Manchester United 14/15 thread

[DAFC]

Recipe for disaster.

1. Ex manager rules dressing room by bullying and harsh man management.

2. Owners only interested in financial matters, recent huge funds for transfers stop.

3. Manager of decades leaves suddenly and names a successor. Players try it on with new manager, many need shipped out but manager caves in due to lack of support from board financially. Ends up keeping duds and makes panic buys. Form dips completely.

4. Dressing room wins against manager and stops playing, possibly. Could also be down to just lack of talent in some cases in the squad players.

5. Four or five challengers spend big, are now two years or three years ahead of United in terms of squad quality and depth.

6. Media, fans and players now point the finger at the manager.

7. Manager sacked, love rat choses his pals to take over. Results don't really change.

8. Saviour manager selected, changes formation that exposes fragile defence and midfield even further.

9. Only real defensive talent leaves or is injured. United again pay stupid money for players they don't really need or won't help.

10. Worst result in history of the club?

You could also argue that all this started when Rooney threw his toys out the pram a few years back.

From the team to the board and the expectation of the fans. It's not going to be a quick fix.

Several years in a position that Liverpool found themselves in after the eighties looks likely. Success comes in cycles usually.

Perhaps the Glazers might move on and some foreign billionaires who want to spend might come in?

Moyes had a real chance to change things, he was in a real position of power and influence. He had a job for life at Everton and if it was me I would have cleared out 15-20 players and brought in 10.

You need two top players in every position to be the best in England,united don't even have one in most cases from 2-8 it's very much looking like a bottom half side.

[banana]

4-0! :-D

[vikingTON]

£29 million for Phil Jones and Chris Smalling - Ferguson deserves a huge amount of flak for that.

[afca32]

I didn't realise Blind was valued at £18 million. What an awful signing that would be.

[Homer Thompson]

If United don't sign a decent Centre back then all this is a waste of time.

Every good Man Utd team has had a world class CB in it e.g. Stam 98/99, Ferdinand 02/03, Vidic 07,08,09 titles. The trophyless/Carling cup years were when there were diddies like Wes Brown, a finished Blanc, Silvestre etc.

Di Maria might get 4th place but Jones and Smalling have proved time an time again they ain't good enough.

Evans has actually came on leaps an bounds the last 3 or 4 seasons tbf.

As brilliant as Sir Alex was, what a mess he left them in. Buying RVP to win one final league title could have actually been terrible long term decision!

Which was pointed out last season and laughed at by some

[Carl Cort's Hamstring]

I think Jones has it in him to be a good right back in the Ivanovic mould, but I've never seen anything from Smalling to suggest that he's ever going to be good enough at the highest level. Incredible that Ferguson paid that money for a guy who treats the ball like a live hand grenade.

[PrestersKTID]

Didn't realise anderson was still at united. Truly terrible player and signed for almost £20million. How many shite results do they need before they realise they need a centre half or 3. They should have spent the 60 odd million for di maria on a hummels, godin, silva etc.

Instead di maria comes in to an attack which means one of Rooney,mata or rvp will have to be sacrificed.

[banana]

Didn't realise anderson was still at united. Truly terrible player and signed for almost £20million. How many shite results do they need before they realise they need a centre half or 3. They should have spent the 60 odd million for di maria on a hummels, godin, silva etc.

Instead di maria comes in to an attack which means one of Rooney,mata or rvp will have to be sacrificed.

Not necessarily, depends on the formation and he can also play as a deeper-lying midfielder. And not necessarily a bad thing either, strength in depth when rotating the squad and all that. Though a guy of Di Maria's world class stature signing to pretty minimal fanfare is pretty telling.

A proven guy like Van Gaal will be given more time than Moyes, whatever the results. Unless he throws a wobbly tells them he's fucking off

[Bishop Briggs]

Didn't realise anderson was still at united. Truly terrible player and signed for almost £20million. How many shite results do they need before they realise they need a centre half or 3. They should have spent the 60 odd million for di maria on a hummels, godin, silva etc.

Instead di maria comes in to an attack which means one of Rooney,mata or rvp will have to be sacrificed.

Totally agree. Ferdinand and Vidic have not been replaced. Smalling, Jones and Evans are not in their class. In addition to Anderson, Ferguson made quite a few rotten signings. Nani only made an effort when he was after a new deal. Then there was Park, Bebe, Powell, Zaha, Buttner, Henriquez and, of course Taibi. He also allowed a few very good players to leave cheaply, e.g. Gerard Pique to Barcelona and Paul Pogba to Juventus. So now they are paying well OTT for the likes of Fellaini, Mata, Shaw, Herrera and Di Maria.

