Do issues roost, particularly?
Long-Standing Issues Coming Home To Roost
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
"It's Moyes". fecking idiots everywhere
Having a centre-forward in arguably the form of his life didn't half help either. Sadly we have hardly seen him this season.
That's what annoys me when people use the old 'this squad won the league last season' argument. Take Van Persie out of the side and we wouldn't have been where we were. Carrick has been out for a long period, and our best and most influential player has spent the majority of the year covering for the midfield. Take all that, add in the fact that we have a 32 year old left-back who is absolutely dead on his feet because we don't have anyone at the club capable of filling in for him, and the results speak for themselves.
It needs sorting at the end of the day.
At the end of this day, preferably. (I know, that is impossible but you get my point.)
We cannot afford another transfer window debacle like the last. We need to move, and move fast, otherwise we'll seem desperate again and clubs will fleece us (alá Everton for Fellaini).
Why couldn't Sir Alex have sorted this out? He must have known that it would be far more difficult for David Moyes to sign recruits in midfield than it would have been for him along with David Gill. He has left Moyes with a poisoned chalice and he knows it. The club needed to help him all they could in the summer to give him a fighting chance but they just threw him and Woodward in at the deep end. That first window Gill could have helped with negotiating and Sir Alex could have been used to persuade players to come here. Other clubs use legends in the recruitment of new players, why not us? Once the players were signed it would be down to Moyes and the same in future windows. That first window was vital. In fact why didn't they sign some players in January last year, they could have asked Moyes what type of players he liked. He wouldn't have been under so much pressure in the summer before the season even started.
That could be more down to the shock of how big a club this is, as is yours. Things said at Everton would be taken more in context. Most things a United manager say are taken out of context and he will learn that. Do not trust the press and keep information to a minimum.
At least if they run the club down it might make it attractive to some mega rich arab or russian.
Only Moyes gets this bizarre treatment.
"If Moyes sorts out this mess and makes us competitive, he'll have done a superlative job"
Really? What mess? The one that has only existed since Moyes took over this team?
And since when have we not been competitor? Oh that's right, since Moyes took over.
Yet, if he makes a team that was winning everything before he took over "competitive" then he's done a superlative job.
Apparently the team that finished champions was such a poisoned chalice that it was going to finish well outside the top 4 regardless. Do me a favour...
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We've spoken of the central midfield issue and the left-back problem with two and a half seasons now. Ferguson never seemed too insistent on addressing it (for instance, he let Fabio go out on loan to QPR and then signed a relative nobody for £2 million in Buttner. How is that addressing the issue?), and to Moyes' credit, his immediate attention in the transfer market was to make bids for Fabregas, Fellaini and Herrera, and also Baines and Coentrao.
Moyes is a shrewd football man. He has bested us as Everton manager before so he knew our frailties. He came in an immediately attempted to address it, which he deserves a little credit for.
Moyes is a shrewd football man. He has bested us as Everton manager before so he knew our frailties. He came in an immediately attempted to address it, which he deserves a little credit for.
Well he only seriously went in for Baines, Fellaini and Fabregas. 2 ex-players and a player who was never seriously into signing for us. There was a definite lack of imagination on Moyes' part which he deserves criticism for particularly as the 1 player he has signed has so far been worse than the existing players we have despite already being a league player here.
Moyes hasn't shown much to suggest he is shrewd enough to be Manchester United manager other than blind faith. He also never ever bested United at Old Trafford before which 4 different managers have done so in his short reign so far.
I don't get this criticism of Fellaini at all. He was slightly injured when he arrived, came into the side when we were in a bit of bother across the field and did okay (he was our best player against Everton at Old Trafford, remember) and is now out injured again. It's not his fault; it's not Moyes' fault.
When he was our only signing of the summer, I expected some bellends to make him the scapegoat for our troubles. Instead of lambasting him at every turn, how about giving him the support he obviously needs to settle in? feck me, some lads have completely forgotten the essence of what being a supporter entails.
