Does anyone actually regret missing out on the top 4?

Tiber

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Obviously this post does not apply to finishing first and winning this league.
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Top 4 is the minimum target for big English clubs and not finishing in the top 4 is a disaster for United.


Like everyone else, I was sad to see United fail to finish 4th and miss out on the champions league next year. And yes I know the Europa league insults still grate. However, right now I am delighted that we did not manage to limp into 4th spot.

If we finished 4th and won the FA cup LVG would almost certainly have kept his job for the one final year before he retired. We would have qualified for the champions league, but with the football we played under LVG I highly doubt that we would have got out of the group nevermind won the thing. We also would have continued to play boring football that made fans eyes bleed, disharmony throughout the squad would probably have gotten even worse and our transfer policy would have been limited (and this is setting aside the pull of Jose) due to the fact that the manager was a lame duck who everyone knew would only be around for 1 more year.

Instead we finished 5th, but added Jose, Pogba, Zlatan, Miki and most importantly of all (at least for me) we added hope. I doubt that we will win the title this year, but I am not dreading the idea of watching United play, I am genuinely excited and am doing all I can to get tickets to games. We just made the biggest singing in the clubs history, which beyond the on field impact is a statement to world football that clearly says we are getting off our knees.

So the question is simple. Would any of you give up 5th place plus Jose, Pogba and Zlatan to have finished 4th and qualified for champions league?
 
No.

We'd have had a worse team than last year with a clueless manager, most likely have gone out in the group stages and then when we did eventually get shot of LVG we wouldn't have Mourinho available to take over and Pogba would probably be at Madrid.

The position we're in now is much better.
 
Does the above logic apply if you change 4th to 3rd or 2nd, or even winning the title? What's the threshold beyond which we hope the team does worse in one season so that another manager that may do better, comes in?

I like the position we are in now but I'm not a fan of the mental gymnastics used to justify the poisonous attitude shared by a lot of fans last season.
 
Well if you told me at Christmas that United would actually do transfer business swiftly, I'd have laughed and possibly chopped one of my balls off.

I'd take the regret.
 
Yes to the question in the thread title, No to the question at the end of the post

Pretty sure Louie would have been sacked even if we came in fourth
 
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Missing out on 4th means (apart from the obvious) that we have to play in the shitty Europa and have most of our weekend games on a Sunday, 2 things i fecking hate lol.
 
RetroStu said:
Missing out on 4th means (apart from the obvious) that we have to play in the shitty Europa and have most of our weekend games on a Sunday, 2 things i fecking hate lol.
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yea but when LVG fecked up the champions league we probably would have been dumped into the Europa anyway :p
 
This assumes LVG would have stayed on. I don't necessarily think that was the case. I'm sure I read somewhere that he would have been axed anyway.

If it's a choice between finishing 4th or getting Jose, Zlatan and Pogba, then obviously it's the latter. Not sure that was the choice though.
 
septic said:
This assumes LVG would have stayed on. I don't necessarily think that was the case. I'm sure I read somewhere that he would have been axed anyway.

If it's a choice between finishing 4th or getting Jose, Zlatan and Pogba, then obviously it's the latter. Not sure that was the choice though.
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Yeah, I think so, too. Van Gaal was gone regardless of 4th or not.
 
Would anyone be against Jose playing reserves/squad players in the Europa and saving our best players for the league. Or do you think a trophy is a trophy and we would have a good chance of winning the Europa?.
Imo i'd rather go full on for the league.
 
RetroStu said:
Would anyone be against Jose playing reserves/squad players in the Europa and saving our best players for the league. Or do you think a trophy is a trophy and we would have a good chance of winning the Europa?.
Imo i'd rather go full on for the league.
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While we're at it, we should only play youth in our domestic cup competitions.
 
Yes. Id much rather be in the CL and whilst it may feel okay now after some huge signings we will be lementing it further when our league form suffers due to the EL.

