Man Utd Thread:

[Boycey]

Other fans seem to be obsessed with United at the moment.

Discussing = obsessed 

One of the biggest clubs in the world and have been in the doldrums for the last 6 years, with a series of misguided managerial appointments and a lot of money spunked up against the wall. It would be strange not to discuss them ffs

Whatever about obsessing there is very little discussion...

[gallsman]

Other fans seem to be obsessed with United at the moment.

Discussing = obsessed 

One of the biggest clubs in the world and have been in the doldrums for the last 6 years, with a series of misguided managerial appointments and a lot of money spunked up against the wall. It would be strange not to discuss them ffs

Whatever about obsessing there is very little discussion...

Ah I disagree.

There's lots of discussion. It's just not necessarily of the highest, or any, quality.

[Tony Baloney]

Good to see the Man U lads aren't paranoid.

[Milltown Row2]

Other fans seem to be obsessed with United at the moment.

Discussing = obsessed 

One of the biggest clubs in the world and have been in the doldrums for the last 6 years, with a series of misguided managerial appointments and a lot of money spunked up against the wall. It would be strange not to discuss them ffs

Whatever about obsessing there is very little discussion...

Ah I disagree.

There's lots of discussion. It's just not necessarily of the highest, or any, quality.

While well below the standards set by Fergie (though some believe he should have won more CL) Utd have won 3 trophies, albeit lesser cup competitions and finished last year in second place (90 points behind City), all this playing shit football. Some teams would give their right arm to be winning something.

Ole just needs to find the right selection with the best players available to him, injuries and either unfit or tired players is not a trait that most people would recognise with Utd teams, they won a lot of games in the final 5 minutes of a game due to their fitness, now they are letting goals in at an alarming rate.

Hopefully they can a least raise their game against City and put in a performance, I'd rather see Liverpool winning the league than City

[Milltown Row2]

Good to see the Man U lads aren't paranoid.

Jeeze both sets of fans are hard to listen to on social media at the minute, I'm coming off it If Liverpool win the league as it will be wall to wall shit! this will be the first League win for Liverpool since the internet.. It will crash

[screenexile]

Good to see the Man U lads aren't paranoid.

Jeeze both sets of fans are hard to listen to on social media at the minute, I'm coming off it If Liverpool win the league as it will be wall to wall shit! this will be the first League win for Liverpool since the internet.. It will crash

Ah here there's been plenty of wall to wall shit from United fans over the years you just have to grin and bear it!!!

Not that Liverpool will win it I just don't see it happening. . . the last day of the season will be a nail biter though!

[seafoid]

Good to see the Man U lads aren't paranoid.

Jeeze both sets of fans are hard to listen to on social media at the minute, I'm coming off it If Liverpool win the league as it will be wall to wall shit! this will be the first League win for Liverpool since the internet.. It will crash

Ah here there's been plenty of wall to wall shit from United fans over the years you just have to grin and bear it!!!

Not that Liverpool will win it I just don't see it happening. . . the last day of the season will be a nail biter though!

Headline in the Daily Telegraph
"Manchester derby reminds United fans of the pain of watching your two most loathed rivals fighting for the title "


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/04/24/manchester-derby-reminds-united-fans-pain-watching-two-loathed/

"If City were close to us in terms of titles you might find a different dynamic," he says. "At the moment they only have five to our 20. The way things are going they could soon catch up, but right now the worry is Liverpool turning their 18 into 19. About the only thing we have over them in terms of trophies is the league titles and we'd rather they stayed two behind. Deep down it really is that pathetic, childish a motive that makes us all want Liverpool to mess up." And it is in the messing up that he adds United fans can seek the greater compensation.

[Milltown Row2]

Good to see the Man U lads aren't paranoid.

Jeeze both sets of fans are hard to listen to on social media at the minute, I'm coming off it If Liverpool win the league as it will be wall to wall shit! this will be the first League win for Liverpool since the internet.. It will crash

Ah here there's been plenty of wall to wall shit from United fans over the years you just have to grin and bear it!!!

Not that Liverpool will win it I just don't see it happening. . . the last day of the season will be a nail biter though!

I agree, the shit the die hard ones put on would sicken your hole, I like a bitta a banter and a wind up on here but I wouldnt on social media.

