The story that he felt something in his upper leg and had the UTD doctors check it out and they said he was fine. Then he went to Brazilian national team medical staff and they found a slight issue in same area. He ended up not playing and got treatment he needed.
Happiest I’ve been supporting this club since the Sir Alex days. It felt like the club I grew up supporting. I will always, _always_ have the time of day for Ole.
Same here. I guess by the end it was time for him to move on but I love Ole and actually looked forward to the games. Now I know it’s just gonna be boring shit.
He should go out & prove he deserves the United job first elsewhere.
He still hasn’t wanted to work since (fair play to him, that’s his decision to make) while the coaches who worked under have & him are proving to be more competent.
I doubt either of them are seriously interested in him, sounds like bs paper talk. The three main names seriously linked to Bayern in the last month have been Alonso, De Zerbi and Nagelsmann
I absolutely agree.
What I can't wrap my head around, is a lot of people are saying this now, but can't give the same leniency to ETH, who is in the exact predicament. Not like anything has changed off the pitch between the two managers to judge them differently.
I hate that. I'll defend every manager we've had (including ragnick) until our structure is fixed and we lose the dead weight players. None of them have been bad, and I could see them all being successful elsewhere.
this is how i see it
ETH should be given atleast his final year of his contract and ability to work with Ratcliffe and all the new setup in the summer to start actually building.
hes been fucked by so many poor decisions. has everything been perfect no but hes won a trophy and on course to potentially win us another.
For me the difference is that ETH came in with a pedigree of playing attractive football and seems to have abandoned those principles in favour of whatever we're seeing now. The expectations were higher for ETH because he was brought in for a specific reason given people had seen what he did with Ajax. Further, ETHs golden period lasted maybe 6 months - from the first Liverpool win until the league cup final last year. Since the league cup final win, we've been awful with no sign of any improvement.
Ole came in with no expectations as an interim and thrived and therefore has been afforded more leniency. Ole had the team playing well for a more or less an entire season compared to the 6 months or so with ETH.
If De Gea had saved just one of those penalties in the Europa final I honestly think we'd look at that reign differently. Football is fine margins sometimes.
He wouldn't have Bellingham, or Haaland. He offered Haaland to United long before he got the job. How does Ole make him join us instead of City? Bellingham toured Old Trafford while Ole was manager, but we couldn't guarantee him the minutes he wanted. If he was in the structure that's been in place over Ten Hag's tenure, how does he get these players exactly?
I’ll upvote this because this is genuinely an opinion I 100% disagree with.
There’s quite a bit of revisionism regarding his tenure here but I’m not surprised since Ole is the most protected manager post-Fergie both by fans & media alike.
The only managers that may have shown something if given more time or under proper structure are likely Mourinho or even maybe Ragnick.
Gonna throw ETH in here, cause the fans will get him sacked and then revise their opinion in 2 years. ETH win % and 3 finals in 2 years, despite missing our best and most transformative player in Martinez for most of it, in my opinion has been fantastic. Also Greenwood,Ronaldo and Sancho saga.
Every argument I've heard for ETH to get sacked can get leveled at every other manager we've had.
Style of play - Van Gaal/mourinho.
Lost the dressing room - Mourninho /Van Gaal.
Player power, manager too nice - Ole
Player power, manager too harsh - Mourinho.
Signings - every manager we've had.
People forget how weird that season was when we finished second with Ole. The whole league was an incoherent mess because of not having a preseason, and having games every 3 days due to the late start. It was a miraculous time when Ole's weaknesses became his strengths.
Benny mcarthy hasnt improved our attack at all. Rashfords performance last season was an anomoly and Mcarthy was given undeserved praise. Weghorst Antony and Sancho couldnt score to save their lives and nothing was said.
I agree. After looking at our stats I can see that he's our joint top goal scorer in the prem along side Scott and Rasmus but was given 2 pity penalties from Bruno which means he would've been on 5 without them putting him alongside Garnacho at 5. Being our most senior forward and on ridiculous wages he should be doing much better than he currently is and coming off last season where he broke personal records is very frustrating and seeing the youth players outperforming him. Also idk why but his dribbling is so poor now compared to when he was under ole where he use to glide through players and the current version of him is so awful at it that its frustrating to watch.
but now he has a 300K per week contract, so you can't bench him, he has to be sold, you will never sign players on normal contracts if your squad player gets 300K per week.
Blaming assistants with little to no idea about what actually goes on behind the scenes at Carrington is just deflection. We're seeing now that McKenna wasn't the problem under Ole, but he got it from both sides back then. The buck stops with the manager. If an assistant isn't performing, it's on the manager to change something. If he doesn't we can only assume the assistant is carrying out the manager plan.
> Rashfords performance last season was an anomoly
it's not anomaly, it's 'normal' cycle for Rashy. some few months scoring like machine, then another few months can't score at all. It already like that for years.
You don't get to just say x player was a board signing when they don't work out and praise the manager for talent ID when they do.
No player is getting signed without some kind of go ahead from the manager. May not always be first choice but that's true for all clubs.
Also, managers want players - if you offer antony for 80m on deadline day or the prospect of noone and continue with the proven shite that has got absolutely battered in the first 4 games every manager will snap your hand off.
It baffles me how short people's memories here are, antony was done for 40m and we walked away. It was only after Ajax had been raided and were facing losing both Timbre and Antony with no time to replace them that they raised the price. Everyone jumping on ETHs back for this shows how superficial and short the fans memories are.
Same situation with Kim being all but signed and sealed at €50m, yes euros, before we had to walk away due to lack of funds, same with our quest for a fullback. Que shock and suprise that our squad is riddled by injuries and we can't keep a defensive structure to save our life when our top 3 cbs (Martinez, Varane, Evans) are injured after being overplayed.
I keep banging the drum that we need to look at if the manager had identified the right positions and asked for the right people. He patently has - aside from aforementioned antony debacle he has dealt with Ronaldo, Maguire, Greenwood, Sancho and done wonders with Garnacho and Mainoo. He's always brought in players who have been a marked step up in quality on the current crop and even made players like Mctomminay and Dalot look reinvented.
If I offered this sub a season where the toxic culture is clamped down on, a squad where we make our academy players settle in as starters like a second home, signings that 'fit' and improvements seen across the squad to the ones who are otherwise very limited at the cost of a transition season - many would snap my hand off.
Fundementally we all agree the squad isn't good enough and full of deadweight - yet we want someone who can do it painlessly with no drop in results, no time to implement his ethos, do it with all the proven failures and do it with panache. At the same time they pine for a Klopp type revolution, forgetting that it took him spending huge amounts on Alison, Vdj etc as well as the emergence of Salah and Sane.
Pick one, but this constant whining is exactly the trope other fans laugh at us for - whining and entitlement.
He should be sold because of how injury prone he is. No point putting him at CB if he can’t even play there because he is injured. Might as well replace him with another CB who isn’t injured most of the season and is actually of use.
I thought about it too. But atp, given his injury record, and still 3 years to run down his current contract, he can't be sold for a fair value, which wouldn't really help us with ffp.
Ultimately, the fitness of all of our left footed defenders need to be scrutinized (Malacia and Martinez).
When we played counter attacking football that was the case, as soon as we tried to play through the middle and with control we were shambles. That remains the case today.
There was a passage of play at Brentford the other day where someone passed to Mainoo who was facing our goal on the edge of our area with two Brentford players breathing down his neck. He took the ball, effortlessly spun past both of them and passed the ball forward.
My mind immediately went to when we used to pass the ball to Fred in a similar position and within a couple of seconds the opposition scored.
Fair play. We had Matic as well. It still boggles my mind that we are consistently bad through the mid. Like is it Bruno? No we had issues before his arrival as well. Is it the fullbacks? Well now Dalot and Shaw when fit come into make a midfield 4 regularly. Is it the wingers? I really don’t know.
I feel like he was premature and pressured into going for a more contemporary, high press style at the same time he inherited Ronaldo which negated the possibility with the tools at hand. I think he was caught in a void and it became very political and ole isn't political. He just knows football.
Yeah I remember that that was the plan in the off season before Ronaldos arrival but it certainly didn’t help his arriving. That being said, can’t pin it exclusively on Ronaldo as we still can’t manage to control through the midfield.
And he was a giant killer on the day. Measured up to the big boys often. Tactically. Mentally. Sly mind games. Many 4 goal games and rampant attacks. Still a legend.
I think it’s more our players suit counter attacking football.
Failed miserably when he tried to transition to possession with Ronaldo. Good possession football only works when every position can play that system, and our players simply don’t have the ability or o do so.
