Depends what you mean by transition. Real spent more than half a decade unable to overcome the last 16 hurdle in the CL. Bayern in the '00 were largely irrelevant in Europe also and if you put that team from that time in the current PL, I wouldn't be too sure they'd make the top 4. Juventus and Milan are world monsters and they had/have their bad times as well and Barcelona from Cruyff's dream team to Rijkaard had an extremely poor record in Europe as well. So let's not pretend that we are somehow unique in our trouble, Sir Alex simply spoiled us too much.
Are we the worst run elite club in the world? If not us then who?
- Thread starter Red Ryan
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RM, Barca and Bayern are in leagues where they are basically top dogs anyway with little competition from elsewhere. Comparing Utds situation to theirs is off target. When Fergie retired i said at the time that we would be a number of years before we challenged again. I still think we have another season or 2 before we become true contenders. The problem is we have all become accustomed to a level of success in England that is pretty unique that we have all become impatient and unrealistic in expectations.
Not comparable though. They don't have the kind of money we have and commercial appeal.
How do you define elite? For me, it has to be AC Milan who is still the only club who can claim to challenge RM on CL count.
There was a time when we could have literally picked whoever we wanted, and they would have quit their jobs to join us.
The managers job at United is a poisoned chalice until someone wins the league again and most sane upcoming managers will wait till then.
I remember the times when the Galactico Real couldn't get past the QF in the CL for years. I remember Bayern's struggles under LvG. I remember Barcelona having dark days prior to their golden generation. It happens to all the big clubs.
We definitely have the worst leadership in football operations. Not much to do while SAF ran the show for 26 years, but he retires and immediately we see how incompetent that leadership team is.
Managers are brought in without understanding their football qualifications and fit from tactics and philosophy. Which is why you end up with two managers assembling the most expensive squad and no success in sight.
Managers are brought in without understanding their football qualifications and fit from tactics and philosophy. Which is why you end up with two managers assembling the most expensive squad and no success in sight.
The point is that there's a distinct difference between a manager here and a coach at Real, Barca, Bayern, etc. It's not just nomenclature. The chief exec here is responsible for the business side of operations. His main involvement on the football side is to broker transfers and contracts, but the manager is the one primarily responsible for identifying who the club chooses to pursue and who the club chooses to extend, let go, etc. At Real, Barca, Bayern, Dortmund, Atletico, PSG, and Juventus, the coach is responsible for coaching the first team and providing input on those other decisions, but the burden for those decisions (and most other high-level football decisions) rest on the head of an upper management staff (sporting director/director of football and the rest of footballing operations). Those positions tend to be more stable than coaches, because they're the ones who drive the organization's long-term philosophy through player recruitment and turnover, youth development, etc.
The reason why those teams can change coaches without missing a beat is because the coach's first and foremost responsibility is coaching the first-team in accordance with the philosophy pursued by the football operations folks. The organizational philosophy doesn't change with a coaching change...the only thing that changes is how that message is delivered to the first team and who delivers it.
Compare that to United. Our footballing philosophy changes with every manager change, because the manager drives organizational philosophy (all that shit that most clubs have an entire staff to oversee) in addition to coaching the first team. As a result, every time this club changes managers, you end up overhauling far more than Real, Barca, Bayern, Dortmund, Atletico, PSG and Juventus do when they change coaches.
In the Bundesliga thread, someone posed a question to the Dortmund supporters on this forum: Would you rather keep Tuchel or Sven Mislintat (their chief scout). The answer was Mislintat easily, because they have enough faith in their football operations team (Watzke, Zorc, etc.) to find another coach capable of delivering their message, but finding a chief scout able to identify the quality of players that Mislintat has brought in for them is exponentially more difficult. Imagine if you asked United fans if they would rather keep Mourinho or Jim Lawlor. Would most United supporters even know who Jim Lawlor is?
As far as the number of transfers overseen by Woodward, the number of transfers executed shouldn't be used to gauge how this club has performed in the transfer market or how Woodward has performed. The actual performance of those transfers, or the surplus value derived from those transfers are far more significant.
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Have you been paying attention to how these teams have been doing this season? Because all 3 of them are going through a transitional phase right now and are no longer as dominant in their league as they used to be.
Without a doubt.
These times we don't even get to the Champions League and when we did we were relegated to Europa. Real Also won back to back titles in 2007-2008 so to compare them to us is absurd. we would kill to be league champions again
Looking at this issue on the surface is all wrong, the biggest issue for me was the squad Moyes inherited from Fergie and failed to strengthen in that summer followed by us hiring that mad Dutchman; collectively they cost us a lot of talent and experience that we could be doing with right now like Nani, Evra, Rafael and, to a lesser extent, Van Persie. That is before we look at Van Gaal's dreadful signings (Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Memphis, Di Maria, Darmian) and his soul sapping system that's ruined the confidence of a few players. I believe, however, that Mourinho will get it right over the season and if we don't suffer serious injuries to key players we will have a very strong finish to the season because we have very good players and a top manager.
