A Foundation has been built

Glorio said:
It only really started getting built from about 4 or so years ago if we're being honest.

Yes, the cumulative time since SAF left is longer, but whatever we were doing before was not building foundations (even if that's what Ed might have thought).
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That twat was trying to put up chandeliers before the roof or the foundations were even started.

The ideal way to build a squad for success is to have a core group of players who are just about to enter their prime. Which you can then supplement with a rotation of younger players and a few experienced heads.

There's a good basis of younger players in there now, Mainoo, Garnacho, Hojlund, Yoro etc.

Now we can see a good few like Onana, Mazraoui, De Ligt, Martinez, Ugarte, Zirkzee, Rashford etc who are approaching what should be their peak. Add in the experience of Eriksen, Bruno, Casemiro, Evans to guide the younger players and it's not looking too shabby at all.

Still think the team definitely needs a left back, at least one midfielder and another winger who can play right and left.

It's a solid base to build on, but the bigger question is whether or not ETH can make it work. I'd like to think that he can, only time will tell.
 
I see some optimistic signs for sure

manager aside we're building a pretty strong squad

ETH I'm still unsure about
 
Quinze said:
This feels a bit disingenuous, no? Especially including a loan signing like Wout.

We went from:
De Gea, Dalot, Varane, Maguire, Shaw, Fred, Ronaldo
to
Onana, Mazraoui, De Ligt, Martinez, Dalot, Ugarte and Zirkzee

The players have gone younger, but I'm not convinced they're better. Not yet at least. Overall I feel that we're an immature side and it especially shows in attack, but progress in football is not linear and not every sub 23yo player will develop into a top talent. In fact we've gotten so many over the years that just turn into deadwood before they enter their peak years. You don't need to look any further than Rashford and Martial who were once the up and coming guys but most supporters couldn't wait to see their backs off right now.
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You can switch around the list any way you like. I didn't even include Mainoo, Amad, Garnacho, Rasmus or Yoro in that initial bunch.

On your point about Rashford and Martial, they were serviceable for a while and if we had sold high knowing they were never going to be consistent enough then we'd be in a better position. It's all about planning ahead and making decisions before they become obvious which hopefully it looks like we are starting to do.
 
We are also slowly getting 2 solid options for every position, and many of them of similar age profile who will develop together



-- Hojlund/Zirkzee ---


Rashford/Garnacho ----- Bruno/Mount ----- Amad/Antony


Mainoo/Eriksen ------ Ugarte/Casemiro


Shaw/Malacia --- Martinez/Yoro ----- Deligt/Maguire-- Dalot/Maz


Onana/Bayandir
 
Putting the players aside for one minute, I actually think the best foundation United have done right now, is in the backroom staff.

Getting proper directors in on the football side of things, was long overdue. That foundation is far more important than players, who tend to come and go, a lot quicker than directors and staff (manager aside)
 
Jock Steins Boots said:
Putting the players aside for one minute, I actually think the best foundation United have done right now, is in the backroom staff.

Getting proper directors in on the football side of things, was long overdue. That foundation is far more important than players, who tend to come and go, a lot quicker than directors and staff (manager aside)
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We needed qualified people who look at the playing staff like a business. As in the business of winning and finding the edge longer term in the market with emerging talents ready to go into the team. Not endlessly holding onto players for sentimental reasons or giving new deals to prop up the value of players who aren’t good enough or who aren’t suitable.

Even that is a huge step forward. Fergie used to be so ruthless in this regard and it kept everything fresh.

I think we definitely now have 10-15 really good footballers but not all are going to make it here. The team and club will develop over the next year or two and the hope is it becomes greater than the sum of its parts again. Signing a Sancho every year or throwing a Ronaldo or Cavani at it wasn’t ever going to fix anything. This is exciting times now again
 
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Against Palace it was noticeable that the back 4, along with Onana, Mainoo, Eriksen and Zirkzee are all players with high technical ability and it is a far cry from the days of McFred and the back 4 a few years ago. It's a step in the right direction if we want to move away from the ultra direct style we've been playing for many years.
 
Wait a min. The foundation has Onana in it? After how last season went, I will be very cautious putting Onana as a strong foundation. He could come good, but I am in the wait and watch mode with him.
 
SungSam7 said:
We really cling on to positivity. Yeah the ages look great, but really.... Klopp was playing attractive football with Liverpool in half the time and I'm sure less money spent ffs.
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Klopp had Mane, Salah and Van Dijk. We don't really have anyone near that quality
 
Get in Nico Williams and Angelo Stiller next season and we're good.
 