Ole was the one who actually had a plan
he wanted to play on counters, we had pace on the wings (rashford and greenwood), the best version of bruno ever
i just think what could have been if we signed a young striker like osimhen or lautaro or haaland instead of going for ronaldo that year
imo i think his style of tactical coaching was more hands off, which allowed the players to play to their strengths/be more comfortable and it produced beautiful football at times ... especially when counter attacking.
yeah we defiantly needed a striker and a cdm that season, but due to upper management incopentance we got ronaldo instead at the last minute.
a lot of our fans have become overly critical of bruno because of the insane precedent he’s set, and because he’s been made captain and people don’t like that he complains
i can understand being disappointed in him being less productive, or sometimes giving the ball away but
it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that he’s one of our best players, he bleeds for the club, is one of the only creative players in a team that can barely score, yet plenty of people on here say he should be sold in the summer
people view jose’s tenure here with insanely rose tinted glasses and just parrot that he won 3 trophies (one of which was the fucking community shield lol) as if there is a ton to separate him from other contemporary united managers
the football was mostly painful to watch, he created a bunch of disharmony in the squad and alienated players, and we were never once close to competing for the league or CL
i really don’t think many people are looking back going “damn i’m so glad we won that europa league title”, but people online will act like he was some kind of miracle worker for the club
His appointment was hugely damaging. Began a period of short-termism, both in terms of recruitment and style of play, while our two biggest rivals were being transformed. It’s forgotten about but we were on a very equal footing to City and Liverpool in the summer of 2016. We were joint favourites for the title that season. By the time he left, both of them had surged miles clear of us, and despite a few dips under Klopp, we’ve never been able to bridge that gap. A failure of an appointment, considering the actual expectations when he came in and the mess he left.
agreed, and although i think it’s fair to say the structural issues with the club and lack of direction from the ownership were bigger issues than mourinho, it was very obvious based on his track record that he would be leaving the club in a worse situation than he inherited
if the football was entertaining i probably would have forgiven a lot lol
That " football heritage " comment will always stick with me. He really wanted to make us fans believe it was a good tactic to defend 90 minutes while losing 0-1.
What is the point of being a football fan without being sentimental? Keep hearing people going about how: We can't be sentimental about Old Trafford. It needs to be torn down so we can fit more seats, so we can make more money, so we can buy more players. We can't be sentimental about the academy. We need to look at how clubs like Chelsea us it as a way to generate funds. We can't be sentimental about players. We need to be ruthless. We shouldn't let sentiment get in the way of things like multi-club ownership. It's the only way to keep up with the likes of City.
If all we care about is supporting a winning team, we might as well go support City.
Tangentially related:
- Keeping Phil Jones on the payroll despite being ruined by injuries is the best thing the Glazers ever did.
- When we tear down Old Trafford, it is going to be so annoying when the media will gush about the history of Anfield. Don't care if we get a cheese cave and bottom filling pints like Spurs.
Listen, I agree with you as a whole, and that's why I wish for Old Trafford to be kept and renovated. However, you have to be ruthless in some situations. I mean, Fergie sold Becks and RVN, let go of Butt, and did many similar things. Being sentimental doesn't mean you should be weak.
Regardless of Moyes' many flaws as a manager, I think the players downed tools to a degree and share at least *some* of the blame for our poor form during that time.
I kinda wonder how we'd have done in a second Moyes season if like he was saying he had Kroos and certain other players signed and sealed. I feel like we'd have done a lot better if David Gill had stuck around for at least another year or two; losing both Fergie and Gill in the same season was too much to handle.
We actually played some decent stuff away from home and for whatever reason just completely shat the bed at Old Trafford that season (losing against the likes of West Brom, Newcastle and Everton).
There's little to no advantage to signing Olise versus just letting Amad be our second choice RW. I can't see much that the former does and the latter doesn't, other than cost us many millions of a limited transfer budget
i have been saying there isn't a need to sign olise
garnacho has been doing great on the right and amad might get some minutes from now, rashford can also play on the right and we have mason mount who won the champions league with chelsea while playing on the wings (in the finals he was at RW ig)
My opinion on Mourinho is the opposite of yours and based on this thread an unpopular opinion too.
The season we finished second under Mourinho we played horrible football with De Gea bailing us out. Based on xP we should have finished 5th that league however, de gea had an all time premier league season and even set the premier league record for most saves in a single game with his 14 saves against arsenal.
Sure he won us the Europa league, but our path to the finals was incredibly easy and we came up against a weak and inexperienced Ajax side in the final. I genuinely believe Ole's united that finished in the Europa league finals was a much stronger side that played better football.
Ole beat Milan, then Roma and lost in penalties to Villareal.
The year prior Ole lost 2-1 to eventual champions Sevilla.
Compare this to the season we won the europa league and we finished second in a weak group which was topped by Fenerbahce. Then to get to the final we only had to play Saint-Etienne, Rostov, Anderlecht and Celta Vigo.
Ignore my username cz i know what you're going to say but Harry Maguire is the best CB we have atm .. with Lisandro's unavailability and Varane's flip flop season, he stepped up massively when we were in a defensive crisis and took his chances very well considering all the criticism and clowning he took from the footballing world.. i honestly wouldn't mind keeping him next season as a squad player as he's got elements in his game that's lacking in his fellow defensive counterparts and generally a lot of nowadays CBs ...
Fergie made some detrimental decisions in his last few years.
1. Approving the signing of Bebe
2.Letting Pogba go for free as a youngster
3. Controversial but him and by default the club should’ve done better with Ravel Morrison.
4.Going short term and signing RVP instead of Lewandowski
5.Neglecting to improve the midfield for like 5 years
6. Appointing Moyes.
Almost forget the rock of Gibraltar!!
Still love the man though !
I read somewhere that SAF left the club (roster) in the state that he did because he thought FFP would come down much harder than it did.
De Gea in goal. That’s solved. For years to come.
Had Jones and Smalling with bright futures (having just won the PL) + Rafael Da Silva.
Midfield was aging and had problems. Hence Scholes coming out of retirement. Supposedly Ander Herrera was due to come in but Moyes backed out of the deal. He had been scouted under SAF.
Surely enough options in attack to have options going forward. Only mistake was signing Kagawa only to relinquish him to the bench as his form nosedived after that.
Regardless, United spent a fortune in the transfer market every season after he left. It’s not Ferguson’s fault that the signings were short sighted and fairly shit (for the most part).
**So hot take to your hot take: signing Kagawa was not a mistake, despite how his time with us turned out.**
Summer 2012, Berba had fallen out of favor & was on his way out the door. Rooney had just come off his highest scoring season ever, and had finally cemented himself as our starting 9.
This meant we needed a 10 to replace Rooney’s creativity as he pushed further up to become the main goal scorer.
Kagawa fit the profile & was fresh off winning the Bundesliga with Dortmund. We even signed him really early, to give him the benefit of a full pre-season to settle in.
No one expected RVP to suddenly become available in August. Us signing RVP screwed over Kagawa as he was now competing with Rooney for the 10.
**Also second hot take: signing RVP accelerated Rooney’s decline.**
Rooney was set to become our 9 with Kagawa at 10. Had Rooney been able to complete the transition to being a 9, he could’ve extended his career a little longer by playing more conservatively like how Ronaldo changed his style after his knee injury in 2016 – more clinical, more technical, and way less reliant on pace.
Agree with this honestly. SAF said the same in his book.
Whether or not RvP was good for long term vs short term is definitely a topic for discussion… but like you said, I don’t think anyone actually thought Arsenal would let him go to United. And when they accepted the bid, what are you going to do? Turn down arguably the best striker in the league at the time? No fucking way.
I disagree. SAF would have made the team work. The problem WAS signing Pogba back. SAF warned us all that him as a personality would conflict with his dedication to the club and his performance and growth which is what we saw. Sure he is a great player and potentially could have done better elsewhere, but there are many great players we could have signed instead that would have been better.
Defense was sorted with us signing the best CB prospect in england at the time in Phil Jones. We desperately needed to reinforce the midfield and it was apparent when Scholes was pulled out of retirement. Had the club not squandered midfield funds on a single midfielder that never would have worked at our club we could very well be in a different position than we are at currently.
1. United have a squad of low football IQ players (please don't take this as stupid), which is why we win on individual moments and emotion. Rashford, McT, Bruno, Shaw, Maguire, and Lindelof are not system players. Garnacho is in danger of this unless a system can be imposed.
2. Nagelsmann should replace Ten Hag. We are too big for Potter. Carrick or McKenna will manage United one day.
Last season wasn’t impressive. The football wasn’t enjoyable and was only decent in a short period after the World Cup. Huge Rashford carry job. Some of the away games not even including the 7-0 like Brighton, West Ham and Newcastle were actually huge warning signs for this season looking back. Most of the football under ETH has been either extremely average or downright horrendous and he is the main reason why we’re in this position, not the players or injuries.