[kev23]

Totally agree. Ferdinand and Vidic have not been replaced. Smalling, Jones and Evans are not in their class. In addition to Anderson, Ferguson made quite a few rotten signings. Nani only made an effort when he was after a new deal. Then there was Park, Bebe, Powell, Zaha, Buttner, Henriquez and, of course Taibi. He also allowed a few very good players to leave cheaply, e.g. Gerard Pique to Barcelona and Paul Pogba to Juventus. So now they are paying well OTT for the likes of Fellaini, Mata, Shaw, Herrera and Di Maria.

Park as in in Ji-Sung Park? He was definitely not rotten. Unless there was another Park?

[Miguel Sanchez]

£29 million for Phil Jones and Chris Smalling - Ferguson deserves a huge amount of flak for that.

Jones at least was a much better prospect when he was at Blackburn. He's been ruined since then by being turned into some sort of utility man, not allowing him to get settled or to fully grow into any one role. He's played midfield, right back and centre back, and been unremarkable at all of them.

Smalling however is dreadful.

[davied85]

park was a very good reliable player he played every big game under fergie for a few years

[The Grass Is Greener.]

Totally agree. Ferdinand and Vidic have not been replaced. Smalling, Jones and Evans are not in their class. In addition to Anderson, Ferguson made quite a few rotten signings. Nani only made an effort when he was after a new deal. Then there was Park...

Stopped reading after this.

Clueless.

[Supras]

In addition to Anderson, Ferguson made quite a few rotten signings.

Manager in making quite a few rotten signings, in amongst 100s of signings, shocker. I'm sure there are some recruiters who occasionally got it wrong too. Has anyone who is in the position of hiring people ever got it 100% right?

Fergusons signing record can be very favourably compared to most managers to be honest, he wouldn't have been such an enormous success without it. Brentons record, for example, is utterly dreadful.

[54_and_counting]

Jones at least was a much better prospect when he was at Blackburn. He's been ruined since then by being turned into some sort of utility man, not allowing him to get settled or to fully grow into any one role. He's played midfield, right back and centre back, and been unremarkable at all of them.

Smalling however is dreadful.

i always thought jones would have been a decent right back for united given time there, he hasnt got the physical presence for centre half imo, but could easily manage the whole attacking fullback that big teams love to use

[RandomGuy.]

Unless he throws a wobbly tells them he's fucking off

Wouldn't put it past him, tbh.

[nsr]

Wouldn't put it past him, tbh.

He's probably looking for a plausible excuse to walk away as we speak.

[Diamonds are Forever]

Moyes had a real chance to change things, he was in a real position of power and influence. He had a job for life at Everton and if it was me I would have cleared out 15-20 players and brought in 10.

Moyes arrived to a team that had just won the league, he would have been absolutely crucified if he had done that (not that that kind of squad turnover would have been possible anyway). He was in a no win situation in hindsight. He did the right thing and tried to sign a couple of World Class players, it fell through and from there his mistake was to panic buy Fellaini as that made fans immediately question his judgement of players. Mata was a pretty dreadful panic buy too in all honesty. Not the player they needed in the slightest and really nothing special anyway. For the money they spent on Fellaini and Mata they could have had their pick of any 2 centre halves.

[DAFC]

I would have sold or let go.

Nani, Anderson, wellbeck, cleverly, Hernandez, Ferdinand, Evra, vidic, Rooney, smalling, jones, Evans, fletcher, carrick.

Guessing that would have brought in over £300M and add to that the money wasted on felliani and mata and you've got nearly £400M.

None of the players mentioned are good enough and were carried by van Percy's goals the season before. They will all leave in the next season or so. Why drag out the pain?

Like I said moyes was in a very strong position. Why not clear out the rubbish?

[AMMjag]

Clubs are already holding them over a barrel and ramping up transfer fees, because they know United are desperate for marquee signings as it is in order to be challenging for the title in the short term. That's why they're paying ridiculously high fees for second rate players like Mata and Di Maria.

This would only be worsened if they sold half their team in one go. I've no doubt the likes of Young and Cleverly and Evans will be shipped out, but it will only happen gradually. For now they'll really just have to accept them as players who will make up the numbers.