Man Utd Thread:

[Bord na Mona man]

Part of the problem is the social media age of today and the overreaction that goes with it. The media both feed it and feed off it which creates an ever decreasing circle.

Mourinho is only 10 league games into the job and there is a huge kerfuffle to brand him a flop. A few weeks ago Conte was supposed to be a failure at Chelsea and Guardiola at City. People may not like Mourinho's ways, but he lifted the title (pulling up) in May 2015 with Chelsea. 18 months later he's a dinosaur and the game has apparently moved on and left him behind. This is further evidence of the appeal to novelty fallacy that goes with the social media age.

Now he isn't even big enough for the job. You'd have to wonder who could possibly meet the criteria at this point.

The Moyes and Van Gaal era saw a lot of ex-Ferguson players and staff pushed out too quickly and somewhere the winning mentality got diluted. Now there is a squad where you have a lot of newish players who aren't sure of themselves, never mind being confident enough to impose a collective winning mentality.

A couple of years of stability and a couple of strategic signings to strengthen the team should see a team ready to challenge for the title again.

[Walter Cronc]

Chelsea have had the best youth system in England this past 10 years or more and Jose had a host of talented young players coming through the ranks - Kennedy/Loftus-Cheek etc but refused to give them a proper opportunity. Jesus it would have been easy to play them sparingly and in 2-3 years have established players.

Maybe United don't have the players coming through, bar Rashford and Mensah but Jose is just not the man to develop a proper culture in the club. I still think Rashford's discovery was as much luck as anything. The boy is a super talent but if it wasn't for injuries he'd probably be still playing U21s.

Had to laugh at Scholes and Owen talking about Luke Shaw being the best LB in the world one day. I'll have whatever they are smoking!!

[seafoid]

Seafoid what you say is true but the reality is that what happens in boardrooms has very little or should have very little to do with what happens on the field. The commercial interests of the glazers (which is fully understandable given that they are business men) is being used as a get out clause to hide the real problem. To my mind no manager will succeed in United while Fergie is around the place or his mouth pieces have an outlet through the media. Scholes, Neville, any other ex united player who played under him in the media, will turn Turk once the pot starts boiling and the manager is on a hiding to nothing. The same thing happened in Liverpool after Shanks stepped down and he was asked politely to leave. The same needs to happen in United but it won't. He, and his wee band of self interested minions, are the problem.

Maybe. But LVG is not a top manager. Neither is Maureen. Was
I think the dysfunction has very deep roots. I wouldn't let the Glazers off the hook.
The Man City Emiratis  got in Barca people. And that is the Cruyff culture they brought in. And it is very coherent. They planned the Guardiola catch for years. It wasn't mad panic every 2 years.
At Man U nobody is in charge.
This never happens in Kilkenny !

Hang on a wee minute. You are holding up Man City as an example of what Man United should be doing? City have been a basket case plaything for Oil money for years. They shafted relatively successful managers to get the golden boy pinup manager, and I'm not sure that's going to work out for them. They have spent money hand over fist to get the best talent in the world, and I'd love to know what's happening behind the first team in terms of development. Man United have been monetising their business for many, many years and have been spending large amounts to increase their brand name through big money buys or big names in wages and transfers. But to pretend Man City are not doing the same is just mental. If anything City have taken the Chelsea model and taken it to the next level, and the older established money clubs like United are having to react to that. United's brand used to self generate based on success, but now they are being forced to compete for 'names' with huge money, because that's what the other clubs have done via their Oil money. Don't cod yourself about City.

There are 2 models . Moneybags and Arsenal. The Glazers were following the Arsenal model at the start.
PSG and Barca and Real are also moneybags

Man City were moneybags but it was coherent. They had a long term plan.
They introduced a different culture. And it was expensive.
Txiki or whatever his name is is ex Barcelona. He would be very popular even now at the Nou camp.
So is Ferran.  And they waited until Pep was available.
It is sort of relentless. They might do it. the CL progression has been very slow. But it is going places.

It's like Emirates Airlines. 30 years ago air travel was dominated by European and Yank Airlines. The Arabs decided to buy the best . And now Emirates is one of the top

By 2014–15, Manchester City had the sixth-highest revenue in the footballing world with an annual revenue of €463.5 million.[3] In 2016, Forbes magazine estimated they were the world's sixth most valuable football club, worth $1.92 billion
Now they are 5th
Man Utd are 3rd

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes%27_list_of_the_most_valuable_football_clubs#2015_rankings
But Man City have the momentum

Man Utd have wasted the last 5 years. I dunno how much money they spent panic buying. The energy goes all over the place. I wouldn't watch Man Utd but this thread is fascinating . There is a cycle that repeats . New manager. Hope. Just look back to July. Few bad losses in September October. The negativity starts. It gets worse. They buy new players. Hope returns. More bad results. Fans split into hopey and changey.  Manager gets sacked. Backroom staff get sacked. New people come in. Cycle starts again

It happens in GAA too.  Dysfunction. Galway hurling is full of it.  Jarlath Cloonan, Mattie Murphy, Noel Lane, Conor Hayes, Gerlock, McIntyre.  Constant change, players disregarded, nobody knows how to win after a while.  Nothing is built on. It's back to the start again and again. Cork would know it as well.

[seafoid]

Calling £20 m a wage is nuts. It is not a workers game. The stars operate on a different level.

