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They also say dogs can’t look up… 🙂
Personally, I think there’s a sense of entitlement running through the club, built on the success of the Fergie years. But, and I’m not trying to belittle the Fergie years, that success occured at what I would consider a time when the league was perhaps not quite as competitive as it is now.
Sure, he had some challenges from the Goonies, then the start of the Jammy Todgers “campaign”, and finally the arrival of the ADSC… fast forward another decade and you can also add the Bone Saw Boyz, a resurgent LiVARpool under Kloop, and a Spurs who despite a wobble during the Maureen/Conte years, are still a lot stronger than they were 10/15 years ago.
The problem YooUtd have is the ideology that what worked during the Fergie years is what they need to follow now, the league has changed immensely since then. They need to forget the Fergie Formula. Celebrate it, for sure, but that was then and this is now.
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Klopp changed the mentality at Liverpool. I’m sure he be a huge success no matter we’re he goes
Does ten hagg buy players he knows from previous clubs like armbarat, Anthony, Eriksen, martinezetc cause he thinks they can fit the way he plays or because the supporting director/scouts don’t have a list of players he should go for.
Benitez worked under Hicks and gillet. 100 times worse owners then glaziers yet got to cl final, semi finals and challenged for tye league. He was fighting with everyone.
I do get what you are saying and it’s an interesting discussion
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Have to disagree Chucky.
That PL era Ferguson was up against the best Chelsea side in their history, the best Arsenal side in their history, a Liverpool side who has Mascherano, Alonso, Gerrard, Torres and many others, constantly causing problems in europe. Your Spurs side wasn’t too bad as well Berbatov, Keane, Modric, Woodgate, King.
The title races were either neck and neck and at times 3 teams had the chance to win the league.You don’t get that now….City and Liverpool are the only 2 sides who are competing.
Your spurs side remind me a bit like Villa, Everton or Leeds from that era. They will be top 4 contenders and a side who do well against the top sides, but will never compete against major trophies.
You look at the quality of sides in Europe now compared to the Ferguson era. Will we ever see a side like the Milan 03-07 side, Peps Barcelona side, the great real Madrid side, Juventus were decent, so were Bayern. Barca are a shadow of themselves, Real Madrid have some good young players, but no where near the quality of 10 years ago, Milan, PSG, Bayern are all not what they once were.
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Sean-
Funny enough I read up on Gillette and Hicks a few months ago. They arrived in 2007 and Liverpool didn’t win a single trophy during that period. Absolutely terrible owners.
The Glazers are hanging on to Ferguson coattail still. They have realised you don’t need to be successful at United to make money. But how long can that go on for? They haven’t put in a single penny of their own money in to club. If Glazers didn’t have Ferguson, United would have suffered the same fate as Liverpool did under Gillette and Hicks. Ferguson masked over their poor ownership.
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Fair enough CM, vaguely seem to remember it generally being 2 sides back then, the only constant being YooUtd while the others “took turns” to compete… certainly don’t remember many “3 horse” races…
Even so, YooUtd didn’t even dominate like the ADSC are now (but that’s another discussion)… the point I was trying to make was that back then YooUtd were happy with Fergie calling all the shots, rather than have Directors of Football etc… those positions they filled up with bussiness men rather than football men, as they had Fergie in the dug-out (i.e. “The Fergie Formula”)… and it worked then but until that changes it won’t work now, regardless of who’s in the dug-out.
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Yes Banjo, that’s a fair point. I think having such a long term manager like Ferguson can make a club complacent and I think the club inevitably bends towards that manager and a vacuum is somewhat left when they leave and they’re unprepared for it. In some ways Abramovich’s ruthless culling of even successful managers prevented these problems, and it did prove successful. But he still generally made good appointments. Man Utd just haven’t.
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Dunno Mikus, I think ETH is doing a brilliant job… 😉
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Recruitment is a huge problem
Insane prices for average players. Anthony being the prime example.
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Management and recruitment are often both to blame, but usually only the management that gets the bullet. Who is making the transfer decisions? There seems a few ex-Ajax players that would suggest ETH is having a major influence, but to me the entire system is flawed.
They should have listened more to what Ralf was saying! I think Utd need a DoF, transfer team and management that can work towards a common system, that share similar views on styles, players, required attributes etc. All seems a little disjointed.
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Chucky-
Those sort of positions were fairly unknown in English football and most top sides implemented them within the last decade.
Ferguson called shots, but he also had David Gill. He also had people in place who did background checks on players before he bought them.
Woodward threw all of that out of the window. He promised Moyes Fabregas, he ended up delivering him Fellaini. That was literally the beginning of the end and proved how out of depth he was.
The game has evolved now where sporting directors and directors of football have got important roles at the clubs. Look at how good Michael Edwards was at Liverpool. Not just at recruiting players, but selling too. Liverpool net spend was ridiculously low because of him. Klopp isn’t in charge of negotiating fees, that was all down to Edwards.
I always said City success isn’t just down to Pep, begiristain and soriano are key to their success. Look at how Barca have declined since losing both. Their scattergun approach hasn’t worked.
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Does ten hagg negotiate fees? Isbt Arnold or murtagh in charge of transfers? Isn’t a dof already in place
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What did he do at Ajax Ed that was so special?got to a cl semi final that they should have won? Frank de boer played the same kind of football and was found out in England. He won for 4 Dutch titles. Produced some good players but I thought there was always a huge over reaction. Great wins in the cl campaign
I did mention when he came in that there’s every risk he does a De Boer. Comparing their records at Ajax is just not a good comparison though. I know a few Ajax fans and they were worlds apart in terms of how highly their fans rated them both. Guardiola brought Ten Hag into Bayern because of the football his teams played. Ajax were brilliant to watch in the CL. Introduced young players, played exciting, attacking football.
