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Off Topic The End

Discussion in 'Manchester United' started by Chief, Jan 22, 2020.

  1. cytrax

    cytrax Well-Known Member

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    We are structurally slow which is why Woodward should also go!
     
    #21
  2. Treble

    Treble Keyser Söze

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    6 years ago I think there was an argument for this, but not any more. We're just going round in circles when the one true constant remains... Woodward. As I said above we also need a proper Sporting Director. Let's say we sack Ole, who could possibly come in and make any difference whilst the two problems I've said aren't sorted first?
     
    #22
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  3. cytrax

    cytrax Well-Known Member

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    As much as we want to try and align all the variables to get desired outcomes, the lowest hanging fruit right now is Ole. I don't think we've come to terms with that simple fast. We are far from even talking about how much time we should give the next manager. It doesn't matter who comes, the job is performance based. Meaning we have to show progression for them to hold their job. We are now firmly in regressive mode.

    As for the reference that we are going around in circle, I don't think we've have ever been at point in recent times whereby game after game at home, teams are coming at us to win. Getting a Sporting Director tomorrow isn't going to that change. That's more of a longer term planning issue which we do badly need. And while at it trying to get there, keeping Ole as manager is poor judgement at best, negligence at worst.
     
    #23
  4. Chief

    Chief Northern Simpleton
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    Because all of our issues stem from when they took over the club, that's why.

    They forcibly 'purchased' the club, saddling it with over half a billion of debt from day one. The club was healthy financially at that time, no problems whatsoever.

    They then starved the main money making asset of the club of funds, that being the manager and squad. Both those assets were in fine form when the Glazers took over, they then gradually turned to ****.

    Do you think it is a coincidence that Ferguson suddenly decided to change his whole modus opperandi? Just for fun, eh?

    Throughout his time at United, he had refreshed, restocked and rotated his squads periodically.

    That stopped.

    Rio Ferdinand, Ryan Giggs, Nemanja Vidic, Paul Scholes (twice!!) all played on because the money was not there to replace them. Instead Fergie had to take a chance on Phil Jones and Smalling to replace Ferdinand and Vidic! Both are still there for **** sake.

    Ji Sung Park and Tom Cleverly in central midfield.


    He manged to win a final league title (having miraculously finishing second on goal difference the previous year) because they gifted him Robyn van Persie. Still no centre halves though.

    Fergie then retires and it all goes proper tits up.

    People actually accused Ferguson of deliberately running the squad down to 'protect his legacy'. What utter bollocks. What he had done is cobble together a title winning squad from the remainder of previous squads that were just about still standing.

    The next, blatantly inferior, manager is then given Fellaini and told to crack on. He's no genius so that squad now fails.

    The recruitment from there on has been astoundingly bad, both of player and manager (yes they spent money, big deal because none of it was wisely until this summer just gone).

    That's down to the owners and their recruitment. Theirs.

    So yes, all of this is down to the Glazers. Hope you all get it now.




    Say what you like about Solskjaer but his squad is poor and the three players he bought are all good signings. We need three three signings in each of the next two windows (the current one being one of them).

    He's dropped some massive bollocks but if we carry on recruiting along the same lines we won't actually die a death but it'll take a good few years to get anywhere near where we should be aiming for.
     
    #24
  5. Stan

    Stan Stalker

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    Welcome back.
     
    #25
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  6. cytrax

    cytrax Well-Known Member

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    In my opinion, we need to get over the face that fact Glazers are the owners of the club and that isn't going to change because the fans don't like it. For all intents and purposes, the club was there to be purchased by anyone according to the way business works. They played by the rules and they won a massive lottery.

    Now, let's move past the visceral reaction to their ownership and look at on field investments... We continue to point fingers at the owners yet the facts on them stifling the club is not on our side. The fact of the matter is that we have out-spent anyone in the league this past decade, bar City. Our wage bill that has been consistently high corroborates this fact as well. It is our choices that has been pretty damn poor, certainly not due to lack of funds. So if we assume that this is all about them making money off the club, there's certainly been plenty of that money to go around the club. Superstar managers and players have come to the club but the pinning glue of a well grounded manager to put it all together was never there. Mourinho came in as a reaction to Pep going to City. It was an emotional decision given Mourinho's record. Just as Ole coming on board as full time manager at the time he was made one was also an emotional one.

