combination of poor management and shite recruitment with zero vision behind it.

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

When we have a bad day this season we are a pure disaster. Last season we gave the big teams a fight.

I do not understand how it can be this bad. It is similar players plus a few top players.

Our signings have been shit particular Varane, but we can't just blame them.

Maguire has been awful, but today we sucked without him as well.

 

[Artimities]

I don’t put it all on Ole. I think it’s several factors, some that surface due to a domino effect.
Ronaldo threw off the mojo of the team, but his pure ability hid that fact and instead opened up our other issue. A midfield that just doesn’t work out. Today was the perfect example. There were posts last week about Mata and Matic and both had horrible displays today.
Ole getting canned opened the door for United to get RR onboard thus allowing no players in during January.
Now our players have effectively given up and we are floundering. I would give runouts only to players you intend to keep in the last game.

 

[Scholsey2004]

Because we've been amateurishly run since the Glazer's and, in particular, Woodward took over. Their vision appears to have been signing as many players who are potential social media influencers as possible without any concern about how they could be structured into a team and stockpiling players as economic assets to the detriment of morale and player motivation.

 

[Yakuza_devils]

The board sacked Ole too late when everyone can see the obvious much earlier.

The board made a massive blunder by appointing a wrong interim manager who doesn't suit the squad.

The board didn't back the manager in Jan window.

The board threw away the season in Nov due to incompetency again. This is worrying as we have seen it time and time again for the last decade.

 

[fallengt]

Players bought into the hype that they could be challenging for titles this season. Few bad results and they stopped giving a shit. Pretty weak mentality.

 

[ExoduS]

Ronaldo should not have been brought back. He is a different player now and needs team to work for him - we don't have that kind of midfield. Maguire was sh1t. Pogba was sh1t. Fernandes' form was not as good as previous season. Ole was clueless on how to adjust, Rangnick is average manager at best, totally not ready for England, probably not ready to manage Norwich, let alone Man Utd. Yeah, not much silver lining this season. Total sh1t.

 

[Cantonagotmehere]

Greenwood. For me that is when it went to utter shite. At least we could have watched him grow and see Ronaldo in red again as well. ETH would have been announced and we could have dealt with it.

 

[paulscholes18]

Not signing a midfielder before the season started or in January
Sacking Ole too late
Not selling players who needed/ wanted to go
Signing the mercenary CB Varane

 

[Amarsdd]

Squad dynamics. Its as simple as that. The dynamics in the squad changed when we got the big names - Ronaldo, Varane, Sancho. Ole was not able to manage that change and Ralf basically just made it worse. I’m not blaming the three players, its just the managers haven’t managed to control it and the squad dynamics just spiralled out of control.

 

[Reditus]

It’s just been a absolute shit show and little or no point dissecting it.

I’m gutted we aren’t playing next weekend as it means we still need to endure 2 more weeks of football. I’ve never wished for a season to be over so much in all my life and I’m delighted there is no football in the summer too. I just want it gone and start afresh

 

[ClassOf'99]

This is just a repeat of 17/18 and 18/19 under Mourinho.

When you’ve assembled a shit squad and an unsustainable style of football to go along with it, eventually the overperformance disappears and you get sth like this, not much more to read into it.

And we finished 2nd with one of the lowest point tally for 2nd place at least in the past 10 years or so (Chelsea 10/11 is the only one lower off the top of my head), got dumped out of the CL rather ignominiously, failed in the domestic cups and managed to bungle the EL final, so the cracks were already there.

It's nothing to do with Ronaldo. That's just reductionist in the extreme. It would be so simple if we could just assign blame there, but it runs much deeper.

There's an argument that Ronaldo had been overplayed, that we put too much emphasis on him. His playing time should be managed. That's on the manager, not the player.

But signing a goat with impeccable standards is exactly what we should be doing, given the lack of character in this squad that has become apparent this season. If he put some noses out of joint then fair enough.

Cavani didn't want to be here. Greenwood blew it all. Rashford had dropped further in output. Martial gone. Sancho bedding in. Without Ronaldo we'd be even worse.

Tragedy in three acts

1. Ole assembled a horribly disbalanced team for the start of the season, ridiculously failing to sign a DMF and having too many choices on too many positions elsewhere (not qualitt choices, quantity)

2. Morale in the team went to shitter

3. They unacceptably delayed firing Ole, which made things worse and then hired a wrong interim manager that hasn't been able to steady the ship because he wasn't supported in the transfer window, is a temporary manager who the team doesn't respect, is a strange fella himself and honestly is more of a director of football than a manager, esp at this level.