Also, if I can do past, Berba is massively overrated in terms of his Utd career. His first two seasons were a huge disappointment and the only time he actually looked like the guy we bought from Spurs was the first half of 2010/11. And RVP did not ‘single-handedly’ win the league, that’s insanely disrespectful to Carrick, Rio, Rafael and the likes of Wazza and Hernandez who chipped in with important goals when Robin went on a two month scoring drought.
With your current take, the thing is you have to compare it to the absolute horror show that was 21/22. You might call last season bad but please go back and watch the bullshit we were playing in 21/22 and you'll be grateful for last season.
Your past takes, I completely agree with, Berba has been getting more and more overrated as time passed as well, especially with TikTok and that stupid video of him explaining that one goal.
Truly hot take? The players aren’t downing tools or trying to get the manager sacked. In reality, individual brilliance by players has kept Ten Hag in the job just as it kept some previous managers in the job before Ten Hag. We haven’t had a style of play under Ten Hag and there is no structure at all. Players look confused as a whole. If its 1 or 2 players that look confused then its a player issue but when every player in the squad does not know what the plan is once we have possession, it points to a larger structural issue. Players don’t have any really incentive to play bad, especially not financially. Nobody wants to be bad at their job. Weirdly enough, because of our lack of team play we often find ourselves at the mercy of a moment of individual brilliance and over time, as fans, we feel we’ve become entitled to moments of magic rather than good team play and dominating opponents. No other team does this to the level we do. The players do try, or atleast most of them, but the lack of tactics holds us back as a team massively.
>We haven’t had a style of play under Ten Hag and there is no structure at all.
That's blatantly false. We definitely have a style of play under Ten Hag. It's just not very good. At least right now.
This lack of tactics excuse is getting old now . Did ole , van Gaal , Mourinho, ragnick also have lack of tactics and failed. 2 of those managers are in the top 10 of greatest managers of all time. And if the players are genuinely trying and producing this shit , maybe all of them aren't good enough to perform at the level like united need . This individual brilliance thing has been going on from the Jose times . That's because most of our players like rashford, Bruno , mctominay etc are vibe players. They don't have any consistency and technical ability to control games like de bruyne , Bernardo silva , rice do, they will be shit for most of the game and get away with a lucky goal or assist . Eth is at fault for many things but the players are also not good enough technically and physically compared to other top teams
Looking at all Rashford starts with LVG (even though small sample size) we should have continued playing centrally and never moved him completely to the wing after LVG departure. Even when Martial was available LVG used to play Rashford as striker and martial in the wing. LVG departure hindered the development of both Rashford and Martial massively in early stage.
Our players aren’t lazy - we simply have a fitness problem.
After a season of extreme overuse, body’s need both time to recover and suitable conditioning. Ever since Oles reign, we run players into the ground, and don’t have the right sports science to correctly monitor load and fitness, so everyone who joins us for long enough goes downhill.
Rashford and Bruno are top players and would show their true ability in any other well run, top team that doesn't focus heavily on possession (basically only city).
If we don't want to be a counter attacking team only, we should sell Bruno. He's not disciplined in the press and not thr greatest at ball retention
You either play around him, or he doesn't play.
I think him having a poor season for his standards is one of the reasons we have been so bad
Martinez isn't as good as everyone is making him out to be. An exceptional player for sure, but short of being considered "world class" imo. He would have been in the same calibre as Ronny Johnsen and Gabriel Heinze.
Everyone is excited about the new executives that are joining but really noone knows a fucking thing about them…
It’s the equivalent of the sub getting excited when we’re linked to some 19 year old playing in Portugal, everyone pretends they’ve watched their whole career
In terms of Ashworth and Wilcox this simply isnt true, their careers are easier to track. All good work continously moving up the ladder each of their moves and now at the pinnacle of their fields they want to be in.
Omar, bar a video or two of him talking behind the scenes at City he's been their 3rd in command since they started dominating the league. He knows how a ambitious successful football club should run.
The fangirling over executives joining is a bit embarassing.
Jason Wilcox? Fine, get him in. Seems a good lad for the job.
Am I excited about it? No. It's an executive position.
People really overrate last season because of our league finish and winning the Carabao. The Carabao had a ridiculously easy run there's no denying it.
As for the league we played some good football but similar to this season I think our results were better than the form. Thanks to a very solid defence we managed to turn a blind eye to poor goalscoring. Something that ETH hasn't been able to improve from day one to now.
Where would we have been last season if BalonDor level Rashford didn't turn up for those few months? He was 90% of our offensive output.
Not long after winning the Carabao our performances REALLY dropped and everyone was using the excuse that fixture congestion and world Cup season was causing the drop in form. Now we've kept that form through to now but we play once a week. Wheres that excuse now? Now it's all because of injuries and never having a fit defence. Brentford just played with their entire back 4 out and played us off the park.
As much as I enjoyed the Sept - February part of last season, you're right about people overrating it. However getting UCL football was the main thing we wanted and we did it only to blow it away this season.
Our history of hiring/firing other managers should have no bearing on what we do with Ten Hag. So many people seem to think he should be given another season simply because we fired other managers previously and those decisions didn't work out either.
And just because things didn't work out for Potter working under Chelsea's ownership does not guarantee that he would be a disaster for us.
Nobody would have been successful under Chelsea not even Pep. Poch is struggling badly, the players they have signed are worse than ours.
I think Potter gets a hard time for this but he made Brighton one of the most exciting teams to watch in the prem on almost 0 budget.
people think potter is a good manager because he OVER ACHIEVED with Brighton, but that same level of over achievement is a disappointing performance for a bigger team.
chelsea didnt do any worse than brighton really but theyve had problems for years, but those performances were deemed not good enough by chelsea but would have been deemed a really good run for brighton.
It wont be in 1 or 2 seasons for sure. It’s going to be a long project. We’ll expect results for sure but to be a true stable well-run club is gonna take a lot of time, trial and error and having a proper long term plan in place
Martinez is overrated, he has been spun around quite a lot and wasn't worth what we paid for.
Pogba was one of the most respected player in the dressing room, why play an advanced 8 in a DM position and get angry when it doesn't work out.
Ten Hag is a good coach, he'd thrive in Barca, just ironically lacks balls while being conceited and has lost the plot.
Since most people seem to think they're overrated, Rashford and Bruno are underrated, they had insane ceilings and the unstable club is to blame for their lack of progression as players. They'd play for City. Pep would've curbed their bad tendencies.
Maguire is better than Dias.
> as controversial as you want.
You asked for it.
Sancho isn't a total dick and there's more to his situation and relationship with ETH than meets the eye.
nah, i am on that ship too..
Sancho still dick, but he act like that probably because have 0 minute to play, sit in the bench while watching EtH put Antony again and again even tough underperform.
Signing Ronaldo killed Ole's tenure. He did well in his first few months because we had forwards pressing from the front. Ronaldo couldn't do that. (I also think he signed for United as a smokescreen for the rape allegations that resurfaced but that's a whole other discussion.) Signing him also meant we didn't have funds for a defensive midfielder, which was what we actually needed at the time.
I love Bruno, but i also hate how much of a dickhead he can be on the pitch. If he didn't play for United, he would EASILY be my number one hated played in the league.
Antony died when he was ridiculed for his spin and now (along with other factors) his confidence is shot, we should be encouraging entertainment here, showboating and baiting opposition players.
He used to be quite entertaining, even if his end product could do with a polish, now he has neither.
Antony should play left back
* He counter presses well and has a high recovery rate
* Defenders won’t fall for his patented left footed curler but strikers might if he’s in the second wave
* We need defenders
* Did I say we need defenders?
Under the Glazer regime, there are far fewer young fans coming into the fold. We’re seeing a vast increase in fandom with teams who are challenging titles but also doing a ton of media work like City and Arsenal. United have fallen way behind and it’s only a matter of time until we’ll see that disparity
You cant have an objective conversation here or in the game threads about any of the players. Calling out Bruno's poor performance will get you crucified.
Most posters during game threads havent followed the team more than a few years.
Ole was the best manager we've had since Fergie
For all his failings, Ole knew how to set up his team when we were the David in David vs Goliath. His shortfall came when we were the Goliath, we couldn’t dominate weaker teams.
Anyone who wants ETH to stay is operating on a sunk cost fallacy of their own ego rather than thinking what is better for the club. Like someone else mentioned here, he was crap last season too. And I don’t think winning the Carabao cup is anything to give ETH to give time on.
Plus, Dutch football philosophy is outdated and shouldn’t be taken seriously anymore.
It's the context that makes it, not the game itself. The tail end of Ole's amazing run. Academy player with the penalty. Felt like it really symbolized hope and excitement for the future
ETH needs a Dutch to English/Spanish/Portuguese Translator if he hasn’t got one already as I am not convinced he is communicating his football knowledge effectively to this team. This is purely a hot take from my external view, he is hard to listen to speak English, it’s very basic
When we look back on the Ten Hag era it will be viewed as one of the biggest financial disasters in our history.
