Are you confident of success in the INEOS era?

stefan92 said:
Which means they will have entered talks a bit earlier and decided to try it even earlier. Which is why I believe they could have had first informal talks with candidates to join their new structure after the takeover in autumn 2023. This is how I come to the roughly nine months time.
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If it was up to Ratcliffe/Ineos, or even Qatar, the entirety of even last season would've already been under new ownership already. It was the Glazers who held this deal up, I think that's very clear. I think most people expected the whole takeover situation to be concluded shortly after the FA Cup final in 2023.

Also, I'm pretty sure Berrada was sounded out by Ineos before the takeover was completed, as the news about him coming to United were broke in January, if I recall correctly.

stefan92 said:
Obviously I advocate for people who could have joined in time, so extended gardening leave would have been a problem IMO. But I do think that it makes a big difference. I am absolutely sure that a competent recruitment team and manager could have ensured that United qualify for the CL again. As of now it looks difficult to reach any European tournament. Which means a financial loss of 100m+ for the club and a loss of attractivity for new players/managers if United can't offer CL football.

I don't really like treating top four like a trophy, but I see it as a basic foundation for a top club to be one and continue to be at the top and having a platform to launch PL/CL title challenges.
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Not reaching the CL sucks, because I obviously want United to compete there, rather than the Europa, or even worse, the much-dreaded Conference League, but from a financial or attractivity point of view, I don't think it matters much if we miss out this season. Players won't sign 5-6 year contracts based on what European competition their new team takes part in their very first season. We've attracted huge names and the biggest talents, with or without CL football in the last 11 years.
 
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Talk about it in 3-5 years. It's way too early to even start a topic like that, c'mon.
 
Rojofiam said:
Not reaching the CL sucks, because I obviously want United to compete in that rather then the Europa, or even worse, the much-dreaded Conference League, but from a financial or attractivity point of view, I don't think it matters much if we miss out this season. Players won't sign 5-6 year contracts based on what European competition their new team takes part in their very first season. We've attracted huge names and the biggest talents, with or without CL football in the last 11 years.
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Agree with this. While understandable, this "no matter what" mindset in terms of European football can become a problem, when we overdo it. I mean, lets face it, we have absolutely no business being in the CL these days. EL or even CC is stuff no United really cares about. I'd definitely take a year where we can rest and focus on the next game at hand, mind the odd trainingsession during the week to implement things over a BS international tie against Bukarest.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
I have absolutely zero confidence in the minority owners ability to bring success at this point other than perhaps the occasional domestic cup, if they cant make the simple decision sack the manager thats had us playing embarrasing and hopeless football for the last 9 months how can anyone have any confidence in their ability to bring success?
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There it is again. "INEOS are shit because they haven't sacked the manager yet". It's not really about INEOS is it, it's about our impatience with ETH.
 
UnofficialDevil said:
Absolutely not. Decision making so far has been appalling. They are also tight cnuts. And fc Nice still being rubbish after all these years isn’t encouraging either.
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What makes you say they are tight?

Spending money on 5 players in their first window?

Spending money on Carrington?

Spending money on new stadium?

yep they really are tight.

Decision making been appauling?

Sacking alot of high level staff who were there during the poor spell? From CEO, Sporting director, Medical, negotiators and replacing with footballing personnel who have done well in their previous jobs? yep really bad decision, should have kept Murtough right?

Changing how we buy, younger for lower wages? yep very bad decisions

Spending money on talented players u18 - yep appalling decision really.
 
nickm said:
There it is again. "INEOS are shit because they haven't sacked the manager yet". It's not really about INEOS is it, it's about our impatience with ETH.
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Yep, according to Caf, ooo they haven't sacked the manager after 7 PL games = they are terrible owners.

They have taken over the footballing side 7 months ago, people expect us to have won the league by now or something?

Its really a silly way of judging owners based on if they sack a manager or not.
 
nickm said:
There it is again. "INEOS are shit because they haven't sacked the manager yet". It's not really about INEOS is it, it's about our impatience with ETH.
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It is about INEOS, they have watched us play terrible and embarrasing football for 9 months but refuse to sack the manager who is responsible for it, rival fans and the pundits are laughing their heads off about what an absolute shambles our club is and the people who have the power to change that are staying silent and seemingly doing nothing about it.
 
romufc said:
Yep, according to Caf, ooo they haven't sacked the manager after 7 PL games = they are terrible owners.