All that said, the core issue is that we have a lot of irresponsible, not good enough players who are paid way too much and are arrogant beyond belief

Mismanagement of the footballing side from top to squad without a coherent plan leading to a disjointed squad, with overinflated egos and a few disgruntled want away players. And some point it catches up to you, and in our case, it all came to a head this season.

Much as Ronaldo has singlehandedly saved us in the past few months, I reckon he was a huge catalyst to the implosion. His ultra-professional, win or die attitude was probably a shock to the kind of cozy atmosphere Ole aimed to build. I think it was needed, but obviously in the short-term may have been a factor in causing the sharp decline as the sheltered players didn't necessarily react positively.

Apart from the period after lockdown, have we ever really looked decent over 3 consecutive games? Not really.
In comes Rangnick, who I have a lot of respect for as a footballing expert and a straight shooter, however, he's not a manager at this level, and it shows

The answers are all here, couple these with the fact that these players have got multiple previous managers sacked.

I doubt they lost that mentality, have got called out by a highly professional senior player in Ronaldo, one of the very few that remember what it means to be a professional United player.

A manager who expects a standard that half these have no interest in playing nor playing for this manager knowing he's gone in 6 months, tools downed and the results reflect it.

This is the same squad who threw away a very winnable European final let's not forget, I'm sick of 95% of this squad and believe we need a full reset.

 

[Red Dreams]

As some one said above.
Start with the Glazers.

Appointing an unqualified Manager based on league position in a Covid year.
Then firing same manger far too late.
The Greenwood situation
Not signing a DM
A squad that was totally in shambles with players that should not have started the season.

 

[Awakered88]

The morale in the club has gone and its full of toxic players who do not care about the club only them selves. The team needs rebuilding starting with the midfield.

 

[bosnian_red]

• We were never "2nd best". I mean we were 2nd deservedly last year, but we all knew that at full pelt, we were behind Chelsea and Liverpool.
• Under coached and past 2 years got by on cheerleading with top 4 being good.
• Significantly raised expectations this season meant that Ole had to change things and repeating last season was no longer acceptable, so we couldnt just show the same level. As it turned out, we tried to be more progressive/dominant and we couldn't do it at all
• Then confidence dropped/fallouts happened due to an overly bloated squad,
• Full blown meltdown as we couldn't stop and get back to last season's level at least (due to heightened expectations and then people losing faith)

That was the jist of it under Ole. Happens. Since Ole:

• Initial improvement in performances and results, but some bad luck meant we never had the result to really start believing
• Interim manager brought in only so confidence only goes as far as competitive motivation, but the interim manager we hired is a system manager who takes time to build his style and needs players that fit him, rather than just adapting to what he has and finding something to grind results out. Good for manager. Doesn't make sense for interim.
• Right as we were building some momentum and some good results and getting some belief (last minute deserved winner vs West Ham), Greenwood shit happens. Huge impact on the club and squad which shouldn't be understated, he was our future hope and wonder boy who was gonna be the face of the club and academy who we were planning every future attack around. Goes from that, to cancelled as an athlete at the end of the transfer window. We were fecked from that moment
• Atletico knocks us out in a tight tie, nothing left to play for for the season.

 

[wrepdrep]

Curiously what changed at Milan recently? Maldini being good or other people? I've been very impressed with the signings you've made recently, a lot of young and technical players like Leao etc. In my opinion if you guys manage to sign a good striker and a RW, and keep Kessie or sign a good replacement you have a team that could grow into a strong contender in Europe.

I don't think it's one or two people.
Many people and events have helped modernizing Milan and getting the club back into Champions League.
Elliot Management and Gazidis changed the club culture. In the past it was run like a charity project or a corrupted 3rd world country crippled by nepotism and no accountability.
Elliot Management aren't football experts, but they are experts on business and know how to find the right people in the right positions.

Massara is the sporting director and Moncada the chief scout. These are the guys that have improved the player recruitment at Milan and they had a great record at their previous clubs.
Moncada is responsible for Monaco's scouting during the period when they signed players such as Mbappe, Fabinho, Bernardo Silva and all these other gems to come out of Monaco between 2012 to 2018.
Massara was Sabatini's right-hand man, they were behind the most impressive recruitment in all of Serie A in the last decade at Palermo and then Roma.