I really think Utd can nick a draw, but they need 11 men behind the ball Jose style, well for the first 10 minutes anyways as City have been knocking them in early, a bit of a Blitzkrieg with them

[johnnycool]

Interesting article from Kieron Shannon on team dynamics and how Utd are going down the wrong path irrespective of who is manager;

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/sport/columnists/kieran-shannon/culture-and-character-should-supersede-talent-919654.html?&session=rsQi5zNCz9Xs0XXIdTC8X6PUL2ClGPbVrIr8YXEHv9w=

If it's any consolation to Manchester United supporters these days, the biggest and most gloried franchise in the world's other leading team sport is in an even greater state of dysfunction.

While United haven't won a Premier League title since 2013, the Los Angeles Lakers haven't even made the NBA playoffs since that same year, an achievement in itself considering more teams (16) than not (14) qualify for the postseason every year.

Over the past fortnight the Lakers have not just parted ways with their coach, the lame-duck Luke Walton, but also saw the most recognisable face and name in its entire history, Earvin 'Magic' Johnson, dramatically and abruptly step down as its president of basketball operations less than two years after assuming the role.

In keeping with the chaotic and shambolic nature of the organisation and his own tenure, Johnson didn't even inform owner Jeanie Buss or general manager Rob Pelinka or coach Walton of his decision in advance; instead they learned the same way and at the same time as everyone else, when Johnson called together a group of reporters under the bowels of the Staples Center just before the team's last home game of the season.

When Pharrell Williams was looking for famous, pleasant faces for the video of his best-known song, way back in that watershed year of 2013, Johnson didn't need any audition. 'Happy' was what Magic Johnson was all about. But a front-office job with the Lakers wasn't making him feel like that or singing and dancing, so he quit, "because I want to go back to having fun".

The mistake Johnson made upon accepting the job and Jeanie Buss made upon giving it to him was thinking it was one for an ambassador instead of a grafter.

Almost anyone else with a grasp of what goes with working in the front office of an NBA job knows it's less a job for a star as a nerd. It involves long hours in the office, poring through data, and even longer road trips, scouting and identifying possible signings and ways to optimise the club's resources, financial or otherwise.

Soccer, even of the English variety, has largely come to appreciate the same. That a Daryl Morey is more precious in the current climate than a Magic Johnson, that a Brad Pitt needs a Jonah Hill to decipher who gets to first base more often than who looks better in a uniform.

Liverpool, run by the same Fenway Group headed by John Henry that tried to recruit Pitt's Billy Beane and by extension, his crew of Hill's in Moneyball, have Michael Edwards as their technical director, freeing up Jurgen Klopp to merely recommend and then coach the talent, instead of having to scout and negotiate with it.

At Manchester United, there is no equivalent of Edwards in situ, monitoring how hard potential recruits train and not just play with their current clubs; instead CEO Ed Woodward and his board bumble along erratically.

Like the Lakers, they have more money than sense. At $4.1 billion (€3.65bn), United are the second-most valued franchise in world sport, behind only the Dallas Cowboys, according to Forbes; the Lakers, at $3.3bn, are in eighth, 'just' a few hundred million bucks behind the chronically-incompetent New York Knicks. As Billy Beane once said, it's extremely rare for a franchise to be both smart and rich, usually they're either dumb or poor, and in recent years the Lakers and United have proven how valid Beane's thesis is.

At a time when every other organisation in the world, sporting or otherwise, seems to be talking about the importance of culture, the Lakers and United seem to have no concept of it.

Last year, Professor Damian Hughes studied and wrote about a sporting franchise that had come to value such intangibles. Central to his book, The Barcelona Way, is a study by a couple of Stanford business school professors, James Baron and Michael Hannan, in which they followed the success or failure of start-up tech companies in Silicon Valley over a 15-year period.

A favoured culture adopted by some was what Baron and Hannon termed the 'star' model. These companies sought and signed the best and brightest, granting them lavish perks. But what Baron and Hannon found was that while the star model produced some of the biggest successes of their study, the model also failed in record numbers. There was too much ego and not enough about the team.

In contrast the 'commitment' model, where establishing the right culture and prioritising long, steady growth over the short-term fix, had not a single failure. They all lasted and succeeded.