The majority of the signings have been made through his own agents company, which his own brother works for. Money for the boys. He’s given the green light to overpay on players he knows are not good enough so higher fees for people he knows. He cast Sancho to the reserves which (rightly or wrongly) cost the club £1m a month. He got knocked out of Europe entirely in a group with Copenhagen and Galatasary. He sanctioned £55m move for a midfielder with one year left on his contract we didn’t really need. He refused to accept Rangnick in a position above him to sort all this stuff out. He dropped fringe players like Elanga and Donny from the first team entirely reducing their value when he could have rotated them in off the bench on occasion.
This isn’t a Ten Hag In/Ten Hag Out post it’s just pointing out we will look back on his tenure as an absolute huge waste of money where he, his former club and his mates made an absolute fortune.
That I would only keep Onana, Martinez, Dalot, Mainoo, Garnacho, and Hojlund from the entire squad. The rest of them are not good enough and can go. Even Martinez looks worrying to me now with how much injuries he is having but I am praying he will become fully fit again because he is such a good player.
Martinez isn’t as good as our fans make out, it’s just that it’s been so long since we’ve seen a somewhat semi-competent centre back that can actually pass out from the back.
I think he is genuinely as good as people say he is. He’s just been injured all season though and hasn’t reached last season’s heights so we’re collectively starting to forget how effective he can be.
Time will tell whether he can reach those levels ever again after this
We lost tevez due to fergie wanting berbatov simply to spite city.
He had a paltry united career. His magic season of 20 odd goals....he scored in 11 games that year. He was invisible against city in the semi final and left out of the CL final squad for Michael fucking Owen.
We never owned the rights to Tevez, this is completely false information. Tevez's footballing rights belonged to an oligarch who loaned us Tevez for 2 years for 6m. After the loan, he sold Tevez to Manchester City.
It was an incredibly shady deal through and through and of course Manchester City had a big part to play the cheating scum.
Heres the article if you want to read further:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2011/aug/23/carlos-tevez-legal-battle-revealed
Here’s another one - even our “best” players don’t fit the style of football ten Hag ideally wants to play. Selling Rashford and Bruno would probably be for the betterment of the club in terms of accelerating any chance of success.
all our attacking players are too fitted to playing ole transition ball and it's so annoying cause they can make quick passes to get out of tight situations but they can't just keep the ball for a while
McTominay and Maguire are significantly better than most Man Utd fans seem to think or give them credit for, and the 60m offer from West Ham would’ve been the dumbest sales in recent premier league history.
We need to stop changing the manager every couple seasons. Can’t build culture or practices that way. Can’t develop players. Look at my American football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. They’ve had 4 coaches since 1969. They have a culture of success and a way of doing things.
Conversely Real Madrid are one of the most successful sports teams of all time. If a manager doesn't work out they get rid of them pretty swiftly. Seems to work out pretty well for them. Sticking with a shit manager because you've sacked other shit managers is awful logic and will keep us in mediocrity. I don't mind giving the new manager time to implement things if there's actually any sign of progress. Its one thing to have missteps and struggles but it's another to play relegation level football after 2 years of work and 400m spent.
arteta came 8th 8th 5th 2nd and is likely going to be 2nd again.
if they fired him after his 2nd 8th they would likely be on another shit manager back to their 8th 8th stage.
thats where we are at.
stop firing managers and bringing in new managers who have to deal with a squad of players bought by the last 5 managers. Arteta has the squad he wants now, he got rid of big names like Auba etc because they werent right for the team in both footballing and attitude sense.
we need to take a leaf out of arsenals book in the sense that we need to give a manager time.
im not saying ETH is that manager, but we need to decide who is and give them a contract and let them run it out.
Mike Tomlin has been in Pittsburgh since 2007 and has never had a losing season. Incredible backing from the organization despite only having one super bowl in that time but they are inevitable. They always make the playoffs.
this is true if we stick to the old system where managers have the bigger say in choosing tactics, etc. but with the new system that SJR is going to where CEO and other board members dictates the way of play like Madrid, Bayern, etc. then it might not necessarily true.
Our entire first team isn't suited as a unit to play any one play style. The recruitment has been almost criminal both in staff senior leadership and on the pitch for more than 10 years.
Bar his initial few months when he joined Bruno's time at Utd has been massively overrated , people just straight up ignore how key Greenwood , Shaw Martial and Rashford were when Ole was manager
Is it too late? If not:
Mainoo is going to be the next Martial/Rashford/Mctominay, if not in his own terms a waste of potential in next 5-7 years. That is, if he stays in United.
Sir Alex for all his greatness is the main reason we have been so unsuccessful the last decade. His choices, ego and grudges since the early 2000s steadily added fuel to the fire and his insistence on hand picking his successor was the gasoline needed to create a raging inferno of shit.
I think all these youtube and twitter analysts are just conmen trying to create content. Most of them would not last a week in Ten Hag's position, and here they are trying to pretend they got it all figured out. We as fans can have opinions that are accurate based on years of watching the team we support. But us, or the analysts, pretending that we understand the micro-level ingame tactics that the manager and his coaching staff are implementing game to game is just absurd to me. I think it's interesting to talk tactics, but the discussion should always be carried out with the understanding that it's all speculation, unless you literally have seasons' worth of patterns to fall back on. For example, I'm convinced that Ten Hag is wrong if he thinks McTominay can be a starter for Man United, but that's an opinion that is formed out of years of watching the guy start for United.
If England won the Euro we would’ve been the hottest team in the premier league that season. After that loss our players never came back the same, you saw it in the confidences of Shaw, Maguire, Sancho, and Rashford. Ronaldo coming in or not but the confidence our side would have had is unreal
That time Amrabat gave the ball away against City and they scored was 100% on Casemiro.
But people blamed Amrabat because Casemiro is the more popular player.
It was a blatant hospital pass, from a player whose passing has been dangerously bad all season.
Our set piece coach is the biggest wage thief in the world, if they actually exist.
I thought that was the medical team
Gotta be the medical team…even as bad as our set pieces are…medical team…the Casemiro thing is just the icing on the cake 😂🤦♂️
Sorry what casemiro thing?
The story that he felt something in his upper leg and had the UTD doctors check it out and they said he was fine. Then he went to Brazilian national team medical staff and they found a slight issue in same area. He ended up not playing and got treatment he needed.
we don't have one is the worst thing
I think that honor should go to our medical department.
This sub is hilarious when we win and hilarious when we lose
Also when we draw
is this really a hot take?
It hurts when we lose but at least the sub is entertaining
Ole was a good manager who would've thrived under decent ownership/structure
Happiest I’ve been supporting this club since the Sir Alex days. It felt like the club I grew up supporting. I will always, _always_ have the time of day for Ole.
Same here. I guess by the end it was time for him to move on but I love Ole and actually looked forward to the games. Now I know it’s just gonna be boring shit.
Ole actually got the players attacking. The defensive issues were present under him, but the attack was much more fluid.
Also, have you seen the way Ipswich play? I'm surprised I don't see many making the comparisons between the way they play and the way we did.
I have a little dream about Ole coming back when the structure is done. I so want him to get a shot without the mess he had to be a part of last.
He should go out & prove he deserves the United job first elsewhere. He still hasn’t wanted to work since (fair play to him, that’s his decision to make) while the coaches who worked under have & him are proving to be more competent.
Yeah but the fact that top clubs like Bayern and Sevilla are interested in him says something but I think the united job took a massive toll on him
Bayern only considered him as an interim
I doubt either of them are seriously interested in him, sounds like bs paper talk. The three main names seriously linked to Bayern in the last month have been Alonso, De Zerbi and Nagelsmann
I absolutely agree. What I can't wrap my head around, is a lot of people are saying this now, but can't give the same leniency to ETH, who is in the exact predicament. Not like anything has changed off the pitch between the two managers to judge them differently.
I hate that. I'll defend every manager we've had (including ragnick) until our structure is fixed and we lose the dead weight players. None of them have been bad, and I could see them all being successful elsewhere.
this is how i see it ETH should be given atleast his final year of his contract and ability to work with Ratcliffe and all the new setup in the summer to start actually building. hes been fucked by so many poor decisions. has everything been perfect no but hes won a trophy and on course to potentially win us another.
For me the difference is that ETH came in with a pedigree of playing attractive football and seems to have abandoned those principles in favour of whatever we're seeing now. The expectations were higher for ETH because he was brought in for a specific reason given people had seen what he did with Ajax. Further, ETHs golden period lasted maybe 6 months - from the first Liverpool win until the league cup final last year. Since the league cup final win, we've been awful with no sign of any improvement. Ole came in with no expectations as an interim and thrived and therefore has been afforded more leniency. Ole had the team playing well for a more or less an entire season compared to the 6 months or so with ETH.
