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Pagan, I don’t disagree that Rooney played the club to get a huge pay rise but rest assured that had Ferguson wanted Rooney out, he would have been gone. Ferguson clearly knew he needed Rooney and authorised his pay rise. Ferguson’s power at the club wasn’t brought into question with the Rooney saga. It’s that power Jose needs IMO

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Jose toppled arguably the best side ever containing arguably the best player of all time, scoring the most goals of all time in La Liga in the process. Whilst we currently look some way off, if there’s a manager more capable of getting us back on track, I’ve yet to see him. Let’s not forget the amount of criticism Pep faced last season, even from the City fans. His biggest fans were saying he doesn’t have the quality of players to play his way.

My point with Jose having previously lost dressing rooms is that those players knew they could force him out. The players need to know they don’t have that power, just as they didn’t in the Ferguson days. As soon as they realise Mourinho has the full support of the board regardless, the sooner they decide whether to pull their socks up and get back to the football we were playing at the beginning of the season or join another club.

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Jim, I’m not sure any of the top clubs now can take a risk on a completely unproven manager. The Zidane/Guardiola appointments at Real and Barca respectively, were at least done on the back of a reasonable spell with the club’s B team which I think helps to ease them in. It would be a huge gamble to give the job to someone like Giggs without him having at least managed one of the youth sides. You can see Gerrard being groomed for the Liverpool job now by taking over the youth side.

For me, the Utd job is, even now, a very difficult job that requires a certain kind of character. With Ferguson lurking in the shadows, both literally and metaphorically, any future manager needs a certain arrogance to succeed. Any spell of difficulty, they’ll be reminded of Ferguson. There’s the statue, the stand named after him, the corridors are likely filled with framed pictures remembering their success. For me, Ancelotti seems too nice to be able to cope with that. He’s been sacked from a number of jobs now.

One of two things need to happen IMO. Either Mourinho needs to be even further assured by the board and by Ferguson that his job is secure no matter what. The power enjoyed by Ferguson at the club was a massive advantage over his rivals. Ferguson’s players knew they couldn’t get away with not playing for the manager. He was never going to get sacked so it was a case of listening to the boss or finding a new club. Players too often now know the manager will get the sack if poor performances continue so lack the same drive to get out of the rut.

Alternatively, we need to get rid of Mourinho and take a massive risk on one of Giggs, Neville or the like. I know that’s not a popular choice amongst fans but I do wonder if that’s the only way we’ll ever progress as a club again as long as Ferguson is still around.

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Enjoy fellas! Congrats Sean mate. Glad Utd could bring a smile to some people’s face this Xmas ?

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6 points in the last 3 more like, Sean. We just look completely devoid of any confidence at the moment. It’s a different side to the one that started like a train at the start of the season.

I’m not sure where we go from here. Mourinho can’t possibly survive many more of those kind of performances after having spent what he has spent.

We’ll struggle even more now with Lukaku possibly out for a while and Zlatan our for a month.

It’s all about securing top 4 now and going as far as we can in the CL and FA Cup, by which time we have hopefully got our confidence back.

Sacking Mourinho must be tempting for them but I honestly can’t see an obvious replacement with enough pedigree to take on a job with such high pressure and expectation. Ancelotti is not the man for Utd for me.

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Here’s another chance to get your predictions in for this weekend for anyone who missed the long list

[fp-predictionform match=”203-211″]

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You can still change your predictions until 15mins before the game Goat so even if you’ve done that long list just go back to the first page of the Christmas fixtures thread and change any of the remaining scores as you wish

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Sanchez to Pool is a big shout Nil. He’ll want extraordinary wages with moving on a free. I can’t see him leaving Arsenal for Liverpool but you never know

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People will soon forget the fee if he makes the difference for Liverpool at the back. It’s hard to measure value for money in this market. It does make Klopp look a bit silly though after saying this following the Pogba to Utd transfer:

“Other clubs can go out and spend more money and collect top players. I want to do it differently. I would even do it differently if I could spend that money.”

Bit hypocritical to 12 months later set a new world transfer fee record for a defender! I know Jose is the worst for this kind of hypocrisy but there’s no doubt they’re all far from innocent!

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C.Man/Goat, this is not an up-to-date table, no. I’ll look at getting an updated version up later today with the latest set of results

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And if Azpi is worth £100mil,what is Phil Jones worth?!

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I hope these fees continue to spiral. It makes me feel better about Pogba and Lukaku’s transfer fees!

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To add to 999s point, I’d argue of the two, only Mourinho has won huge titles against the odds. None of Guardiola’s titles have been unexpected, as good as they have been it must be said!

Mourinho has won the CL with two massively unfancied sides in Porto and Inter. If that’s not proof of coaching prowess, I don’t know what is. He’s clearly going through a poor patch now, but as 999 said, people were writing Pep off last year and saying he doesn’t have the squad to play his way. It’s the exact same thing being labelled at Jose now.

There’s no denying we should be closer to City but we just can’t continue going from manager to manager with no plan other than to throw more money at it. Jose has shown in the past that he can build very good sides. A poor coach does not beat Pep’s Barcelona (arguably the best side ever) to league title with a record goal tally. He’s being taken to the cleaners by Pep currently but I certainly wouldn’t like to bet against Mourinho finding the winning formula again soon, whether at Utd or elsewhere

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Shame on the rest of the top 4 challengers for allowing this Utd side to be 2nd! We’ve been average for a number of weeks now. No fight, no desire, no style, no chance

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I can’t disagree with you Jim on the last two showings. On current form, he’d struggle to get on your bench!

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Well City fans will sleep well tonight with Utd and Chelsea, supposedly their nearest challengers, struggling against Burnley and Brighton!

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I just can’t see Liverpool dropping out yet Sean, if at all. The teams below you keep dropping points too. I certainly wouldn’t like to have any money on which teams will make top 4 this season anyway!

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Don’t forget to get your predictions in above if you haven’t already done so! Looking forward to some Boxing Day football…

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Only just caught up on this thread. Cheers 999 for the kind words. The like feature tends to appear to misattribute votes when you like a post. You’ll usually find though that a refresh of the page puts it right and only then shows your likes on posts you chose to like. Some bug in there somewhere which I’ll get round to fixing eventually!

Paxton, congrats mate!

Merry Christmas all and cheers for making Footydebate such a good forum!

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Yeah apologies for the long list this week. Just saves me a lot of repetitive work over the festive period with so many games in a short space of time! You don’t have to fill it all out in one go though. You can still do each round of games on the day of those games. Cheers all

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