They have taken over the footballing side 7 months ago, people expect us to have won the league by now or something?

Its really a silly way of judging owners based on if they sack a manager or not.
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You’re speaking like this is ETH’s first season. It’s been over two seasons of dog shit football with embarrassing hammering after hammering.
 
Garethw said:
You’re speaking like this is ETH’s first season. It’s been over two seasons of dog shit football with embarrassing hammering after hammering.
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So you prefer the Chelsea way of doing it? new owner come in make a change because the fans want it... to anyone because you would take anyone rn right?

Then repeat the process in 6/7 months time when things dont improve?

Whereas I would prefer the following:

1. Understanding the need that the manager has been crap, he needs to go.
2. Be proactive and plan, so if they understand the manager needs to go (they do because they took 2 weeks to review his position and carried out interviews). Which gives a clear indication that they are not happy.
3. If we have to wait a month to sack him whilst they identify the right person, I dont mind. I can still see him losing points and not winning.

You might say... just give it to an interim...

Yes, 2 points on this
1. We have seen with Rangnick, what an interim does, players dont listen, dont care because they know he wont be in charge and results got worse.
2. They may have thought Ruud could be the man in case they sacked EtH and now after 2/3 months realised Ruud isnt that good because he coaches the team and the team still plays shit.
 
SparcMac said:
Talk about it in 3-5 years. It's way too early to even start a topic like that, c'mon.
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In 3-5 years we will know if there is success. This is a prediction thread, it makes no sense to start it in 3-5 years.
 
The longer it takes to fire ETH, the less confident I become. It's easy, fire him and give RvN the interim job.
 
Hammondo said:
In what way has it been appalling?
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How about deciding a manager's fate on one game. Then after making that dumb decision, deciding a manager's fate on two games. Comical.
And then sacking our biggest ever in the history of the club legend mid-season with no official statement just to save 1m, half a year's wage, instead of waiting till summer.
 
Never in my wildest imagination that Murtough can be seen more competent than the Ineos Team. Hope this is temporary and Ineos Team will start to prove us wrong soon.
 
romufc said:
You might say... just give it to an interim...

Yes, 2 points on this
1. We have seen with Rangnick, what an interim does, players dont listen, dont care because they know he wont be in charge and results got worse.
2. They may have thought Ruud could be the man in case they sacked EtH and now after 2/3 months realised Ruud isnt that good because he coaches the team and the team still plays shit.
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We've had three interims in the last few years. Ole did well. Carrick did well in his short time in the role. Even Rangnick did fairly well until his last two months (much better than how ETH has us currently performing). Hell, even including the complete collapse in his last two months Rangnick basically had identical results in his 29 games in charge as what ETH has had in his last 29. And that was a manager who had had enough and was publicly blasting the players in the media.
 
MadDogg said:
We've had three interims in the last few years. Ole did well. Carrick did well in his short time in the role. Even Rangnick did fairly well until his last two months (much better than how ETH has us currently performing). Hell, even including the complete collapse in his last two months Rangnick basically had identical results in his 29 games in charge as what ETH has had in his last 29. And that was a manager who had had enough and was publicly blasting the players in the media.
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Yeah we had 3 interims, Ole done okay and got the job for 2 years... Carrick was there for 3 games, wouldn't call him an interim. So you saying Rangnick done well but had the same record as EtH in his last 29 games? How does that make sense?
 
Yes. But it is going to take time, just hope we can stay in touch with the top 4 while the overhaul continues.
 
UnofficialDevil said:
How about deciding a manager's fate on one game. Then after making that dumb decision, deciding a manager's fate on two games. Comical.
And then sacking our biggest ever in the history of the club legend mid-season with no official statement just to save 1m, half a year's wage, instead of waiting till summer.
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How do you know his fate was decided on one game? It's pure speculation.

I am not sure which 2 games you are talking about, also just looks like speculation.

Sacking SAF is not a bad idea, it's surprising he's still here being paid that much for nothing.

No idea why you think waiting until summer makes a difference.
 
Hammondo said:
How do you know his fate was decided on one game? It's pure speculation.

I am not sure which 2 games you are talking about, also just looks like speculation.

Sacking SAF is not a bad idea, it's surprising he's still here being paid that much for nothing.

No idea why you think waiting until summer makes a difference.
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Its because the daily mail, mirror, talk sport all said he had 2 games to save his job. Then they all over sensationalised the pre planned board meetings they had to say it was a Ten Hag emergency sack meeting.