Signs of foundations being laid is more apparent in the behind the scenes appointments first and foremost for me....

we are still a few years off being a genuine challenger in my mind. The signs are positive.

huge question mark over Ten Hag still is my worry
 
RedDevil@84 said:
Wait a min. The foundation has Onana in it? After how last season went, I will be very cautious putting Onana as a strong foundation. He could come good, but I am in the wait and watch mode with him.
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I assume the ‘progress’ with Onana over De Gea is more his passing ability, ability on the ball and enabling us to play out confidently from the back. It’s a more modern style of play.
I agree some of his keeping was poor last season, but as we saw just this past weekend he is capable of wonderful saves too. Hopefully just a matter of time and settling into life in the PL.
 
Nice thread. Some positivity for once.
And rightly so .

Competent people in board room✔
Quality selection shaping up✔
Football doesn’t hurt the eyes ✔

Final step: decent results on the pitch ❓❓
 
Ichabod Ferguson said:
The Eriksen example baffles me tbh.

He's been a good signing and filled a role well which absolutely everything about Eric's football suggests is what you need. It's also been clear since the first season that he doesn't have the legs to do it against everybody, nor to play week in week out.

So how on earth are we still in a position where Eriksen is the only player who can actually do it? Yes it was well publicised we wanted De Jong in the first season, but since there it's either been no 10s or holders with nothing in between. It's genuinely bizarre to me that 3rd season and the best option is still a signing who probably also is better off playing as a 10 further forward.
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I think the talk of Kone being fast tracked as a btox to box will be expected to be the lynchpin
 
We have a reasonable set of players here, which we bloody well should have with the money we've spent on this squad, but we still have glaring issues, no attacking threat and a bare bones squad in some areas.

Mostly though, we need to improve the manager. Once he's replaced I think whoever comes in will do much better with the talent we have.

Edit: unless it's Southgate obviously.
 
buckooo1978 said:
Signs of foundations being laid is more apparent in the behind the scenes appointments first and foremost for me....

we are still a few years off being a genuine challenger in my mind. The signs are positive.

huge question mark over Ten Hag still is my worry
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Spot on imo. We are still short in midfield, LB, and goal scorers. This will take time to complete but I do think we’ve made a very good start under Ineos. Hope I’m still around when they complete the project. Also hope the team building and ‘new’ stadium building don’t conflict with each other.
 
I'm not convinced all of those will be first choice short or long term to be considered a foundation yet. They've not even played together.

The other problem is our 'rivals' have better foundations.
 
Plant0x84 said:
I assume the ‘progress’ with Onana over De Gea is more his passing ability, ability on the ball and enabling us to play out confidently from the back. It’s a more modern style of play.
I agree some of his keeping was poor last season, but as we saw just this past weekend he is capable of wonderful saves too. Hopefully just a matter of time and settling into life in the PL.
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That's exactly it. I'm still not entirely convinced on Onana but he is very comfortable on the ball usually and it does help with beating the press.
 
Calm down a bit, we are 11th on the table with 2 wins 2 losses 1 draw and big fat ZERO GD. So far the so called "foundation" is built on the sand, if things didnt massively improve Ten Hag would be sacked and the new incoming manager might want his own players, thus we are gonna rebuilding the foundation again.
 
I don't think we're far away, feels a little bit like 2005 and coming out a rebuild. I think there's a great team here, just waiting to click and start winning things.
 
Technically you don't build a foundation, it is what you use to build something on.

Hope this helps
 
Rojofiam said:
None of them are upgrades on what we have, only Musiala is debatable but we’re not getting him
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I don't think I've seen enough of Wirtz to say whether he's better than Bruno, the other two are wonderful players though, super skillful and much better than anybody we currently have.

Not likely we'd get any of them though.
 
We get optimistic with a good period of one half against crystal palace.

Only to have knee jerk reactions of we cock up in the coming match.

I'll believe a foundation is being built when I see sustained performances over an extended period.
 
Rojofiam said:
None of them are upgrades on what we have, only Musiala is debatable but we’re not getting him
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Kvaratskhelia is better than Rashford. Rashford is now just a very average player. Other than goal scoring, pace and heading, Kvaratskhelia is better than Rashford in all other departments of game (dribbling, ball retention, passing, defensive actions, game involvement). Not to mention that Rashford is losing his burst of pace, in a similar fashion as Owen in his late 20s.
 