We are pretty poorly run. If we didn't have more money than Midas we'd be deep down shit creek.
Luckily we do, and if things doesn't solve itself we'll just toss another £500m at it.
Luckily we do, and if things doesn't solve itself we'll just toss another £500m at it.
No coherency in our squad building process is a major problem, we have changed so many managers in the last couple of years and gave everyone the opportunity to bring in their own dream signings. Now we have a team consisting of players for 3 different playing styles and the incoherent mess we are right now seems to be a big result of that.
A lot of people have mentioned this but I have to subscribe to the idea that if we have had a director of football a couple of seasons before SAF left we might have had someone who could have built a good team despite changing managers.
A lot of people have mentioned this but I have to subscribe to the idea that if we have had a director of football a couple of seasons before SAF left we might have had someone who could have built a good team despite changing managers.
We are a club who has given total power to the manager in terms of player recruitment and we've had 4 different manager start our last 5 league campaigns so naturally this is going to cause problems.
If we keep changing managers at this rate then we are going to have to look at bringing in a DOF.
If we keep changing managers at this rate then we are going to have to look at bringing in a DOF.
Really can't imagine any other elite club having Young and Fellaini in their starting XI
That because our circumstances are vastly difference in the PL than Real in La liga. Due to the money poured in the league and the availability of more than just 2 absolutely dominant top teams, we found ourselves struggling to make in the CL during our transitional period while we're poor.
Real are fortunate to be in La liga because even when going through a poor period they can still qualify in the CL due to the league being heavily lopsided with 2 dominant teams. So even when they were poor it was still enough to qualify for CL by default due to the league strength not being that strong.
Had Real gone through their phase with 3-4 more teams genuine contenders than they'd have suffered more.
And in our case if the league was heavily dominated by 2 teams, Us and another team without too many other being genuine title contenders then we would have still qualified for CL spits despite being in a bad period and get done in relatively early in the CL regularly like what Real were going through for almost half a decade.
The point was the quality of the team, not the results. If Real in those years were competing against the current PL set up, there is a legitimate question of whether they would finish in the top 4. Even if you think that's ridiculous, the point still stands that every major club has gone through bad times. Pretending that we are somehow unique in this predicament is awfully short sighted.
Hang on Real Madrid are joint top, just put 6 past Betis. Bayern are top of the German league and Barca just won by 4 and are 2 points behind. All 3 are always in the Champions League and the 2 Spanish clubs have won it the past 3 years. And these clubs are going through a transitional phase?
They would with the likes of Robben in their side. Todays top 4 ain't shit compared with 2007/8 when we regularly reached semis of champions league
Real, Chelsea, Milan and Inter would be worse run than us but how poorly we're run so quickly after Sir Alex and David Gill is extremely alarming so I'm praying Jose is in for the long haul and we can have some kind of top level stability again.
Newcastle are worse run than us. Having said that you don't feel we're as well run as we were under david gill. Edit: Missed the 'elite club' part. Newcastle obviously aren't an elite anything.
We've only JUST got a quality manager. Give it time.
Some people are so impatient. I'll be the first one to admit I thought Van Gaal would be a success here. But anyone with a brain cell could see that David Moyes was never gonna work out. I think it's best if we just don't talk about the past 3 seasons. It wasn't the "real" United. Not in my eyes.
Some people are so impatient. I'll be the first one to admit I thought Van Gaal would be a success here. But anyone with a brain cell could see that David Moyes was never gonna work out. I think it's best if we just don't talk about the past 3 seasons. It wasn't the "real" United. Not in my eyes.
Yeah, signing moyes and the ensuing deterioration soured a lot of us, myself included, to Ed Woodward. He's been gradually working his way into the good books though although the whole fake bomb threat thing didn't scream out 'we're well run' at all.
It was Fergie and Gill who left Woodward with Moyes to deal with. I'm just happy he didn't decide to give him time like so many people were saying
Don't understand the love for Gill. The only manager he ever worked with was Fergie.
His biggest decision was the appointment of Moyes, which was a disaster. And he presided over the 'Valencia years' of chronic under-investment which are still hurting us.
You can't blame anyone but the idiots at the security firm for that one!
They started with a bag that already had a plastic training bomb in, started their count, stopping at the number they knew they'd laid out!
I mean, come on
Very dramatic thread. Mistakes have been made for sure, but the signs are there that the club has learned from them. I think Woodward has everything it takes to lead the club in the modern era. All the foundations are there, except the success on the field. I think we have a top 5 manager in world football at the club now, and expect to follow within 2 years. I am fully prepared for another rocky season this season, but 8 games into the new regime and we already look better in every department.