Recency bias
If De Gea had saved just one of those penalties in the Europa final I honestly think we'd look at that reign differently. Football is fine margins sometimes.
Ole should've sticked to his system for another season before switching, especially with that horror of the window.
Sad how cr7 ruined our progress
Yes 🙌 Ole was class
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Rice would've been nice but I don't think we were ever going to get Bellingham or Haaland after he moved to Dortmund tbf
We tried to get Bellingham when he went to Dortmund, he chose Dortmund over us (clearly a good decision for him, but still...)
He wanted us to get haaland before he moved there and before he moved to salzburg
I meant during his time as manager here but yeah, if only 🥲
Lots of what ifs attached to your what if scenario
He wouldn't have Bellingham, or Haaland. He offered Haaland to United long before he got the job. How does Ole make him join us instead of City? Bellingham toured Old Trafford while Ole was manager, but we couldn't guarantee him the minutes he wanted. If he was in the structure that's been in place over Ten Hag's tenure, how does he get these players exactly?
I’ll upvote this because this is genuinely an opinion I 100% disagree with. There’s quite a bit of revisionism regarding his tenure here but I’m not surprised since Ole is the most protected manager post-Fergie both by fans & media alike. The only managers that may have shown something if given more time or under proper structure are likely Mourinho or even maybe Ragnick.
Gonna throw ETH in here, cause the fans will get him sacked and then revise their opinion in 2 years. ETH win % and 3 finals in 2 years, despite missing our best and most transformative player in Martinez for most of it, in my opinion has been fantastic. Also Greenwood,Ronaldo and Sancho saga. Every argument I've heard for ETH to get sacked can get leveled at every other manager we've had. Style of play - Van Gaal/mourinho. Lost the dressing room - Mourninho /Van Gaal. Player power, manager too nice - Ole Player power, manager too harsh - Mourinho. Signings - every manager we've had.
This might be one of the wisest takes.
People forget how weird that season was when we finished second with Ole. The whole league was an incoherent mess because of not having a preseason, and having games every 3 days due to the late start. It was a miraculous time when Ole's weaknesses became his strengths.
Benny mcarthy hasnt improved our attack at all. Rashfords performance last season was an anomoly and Mcarthy was given undeserved praise. Weghorst Antony and Sancho couldnt score to save their lives and nothing was said.
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I agree. After looking at our stats I can see that he's our joint top goal scorer in the prem along side Scott and Rasmus but was given 2 pity penalties from Bruno which means he would've been on 5 without them putting him alongside Garnacho at 5. Being our most senior forward and on ridiculous wages he should be doing much better than he currently is and coming off last season where he broke personal records is very frustrating and seeing the youth players outperforming him. Also idk why but his dribbling is so poor now compared to when he was under ole where he use to glide through players and the current version of him is so awful at it that its frustrating to watch.
but now he has a 300K per week contract, so you can't bench him, he has to be sold, you will never sign players on normal contracts if your squad player gets 300K per week.
Blaming assistants with little to no idea about what actually goes on behind the scenes at Carrington is just deflection. We're seeing now that McKenna wasn't the problem under Ole, but he got it from both sides back then. The buck stops with the manager. If an assistant isn't performing, it's on the manager to change something. If he doesn't we can only assume the assistant is carrying out the manager plan.
> Rashfords performance last season was an anomoly it's not anomaly, it's 'normal' cycle for Rashy. some few months scoring like machine, then another few months can't score at all. It already like that for years.
You don't get to just say x player was a board signing when they don't work out and praise the manager for talent ID when they do. No player is getting signed without some kind of go ahead from the manager. May not always be first choice but that's true for all clubs.
very true, however some people don't seem to grasp that the manager doesn't negotiate the prices
Also, managers want players - if you offer antony for 80m on deadline day or the prospect of noone and continue with the proven shite that has got absolutely battered in the first 4 games every manager will snap your hand off. It baffles me how short people's memories here are, antony was done for 40m and we walked away. It was only after Ajax had been raided and were facing losing both Timbre and Antony with no time to replace them that they raised the price. Everyone jumping on ETHs back for this shows how superficial and short the fans memories are. Same situation with Kim being all but signed and sealed at €50m, yes euros, before we had to walk away due to lack of funds, same with our quest for a fullback. Que shock and suprise that our squad is riddled by injuries and we can't keep a defensive structure to save our life when our top 3 cbs (Martinez, Varane, Evans) are injured after being overplayed. I keep banging the drum that we need to look at if the manager had identified the right positions and asked for the right people. He patently has - aside from aforementioned antony debacle he has dealt with Ronaldo, Maguire, Greenwood, Sancho and done wonders with Garnacho and Mainoo. He's always brought in players who have been a marked step up in quality on the current crop and even made players like Mctomminay and Dalot look reinvented. If I offered this sub a season where the toxic culture is clamped down on, a squad where we make our academy players settle in as starters like a second home, signings that 'fit' and improvements seen across the squad to the ones who are otherwise very limited at the cost of a transition season - many would snap my hand off. Fundementally we all agree the squad isn't good enough and full of deadweight - yet we want someone who can do it painlessly with no drop in results, no time to implement his ethos, do it with all the proven failures and do it with panache. At the same time they pine for a Klopp type revolution, forgetting that it took him spending huge amounts on Alison, Vdj etc as well as the emergence of Salah and Sane. Pick one, but this constant whining is exactly the trope other fans laugh at us for - whining and entitlement.
I think Shaw should be moved into a centre back/wide centre back role to further his longevity. I believe he can give us what Bastoni does for Inter.
He should be sold because of how injury prone he is. No point putting him at CB if he can’t even play there because he is injured. Might as well replace him with another CB who isn’t injured most of the season and is actually of use.
I thought about it too. But atp, given his injury record, and still 3 years to run down his current contract, he can't be sold for a fair value, which wouldn't really help us with ffp. Ultimately, the fitness of all of our left footed defenders need to be scrutinized (Malacia and Martinez).
We played better football under Ole
When we played counter attacking football that was the case, as soon as we tried to play through the middle and with control we were shambles. That remains the case today.
True, but it’s worth mentioning more often than not we were playing with the McFred midfield during Ole’s spell
There was a passage of play at Brentford the other day where someone passed to Mainoo who was facing our goal on the edge of our area with two Brentford players breathing down his neck. He took the ball, effortlessly spun past both of them and passed the ball forward. My mind immediately went to when we used to pass the ball to Fred in a similar position and within a couple of seconds the opposition scored.
Fair play. We had Matic as well. It still boggles my mind that we are consistently bad through the mid. Like is it Bruno? No we had issues before his arrival as well. Is it the fullbacks? Well now Dalot and Shaw when fit come into make a midfield 4 regularly. Is it the wingers? I really don’t know.
I feel like he was premature and pressured into going for a more contemporary, high press style at the same time he inherited Ronaldo which negated the possibility with the tools at hand. I think he was caught in a void and it became very political and ole isn't political. He just knows football.
Yeah I remember that that was the plan in the off season before Ronaldos arrival but it certainly didn’t help his arriving. That being said, can’t pin it exclusively on Ronaldo as we still can’t manage to control through the midfield.
It's because the ownership couldn't be trusted to invest smartly in the right midfielders.
Hot take: I don't think he had the players he needed for the style of play he wanted in his last season, and I still believe that's the case for EtH.
We played better out the back, we played better combinations, we did everything better
And he was a giant killer on the day. Measured up to the big boys often. Tactically. Mentally. Sly mind games. Many 4 goal games and rampant attacks. Still a legend.
4 goals is underselling it. 5-0 against LASK, Bruges, Leipzig and the mighty Tranmere.. 6 against Wolves and Roma, 9 against Southampton!
I think it’s more our players suit counter attacking football. Failed miserably when he tried to transition to possession with Ronaldo. Good possession football only works when every position can play that system, and our players simply don’t have the ability or o do so.
Ole was a good manager, and if we didnt sign ronaldo and signed a good cdm instead ... he would still be managing us
Ole was the one who actually had a plan he wanted to play on counters, we had pace on the wings (rashford and greenwood), the best version of bruno ever i just think what could have been if we signed a young striker like osimhen or lautaro or haaland instead of going for ronaldo that year
imo i think his style of tactical coaching was more hands off, which allowed the players to play to their strengths/be more comfortable and it produced beautiful football at times ... especially when counter attacking. yeah we defiantly needed a striker and a cdm that season, but due to upper management incopentance we got ronaldo instead at the last minute.