When he was our only signing of the summer, I expected some bellends to make him the scapegoat for our troubles. Instead of lambasting him at every turn, how about giving him the support he obviously needs to settle in? feck me, some lads have completely forgotten the essence of what being a supporter entails.
So hold on, Moyes is actually doing a really good job?
Hopefully, this viewpoint will prevail for a good while yet.
I am thinking he needs 2-3 years to
Yes, I think long-standing issues are coming home to roost. They include:
* Rooney blowing repeatedly hot and cold about staying. In the summer (after he blew cold for the 2nd time around) you could have sold him abroad for decent money and replaced him with someone committed to the cause. Now he'll definitely want out in the summer, and it'll just add to the enormous number of new players that you'll need to recruit and integrate in one go.
* The fact that Fergie got the squad to over-perform. Now he's gone, the cracks are revealed and the true level of actual quality in the squad is showing.
* The long-standing CM recruitment problem.
* The number of ageing players in your squad.
* The sub-par level of most of the new players you've been signing for some while now, whilst hailing them all as potential world-beaters.
In your current squad, probably only around half will be staying or deserve to stay next summer. That's a huge problem, which isn't going to be fixed in a hurry. I don't see you finishing in the top 4, which will make next summer all the more difficult. And if you mess up the summer transfer window I reckon you'll end up as also-rans for many seasons to come.
Which brings us to the latest issue coming home to roost: Moyes himself. When so many new players will be needed, is he really the man you want to be in charge of spending bucket-loads of cash? And how many transfer targets will actually want to come and play under Moyes?
After years of letting things drift (because success kept on coming), you now need to wake up, be decisive and ruthless: sack Moyes (at the season end at the latest), appoint someone credible - someone with a vision of attacking and entertaining football - and go for a big clearing of the decks squad-wise.
* Rooney blowing repeatedly hot and cold about staying. In the summer (after he blew cold for the 2nd time around) you could have sold him abroad for decent money and replaced him with someone committed to the cause. Now he'll definitely want out in the summer, and it'll just add to the enormous number of new players that you'll need to recruit and integrate in one go.
* The fact that Fergie got the squad to over-perform. Now he's gone, the cracks are revealed and the true level of actual quality in the squad is showing.
* The long-standing CM recruitment problem.
* The number of ageing players in your squad.
* The sub-par level of most of the new players you've been signing for some while now, whilst hailing them all as potential world-beaters.
In your current squad, probably only around half will be staying or deserve to stay next summer. That's a huge problem, which isn't going to be fixed in a hurry. I don't see you finishing in the top 4, which will make next summer all the more difficult. And if you mess up the summer transfer window I reckon you'll end up as also-rans for many seasons to come.
Which brings us to the latest issue coming home to roost: Moyes himself. When so many new players will be needed, is he really the man you want to be in charge of spending bucket-loads of cash? And how many transfer targets will actually want to come and play under Moyes?
After years of letting things drift (because success kept on coming), you now need to wake up, be decisive and ruthless: sack Moyes (at the season end at the latest), appoint someone credible - someone with a vision of attacking and entertaining football - and go for a big clearing of the decks squad-wise.
Fellaini isn't to blame for me, but you have to call a spade a spade and he has been a bad signing so far. I know some people get in denial about these type of things (I think some still think Berbatov was a great signing). Also if you can criticise Buttner "you may also have forgotten what being a supporter entails" unless some players are fair game under the top red rule.
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Only Moyes gets this bizarre treatment.
"If Moyes sorts out this mess and makes us competitive, he'll have done a superlative job"
Really? What mess? The one that has only existed since Moyes took over this team?
And since when have we not been competitor? Oh that's right, since Moyes took over.
Yet, if he makes a team that was winning everything before he took over "competitive" then he's done a superlative job.
So all those zombie passing threads were a figment of my imagination over the last couple of seasons, the problem has been there for ages and now the players are older and more injury prone on top of it.
