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Manchester United 18/19: finishing second best

Badgers said:
To be fair to Utd...

I can't see any point (apart from money) in CL football for Chelsea, Spurs or Arsenal on current form.
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I was just thinking about how that also applies to Liverpool's current form in the CL.We've all got six months to prepare for next seasons.
 
The39thStep said:
I was just thinking about how that also applies to Liverpool's current form in the CL.We've all got six months to prepare for next seasons.
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Really? If Liverpool put in the same performance they did away to Barca it would be a rugby Score against Utd
 
Interested to know which players from the current squad Utd fans want to keep for next season?
 
One of the things about Ferguson was his workaholic control freakery. He had his spies out to see who was out on the piss and the rest, but you got the impression he had some kind of process for each player who was playing badly. It was probably a quiet word, sometimes a bollocking, but things didn't drift. This is all drift. TBH though, I'd settle for Ole and the full squad staying put if we could boot woodward and owners out.
 
Badgers said:
Really? If Liverpool put in the same performance they did away to Barca it would be a rugby Score against Utd
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United arent in the CL. In fact according to Paul Hurst of the Times " If MUFC finish 6th and Watford win the FA Cup Utd will have to go through three rounds of EL qualifying just to get to the group stages of the competition. First game would be on July 25 - the day that Utd are due to play Spurs in Shanghai"
 
Badgers said:
Going to be interesting to see how the transfer market goes for Utd, especially if they do not have CL football as a draw.

Not sure how much of a 'clear out' they will/can actually have, despite what the fans are claiming :hmm:

De Gea rumoured to PSG
Pogba fairly certain to go
Rashford getting tapped up by Barca
Arsenal after Bailly
Lukaku talking about Milan

Herrara, Mata, Valencia likely off for free. Sanchez off on loan if some idiot 'meets his wage demands' and/or Utd subsidise this.

Probably the Utd faithful won't miss much of that list (Rashford aside) but replacing them may be tough.
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You could add Fred, Matic, Rojo and Young to that list, possibly Smalling and Jones too.

That's pretty much half an entire squad.

Would be sorry to see De Gea, Rashford and Hererra go. Mata too as I've always rated him and IMHO he's been pretty underused in recent years.

As for the others, ranges between "meh" and "good riddance".

It looks like being the biggest Utd rebuilding programme since Munich. Certainly bigger than when we were relegated.
 
Joe Reilly said:
If the current crop are indeed still 'unhappy and dis-functional as a result of Jose' then remember it was Woodward who appointed Mourinho in the first place. Why because of who City had appointed. And why did the go for Sanchez? Because City were rumoured to be after him. Why did he go for Fred? Because City were rumoured to be after him. Which is why he was mugged off into paying £50 mill (what was the next best offer? ) And the £500,000 per week, as alleged to Sanchez. Why? Simply to prove he can cut a deal. Who bought Falcao and Di Maria? That wasn't Van Gal. That was Woodward pursuit of a quick fix and a galactio strategy.

It was also Woodward who paid over the top money for middle of the road talent, (£160,000 a week fro Rojo for example) to such an extent that even when they no longer feature in the plans of this and the previous manager, he still can't unload them. On the other hand he puts a gun to Herrera's head (the real pivot in the Ole resurgence as we can all now see) rather than mark him out for a pay rise and and contract extension in 2017.

He clearly likes to see himself as like Levy at Spurs but is the exact opposite. His falling out with Mourinho was after all because of who he wouldn't buy. And then when the glamour pusses effectively downed tools earlier in the year they did so knowing he had their backs rather than Mourinho's. Woodward not Mourinho is the root cause of the 6 year dis-function. Mourinho is merely a symptom of wider administrative malaise and it is not even remotely credible to suggest otherwise.
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I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.

You can’t just blame Woodward or the Board. There’s plenty of blame to go round and others can’t duck their culpability.

You could blame the Board for appointing Mourinho. But you could argue that Fergie is to blame for insisting Moyes got the job (who promptly ditched all the backroom staff, widely seen as a mistake of epic proportions) which has set off the chain of events which has lead us to where we are now.

I’m just not convinced that Woodward has signed players against the manager’s wishes. Indeed, as far as I can see there’s no evidence for that whatsoever. Certainly neither Moyes, Van Gaal or Mourinho have never even hinted that this was the case.

Of course Woodward has a say, probably the final one, in transfer dealings. Someone other than the manager has to, and it’s normally the person who signs the cheques.

Otherwise a manager would be able to sign who he wants, when he wants for however much he wants. That’s clearly untenable.

Woodward would have more than an a close eye on the commercial opportunities. That’s he’s job and he’s pretty good at it. He helps generates the income that the manager has available for transfers.

Sadly Jose has blown a pretty sizeable amount of it. For the £450 million he spent we could have had, for example, Foden, Bale, De Bryune and Salah (or their equivalents) and still had a fair chunk of cash left over to have bought Lindelof and Dalot, arguably his best 2 signings - a pretty low bar admittedly.

Instead we’ve got Bailly, Fred, Pogba, Lukaku, Sanchez et al and looking at making a hefty losses when we move them and others on.

And if anyone should have had anyone’s back it should have been Mourinho having the backs of his own players, at least in public.

I shouldn’t have to spell out what how appalling (both in terms of morale and ethics) slagging your players off in front of the whole world is. In my view he deserved the sack just for that.

How can Woodward be blamed for that piece of appalling man management?

Not having a Director of Football is an obvious problem but one that can be relatively easily be fixed, providing the existing manager is happy to work within that set up (and ideally has a big say in who is appointed) and their role is clearly defined.

Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge now.

We now have to face the unedifying choice of City or Liverpool winning the title (and entering the qualifying stages of the Europa League).
 
Somebody on Red Cafe also said something sobering the other night: that, post-WW2, United have only really been remarkably good when they've had the best manager in the world(?)-Busby and then Ferguson. When they haven't, they revert to being an average-to-good domestic cup side...

Given that the formation of the Premier League changed everything in terms of finance and the inevitable restricting of competition, it's incredible that a club that was probably financially pre-eminent in world football as recently as 2013 should have reverted to type.
 
RD2003 said:
Somebody on Red Cafe also said something sobering the other night: that, post-WW2, United have only really been remarkably good when they've had the best manager in the world(?)-Busby and then Ferguson. When they haven't, they revert to being an average-to-good domestic cup side...

Given that the formation of the Premier League changed everything in terms of finance and the inevitable restricting of competition, it's incredible that a club that was probably financially pre-eminent in world football as recently as 2013 should have reverted to type.
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Also, Liverpool and Citeh look like they could end up on 97 and 98 points this year. Given they are likely to be as strong again next year, anyone trying to get past them may well need at least that many points. Who knows, the top 2 may drop off in performance a bit next year, but this isn't like the days of losing out to Arsenal for the league in the 90s (knowing you only had to outdo them the year after, getting 80 odd points or so).
 
Wilf said:
Also, Liverpool and Citeh look like they could end up on 97 and 98 points this year. Given they are likely to be as strong again next year, anyone trying to get past them may well need at least that many points. Who knows, the top 2 may drop off in performance a bit next year, but this isn't like the days of losing out to Arsenal for the league in the 90s (knowing you only had to outdo them the year after, getting 80 odd points or so).
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I wouldn't be surprised if 90+ was the standard for as long as Klopp and Guardiola are there
 
With liverpool now in the CL final, no way in hell any top player coming to the PL will want to come to United. All will want CL football.
 
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