For Hughes, the Galacticos Real Madrid team epitomised the strength and flaws of the 'star' model. Glue players like Claude Makelele and Michel Salgado, or 'middle-class players' as Hughes termed them — neither superstars nor youth-team graduates — were under-appreciated and eclipsed, eventually prompting captain Fernando Hierro to reprimand the club's owners as treating players like livestock.

In contrast, Barcelona upon the appointment of Pep Guardiola ditched the star model in favour of a commitment model. Within a year stars like Ronaldinho and Deco were out because they no longer exemplified humility and dedication; Ronaldinho, in particular, after embracing a young Messi into the fold, was viewed as a bad influence. Their application in training was lax, certainly laxer than their night-time activity.

Instead Guardiola identified Xavi, a player that Frank Rijkaard and the club was previously prepared to sell, as one of what Hughes terms his 'cultural architects'. Xavi was the epitome of humility, team before ego, and Guardiola's receive, pass, offer philosophy.

Ander Herrera is no star or even an Xavi, but if anything epitomises or pin-points Manchester United's general malaise and drastic dip in form under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, it is the failure of the club to renew his contract and instead allow him be swooped up by a super club that may be belatedly ditching the star model for a commitment one.

The stats show that United under Solsjkaer have won four of their eight Premier League games without Herrera starting, while they won eight of their nine Premier League games with him starting. But it wasn't just the interceptions or passes or goals that he provided that made him such a key common denominator; it was how he cajoled and encouraged teammates, even the usually listless Alexis Sanchez.

Last Sunday at Goodison Park, Solskjaer, not so long ago the one man in world sport with as infectious and as constant a smile as Johnson, declared that he would be successful at United, "and there are players here who won't be part of that success."

But what he didn't say was some of the players who could have contributed positively to any success wouldn't be there. Instead United let Herrera go when his preference was to stay, just as the Lakers let veteran centre Brook Lopez go for nothing last summer, and allow him to be swooped up by this year's No.1 seed, the Milwaukee Bucks.

Klopp and Edwards wouldn't have made that mistake. They didn't ditch Jordan Henderson; instead they retained him and signed a James Milner as well.

The Lakers and United are caught in a time warp, living off an outdated model propagated by inept ownership — the well-meaning but overly-idealistic and loyal Jeanie Buss in the case of the Lakers, and the almost-apathetic Glaziers in the case of United.

The star system used to work for the Lakers when it had a Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant in their prime, but as their disastrous attempt to trade away most of their young roster for the superstar Anthony Davis to team up with an aging LeBron James, it can wreck a team's chemistry. Culture and character should supersede talent.

And instead of seeking a replacement for Johnson, they're looking for a replacement for Walton first. When everywhere else, Johnson's replacement would be hiring Walton's replacement.

At United, they've finally come round to the idea of hiring a technical director, but initial reports are worrisome. While Mike Phelan is no star, he is no nerd either. The training ground, not the front office, is his niche.

Leave him where it is. He's qualified for his current role.

Why mess with the one of the few things United have got right in this whole mess?

[yellowcard]

Gary Neville called out some of the players after Sunday's match yet wouldn't name any names. I doubt if Roy Keane will be as diplomatic tonight on Sky Sports. 

[magpie seanie]

I'm not sure what to with Pogba, if I thought selling him would lead to United bringing in 2 top players then I'd let him go but there's no guarantees we're going to get that right so I'm probably in the camp of keeping him and trying to get the best out of him.

Sunday was a disgrace, there's certainly an issue of a lack of character which can be put right the correct signings. When everything was going United's way earlier on in his reign there was no issues so I do think there's been an overreaction to Sunday's result.

I'm sure I read a stat where United had been out run in every game apart from 2 since Ole took over and he mentioned he wasn't happy with the fitness of the players so certainly plenty of blame has to go to the previous regime. I still don't think he's done a lot wrong tactically since he took over, he's got a lot more right than wrong and has done better in that regard than I was expecting. Realistically its going to take him a couple of summers to put together a team and squad capable of challenging for the title but with the right signings this summer there's no reason why United can't improve dramatically.

The statement alone means he should go. He shows up when he wants - that's not good for Manchester United. When he scores he's dancing around like a clown making it a show v West Ham or whoever. It was no coincidence the game that got Solskjaer the job was one he was banned for (which I still believe he got sent off at OT v PSG so he wouldn't have to play in what he thought was a dead rubber 2nd leg).