Maldini's greatest quality is his ability to convince players to choose Milan.
He convinced Theo Hernandez to choose Milan. Many others have spoken about the special moment when they received a phone call from Paolo Maldini.
He obviously also has a great eye for defenders.

Last but not least, there's Pioli. Just the man-manager this crop of players need but even more important tactically.
He has given the team a clear identity, which makes him rigid in a way and yet flexible because he is able to adapt without changing the foundations.
He seems to share the vision of our directors, which is working wonders for both. Without it, it could've gone horribly wrong like in 2019.
We've also been helped by the effects of the pandemic. The lockdown turned into a preseason for Pioli, who had missed out on the real one since he was not the coach at the beginning of that season. The 5 sub rule helped the team maintain intensity for the full 90 minutes.

Sorry for going off-topic although I don't think it's entirely off-topic. The Milan and Man United cases are a bit similar and I think there are lessons to be learned from both cases.

TLDR: Milan got out of our banter era by appointing directors and scouts with impressive resumes and finding a coach that shares their vision.

 

[R'hllor]

We have recruited full squad of proper shameless cnuts and then on top of it, we rewarded them for achieving feck all with fat contract extensions.

Edit: and oh, miss me with whole league position and win% without context bullshit.

 

[RedRonaldo]

1. Our football has never been sustainable/consistence under Ole reign in past 3 years. It has always been period of clueless spineless shite football, mix with period of individual brilliance football when "Ole's on the wheel".

2. The team we are trying to build under Ole, was basically fast counter attack football, with basically no emphasis on build up play - Ole doesn't cares about midfield play at all, he only cares about defend and shoot. And it relies heavily on hollywood balls from Bruno, and pace of Rashford etc, and moment of individual brilliance - they never really played as a team. Once the individuals are out of their form, our pattern of attack also broke, since we don't have system of play at all. We are simply not sustainable as a team and could not deal with player's loss of form.

3. Our system also relies heavily on McFred protecting the back 4, as our back 4 is never reliable on their own. Our good defensive performances also relies on the form of Maguire, Shaw, AWB for a period. Once their form is gone, and with McFred becomes reliability in defence, this is how our defence collapse too.

4. We then brought Ragnick in to hopefully change the structure of the team and system of play. However, we do not have the required player to execute his plan. We are never a pressing team, our players never press as unit, we don't have the required energy level with our players in general, plus we are never a team which control possession (which means more minutes to chase the ball instead), hence we couldn't deal with the extra energy required for pressing for long. But we appointed a gengenpressing godfather asking them to press. It just doesn't work that way. It needs time to coach, and needs the right type of players to execute.

5. The core of our players are known to have issues since Mourinho days. Finishing 2nd in the league then free fall to hell isn't something new to them during Mourinho era. They have tendency to drop to abyss in a sudden (ie after Mourinho 2nd season and into his 3rd season, and after Ole on the wheel in first few months of his caretaker appointment, into last few months of the same season). In truth, majority of them are spineless, lazy, and only cares about money. The whole dressing room are filled with toxic, lazy players, who couldn't put up consistent performance for more than few months long.

To solve all those problems we have, we need to:

1. Appoint the right manager (which we hopefully did with ETH), and the whole coaching staffs/scouts
2. Overhaul the core of the team (at least need 8-10 new players), which means more money investment, and total trust on new manager to pick his own players
3. At least 2-3 years to coach the team to play under complete new system, which is sustainable and relies less on individual brilliance.

Players to sale this summer (13):
CB - Jones, Bailly
WB - AWB, Telles, Shaw
DM/CM - Pogba, Matic, Mctominay
AM - Lingard, Mata
WF - Greenwood
FW - Cavani, Martial

Players to consider sell/replace if any suitable replacements (5):
GK - Henderson
CB - Maguire, Lindelof
WB - Dalot
WF - Rashford

Players to keep (7):
GK - De Gea
CB - Varane
DM/CM - Fred
AM - Bruno, VDB
WF - Sancho
FW - Ronaldo

Players to buy (7-10):
CB - x1 (or 2)
WB - x2
DM/CM - x2
WF - x1 (or 2)
FW - x1 (or 2)

Players to promote from youth (4):
WB - Fernandez
DM/CM - Garner
AM - Mejbri
WF - Garnacho

Out - 13 + 5
Keep: 7
In: 7-10
Promote: 4

 

[Bebestation]

Ronaldo should not have been brought back. He is a different player now and needs team to work for him - we don't have that kind of midfield. Maguire was sh1t. Pogba was sh1t. Fernandes' form was not as good as previous season. Ole was clueless on how to adjust, Rangnick is average manager at best, totally not ready for England, probably not ready to manage Norwich, let alone Man Utd. Yeah, not much silver lining this season. Total sh1t.