    And I get it that we need an outsider to point fingers at, but like it or not, Glazes are very much insiders of the club at this given point in time as been around for fifteen years. Of course we had period of low investment in the team, but which team spends year in year out as we have in the past decade?

    Fans turning on the owners as we continue to romanticize the affair with Ole shows that there is a clear bias there and it is counterproductive. Why didn't LvG get the same backing? Or Mourinho when times got rough for two months? Even on this board, the bias is clear. We are all guilty of it. We continue to pettifog around calling this what it is, it is a ****show and Ole owns 70% of it with 30% Woodward's for picking Ole when he did and fkin up transfers.

    For our current league position, it is 99% Ole's fault and we as fans need to own that fact.
     
    #26
  7. CFC: Champs £launderx17

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    Did you go to the match last night?

    You still have a chance of getting top 4 with Chelsea Spurs and Arsenal all over the shop
     
    #27
  8. Chief

    Chief Northern Simpleton
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    Nonsense mate, sorry.

    All of it.

    It is 99% Glazers and 1% Ole.

    These 'emotional' (mis)management employments? Who employed them again?
     
    #28
  9. Chief

    Chief Northern Simpleton
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    Not many did.

    Maybe the penny will drop.
     
    #29
  10. glazerfodder

    glazerfodder Well-Known Member

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    This club started to fall apart the day David Gill walked out the door. Woodward would not have been so powerful had SAF still been there, but he wasn't and that gave him free reign as absolute boss and that has manifested itself ever since in him having control of the purse strings and having the final say on transfers in and out. Too many of our signings have been compromises, the second best, a promising prospect or short-term fixes while the clubs around us with the vision and willingness to invest in the best players were snapping up the best in all positions.

    None of us like the Glazers, but their role in all this is incidental - the buck stops with Woodward and until he goes, or until he surrenders control to a Director of Football, this mess will continue, regardless of who we bring in as manager. I actually believe Ole is the right man for the job, but he needs backing in the transfer market - and he doesn't have it, all we need to do is look at the Fernandez farce to see that. We need to spend, to invest in the best player for each position on the pitch and to slowly weed out the 'second-best' - and that will take at least three windows.
     
    #30

  11. DragonPhilljack

    DragonPhilljack Well-Known Member

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    Wheels coming off aye!.....................<laugh>
     
    #31
  12. glazerfodder

    glazerfodder Well-Known Member

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    It's Thursday - shouldn't you be in the pub getting pissed on your benefits payout instead of making a right prat of yourself on here.
     
    #32
  13. cytrax

    cytrax Well-Known Member

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    How much more money do we need to spend? Ole's lacking has little to do with lack of backing. We have been throwing money at the problem for over six years. I'm not convinced that is the fundamental root of our problems.

    We have let players go without thinking through how they will be replaced. We brought on David James, who is a great prospect, but we play him in wrong position. Ole had plenty of time to identify deficiencies before the summer but his moves have made the team far worse than he inherited. I'm not sure why we continue to give him a pass on these basic fallings. He's also now suggesting that it will take years for him to rebuild the team. With United's resources, it shouldn't take years to get into Champions League position. I do not buy it!

    I completely agree with you that Woodward is the common denominator across our failures since he took over. Great commercial director, but his fkups relating to on field events have been extremely detrimental. We need a Sporting Director but I wouldn't keep Ole in place as the manager. Right now, the lack of Director role and Ole's role as manager are somewhat mutually exclusive. But we are trying our hardest to protect his legacy when the reality is that he doesn't have what it takes to manage at this level.

    Structurally, we need to get a new manager in along with a Sporting Director. We need to equally prioritize both positions and free Woodward from dealing with events that are consequential to which team is put on the field. That is the way forward and I believe this what the board is trying to execute.

    And while at it, maybe sell De Gea and bring back Henderson from his loan spell at Sheffield. He would make a great number one at United.
     
    #33
  14. cytrax

    cytrax Well-Known Member

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    There's plenty of blame to go around with emotional mismanagement. Fergie gave his blessing to bring in Moyes who then quickly cleared out the backroom staff.