Heard on Off the Ball that the average player wage in the Premiership is now 43,000(not sure if that's sterling or euro) a week. They also spoke about the fact that Everton became only the second club, along with Chelsea, to pay the living wage rather than the minimum wage to all their employees.

The living wage is £7.85 an hour and the minimum wage is £6.50 an hour.

Modern Soccer is utterly debased .

I am not surprised fans are turning away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVyS9JwtFoQ

[stew]

The Glazers have done nothing but throw money at this team, this is not on them, the job was too big for Notes and LVG was gettin ready to retire and did the worst job of his professional career, along comes mourinho and as of now the team are losing games left and right, he is going to need time to get rid of the dead weight in the squad and bring in his own players.
It will take time and money but Mourinho is a winner, I am actually more hopeful now than I was a month ago, Mourinho is an angry manager and I  have a feeling things are going to get a lot better going forward.

[AZOffaly]

bring in his own players.

What players do you think he wants? I think he needs to get the players he has playing in their proper positions, and playing for each other and for him. It's hard to hear that he doesn't have good players when you look at the squad Man United have.

[Jeepers Creepers]

Needs to gamble and play Rashford as the main striker.

[imtommygunn]

When mourinho loses his players or the crowd I am not sure he has ever turned it round...

Interesting debate when I was watching the scores on BT Sport between Jenas and Savage on Pogba.

Jenas says mourinho is completely misusing him and he should be at the front of a midfield 3 behind the strikers and in a more free role with Carrick in the two behind. He says Mourinho is completely playing him in the wrong position. I would say he's probably right as your man hasn't become a bad player overnight.

It will be interesting to see if he turns it round. I am not sure he has it in him. i don't like man united but I think if they were good it would be better for the english league and at the minute that looks a bit off.

[gawa316]

If you play Pogba there then what do you do with Mata, Mickyryan and to a lesser extent Rooney etc? Makes you wonder what Maureen's thought process was over the summer spending 120 odd million on players to play behind the striker, when he already had a very capable one in Mata. Surely other areas needed looked at first like right back, holding/controlling midfielder.

[screenexile]

I hear there's fierce competition for Utd's EPL Goal of the month competition for October... who are we going for lads??!!

[brokencrossbar1]

I hear there's fierce competition for Utd's EPL Goal of the month competition for October... who are we going for lads??!!

I hear Mata scored a cracker in training,  up there with his warm up nutmeg😂

Vote for the winner here!

https://twitter.com/paddypower/status/793431941823553536?s=09

[seafoid]

Part of the problem is the social media age of today and the overreaction that goes with it. The media both feed it and feed off it which creates an ever decreasing circle.

Mourinho is only 10 league games into the job and there is a huge kerfuffle to brand him a flop. A few weeks ago Conte was supposed to be a failure at Chelsea and Guardiola at City. People may not like Mourinho's ways, but he lifted the title (pulling up) in May 2015 with Chelsea. 18 months later he's a dinosaur and the game has apparently moved on and left him behind. This is further evidence of the appeal to novelty fallacy that goes with the social media age.

Now he isn't even big enough for the job. You'd have to wonder who could possibly meet the criteria at this point.

The Moyes and Van Gaal era saw a lot of ex-Ferguson players and staff pushed out too quickly and somewhere the winning mentality got diluted. Now there is a squad where you have a lot of newish players who aren't sure of themselves, never mind being confident enough to impose a collective winning mentality.

A couple of years of stability and a couple of strategic signings to strengthen the team should see a team ready to challenge for the title again.

In the last 18 months Liverpool and Spurs have turned into fairly decent sides thanks to good managers.
Man Utd have floundered. Other big clubs like AC Milan are finding the going tough as well.
Mourinho's record 2004-10 is good but not so good afterwards . He left both Real and Chelsea in less than impressive circumstances

Teams can win leagues and then fall apart, as Man Utd know. I wish it would happen to Kilkenny.

[The Stallion]

Liverpool don't have a good manager. Klopp is incompetent.

[seafoid]

55 players have either joined or left since the end of Fergie time. Not even Galway hurlers are that bad.

[seafoid]

I dunno about social media's role in the chaos either.
Man Utd have a problem with succession planning, it would seem

Look at what happened after St Matt of Busby (Fergie like) retired in the 70s


Busby continued as manager for one more year after this success, leaving his managerial duties to club trainer Wilf McGuinness. (Moyes) . McGuinness struggled in his new post, however, and Busby was convinced to return for the second half of the 1970–71 season.[4]

However, he retired from football permanently that summer, and was succeeded that summer by Frank O'Farrell. O'Farrell's stay was short-lived, though, as his inability to control George Best's extravagances forced the board to sack him with three years still to run on his contract. (LVG)

O'Farrell's replacement was to be Scotland coach, Tommy Docherty. Docherty left the Scotland job and his first task at United was to keep the club in the top flight. He managed it once, but he was unable to pull it off again and the club was relegated in 1973–74. (Maureen)

They bounced straight back up the following season, though, and in their first season back in the top flight, the team cruised to a third-place finish and yet another FA Cup final. The next year, they went one better, beating Liverpool in the final to claim his first and only trophy at Old Trafford. It was soon discovered, however, that Docherty was having an affair with the wife of the club's physiotherapist, and he was immediately fired,[5] replaced by Queens Park Rangers' manager Dave Sexton. (?)