Im glad I'm not the only football fan that see's things like this & for me it's even more simple.

Who are our 2 best performers over the season?

De Gea & Ronaldo.

People can see that De Gea gets better as the team plays more sh*t, more shots towards him due to less control over matches.

Then on the other side Ronaldo is our main goalscorer. He has been good on an individual level but ultimately our team attacking tactic revolves over getting the best out of Ronaldo. There isn't exactly another attacking level to our team except creating chances for Ronaldo. Everyone else has flopped this year, from Sancho, Bruno, Rashford, Cavani, Pogba, McTominay, our fullbacks and so on.

What have the fans of Ronaldo's season said? We need to create a better team to supply Ronaldo. This is not wrong at all. But what does this prove? The rest of the team doesn't get the best out of Ronaldo, is not in a balance or Sync with a Ronaldo and therefore we play less well as an overall team leading to what? De Gea being our best player alongside Ronaldo. The player we try to get the best out of and the player that succeeds when what we do is sh*t. We maybe didn't have a great plan, but we did have a plan during the final weeks of August. We then had a panic attack & bought Ronaldo who was not part of our plan and made him our main plan and main man that didn't sync with the rest of the team. = our 2 best players this season turned to Ronaldo and De Gea.

 

[Jibbs]

For me. The main thing which has been observed in United for past 10 years is there never has been a proper structure of the team.
the board somehow intervenes and don’t let managers buy players at the right time to form that structure of their liking.
Mourinho was barred from selling Martial and getting Perisic. That would have somewhat provided a balance to our attack.
he requested for Maguire in summer 2018, he was not allowed, instead Fred was provided to him.
Same with Ole, his Request for Sancho was granted a year too late and he was provided what he never wanted in VDB, Amad and Pellistri.
This year we needed a DM but there was no progress made in signing one. Instead, all Hollywood signings were made.
Had we signed Rice, Ronaldo and Torres this year and had gotten Sancho in 2020 it would have been so much better for the structure and balance of the team.

 

[Tarrou]

I think it's pretty obvious why. Ralph lost the dressing room.

Likely because he wanted them to work harder/press more, but they couldn't/wouldn't do it and here we are.

 

[Bondi77]

The players took offence when Ralf said that to beat the opposition they had to work harder than them.

 

[haru krentz]

2 main reasons.
1) Ole’s abysmal squad management which left a bunch of unhappy fringe players stinking up the dressing room.

2) Upper management’s lack of standards being finally laid bare for the world to see, when they failed to immediately sack Ole after the shambolic Liverpool result.

These two incidents tanked the morale to a permanent low state, one which only a true overhaul can reverse.

It was the Board under Woodward. I wonder how fans can be so blind even with 3 different managers now? the board kept BLOCKING uneeded players out of this club because they thought they could get BIG MONEY for them.
- Rojo was refused to join Everton because the board wanted 20M (YES 20 FRICKIN' MILLIONS!),
- Sergio Romero was crossed out of 25-men squad by Ole and wasnt being let go to Aston Villa because the board wanting more money,
- Juventus' 10M bid for Darmian was rejected because the board (again) thought they could get more.

How managers can work under this environment?? bemusing to watch fans keep blaming managerS for things out of their control.

We were second because Liverpool had injury crisis and Chelsea had a shit manager sacked midway in the season, so that's about last season. We weren't 2nd because we were top notch, for feck sake, we only gathered 74 points. The season before it we finished 3rd with 66 points, all indicating the low level quality of competition we were facing thanks to the oppositions conditions. This season was just back to normal.

With Ole in charge it was inevitable that we were going to implode at one point. There were ton of signs for this during his tenure, we points them ton of time but his cult were refusing to listen.

For many of us it was no shock or surprise. We saw it coming miles away.

The only surprising thing was Ralf turning out to be a shit coach as well.

NOT at all. if anything I'm suprised many here thought Ralf was an excellent coach. His Schalke's side got done in 2 legs by SAF's united which features the likes of Anderson and Gibson.

As a Milan fan I consider myself an expert on mismanagement and mediocrity.