    We are too focused on looking for an outsider bogey man and our biases is part of the problem.

    Take even Fellaini, a player that always gave 110% percent, yet he was forever treated with such distrust while he was here by us, the fans. We have subsequently treated players that somehow don't fit our idealistic United's mold this way that the prophecy ends up fulfilling itself. That reverse bias is what we are now using to protect Ole yet LvG was treated with such contempt by both ex-players and fans. Overall, we are an emotional without balance for realism.
     
    #34
  15. Chief

    Chief Northern Simpleton
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    I see most are blaming Woodward and, while I agree he's clueless on the fooball side and should be removed from anything to do with recruitment, he is employed by the actual culpable people, the Glazers.

    The buck stops with them, they've ****ed the club in the arse to make themsleves money, it's that simple. I'm genuinely baffled people can't see that far back to the source of all today's issues.

    I agree Solskjaer is out of his depth but is there a miracle worker out there who can turn this squad round immediately to get top four this season? I doubt it.

    Irrespective of this, the overall position Manchester United finds itself in right now is not Solskjaers fault.

    The actual ideal situation is he quits, I genuinely don't believe he deserves the sack at all. The mistakes he made (well documented now) were backed by someone equally culpable.

    In fact, I'd hazard a guess that he said we need a striker to replace Lukaku and Sanchez and wasn't given one.
     
    #35
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  16. Treble

    Treble Keyser Söze

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    Thanks mate, hope you're well.
     
    #36
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  17. Treble

    Treble Keyser Söze

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    I didn't mate no. Work night.

    Absolutely anyone from that list could finish Top 4. Imagine 2-3 years ago Chelsea being 6 points clear after 24 games. Game over, Top 4 would be done and dusted. But when you look at all of them - United, Chelsea, Spuds, Arsenal they're all a bit of a mess. United won't finish Top 4 without most of their injured players back and at least 2 signings by next week. Otherwise we can forget it. Arsenal are out as well.

    Between Chelsea and Spurs imo.... and even then I wouldn't be surprised if Wolves shat on all of them and nipped in.
     
    #37
  18. cytrax

    cytrax Well-Known Member

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    What if Ole had said we would be just fine playing Rashford and Martial with Pogba in a diamond attack? That notion seem equally credible. But given we don't have the facts, it's pointless simply guessing to vindicate or implicate Solskjaer. However, if we go by what we know, it ends with the manager that has to put out the team. Let's not forget that Lukaka had been reduced to bench before he left. That is not Woody's doing. That was strictly Ole. Fascinatingly, that same player has now turned until goal scoring machine at Inter as they have now maintained sustained challenge to Juve's supremacy by getting a new manager that knows exactly what he's doing.

    Ultimately, the reason why I think that it is counterproductive blaming the owners is that it's not exactly clear what the supporters want? Should they sell the club? If so, how and when? Clearly that's not something that will happen as a result of the protests. Or do we want them to get rid of Woodward? Point is, there's no clear mandate with blaming the owners. It's like a pointless Occupy movement.

    Where we do have mandate is what we can actually influence. Woodward's position, manager of the team and holding players accountable. Those are factors that we can influence because the mandates are clear. If what we want the Glazers to change something, then we need to be clear. Simply standing up if you we hate the Glazers will do nothing to solve our problems.
     
    #38
  19. Chief

    Chief Northern Simpleton
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    It's perfectly clear what supporters want, we want the Glazers out of the club somehow.
    Woodward would just go with them, hand in hand, he's part of their furniture.

    The fact that the club still has the best part of half billion quid worth of debt, because of them, makes that very difficult.

    They have robbed a billion quid out of the club and pocketed it.

    What part don't you get?
     
    #39
  20. cytrax

    cytrax Well-Known Member

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    I completely get that.

    However, what exactly is the plan to get the Glazers out if we think that is somehow a viable option that we can control? So far, I have seen nothing actionable other than us venting anger.

    Fact of the matter is that Glazers will only leave on their terms. Hence my reference to counterproductive nature of the protests against them. We will be better served if we put our energy into material things that we can change. Unless if we can come up with $5.6bn to take the club into Barca type ownership.
     
    #40
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