It's not all about the fact that we have done poorly - it also has to do with the fact that every single club in the P.L can buy themselves a pretty decent team. So if a club like Bayern M end up in 6th Place, it would be a lot worse than if we do it. Sure - to spend all that money and end up 6th is bad - but there are 5 teams who are more than capable of beating us if we don't perform to the best of our abilities. It would not be the same in the Bundesliga.
If you define elite as the top 5 clubs in turnover then OP's question is very easily answered with a yes and I think the most obvious reason for it is that United apparently completely lack any kind of strong DoF figure.
I don't get these kind of posts. Isn't United struggling massively in Europe too? Even when they had their recent slumps Bayern and Real always made it out of group stages.
Looking at transfer net spent over the past 5 seasons [according to Transfermarkt]:
United is right behind City at second with €550m
Barca have €300m
Bayern have €211m
Real have €189m
If you put that in relation to the performance on the pitch those numbers are completely insane. Part of that difference might be due to Real's and Barca's wage bill (which I assume is huge because of their "Galacticos"), but Bayern's isn't that high.
I don't get these kind of posts. Isn't United struggling massively in Europe too? Even when they had their recent slumps Bayern and Real always made it out of group stages.
Looking at transfer net spent over the past 5 seasons [according to Transfermarkt]:
United is right behind City at second with €550m
Barca have €300m
Bayern have €211m
Real have €189m
If you put that in relation to the performance on the pitch those numbers are completely insane. Part of that difference might be due to Real's and Barca's wage bill (which I assume is huge because of their "Galacticos"), but Bayern's isn't that high.
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Eh? If we qualified for CL each year, this post doesn't happen. The biggest problem we've had in spending money isn't the improving the squad as I think that's the case, it's purchasing the players that make a difference turning loses to draws and draws to wins. All the elite teams have more than one or more....we hope this summer we bought at least a couple.....
Usual kneejerk thread answering to our recent woes. I know that it is hard to stomach for everybody that we are in the backseat now compared to some other European elite clubs but every club had
and will have it's mediocre phase from time to time.
When Chelsea won the Russian lottery we thought their success will be almost eternal with money never will be an issue, but as we can see it just depends on a couple of bad decisions and now they are in a difficult state also.
And you should also talk to some Inter or AC fans asking them about this stuff.
and will have it's mediocre phase from time to time.
When Chelsea won the Russian lottery we thought their success will be almost eternal with money never will be an issue, but as we can see it just depends on a couple of bad decisions and now they are in a difficult state also.
And you should also talk to some Inter or AC fans asking them about this stuff.
I would go as far as to say that AC Milan can no longer be considered an elite club. The world's top players won't consider going there - they can't afford them and they can't offer European football.
Yeah, the usual 3 year kneejerk recent woes
And what are three years on the lifespan of a football Club? Or even a football fan?
There's nothing kneejerk about 3 years though
I think a huge problem we have which is often underestimated is our lack of a world class striker. Look at Liverpool with Suarez. They went within a slip of winning the title, without him practically the same team finished mid-table. City have Aguero, Leicester had Vardy last year, Spurs had Kane. All of them got 20+ You could easily argue ST has been our weakest position since SAF managed to squeeze one more year out of RVP.
It's not just the goals but also the movement, the intensity and the threat in behind a top striker can offer. Zlatan is a stop gap but this year we NEED to target a world class 30 goal a season man
It's not just the goals but also the movement, the intensity and the threat in behind a top striker can offer. Zlatan is a stop gap but this year we NEED to target a world class 30 goal a season man
But there is in worst run club. Which is the title of this thread.
I'd say that our financial position (whether we like it or not, as fans) alone makes it unreasonable to claim we're the worst run “elite” club in Europe. We're a club that has kept sticking to the classic British managerial model – which involves an inherent risk: If the bloke isn't up to scratch, the club will (obviously) struggle results wise. Plus, it's an expensive model – if you intend to keep challenging, that is. You have to hire new managers, at great cost, who will need new players, at an even greater cost, etc. The continuity a different, more continental structure can potentially ensure, isn't there – obviously.
But we have the money. And the owners are clearly willing to splash it. I can't say I like this approach (keep hiring, keep buying, until it clicks), but if Mourinho now gets it right, I don't think one can claim that it absolutely doesn't work. A few seasons in relative turmoil after Fergie's retirement (but with ever more cash flowing in, in spite of poor results), then back to challenging properly – it's hardly shockingly bad.
But we have the money. And the owners are clearly willing to splash it. I can't say I like this approach (keep hiring, keep buying, until it clicks), but if Mourinho now gets it right, I don't think one can claim that it absolutely doesn't work. A few seasons in relative turmoil after Fergie's retirement (but with ever more cash flowing in, in spite of poor results), then back to challenging properly – it's hardly shockingly bad.