The zombie passing was there for sure but the team had enough steel and confidence to win games we played badly in which has been majorly lacking this year. This season we have just played badly with nothing to back it up.
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You wonder if some of the older players have become demotivated and feel they have won all they can. SAF leaving might have made them think about retiring or leaving so are not giving all they should. If that is the case with some it could be near enough impossible to get them playing to their full potential. The young players it might be different, but the older players had such an attachment to SAF that they are finding it impossible to operate under a new manager.
Maybe, but then motivation falls completely under the manager's realm. He has to motivate the players he wants to play and drop the players he can't do anything about. To some extent Moyes has done that with dropping Rio but that took him a while to work out.
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Our football wasn't great but we were winning because we have excellent individual quality. Under Moyes the football has gotten even worse and the results have been abysmal. He was supposed to improve the football not make it even worse while removing all our other good qualities too.
The point is that neither is our squad a mess nor should becoming competitive be an achievement for this lot.
It's a champion squad that has won year after all and has suddenly fallen to pieces.
We've had some issues with our style of play but it's still an excellent squad that has consistently delivered big trophies.
It's a champion squad that has won year after all and has suddenly fallen to pieces.
We've had some issues with our style of play but it's still an excellent squad that has consistently delivered big trophies.
Stop trotting out that line like it's fact. His defensive laziness led to the winner, and he let Barkley stroll past him every time Everton broke - plus he should've been sent off bar a massive refereeing feck up.
If that's his best game for us, God help us all (it isn't, he was decent against Leverkusen but has been atrocious pretty much aside from that match).
Agent's fees are significant, but not a huge expenditure. In the last two years, fees paid to agents by City, Chelsea and United amounted to £21m, £20m, and £8m respectively. Refusal to pay such add-ons represented an ill-advised flight from reality by Fergie and Gill, and United have paid for it in the quality of our signings. Hard-headed businessmen like the Glazers might have told SAF and DG to cop themselves on, but it didn't happen - no interference seems to be the owner's watchword. Let's hope this foolish policy is discontinued under Moyes and Woodward.
As far as outgoings are concerned, the list is repeated below, with the amount of money recouped from sales of some of the bad purchases included:
Nani 14
Hargreaves 17
Andersson 20
Tevez 10
PIG 4----------------------------------------------------4
Manucho
Possebon -
Fab and Raf 5
Berbatov 30--------------------------------------------4
Tosic 8--------------------------------------------------8
Valencia 16
Obertan 3----------------------------------------------3
Diouf 3-------------------------------------------------3
Smalling 7
Hernandez 6
De Gea 19
Jones 17
Young 16
Kagawa 15
RvP 24
Henriquez 3
Powell 4
Zaha 12
Fellaini 2
As you can see, the total amount recouped is £22m or thereabouts. We could surely have gotten better players for a net expenditure of about £270m.
Wages paid in 2012/2013 by City, Chelsea and United were £202m, £173m and £162m respectively. Considering that City still have many players on their books whom they had to lure to an unglamorous club by offering inflated salaries, the difference isn't huge. If we had been prepared to pay the agent fees, transfer fees etc. we could probably have brought City's players to OT for a total wage bill much closer to our present one.
I was going to include a table of total spending and net spending of the top five clubs over the last 6 years, but the post is already too long. So that delicious treat will have to wait.
I don't know why Sir Alex didn't sort this out. But obviously, it wasn't as big of a problem for him. SAF is also stubborn and has his ways of recruiting. He looked mostly towards this league and the British/Irish core. Perhaps he was waiting for the right player and felt he was good until then.
I don't know if the club used SAF. Maybe they did. He's still here after all. Gill however is an FA board member. Using him isn't appropriate. Woodwards should also be perfectly capable. It doesn't matter what you're negotiating. It's clear that he's good at making deals. Fact is, we haven't got the tiniest clue what deals were made in the summer, what the negotiations were like and if he did poorly or not. The Fellaini purchase looks to me do be a last minute act of desperation. I don't see any other reason.