– He lost a single away game (out of 16) in the CL with Ajax despite playing Real Madrid, Liverpool, Juventus.
– won every single CL group game the season after they got to the CL semi. One of only 10 sides to ever do it
– Won the league with an Ajax side who hadn’t won it for 3 yearsNo worries at all if you didn’t rate him but everything pointed to it being a risk worth taking considering the available options.
As for the injuries excuse comment, who has been using injuries as an excuse? I always find it embarrassing to note injuries as an excuse for the top sides. They all should have more than enough to cover most injuries and cases of multiple injuries at the same time should always result in questions being asked of the physios and training staff. Utd are 3 LBs down and playing a midfielder at LB but that’s not an excuse. They should have more than enough to deal with even that against the likes of Palace. Anyone using that as an excuse deserves calling out, especially when you consider the amount of money a side like Palace or Brighton have to spend in comparison.
It’s a sorry state of affairs but I don’t for a minute think it was the wrong decision to bring him in. Really easy to say otherwise with the benefit of hindsight.
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I was a massive fan of bringing Ten Hag in but on the condition that we had a proper DOF coming in and a proper structure in place. Ten Hag shouldn’t be picking all his players as he’s seemingly doing. It means we have to reset again if he goes. It certainly looks like he’s just got free reign on transfers. That’s crazy. Even Klopp and Pep don’t have that. Didn’t Klopp get overruled after declining Salah? Wanted some German forward instead but was overruled? That should tell you everything you need to know about leaving managers in charge of transfers as it appears Ten Hag is. Utd are so far behind the rest in terms of a staffing structure above the manager. Does that absolve Ten Hag of blame? Absolutely not. He’s got a lot wrong but the structure isn’t set up for success.
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Ed, you said tgis at weekend
Again, no idea what to make of us. Thought we turned a corner a little in the week but back to the same rubbish yesterday. I think injuries in the back 4 are really hurting us but we should have more than enough to easily be beating the likes of Palace
Full fit back 4 concede goals anyway. Your not really using it excuse but plenty of utd fans are
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Well exactly Sean, I literally said we should have more than enough to easily beat them anyway 😄. Most Utd fans I have seen talking have been saying the same thing. Injuries are clearly affecting us but they 100% shouldn’t be. All the top sides should be able to deal with all injuries imo even if it means dipping into the academy as they all have top academies. Any Utd fans using the injuries as an excuse need to be called out. It’s embarrassing when you look at the sides we’re losing to.
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I believe using injuries as an excuse can be justified if the quality of players to cover are not good enough. We are playing a CM as LB, Lindelof isn’t good enough and Dalot is average. If we have our 1st choice back 4, then things maybe different. We certainly missing Shaw. Martinez looked off for a while and his foot injury confirmed why. The players who cover may win you a few games here and there, but in the long run, they would be not good enough and would eventually get exposed.
I remember United badly missed Rio, Vidic, Evra. They had to use Heinze as cover as a CB and O Shea came in to play alongside him. They lost a few games during that period.
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My personal opinion on injuries, especially if a manager has been at a club a long time and got all his own players, is that it’s up to the manager to build a squad to cope with all bit the worst injury crises. If it’s a huge issue when the defensive midfielder gets injured, that’s on the manager. Utd badly miss a fit Lisandro Martinez, especially when Shaw is also injured, who is his only suitable deputy. Again, that’s on Ten Hag though. We shouldn’t be that reliant on a player. Maybe he shouldn’t have bought Anthony then if Lisandro was so key to his style. That’s my take anyway. The longer a manager’s been in the job, the more it’s on him if injuries become such a problem that they are the reason for a huge dip in performances.
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But injuries don’t give managers an excuse cm. They are just sacked. Doesn’t matter who is missing
Armbarat is not a left bsck or inverted full back. Evans at left or cb. Lindolf at eight back and Dalot at left full.
Liverpool had to play Quansah at wolves. One pl appearance. Martinez I just don’t get the hype at all. Skinned a live loads of times before he got injured. Decent player but that’s all. Lovely left foot though
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Sean-
The reason why Martinez was getting skinned is because he was playing injured and it was revealed he was brought back too soon after last season’s injury. That is all on Ten Hag for allowing to happen, now he is out for 3-4 months.
Liverpool lost Van Dijk a few years ago after that challenge by Pickford. They badly missed him because the players who came in were not good enough. I remember when we lost Rio for 9 months and Wes Brown had to cover for him. Rio was the leader at the back, once we lost his quality and leadership, our season fell apart.
I believe if you lose 1 or 2 players in different areas, then there isn’t an excuse. But if you have lost 4-5 in the same area of the pitch, then you are pretty much buggered.
There is only so much the manage can do with the quality he has to choose from. There is a reason why they are 3rd or 4th choice.
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Liverpool had to play Quansah at wolves. One pl appearance.
Maybe it’s just me Sean but that’s still on Klopp, for me. Especially as he’s been there years (Klopp). Totally his fault if he’s having to resort to playing such an inexperienced player. If the backup players aren’t good enough to still get a win at Wolves and Virgil’s injury is the reason for that loss, then it’s on him. I’m not trying to state that as fact. That’s just my opinion.
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