Jippy said:
You can forgive people for not getting too excited about a foundation being built 11 years on and £1.3bn+ from SAF.
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Since Ratcliff has come in it’s a new era. He said he needed three years. To me a foundation is built from the back. We signed 3 defenders that are all fighters for a start position and a defensive midfielder. After last season this made complete sense. If they target another area of the squad next summer and the summer after we could and should be on track for him to keep his word.
This wasn’t a one window fix.
 
Looking good so far, but we need some experience player of very good quality.
We need goals
 
Wolfbot said:
I don't think I've seen enough of Wirtz to say whether he's better than Bruno, the other two are wonderful players though, super skillful and much better than anybody we currently have.

Not likely we'd get any of them though.
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JeffFromHK said:
Kvaratskhelia is better than Rashford. Rashford is now just a very average player. Other than goal scoring, pace and heading, Kvaratskhelia is better than Rashford in all other departments of game (dribbling, ball retention, passing, defensive actions, game involvement). Not to mention that Rashford is losing his burst of pace, in a similar fashion as Owen in his late 20s.
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Kvaratshkelia doesn't have the pace and power of Rashford. Garnacho/Mitoma style of player that has only had one great season so far, and that was in a free-flowing dominant team in a weaker league with more time and space on the ball than in the Premier League. Put him into just a half-decent PL team and his numbers will most likely plummet. I think he needs an elite environment around him that creates plenty of space and time on the ball for him, in order to shine, but I'd rather give our current wingers that kind of environment first, instead of overpaying for flavour of the month players.

The two Germans don't have Bruno's creativity. No one currently does in world football actually, other than De Bruyne. I want my #10 to be a creative machine and the orchestrator of the whole teams' attack, who's unpredictable, spontaneous and very good at feeding their teammates. Someone that's actually creative (KDB, Bruno, Özil for example) with every single pass, shot, and move that they execute potentially having that lethality, and not someone just plays and acts within the pre-planned pattern moves of the attack with a few signature moves like Odegaard, but does nothing unpredictable and spontaneous really. And being world class in tight spaces like Musiala doesn't compensate enough for me, I'd rather have the profile of Fernandes and the other examples I've mentioned. (And Bruno not being able to play in a possession-based team is just a made-up myth)

Too many people just assume that if you just take a well performing player like Wirtz or Kvaratskhelia and put them into a struggling United side, they'll just keep shining in a much worse system and environment. Maybe we are progressing a bit as a team this season, but it's just been five games so I don't feel like there's a need to discuss radical changes and replacing two of our best players (and our two biggest transition threats) with 100m players who are excelling in different leagues and different systems, with different expectations than at United too. And anyone would've struggled in last season's United team just as bad as Rashford and other players did.
 
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RedDevil@84 said:
Wait a min. The foundation has Onana in it? After how last season went, I will be very cautious putting Onana as a strong foundation. He could come good, but I am in the wait and watch mode with him.
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I agree he might turn out to be a solid GK for us, but it’s baffling we didn’t go for the likes of Hermansen
 
I agree with OP that a foundation has been built but I disagree on his POV of what a foundation is. Players has little to do with the foundations of the club just as chess pieces has little to do on whether a chess player wins the game or not. They might have given us the illusion of that during SAF's time, when the manager would stay for 20 years thus players will be playing a similar style of football for that amount of years. I call it an illusion because even back then key players we believed would retire for us didn't (Ince, Kanchelskis, Ronaldo, Beckham, RVN etc). Players are human thus they are prone to change. They might do very well in one style of football and be shit in a different style of football, they might want out, they might pick an injury which ruins them or they might completely lose the motivation to do better.

We built a foundation because we've got new owners that had placed football in the center of operations. We are set to build a new stadium, we're revamping the training grounds, we hired top people (Berrada, Ashworth, Wilcox, Vivell etc) who gives us consistency and the academy is dishing good talent again. If ETH gets the sack or leaves then rest assured that the next manager would have a very similar style of football to him. That means that the players we've got will be able to adapt to the new style of football without having to engage ourselves in another massive rebuilt. If a player wants out then we'll be able to replace him with someone equally good as we did back when SAF was at the helm.

The academy is key to such foundations. Benitez said that despite Liverpool spending more then United back in his day, they were nowhere near to us simply because of the wealth of talent we had at our disposal for free. I mean how much would it cost back then to bring in a Scholes, a Beckham, a Giggs, a Nicky B and a Gaz? How much would they cost now? It also adds fuel to the transfer market as well as academy players can be sold for pure profit. The academy had been dishing great talent on a near year to year basis now. We had Rashford, McT, Garnacho, Mainoo and Diallo with the likes of Amass, Gore and hopefully Chido-Obi in the pipeline. That's why I always stressed on us getting the best in class within the football structure, something I insisted so much upon that I even got the tag for (back then Juve had the best in class with the likes of Marotta and Paratici). Trophies might be won on the pitch but most of the hard work is done away from it.
 