He looks like he couldn't be bothered under Jose, now he looks like he's back strolling under Solskjaer. Man Utd certainly can't be carrying passengers anymore - they were ruthless under Fergie, it's time to be ruthless once more if you want to dine at the top table. Whilst he won't solve all woes, getting rid of him first and foremost would send the correct message.

It's a bit more nuanced than that. He has "dined at the top table" in his career already - played in a very good Juventus side and won the World Cup last summer. His body language and immaturity get up my nose to put it mildly but I'm old skool so maybe I'm wrong. Ferguson, ruthless as he was, made allowances for Cantona and Ronaldo becasue he knew what they brought that others couldn't. Maybe Pogba is in that category, he has the talent at least.

[Maroon Manc]

United's problems go all the way back to 2009 with selling Ronaldo and replacing him with Valencia & Owen. The summers of 2009,2010 & 2011 all passed without United buying a top player after selling the best player in the world and also allowing a top player in Tevez to leave whilst Rio, Vidic, Evra, Scholes & Giggs all aged with no replacements brought in. How the Glazers must regret not backing Fergie in the transfer market, a hundred million back then would have allowed United to buy a top player each summer and saved them hundreds of millions in the future. United had one of the best squads anyone had ever put together in 2008 but unfortunately they grew old together threw neglect.

The biggest issue we've had since is that Moyes, LVG & Mourinho all had different approaches and all wanted different players so there's been nothing cohesive about our transfer policy.

United are desperate for a director of football/technical director who has a big say in the players that are brought in so that if OGS doesn't work out that the next manager is left with a good crop of players with a good age profile. Over the next 3 transfer windows I'd expect 7 players to be bought with around 10 leaving and think there's a really strong chance United will promote 3 youngsters. Every signing isn't going to be a success but of the next 7 signings United make at least 5 have got to be huge successes for United to get back to been a top team.

United are lucky that they can go out and spend huge money to put it right unlike the likes of Arsenal & Chelsea who are practically relying on selling before they can buy. There's probably around £350m on offer over the next 2 years plus whatever is sold.

[trailer]

Money may answer a few problems in the short term, but in reality a new squad needs built over the next 4-5 transfer windows. In the meantime 4th is the target.

[johnnycool]

United's problems go all the way back to 2009 with selling Ronaldo and replacing him with Valencia & Owen. The summers of 2009,2010 & 2011 all passed without United buying a top player after selling the best player in the world and also allowing a top player in Tevez to leave whilst Rio, Vidic, Evra, Scholes & Giggs all aged with no replacements brought in. How the Glazers must regret not backing Fergie in the transfer market, a hundred million back then would have allowed United to buy a top player each summer and saved them hundreds of millions in the future. United had one of the best squads anyone had ever put together in 2008 but unfortunately they grew old together threw neglect.

The biggest issue we've had since is that Moyes, LVG & Mourinho all had different approaches and all wanted different players so there's been nothing cohesive about our transfer policy.

United are desperate for a director of football/technical director who has a big say in the players that are brought in so that if OGS doesn't work out that the next manager is left with a good crop of players with a good age profile. Over the next 3 transfer windows I'd expect 7 players to be bought with around 10 leaving and think there's a really strong chance United will promote 3 youngsters. Every signing isn't going to be a success but of the next 7 signings United make at least 5 have got to be huge successes for United to get back to been a top team.

United are lucky that they can go out and spend huge money to put it right unlike the likes of Arsenal & Chelsea who are practically relying on selling before they can buy. There's probably around £350m on offer over the next 2 years plus whatever is sold.

Ferguson papered over the cracks in Manu's last premier win in 2013 with a poor enough team that took advantage of the disarray of all the other contenders and the Glazers were able to furnish their debts and all was well with the world.

Failure to buy the right type of player has been their achilles heel ever since.

If ManU don't make it to the top four it will be interesting to see how much the Glazers back Ollie in the summer transfer window.
There are no quick fixes.

[Maroon Manc]

The Sanchez signing has arguably proved to be the biggest mistake, he might not have cost much but his huge wages has caused a big problem in the dressing room and has led to the likes of De Gea & Rashford demanding more from their contracts. I think several clubs will step back from signing players on frees because of the problems it will cause further down the line. Juve will have the same problem with Ramsey, he'll be one of the highest paid players in Europe which probably doesn't reflect how good he is.