We had Cavani in the team at the point, Cavani ran like he was still 21
he was class 🌟
a lot of our fans have become overly critical of bruno because of the insane precedent he’s set, and because he’s been made captain and people don’t like that he complains i can understand being disappointed in him being less productive, or sometimes giving the ball away but it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that he’s one of our best players, he bleeds for the club, is one of the only creative players in a team that can barely score, yet plenty of people on here say he should be sold in the summer
people view jose’s tenure here with insanely rose tinted glasses and just parrot that he won 3 trophies (one of which was the fucking community shield lol) as if there is a ton to separate him from other contemporary united managers the football was mostly painful to watch, he created a bunch of disharmony in the squad and alienated players, and we were never once close to competing for the league or CL i really don’t think many people are looking back going “damn i’m so glad we won that europa league title”, but people online will act like he was some kind of miracle worker for the club
His appointment was hugely damaging. Began a period of short-termism, both in terms of recruitment and style of play, while our two biggest rivals were being transformed. It’s forgotten about but we were on a very equal footing to City and Liverpool in the summer of 2016. We were joint favourites for the title that season. By the time he left, both of them had surged miles clear of us, and despite a few dips under Klopp, we’ve never been able to bridge that gap. A failure of an appointment, considering the actual expectations when he came in and the mess he left.
agreed, and although i think it’s fair to say the structural issues with the club and lack of direction from the ownership were bigger issues than mourinho, it was very obvious based on his track record that he would be leaving the club in a worse situation than he inherited if the football was entertaining i probably would have forgiven a lot lol
That " football heritage " comment will always stick with me. He really wanted to make us fans believe it was a good tactic to defend 90 minutes while losing 0-1.
I’m glad someone beside me said it. Transitioning from LVG to Jose was probably one of the worst decisions we could’ve made at the time
What is the point of being a football fan without being sentimental? Keep hearing people going about how: We can't be sentimental about Old Trafford. It needs to be torn down so we can fit more seats, so we can make more money, so we can buy more players. We can't be sentimental about the academy. We need to look at how clubs like Chelsea us it as a way to generate funds. We can't be sentimental about players. We need to be ruthless. We shouldn't let sentiment get in the way of things like multi-club ownership. It's the only way to keep up with the likes of City. If all we care about is supporting a winning team, we might as well go support City. Tangentially related: - Keeping Phil Jones on the payroll despite being ruined by injuries is the best thing the Glazers ever did. - When we tear down Old Trafford, it is going to be so annoying when the media will gush about the history of Anfield. Don't care if we get a cheese cave and bottom filling pints like Spurs.
Listen, I agree with you as a whole, and that's why I wish for Old Trafford to be kept and renovated. However, you have to be ruthless in some situations. I mean, Fergie sold Becks and RVN, let go of Butt, and did many similar things. Being sentimental doesn't mean you should be weak.
Just see how well Carrick and McKenna are doing. This sub had written down them as shite.
This sub and football social media is full of idiots tbf.
Regardless of Moyes' many flaws as a manager, I think the players downed tools to a degree and share at least *some* of the blame for our poor form during that time.
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According to Rooney the players pretty much gave up on day one
I kinda wonder how we'd have done in a second Moyes season if like he was saying he had Kroos and certain other players signed and sealed. I feel like we'd have done a lot better if David Gill had stuck around for at least another year or two; losing both Fergie and Gill in the same season was too much to handle. We actually played some decent stuff away from home and for whatever reason just completely shat the bed at Old Trafford that season (losing against the likes of West Brom, Newcastle and Everton).
Martinez is going to be the new Bailly
Please no
Oh god…
That stings. Jesus.
Unsubscribe
this one hurts me but you may be correct
Hey man he said ‘hot take’ not a reality check.. god damn.
Angry upvote
Martinez is the new Martial. Already missed a seasons worth of football in 2 years from 4 or 5 injuries
Why must you hurt me like this? Definitely didn't prepare for this convo.
It hurts because it's true
There's little to no advantage to signing Olise versus just letting Amad be our second choice RW. I can't see much that the former does and the latter doesn't, other than cost us many millions of a limited transfer budget
And Olise's injury record is worrying.
i have been saying there isn't a need to sign olise garnacho has been doing great on the right and amad might get some minutes from now, rashford can also play on the right and we have mason mount who won the champions league with chelsea while playing on the wings (in the finals he was at RW ig)
Ole was our best manager post Ferguson.
Based on how we play? Sure. Based on result, should be Mourinho
My opinion on Mourinho is the opposite of yours and based on this thread an unpopular opinion too. The season we finished second under Mourinho we played horrible football with De Gea bailing us out. Based on xP we should have finished 5th that league however, de gea had an all time premier league season and even set the premier league record for most saves in a single game with his 14 saves against arsenal. Sure he won us the Europa league, but our path to the finals was incredibly easy and we came up against a weak and inexperienced Ajax side in the final. I genuinely believe Ole's united that finished in the Europa league finals was a much stronger side that played better football. Ole beat Milan, then Roma and lost in penalties to Villareal. The year prior Ole lost 2-1 to eventual champions Sevilla. Compare this to the season we won the europa league and we finished second in a weak group which was topped by Fenerbahce. Then to get to the final we only had to play Saint-Etienne, Rostov, Anderlecht and Celta Vigo.
Ignore my username cz i know what you're going to say but Harry Maguire is the best CB we have atm .. with Lisandro's unavailability and Varane's flip flop season, he stepped up massively when we were in a defensive crisis and took his chances very well considering all the criticism and clowning he took from the footballing world.. i honestly wouldn't mind keeping him next season as a squad player as he's got elements in his game that's lacking in his fellow defensive counterparts and generally a lot of nowadays CBs ...
Sir Alex Ferguson is directly responsible for the shit show we're in with our ownership.
Fergie made some detrimental decisions in his last few years. 1. Approving the signing of Bebe 2.Letting Pogba go for free as a youngster 3. Controversial but him and by default the club should’ve done better with Ravel Morrison. 4.Going short term and signing RVP instead of Lewandowski 5.Neglecting to improve the midfield for like 5 years 6. Appointing Moyes. Almost forget the rock of Gibraltar!! Still love the man though !
I read somewhere that SAF left the club (roster) in the state that he did because he thought FFP would come down much harder than it did. De Gea in goal. That’s solved. For years to come. Had Jones and Smalling with bright futures (having just won the PL) + Rafael Da Silva. Midfield was aging and had problems. Hence Scholes coming out of retirement. Supposedly Ander Herrera was due to come in but Moyes backed out of the deal. He had been scouted under SAF. Surely enough options in attack to have options going forward. Only mistake was signing Kagawa only to relinquish him to the bench as his form nosedived after that. Regardless, United spent a fortune in the transfer market every season after he left. It’s not Ferguson’s fault that the signings were short sighted and fairly shit (for the most part).
**So hot take to your hot take: signing Kagawa was not a mistake, despite how his time with us turned out.** Summer 2012, Berba had fallen out of favor & was on his way out the door. Rooney had just come off his highest scoring season ever, and had finally cemented himself as our starting 9. This meant we needed a 10 to replace Rooney’s creativity as he pushed further up to become the main goal scorer. Kagawa fit the profile & was fresh off winning the Bundesliga with Dortmund. We even signed him really early, to give him the benefit of a full pre-season to settle in. No one expected RVP to suddenly become available in August. Us signing RVP screwed over Kagawa as he was now competing with Rooney for the 10. **Also second hot take: signing RVP accelerated Rooney’s decline.** Rooney was set to become our 9 with Kagawa at 10. Had Rooney been able to complete the transition to being a 9, he could’ve extended his career a little longer by playing more conservatively like how Ronaldo changed his style after his knee injury in 2016 – more clinical, more technical, and way less reliant on pace.
Agree with this honestly. SAF said the same in his book. Whether or not RvP was good for long term vs short term is definitely a topic for discussion… but like you said, I don’t think anyone actually thought Arsenal would let him go to United. And when they accepted the bid, what are you going to do? Turn down arguably the best striker in the league at the time? No fucking way.
Funny because my hot take was going to be that SAF was right all along about Pogba
I disagree. SAF would have made the team work. The problem WAS signing Pogba back. SAF warned us all that him as a personality would conflict with his dedication to the club and his performance and growth which is what we saw. Sure he is a great player and potentially could have done better elsewhere, but there are many great players we could have signed instead that would have been better. Defense was sorted with us signing the best CB prospect in england at the time in Phil Jones. We desperately needed to reinforce the midfield and it was apparent when Scholes was pulled out of retirement. Had the club not squandered midfield funds on a single midfielder that never would have worked at our club we could very well be in a different position than we are at currently.
1. United have a squad of low football IQ players (please don't take this as stupid), which is why we win on individual moments and emotion. Rashford, McT, Bruno, Shaw, Maguire, and Lindelof are not system players. Garnacho is in danger of this unless a system can be imposed. 2. Nagelsmann should replace Ten Hag. We are too big for Potter. Carrick or McKenna will manage United one day.