Rojofiam said:
Kvaratshkelia doesn't have the pace and power of Rashford. Garnacho/Mitoma style of player that has only had one great season so far, and that was in a free-flowing dominant team in a weaker league with more time and space on the ball than in the Premier League. Put him into just a half-decent PL team and his numbers will most likely plummet. I think he needs an elite environment around him that creates plenty of space and time on the ball for him, in order to shine, but I'd rather give our current wingers that kind of environment first, instead of overpaying for flavour of the month players.

The two Germans don't have Bruno's creativity. No one currently does in world football actually, other than De Bruyne. I want my #10 to be a creative machine and the orchestrator of the whole teams' attack, who's unpredictable, spontaneous and very good at feeding their teammates. Someone that's actually creative (KDB, Bruno, Özil for example) with every single pass, shot, and move that they execute potentially having that lethality, and not someone just plays and acts within the pre-planned pattern moves of the attack with a few signature moves like Odegaard, but does nothing unpredictable and spontaneous really. And being world class in tight spaces like Musiala doesn't compensate enough for me, I'd rather have the profile of Fernandes and the other examples I've mentioned. (And Bruno not being able to play in a possession-based team is just a made-up myth)

Too many people just assume that if you just take a well performing player like Wirtz or Kvaratskhelia and put them into a struggling United side, they'll just keep shining in a much worse system and environment. Maybe we are progressing a bit as a team this season, but it's just been five games so I don't feel like there's a need to discuss radical changes and replacing two of our best players (and our two biggest transition threats) with 100m players who are excelling in different leagues and different systems, with different expectations than at United too. And anyone would've struggled in last season's United team just as bad as Rashford and other players did.
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but it is a fact that these two players (Rashford and Bruno) are outcasts or mismatches in our current system of play.It is evident in last game vs Crystal Palace when our rhythm was disturbed by Bruno's multiple silly losses of possesion.

and we are not really struggling in most minutes we have played this season. we just lack the cutting edge despite having decent amount of possession/chances. it makes most sense to axe the two players that do not fit the playstyle of other 9 players right?

your arguments against Musiala and Kvaratskhelia can apply on any players in history: "too many people just assuming that you can take a well perofrming player like Messi or Xavi and put them into a struggling United side they will keep shining..."

let me put it this way, are you saying that Bruno and Rashford are both good enough to be our starting XI in next 2/3 years if we have title contender apsiration? If not, whom can we replace them with?
 
Beachryan said:
I agree with this, I really think people have ignored the job ETH has done with clearing out absolute years of deadwood. The squad is in so much better a place now, especially if a couple of our left backs manage to play football one day.

There are questions for sure, largely around Bruno, Casemiro and Rashford, but we can still do well with this squad now.

We should be top 4 this year.
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You really think the good transfer window and the moving on player is down to Ten Hag? It's quite clear that's all INEOS when you compare how much more work was done this Summer to any other window.

People completely overblow a managers influence on players transfers both positively and negatively.

The squad is in a much better shape than previous years and if Ten Hag left tomorrow the squad will be even better next year, regardless of which manager comes in, because the club has a structure, the right people in the right positions and they know what they're doing.
 
JeffFromHK said:
but it is a fact that these two players (Rashford and Bruno) are outcasts or mismatches in our current system of play.It is evident in last game vs Crystal Palace when our rhythm was disturbed by Bruno's multiple silly losses of possesion.

and we are not really struggling in most minutes we have played this season. we just lack the cutting edge despite having decent amount of possession/chances. it makes most sense to axe the two players that do not fit the playstyle of other 9 players right?

your arguments against Musiala and Kvaratskhelia can apply on any players in history: "too many people just assuming that you can take a well perofrming player like Messi or Xavi and put them into a struggling United side they will keep shining..."

let me put it this way, are you saying that Bruno and Rashford are both good enough to be our starting XI in next 2/3 years if we have title contender apsiration? If not, whom can we replace them with?
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How is that a fact? It's just an opinion some fans agree with, and some don't.

Yes, I do think they're absolutely good enough to be mainstays in our team even if we become PL and CL contenders within the next 2/3 years.
 
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