Black Cat Bone

Darkness_Fish wrote:

Darkness_Fish wrote:I do wonder, though, he's got a decent squad, and coming in raising spirits after the misery of Mourinho may have given him a boost with the squad. But before he started, all the pundits were talking of a root and branch reform of United, directors of football, a long term vision and strategy. Has that need gone?

Apparently not.

Yet there is still no talk of a Director Of Football... it seems Woodward is unwilling to relinquish that particular part of his portfolio even though he has absolutely no qualifications for the role. The money side of transfers - yes. The personnel side of transfers - absolutely not. And when you look at the horrendous amount of money that Man U have wasted in the past few years in the transfer market.... you really think the owners ought to be asking why as well.

Actually there IS talk of Edwin VDS coming in as Director of Football.

Lord Rother wrote:Actually there IS talk of Edwin VDS coming in as Director of Football.

Sounds like double dutch to me.

Good grief they are utter shit.

One of the ironies of the incredible Ferguson era is how little legacy it has left. There's been precious little to build on. In a way they've become victims of their own success because they were so busy enjoying the success when it was there that they thought little of long term planning to ensure the success would continue into the future. It's a common failing, not just in football but in life generally. Success can lead to complacency.

As proved by your performance in the Preludin cup

The Modernist wrote:One of the ironies of the incredible Ferguson era is how little legacy it has left. There's been precious little to build on. In a way they've become victims of their own success because they were so busy enjoying the success when it was there that they thought little of long term planning to ensure the success would continue into the future. It's a common failing, not just in football but in life generally. Success can lead to complacency.

Perhaps the main thing would have been to effectively cut Ferguson's reign short long before he retired - he was so busy making sure that no footballer was bigger than the club, but clearly the senior management let him be bigger than the club, and I guess it's sort of understandable why. Apart from that, they've clearly let money be no issue, while still graduating a fair few players from the academy.

Everything that has happened at Utd over the last 5 years was pretty predictable - but I'm not convinced that different courses would have led to different outcomes. Maybe/probably there was complacency, but I also think these things go in cycles unless you are in terrible leagues like Spain or Scotland. Ultimately they finished 2nd last year and in historical terms they are still in a comparatively successful period (compare their performance now versus post-Busby). Clearly not what they were expecting post-Ferguson, but nor should any club expect to have that level of success at any given time.

It is similar to what happened to Liverpool after Hillsborough.

I think football is different to then, as United are clearly a financial giant and always will be, but they are now having to compete in a Top 6 whereas their ascendancy in the nineties was helped by being by far the biggest club in the country, with only Arsenal seriously challenging them until Abramovich came along.

United need a quality coach pure and simple. OGS is not that person either and I don't think he ever will be. Good coaches see good results and improvement fairly quickly, whereas United seem to be where they were under Mourinho.

Toby wrote:
United need a quality coach pure and simple.

I don't think so. The club culture seems to have gone to pot.

They people who own it have no understanding of football and the man they've have hired to run the club, Woodward, doesn't have much more.
While the family take their enormous salaries, they're very happy to have a man who knows how to build 'partnerships' etc. running the show, while the team is ignored and the infrastructure (stadium and facilities) left to rot, with little or no investment.
They've spent money on players but the wrong ones; the players left from the glory days are too old and the new ones don't seem to fit in.
Man U is a club living on memories of its past. Unless they pay attention to what actually underpins their whole business it's going to continue to decline and then suddenly crash.
The Glazers never spent a penny on buying the club; they just borrowed to pay for the purchase and then transferred the debt onto the club. They are still one of the most popular clubs in the world but while others win trophies and they don't, they'll lose fans and then they'll lose sponsors. Without that, there'll be no money for anything. It'll be very hard to sell the club with all that debt so the Glazers will presumably walk away and leave the club to die as soon as it's not making money for them.

They need a coach, todays result was very very sweet to a pub full of cardiff fans who saw what Ole did to their club.

They would have got a post-Mourinho bounce by just not having Mourinho or they could have gone the harder route of acknowledging what maurinho said about the team ~(and others said about the structure) but thought they could get by with just replacing him with a cheerleader. Personally I hope they get a pre-season under Ole and a panic appointment in January and then repeat that over and over but surely someone there sees whats happening

Gary Neville's comment as they flashed the scores during the City game - "Is that Man U losing at home to Cardiff? No..."- was priceless.

They've really fucked up in appointing Ole. They didn't need to and now they're stuck with him. And now they're talking about appointing a Director Of Football and committing the cardinal sin of asking the newly appointed manager who he wants in that role. As if that's the right way to gain stability!

I have to agree.

There was no reason to jump the gun.

I feel they have to give him a chance to build his own squad but it’s going to cost them a bomb and I have never believed he had the experience, charisma, strength of character to push to club forward.

He's also aged ten years in ten weeks.

And this is the honeymoon period!

Pogba puts himself on the market...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48652521

I am thinking of this: To have a new challenge somewhere else," Pogba said.

For me, I have been for three years in Manchester and have been doing great; some good moments and some bad moments, like everybody. Like everywhere else.

"After this season and everything that happened this season, with my season being my best season as well... I think for me it could be a good time to have a new challenge.

Deluded.

I wonder how Fergie would deal with the latest embarrassing episode of 16 year old, sorry 26 year old, Lingard?


.

Quite a game today. Bloody hell!
Nice to see Sir Alex out and about, though

It's hard to see how Mata doesn't get a game whilst the totally ineffectual Lingard plays every game. Baffling.

.

Just when I think that we can't possibly play any worse, they come up trumps and surprise me. Last night against City first half we were as bad as I can remember ( and I remember the relegation team of the 70's). Dire and dispiriting, we're so poor these days it's almost funny.

.

Tomahawk Kid wrote:Just when I think that we can't possibly play any worse, they come up trumps and surprise me. Last night against City first half we were as bad as I can remember ( and I remember the relegation team of the 70's). Dire and dispiriting, we're so poor these days it's almost funny.

.

Every time I watch Utd I always wonder how the hell Liverpool only managed a draw against this shower.