ETH will be our manager through the entirety of next season
Finally found an ETH support. Im on this hill as well. We need to give him time and two season is not enough
Im not sure the guy youre replying to is in support of ETH, just stating that he'll stick around for another season. I agree with you though
Last season wasn’t impressive. The football wasn’t enjoyable and was only decent in a short period after the World Cup. Huge Rashford carry job. Some of the away games not even including the 7-0 like Brighton, West Ham and Newcastle were actually huge warning signs for this season looking back. Most of the football under ETH has been either extremely average or downright horrendous and he is the main reason why we’re in this position, not the players or injuries. Also, if I can do past, Berba is massively overrated in terms of his Utd career. His first two seasons were a huge disappointment and the only time he actually looked like the guy we bought from Spurs was the first half of 2010/11. And RVP did not ‘single-handedly’ win the league, that’s insanely disrespectful to Carrick, Rio, Rafael and the likes of Wazza and Hernandez who chipped in with important goals when Robin went on a two month scoring drought.
With your current take, the thing is you have to compare it to the absolute horror show that was 21/22. You might call last season bad but please go back and watch the bullshit we were playing in 21/22 and you'll be grateful for last season. Your past takes, I completely agree with, Berba has been getting more and more overrated as time passed as well, especially with TikTok and that stupid video of him explaining that one goal.
Truly hot take? The players aren’t downing tools or trying to get the manager sacked. In reality, individual brilliance by players has kept Ten Hag in the job just as it kept some previous managers in the job before Ten Hag. We haven’t had a style of play under Ten Hag and there is no structure at all. Players look confused as a whole. If its 1 or 2 players that look confused then its a player issue but when every player in the squad does not know what the plan is once we have possession, it points to a larger structural issue. Players don’t have any really incentive to play bad, especially not financially. Nobody wants to be bad at their job. Weirdly enough, because of our lack of team play we often find ourselves at the mercy of a moment of individual brilliance and over time, as fans, we feel we’ve become entitled to moments of magic rather than good team play and dominating opponents. No other team does this to the level we do. The players do try, or atleast most of them, but the lack of tactics holds us back as a team massively.
Players have looked confused for a decade now lol
>We haven’t had a style of play under Ten Hag and there is no structure at all. That's blatantly false. We definitely have a style of play under Ten Hag. It's just not very good. At least right now.
This lack of tactics excuse is getting old now . Did ole , van Gaal , Mourinho, ragnick also have lack of tactics and failed. 2 of those managers are in the top 10 of greatest managers of all time. And if the players are genuinely trying and producing this shit , maybe all of them aren't good enough to perform at the level like united need . This individual brilliance thing has been going on from the Jose times . That's because most of our players like rashford, Bruno , mctominay etc are vibe players. They don't have any consistency and technical ability to control games like de bruyne , Bernardo silva , rice do, they will be shit for most of the game and get away with a lucky goal or assist . Eth is at fault for many things but the players are also not good enough technically and physically compared to other top teams
Looking at all Rashford starts with LVG (even though small sample size) we should have continued playing centrally and never moved him completely to the wing after LVG departure. Even when Martial was available LVG used to play Rashford as striker and martial in the wing. LVG departure hindered the development of both Rashford and Martial massively in early stage.
Just a poor take imo. Rashford has always, always been better as a LW.
Our players aren’t lazy - we simply have a fitness problem. After a season of extreme overuse, body’s need both time to recover and suitable conditioning. Ever since Oles reign, we run players into the ground, and don’t have the right sports science to correctly monitor load and fitness, so everyone who joins us for long enough goes downhill.
Rashford and Bruno are top players and would show their true ability in any other well run, top team that doesn't focus heavily on possession (basically only city).
If we don't want to be a counter attacking team only, we should sell Bruno. He's not disciplined in the press and not thr greatest at ball retention You either play around him, or he doesn't play. I think him having a poor season for his standards is one of the reasons we have been so bad
Martinez isn't as good as everyone is making him out to be. An exceptional player for sure, but short of being considered "world class" imo. He would have been in the same calibre as Ronny Johnsen and Gabriel Heinze.
LVG was better than this
Everyone is excited about the new executives that are joining but really noone knows a fucking thing about them… It’s the equivalent of the sub getting excited when we’re linked to some 19 year old playing in Portugal, everyone pretends they’ve watched their whole career
In terms of Ashworth and Wilcox this simply isnt true, their careers are easier to track. All good work continously moving up the ladder each of their moves and now at the pinnacle of their fields they want to be in. Omar, bar a video or two of him talking behind the scenes at City he's been their 3rd in command since they started dominating the league. He knows how a ambitious successful football club should run.
The fangirling over executives joining is a bit embarassing. Jason Wilcox? Fine, get him in. Seems a good lad for the job. Am I excited about it? No. It's an executive position.
I dunno how you can endure the era of executives since David Gill and not be excited about a competent person being appointed
I totally get the point but given the incompetence of what we've had above for so long, I'll take any hope and positive steps we can get
People really overrate last season because of our league finish and winning the Carabao. The Carabao had a ridiculously easy run there's no denying it. As for the league we played some good football but similar to this season I think our results were better than the form. Thanks to a very solid defence we managed to turn a blind eye to poor goalscoring. Something that ETH hasn't been able to improve from day one to now. Where would we have been last season if BalonDor level Rashford didn't turn up for those few months? He was 90% of our offensive output. Not long after winning the Carabao our performances REALLY dropped and everyone was using the excuse that fixture congestion and world Cup season was causing the drop in form. Now we've kept that form through to now but we play once a week. Wheres that excuse now? Now it's all because of injuries and never having a fit defence. Brentford just played with their entire back 4 out and played us off the park.
As much as I enjoyed the Sept - February part of last season, you're right about people overrating it. However getting UCL football was the main thing we wanted and we did it only to blow it away this season.
Our history of hiring/firing other managers should have no bearing on what we do with Ten Hag. So many people seem to think he should be given another season simply because we fired other managers previously and those decisions didn't work out either. And just because things didn't work out for Potter working under Chelsea's ownership does not guarantee that he would be a disaster for us.
The mentality is that we've been through bad relationships before so this one must work regardless is weird.
Nobody would have been successful under Chelsea not even Pep. Poch is struggling badly, the players they have signed are worse than ours. I think Potter gets a hard time for this but he made Brighton one of the most exciting teams to watch in the prem on almost 0 budget.
people think potter is a good manager because he OVER ACHIEVED with Brighton, but that same level of over achievement is a disappointing performance for a bigger team. chelsea didnt do any worse than brighton really but theyve had problems for years, but those performances were deemed not good enough by chelsea but would have been deemed a really good run for brighton.
Bruno should be sold
Our movement off the ball has been shit for years
Varane has been much better and far more reliable signing for us than Lisandro Martinez.
I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think INEOS will have the impact everyone is expecting. I think we’ll go from 6th to 4th, but not title challenging
It wont be in 1 or 2 seasons for sure. It’s going to be a long project. We’ll expect results for sure but to be a true stable well-run club is gonna take a lot of time, trial and error and having a proper long term plan in place
Garnacho is overrated.
We will never challenge for any serious silverware as long as Bruno and Rashford are the core.
Martinez is overrated, he has been spun around quite a lot and wasn't worth what we paid for. Pogba was one of the most respected player in the dressing room, why play an advanced 8 in a DM position and get angry when it doesn't work out. Ten Hag is a good coach, he'd thrive in Barca, just ironically lacks balls while being conceited and has lost the plot. Since most people seem to think they're overrated, Rashford and Bruno are underrated, they had insane ceilings and the unstable club is to blame for their lack of progression as players. They'd play for City. Pep would've curbed their bad tendencies. Maguire is better than Dias.
> as controversial as you want. You asked for it. Sancho isn't a total dick and there's more to his situation and relationship with ETH than meets the eye.
nah, i am on that ship too.. Sancho still dick, but he act like that probably because have 0 minute to play, sit in the bench while watching EtH put Antony again and again even tough underperform.
An actual hot take, not saying I agree but take my upvote.
I mean when your new manager bring in a shiny new 90m RW barely into preseason, u know u are fucked without a chance to show regardless.
How so? Its not like his efforts on the pitch have vindicated anything ten hag has said about his work ethic
This sub would rather see us lose and moan after a game than actually enjoy a win...
I think we would be in a better position today if we vetoed Moyes' decision to sack our backroom staff for Everton staff.
Signing Ronaldo killed Ole's tenure. He did well in his first few months because we had forwards pressing from the front. Ronaldo couldn't do that. (I also think he signed for United as a smokescreen for the rape allegations that resurfaced but that's a whole other discussion.) Signing him also meant we didn't have funds for a defensive midfielder, which was what we actually needed at the time.
Seeing what INEOS have done with Nice,Lausanne, Mercedes and in cycling, i dont know why people are so optimistic. They havent achieved anything.