The CR7 return reminded me of our Kaka return in 2013.
A purely nostalgic and idiotic decision which went against the values of the team that had previously managed to finish in top 3.
The 2012 Milan team was a youthful, energetic team which compensated what they lacked in experience and talent with sacrifice and a strong unit.
You were going for high press and then you signed a 37 year old Cristiano Ronaldo?

Another thing which reminds me of our decade long mediocrity is the constant change of systems or "tactical revolutions", new gimmicks.
A classic British manager in Moyes, 90s totaalvoetball with Van Gaal, then ultra pragmatism with Mourinho, "the United way" with Solskjaer, now gegenpressing with Rangnick, next season modern totalvoetball with Ten Hag?
It's as if the club is ruled by the dumber half of online communities, who can't look beyond hype and end product. The players and coaches that the club is signing are the ones that create most fan excitement, initially at least. Corporate people with no football vision.

I don't think you'll get out of this cycle until your upper management give the keys to proper technical directors with a vision that doesn't depend on fan sentiments.
Rangnick was never good as a coach, as Milan fan I'm glad we dodged that bullet. But he might be able to steer you out of this in an executive non-coach role.

Pretty much this. I just hope we keep Rangnick at the club, he might be shit at coaching but hes excellent at building the club and has got way more connections in the footballing world compare to Murtough.

 

[ryansgirl]

It`s not just about `this season` - it`s about the ones after Sir Alex departed in which wrong decisions and mistakes made at board level, recruiting/coaching level and managerial level have come home to roost. Of course the players are responsible on the pitch and some of the performances of the team have been disgraceful for anyone playing at Manchester United but we have to look at the context.

I don`t agree with the vitriol directed by a few at Ole - it didn`t matter he only managed Molde and Cardiff as he was clearly brought in to re-establish the culture of the club and he did do it to an extent. Ole focused on British players as he understood that putting together a team for these purposes needs key players who get that culture. On paper a team with the likes of Maguire, Shaw, Rashford and Sancho should be competing for real.

Ole`s weaknesses were tactical and they showed in important games such as that cup final where players were run ragged while others sat on the bench looking instead of providing fresh legs. I thought at the time he had taken us as far as he could and I still think that all this `Ragnick has lost the dressing room...Only an interim manager so the players don`t care...blah blah blah misses the point.

Ragnick was brought in to give a different perspective and to assess the squad. Those players who have let United down for real by their attitudes are different from those who are struggling for form due to other reasons. I think players such as Bruno, Maguire, Sancho and Marcus along with others who do care such as Fred and McTominay should be kept but others such as Shaw, Pogba, Bailly etc are just marking time and need to go asap.

And I wonder if one of our form losers is the gay footballer recently quoted in one of the tabloids as being afraid to come out. Sad situation that - it is 2022 and other leagues in the world have players who are out. It wouldn`t surprise me if that player is one of our own.

 

[lawliet354]

Bruno, Shaw and Rashford had brilliant season last year and they saved us in many occasions. Too bad this season they forgot how to play football for whatever reason.

Basically the players that constantly bailed us out last season stopped doing so this season.

 

[Jeppers7]

We’ve been on a knife edge for years anyway. This season it all came crashing down. We’ve no game plan and players who may not all be suited to the same game plan or in some cases, suited to any game plan. We’re like a jigsaw puzzle with no picture of what it should look like and only half the pieces.

 

[sullydnl]

The first part is recognising that the rebuild of recent years was built on sand.

While a drop from 2nd last season to 6th this season seems dramatic, in terms of underlying performances we've really only dropped from being the 4th best team in the league to the 7th, with last season's final league position having flattered us. There were also warning signs for this season's fragility last season, as we repeatedly went behind in game after game.

Then this season a combination of not making the neccessary signings, the need to try and play in a more expansive way if we wanted to keep devloping as a team and the poor individual form of certain players saw those pre-existing problems explode. Suddenly we were conceding far too many goals with the manager having no idea how to resolve problems that had been years in the making.

Once Solskjaer went, we had to play out the rest of the season with an interim manager. AKA a manager we knew wasn't really good enough to manage United but we were willing to employ until we could secure a manager who was. There's a reason teams rarely opt to go down that route. And as everyone knew it was a sticking plaster appointment with no future, once things went wrong for Rangnick they went off the rails entirely. Also exacerbated by the fact that such a large swathe of our bloated squad have already made their mind up to leave.