LVG would have been sacked regardless of weather he finished top 4 or not.
 
adexkola said:
While we're at it, we should only play youth in our domestic cup competitions.
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I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not but we should go for the FA Cup as well, try and put a good defence of it anyway.
 
Mourinho and the four signings were the silver lining when we missed out. In hindsight, that was the best thing that could've happened to us.

Can you imagine if LVG was still in charge? He'd fallen out with or curbed the majority of our decent players. I'm pretty sure DDG would've left as well, and we'd be floundering for signings right up until the deadline.
 
Nah, I'm actually looking forward to Thursday night football for a bit.
 
I do. I miss the CL football and we'll be without the CL football for the 2nd time in just 3 years!

I believe LVG would have gone anyway even if we'd finished 4th. The only way LVG would probably have saved the job had he won the PL which was already out of question after that disastrous month of December.
 
Irrational. said:
Mourinho and the four signings were the silver lining when we missed out. In hindsight, that was the best thing that could've happened to us.

Can you imagine if LVG was still in charge? He'd fallen out with or curbed the majority of our decent players. I'm pretty sure DDG would've left as well, and we'd be floundering for signings right up until the deadline.
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DDG would have been making his debut for Madrid tonight if LVG had stayed
 
Tiber said:
If we finished 4th and won the FA cup LVG would almost certainly have kept his job for the one final year before he retired...
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I really doubt that. The deal with Mourinho was done far in advance of United cementing their place outside of the top 4.
 
I think Jose was coming regardless of where Van Gaal finished in the league.

I regret missing out on the CL because thats where United should be, but now that we are in the Europa League i am sort of looking forward to it. I hope we give it a real go this time and hopefully win it.

It is after all the only trophy United have never won. And in winning it we would join a group of only 3-4 clubs who have won all 4 Uefa competitions and an even more select group which only Bayern currently occupy of teams who have won every major domestic, european and international trophy that has been available to them.
 
If you'd of given me the choice, I'd of picked the cup. We needed to win one post Sir Alex and we hadn't won it for so long.
 
adexkola said:
Does the above logic apply if you change 4th to 3rd or 2nd, or even winning the title? What's the threshold beyond which we hope the team does worse in one season so that another manager that may do better, comes in?

I like the position we are in now but I'm not a fan of the mental gymnastics used to justify the poisonous attitude shared by a lot of fans last season.
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Slippery slope logic
And if we came first last year, then it means LVG was likely quite competent and worth keeping
Not much difference between 2nd 3rd and 4th
 
Don't we have the Adidas deal that says if we fail to qualify for the CL for two successive seasons our sponsorship money gets slashed?
 
Mourinho being sacked by Chelsea at the time he was sacked is paramount to anything LVG didn't do or did do. Unless LVG won the league and had a ready made team for Giggs (that was obviously far from it), he was going to get sacked.

LVG was a lame duck manager because he had zero guarantees past this upcoming season. He was a stop gap and filled the crater done by Moyes. He didn't have an in-house replacement and United could not afford to do another merry-go-round with Giggs or a non-winning manager at the highest level. In steps Mourinho.

Timing is everything and Jose was/is the right man to take charge. He's won in England. He's managed a global club, won there too. Ego, player pull, etc.

The resulting football after December made it an easier decision for the club to proceed with Mourinho. He ticked/ticks all the boxes for United.

United not challenging for the title is always disappointing and every year they don't make an earnest effort, from the board, to the manager and players, it really is unacceptable because of the size and resources available to the club.

United's annual priorities are always to win the league (or at least challenge in April/May) and make cup runs in any knockout competition. Regret, no. Disappointment, 100%.
 
LVG should have been sacked over the Xmas period. We should have hired Jose then and we'd now either be champions or in the CL.
 
adexkola said:
Does the above logic apply if you change 4th to 3rd or 2nd, or even winning the title? What's the threshold beyond which we hope the team does worse in one season so that another manager that may do better, comes in?