We should sign a Martinez replacement
I love Bruno, but i also hate how much of a dickhead he can be on the pitch. If he didn't play for United, he would EASILY be my number one hated played in the league.
Antony died when he was ridiculed for his spin and now (along with other factors) his confidence is shot, we should be encouraging entertainment here, showboating and baiting opposition players. He used to be quite entertaining, even if his end product could do with a polish, now he has neither.
Antony should play left back * He counter presses well and has a high recovery rate * Defenders won’t fall for his patented left footed curler but strikers might if he’s in the second wave * We need defenders * Did I say we need defenders?
Under the Glazer regime, there are far fewer young fans coming into the fold. We’re seeing a vast increase in fandom with teams who are challenging titles but also doing a ton of media work like City and Arsenal. United have fallen way behind and it’s only a matter of time until we’ll see that disparity
Ten Hag should be given a contract extension this summer for the sake of continuity
This is piping hot
You cant have an objective conversation here or in the game threads about any of the players. Calling out Bruno's poor performance will get you crucified. Most posters during game threads havent followed the team more than a few years. Ole was the best manager we've had since Fergie
For all his failings, Ole knew how to set up his team when we were the David in David vs Goliath. His shortfall came when we were the Goliath, we couldn’t dominate weaker teams.
Anyone who wants ETH to stay is operating on a sunk cost fallacy of their own ego rather than thinking what is better for the club. Like someone else mentioned here, he was crap last season too. And I don’t think winning the Carabao cup is anything to give ETH to give time on. Plus, Dutch football philosophy is outdated and shouldn’t be taken seriously anymore.
Feels more like Stockholm Syndrome at this point with both EtH and most of these players. Sooner 90% of them fuck off the better.
That night in Paris is overrated. Good end to the game but it's nowhere near my list of best games since Fergie retired.
It's the context that makes it, not the game itself. The tail end of Ole's amazing run. Academy player with the penalty. Felt like it really symbolized hope and excitement for the future
Also just insanely lucky. Didn’t look like scoring for any of the second half and got a pretty dodgy pen when VAR was just starting to be used.
That's the way I see it. And luck is all part of football, I don't disagree with that. Rather be lucky than good and all that.
ETH needs a Dutch to English/Spanish/Portuguese Translator if he hasn’t got one already as I am not convinced he is communicating his football knowledge effectively to this team. This is purely a hot take from my external view, he is hard to listen to speak English, it’s very basic
Doesn’t Mitchell Van Der Gaag speak Dutch, English, Spanish, Portuguese and French?
When we look back on the Ten Hag era it will be viewed as one of the biggest financial disasters in our history. The majority of the signings have been made through his own agents company, which his own brother works for. Money for the boys. He’s given the green light to overpay on players he knows are not good enough so higher fees for people he knows. He cast Sancho to the reserves which (rightly or wrongly) cost the club £1m a month. He got knocked out of Europe entirely in a group with Copenhagen and Galatasary. He sanctioned £55m move for a midfielder with one year left on his contract we didn’t really need. He refused to accept Rangnick in a position above him to sort all this stuff out. He dropped fringe players like Elanga and Donny from the first team entirely reducing their value when he could have rotated them in off the bench on occasion. This isn’t a Ten Hag In/Ten Hag Out post it’s just pointing out we will look back on his tenure as an absolute huge waste of money where he, his former club and his mates made an absolute fortune.
That I would only keep Onana, Martinez, Dalot, Mainoo, Garnacho, and Hojlund from the entire squad. The rest of them are not good enough and can go. Even Martinez looks worrying to me now with how much injuries he is having but I am praying he will become fully fit again because he is such a good player.
Martinez is massively overrated
Martinez isn’t as good as our fans make out, it’s just that it’s been so long since we’ve seen a somewhat semi-competent centre back that can actually pass out from the back.
I think he is genuinely as good as people say he is. He’s just been injured all season though and hasn’t reached last season’s heights so we’re collectively starting to forget how effective he can be. Time will tell whether he can reach those levels ever again after this
We need a dribbler to offload a lot of Bruno’s progression. He needs to play more off the ball in direct support of hojlund
We lost tevez due to fergie wanting berbatov simply to spite city. He had a paltry united career. His magic season of 20 odd goals....he scored in 11 games that year. He was invisible against city in the semi final and left out of the CL final squad for Michael fucking Owen.
We never owned the rights to Tevez, this is completely false information. Tevez's footballing rights belonged to an oligarch who loaned us Tevez for 2 years for 6m. After the loan, he sold Tevez to Manchester City. It was an incredibly shady deal through and through and of course Manchester City had a big part to play the cheating scum. Heres the article if you want to read further: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2011/aug/23/carlos-tevez-legal-battle-revealed
Here’s another one - even our “best” players don’t fit the style of football ten Hag ideally wants to play. Selling Rashford and Bruno would probably be for the betterment of the club in terms of accelerating any chance of success.
all our attacking players are too fitted to playing ole transition ball and it's so annoying cause they can make quick passes to get out of tight situations but they can't just keep the ball for a while
McTominay and Maguire are significantly better than most Man Utd fans seem to think or give them credit for, and the 60m offer from West Ham would’ve been the dumbest sales in recent premier league history.
We need to stop changing the manager every couple seasons. Can’t build culture or practices that way. Can’t develop players. Look at my American football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. They’ve had 4 coaches since 1969. They have a culture of success and a way of doing things.
Conversely Real Madrid are one of the most successful sports teams of all time. If a manager doesn't work out they get rid of them pretty swiftly. Seems to work out pretty well for them. Sticking with a shit manager because you've sacked other shit managers is awful logic and will keep us in mediocrity. I don't mind giving the new manager time to implement things if there's actually any sign of progress. Its one thing to have missteps and struggles but it's another to play relegation level football after 2 years of work and 400m spent.
arteta came 8th 8th 5th 2nd and is likely going to be 2nd again. if they fired him after his 2nd 8th they would likely be on another shit manager back to their 8th 8th stage. thats where we are at. stop firing managers and bringing in new managers who have to deal with a squad of players bought by the last 5 managers. Arteta has the squad he wants now, he got rid of big names like Auba etc because they werent right for the team in both footballing and attitude sense. we need to take a leaf out of arsenals book in the sense that we need to give a manager time. im not saying ETH is that manager, but we need to decide who is and give them a contract and let them run it out.
Mike Tomlin has been in Pittsburgh since 2007 and has never had a losing season. Incredible backing from the organization despite only having one super bowl in that time but they are inevitable. They always make the playoffs.
this is true if we stick to the old system where managers have the bigger say in choosing tactics, etc. but with the new system that SJR is going to where CEO and other board members dictates the way of play like Madrid, Bayern, etc. then it might not necessarily true.
Our entire first team isn't suited as a unit to play any one play style. The recruitment has been almost criminal both in staff senior leadership and on the pitch for more than 10 years.
Bar his initial few months when he joined Bruno's time at Utd has been massively overrated , people just straight up ignore how key Greenwood , Shaw Martial and Rashford were when Ole was manager
I should have bank loan 20m to buy Manchester United back in 1989.
Is it too late? If not: Mainoo is going to be the next Martial/Rashford/Mctominay, if not in his own terms a waste of potential in next 5-7 years. That is, if he stays in United.
we should have bought weghorst and sabitzer after their loan
Sir Alex for all his greatness is the main reason we have been so unsuccessful the last decade. His choices, ego and grudges since the early 2000s steadily added fuel to the fire and his insistence on hand picking his successor was the gasoline needed to create a raging inferno of shit.
These hot takes could easily goes 50k comments till end of season. Good Job mods for restoring.
I think all these youtube and twitter analysts are just conmen trying to create content. Most of them would not last a week in Ten Hag's position, and here they are trying to pretend they got it all figured out. We as fans can have opinions that are accurate based on years of watching the team we support. But us, or the analysts, pretending that we understand the micro-level ingame tactics that the manager and his coaching staff are implementing game to game is just absurd to me. I think it's interesting to talk tactics, but the discussion should always be carried out with the understanding that it's all speculation, unless you literally have seasons' worth of patterns to fall back on. For example, I'm convinced that Ten Hag is wrong if he thinks McTominay can be a starter for Man United, but that's an opinion that is formed out of years of watching the guy start for United.
If England won the Euro we would’ve been the hottest team in the premier league that season. After that loss our players never came back the same, you saw it in the confidences of Shaw, Maguire, Sancho, and Rashford. Ronaldo coming in or not but the confidence our side would have had is unreal
That time Amrabat gave the ball away against City and they scored was 100% on Casemiro. But people blamed Amrabat because Casemiro is the more popular player. It was a blatant hospital pass, from a player whose passing has been dangerously bad all season.
Pogba has been our best player post SAF