Too harsh?
Not really, its an internet forum after all. Just funny. Reminded me of the "go get your shinebox" line in Goodfellas for some reason.
Young
Cleverley
Valencia
Anderson
Nani
All need giving the boot. They're simply not good enough and have had their chance. Bring in some fresh faces, let Moyes get players in who want to play. If it's true RVP doesn't want to play under Moyes, let him go, we have severe lack of passion, urgency and movement off the ball, it's dire to watch! Something needs to happen in Jan, then a big re-shuffle in the summer. A few more slip ups and we will be waving goodbye to the Champions League.
Cleverley
Valencia
Anderson
Nani
All need giving the boot. They're simply not good enough and have had their chance. Bring in some fresh faces, let Moyes get players in who want to play. If it's true RVP doesn't want to play under Moyes, let him go, we have severe lack of passion, urgency and movement off the ball, it's dire to watch! Something needs to happen in Jan, then a big re-shuffle in the summer. A few more slip ups and we will be waving goodbye to the Champions League.
Neil Warnock has just alluded to this in his pre-match assessment on BT Sport, basically saying that Moyes didn't realise the deficiencies in the United squad before he took over, and he even name-checked the central defensive problem and how poor are wingers are.
Central defensive problems? The only problem is how we replace the numbers, we are sorted for years in that position. I can't argue too much on the wingers, but they have been better this season. Also can you blame Moyes for not knowing anything about the squad when he arrived? I mean ffs he can't know everything. Such a cnut that Warnock.
Warnock said that United had a terrific central defence for years in Ferdinand and Vidic, but both, for varying reasons, haven't been performing to their previous capabilities. Of course Moyes would have known that they couldn't continue forever, but a Ferdinand in his 2012/13 form and a fully-fit Vidic would have been much, much better than anything that Moyes has had to work with these past six months.
Warnock after the game: "You can't tell me anybody else - Mourinho or whatever - would do any better than Moyes with those players."
I agree 100%.
I agree 100%.
I completely disagree. Contrary to what Ferguson said about the chosen one or whatever, there are better managers out there than Moyes who would do a better job. Moyes got off to a bad start (the summer) and is yet to recover. Not every manager would be that bad in the transfer window. Moyes has had one of the worst possible starts, though what I will say it is very reminisce t of our season last year and look where we are now.
Same, load of bullshit.
Of course another manager could do better with those players, SAF did for a start. Moyes is definitely underperforming, I'm not really sure how anyone could argue otherwise.
I don't think any manager would have us winning the league this season though, there are just too many difficulties to overcome. If SAF was here we'd probably be in the top four but still looking desperate.
Blaming everything on Moyes is too simplistic but so is absolving him totally. There are many factors in our current difficulties.
I don't think any manager would have us winning the league this season though, there are just too many difficulties to overcome. If SAF was here we'd probably be in the top four but still looking desperate.
Blaming everything on Moyes is too simplistic but so is absolving him totally. There are many factors in our current difficulties.
You are right about this. His hesitation over the summer (allegedly) caused a few deals that were lined up (and would have solved some of the squad issues) to fall through.
I'm not absolving Moyes from any blame here, Barney. My gripe here is (if you've been following the thread) that the current players are so set in their ways and used to one, singular system, they're virtually impossible to alter. Most of our squad - the likes of Ferdinand, Vidic, Smalling, Carrick, Cleverley, Fellaini, Valencia, Young, Hernandez etc. - simply aren't flexible enough to adopt a differing system. The three defenders I've mentioned simply lump the ball forward at every opportunity, Cleverley, to be fair to him, prefers the 'pass and move' approach but he's too slight to be an imposing central midfielder in England, Fellaini has his strengths but they lie away from a 'pass and move' system, and the attackers I've mentioned are far, far too one-dimensional.
I really believe another manager would've struggled to successfully alter the way we play with the current squad. A Mourinho might have instilled more confidence in them, but as for changing their whole games around, I doubt it.