Its purely speculation and it is the same journalists who said he is getting sacked after the FA cup final.

SAF is more removed from the payroll rather than being sacked.

What people dont realise, its standard procedure for new owners to have a look at the finances, overheads and streamline, it happens everywhere. There was no reason why SAF should take a wage 10 years post his retirement.
 
Absolutely not. Feel like we're just going further backwards. I'll be shocked if we become genuine title contenders under them. At this stage I don't know if we're ever going to get to that level again frankly. INEOS have done horrendous jobs at both Lausanne and Nice which is why I didn't want them here in the first place. I don't see any reason to think they'd magically be competent owners of Utd. The signing of Ashworth, etc. looked promising on the surface but our transfer window with the exception of Yoro felt exactly the same as what we have been doing for years, maybe with the only difference being we didn't go for 30+ year olds.
 
I think there is an argument that we’re limited in who we can secure as a manager, so the potential success has a lower ceiling than when we had Fergie.
The fact that City have Pep, means we can’t really expect to be better than them until he leaves, as the only other managers at that level (Klopp, maybe Ancelotti?) are also unattainable. We can still sign a good amount of top players, and we should be expected to do that; but they’ll always be managed by a lesser manager unless Pep leaves City and sort of levels the playing field.
 
romufc said:
Yeah we had 3 interims, Ole done okay and got the job for 2 years... Carrick was there for 3 games, wouldn't call him an interim. So you saying Rangnick done well but had the same record as EtH in his last 29 games? How does that make sense?
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Rangnick did decently well until his final two months. If an interim can come in and match what he did in his first three or so months it'd be considered a fair improvement right now. If they can maintain it for the rest of the season it'd get us right back in the fight for CL qualification.

However the last two months were a complete and utter collapse where we lost five of our last eight league games. Most likely caused (or at least certainly not helped) by Rangnick being so publicly critical of...well, everything. Those two months turned his overall time with us into what many consider the worst manager we've had in generations. ETH is currently matching that, while having a a comfortably stronger squad and not having significant fallouts with players.

Considering that stronger squad and the fact that you'd expect a normal interim not to go so nuclear, there's good reason to expect an interim to do a better job than Rangnick did and ETH is currently doing.
 
MadDogg said:
Rangnick did decently well until his final two months. If an interim can come in and match what he did in his first three or so months it'd be considered a fair improvement right now. If they can maintain it for the rest of the season it'd get us right back in the fight for CL qualification.

However the last two months were a complete and utter collapse where we lost five of our last eight league games. Most likely caused (or at least certainly not helped) by Rangnick being so publicly critical of...well, everything. Those two months turned his overall time with us into what many consider the worst manager we've had in generations. ETH is currently matching that, while having a a comfortably stronger squad and not having significant fallouts with players.

Considering that stronger squad and the fact that you'd expect a normal interim not to go so nuclear, there's good reason to expect an interim to do a better job than Rangnick did and ETH is currently doing.
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You cant pick and chose time frames... its either did he do well as an interim or not? Not oh well yeah he did well for his 1st few games... thats not how it works, we wont be getting an interim for 10 games then another one for 10 games.

I dont understand why fans want us to hire managers just to have a good new manager bounce period.. Ole, Rangnick, Ten Hag have all had good starts and terrible finishes. Why do you want to keep repeating the same?

I mean just better than Ten Hag is nothing special though, if an interim is going to just to better than Ten Hag, what is the point? we need someone who will get the best out the squad, not just do a bit better than crap, because a bit better is still crap.
 
romufc said:
You cant pick and chose time frames... its either did he do well as an interim or not? Not oh well yeah he did well for his 1st few games... thats not how it works, we wont be getting an interim for 10 games then another one for 10 games.

I dont understand why fans want us to hire managers just to have a good new manager bounce period.. Ole, Rangnick, Ten Hag have all had good starts and terrible finishes. Why do you want to keep repeating the same?

I mean just better than Ten Hag is nothing special though, if an interim is going to just to better than Ten Hag, what is the point? we need someone who will get the best out the squad, not just do a bit better than crap, because a bit better is still crap.
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The point is that even Rangnick did no worse than what ETH is currently doing, and he was doing it with a worse squad and while basically burning things down around him.