I like the position we are in now but I'm not a fan of the mental gymnastics used to justify the poisonous attitude shared by a lot of fans last season.
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Honestly, anything but the league title and I'd have traded it (under the assumption that 2nd place would've seen LvG out). I hated the fact that I wasn't bothered about missing the games, since I knew they were going to be boring, uneventful pieces of shite regardless of the result. I hated that LvG completely killed my excitement for the football over the weekend.

Having the league title would actually give us something to show for it, but if not, I would've been happy to see LvG leave even if we came in second.
 
if it was Guaranteed we would have got LVG had we scraped 4th I would have rather we missed out and done what we done now than Go through another wasted year with LVG.

I think we would have still sacked LVG and went with Jose even if we won the League by some miracle. After December the writing was on the wall.
 
Yes.

Being in CL is where we should be as we would become a better team, though it qualification for it shouldn't be the target. The title is the target.

Still think people are going OTT about the transfer window. I got a bigger buzz in LVG's first with ADM, Shaw, Herrera and Falco, even though it didn't work out. Even last year when Bastian came, total Muppet. Not sayping we haven't donewell, just doesn't feel so impressive getting a 35 year old on a freebie and paying way over the odds on Pogba.
 
Yes definitely. I do think LvG would've been off in either case.
 
It depends. If we'd have carried on as it was then I'm glad what happened actually happened.
Mourinho has definitely been a catalyst to these signings.
I personally think top four plus the FA cup would have kept Van Gaal in a job. So I'm fine with missing out on the Champions League as I think we have a real chance to actually win it in the future.
 
RetroStu said:
Would anyone be against Jose playing reserves/squad players in the Europa and saving our best players for the league. Or do you think a trophy is a trophy and we would have a good chance of winning the Europa?.
Imo i'd rather go full on for the league.
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A trophy is a trophy. And yes, I think we can win the Europa and at least 1 more cup as well.
 
Currently mourinho, pogba etc is just a new name on the team sheet.
It doesnt mean anything atm
If it actually leads to us winning the league then sure, long term it can work out better for us
But i find making this thread before weve played a single match completely bizarre tbh.

I dont support a transfer market, i support a football team
 
Don't mind it actually. Bayern, Barca and Real Madrid are way ahead of the rest, and you can include Juve and Atletico Madrid in there, same with Dortmund and PSG after those. They've all been top teams for years, while all the English teams are in transition and only look like becoming top teams again now. It's not going to instantly click and turn into CL challengers this season, so a season to focus on the premier league and rebuilding before taking on the CL in future seasons can work better instead of the inevitable loss to one of the better teams. Plus if we do manage to win the Europa League, it can be a confidence booster heading into next season, regardless of winning the league or not.

Also I'm pretty confident in saying that Van Gaal would have stayed if we finished top 4, especially with the cup win. And that would have been a disaster. So it's better what we have now.
 
You know it's muppet season with some of these answers. How can anyone possibly claim that they'd rather not manage to reach the UCL if it meant they couldn't formulate a team that hasn't played a competitive fixture together yet?

United would have employed José anyway and they would have got the chequebook out. The CL wouldn't have changed that.
 
Turamb said:
Yes to the question in the thread title, No to the question at the end of the post

Pretty sure Louie would have been sacked even if we came in fourth
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Pretty much this. We were level on points with City at the end of the season. The idea that one point was the difference between him being sacked or not is unrealistic.

I do feel a little weird about being in the Europa League though; we know Mourinho doesn't really want to be there, and the league is surely a priority. Going to be interesting to see how far we go, and how seriously we take it (for instance, if we have a QF against a Villareal or a Milan on Wednesday and a league game against a top four challenging team on the weekend, which game sees the stronger lineup, and how big is the disparity between the two?)
 
We would have probably had Mourinho even if we got top 4. Another season out of the CL is a massive disappointment.
 
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