The goal of an interim is to do two things. Firstly, perform better on the field, try to get us as high up the table and give us a decent shot at winning the Europa League (which we SHOULD be favourites for considering our players, or at least one of the favourites). Secondly, the interim should have a playstyle that is closer to our ultimate goal than what ETH is serving up (or is at least better at implementing the style), therefore the players can start getting used to functioning in a system that actually works. So by the time next season starts and we've got our fulltime manager in place, he's starting from a stronger position.

Your last line seems to be the same as those saying there was no point sacking ETH in the summer as there were no guaranteed successes at the time, which was obviously a mistake now. Waiting for perfect is a guarantee for failure.
 
MadDogg said:
The point is that even Rangnick did no worse than what ETH is currently doing, and he was doing it with a worse squad and while basically burning things down around him.

The goal of an interim is to do two things. Firstly, perform better on the field, try to get us as high up the table and give us a decent shot at winning the Europa League (which we SHOULD be favourites for considering our players, or at least one of the favourites). Secondly, the interim should have a playstyle that is closer to our ultimate goal than what ETH is serving up (or is at least better at implementing the style), therefore the players can start getting used to functioning in a system that actually works. So by the time next season starts and we've got our fulltime manager in place, he's starting from a stronger position.

Your last line seems to be the same as those saying there was no point sacking ETH in the summer as there were no guaranteed successes at the time, which was obviously a mistake now. Waiting for perfect is a guarantee for failure.
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We can compare squads and what not, he was rubbish too.

So what you want as an interim is a coach.. who can be as good as a full time coach? I dont see anyone like that available willing to take an interim role.

Secondly, we have seen from the past, players will not fall in line with an interim, which is what Rangnick found, why would the players listen to him on a style of play when they know he wont be there the season after.

No, I said an interim is like Rangnick or Ten Hag.. then there is no point and there is a massive difference between full time manager and interim. A full time manager will have a 2 / 3 year contract and interim 6 months.

The club decided to back him in the summer, they probably had a chat and said.. we will give you a minimum of 4/5 months? We dont know what the negotiations were. I mean the club went out to interview other candidates too, so everyone including Ten Hag knew his job wasn't safe.

Once they decided to keep him, do you think Ten Hag wouldn't have asked for a guaranteed time ?

What I am saying is if we are to get an interim, dont think we will all of a sudden become a special team or win the EL because we could be out of it before we hit the knock outs.
 
romufc said:
We can compare squads and what not, he was rubbish too.

So what you want as an interim is a coach.. who can be as good as a full time coach? I dont see anyone like that available willing to take an interim role.

Secondly, we have seen from the past, players will not fall in line with an interim, which is what Rangnick found, why would the players listen to him on a style of play when they know he wont be there the season after.

No, I said an interim is like Rangnick or Ten Hag.. then there is no point and there is a massive difference between full time manager and interim. A full time manager will have a 2 / 3 year contract and interim 6 months.

The club decided to back him in the summer, they probably had a chat and said.. we will give you a minimum of 4/5 months? We dont know what the negotiations were. I mean the club went out to interview other candidates too, so everyone including Ten Hag knew his job wasn't safe.

Once they decided to keep him, do you think Ten Hag wouldn't have asked for a guaranteed time ?

What I am saying is if we are to get an interim, dont think we will all of a sudden become a special team or win the EL because we could be out of it before we hit the knock outs.
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There's a large gap in between 'better than ETH' and 'good enough to be our fulltime manager'. We should be able to find someone in that range. You are the one who seems to be saying that there's no point sacking ETH unless we can find someone capable of the latter.

The players were fine under Ole as interim. And as for why should players listen to an interim, the likes of Wilcox and Ashworth won't be going anywhere. If the players (who are still trying under ETH, but are just being set up to fail) decide they can't be bothered under an interim, the guys in charge now are the ones bringing long-term stability and it'll just let them know which players can't be relied on and need to be moved on. Like a professional club, instead of the amateur hour that we have been for the last decade or so.

Nobody expects us to become a 'special team' with an interim. While obviously we'd hope for better, the intended goal would be to just stabilise us to have a solid 6/10 season. Nothing special about that. But it's obviously better than the 2/10 form that we've been carrying on for far too long (and the FA Cup is the only thing stopping it being 1/10).

I'm sure the club and ETH did discuss expectations and timeframes, but there's no such thing as a guarantee if one side of the equation is performing below minimum expectations. It does appear that the club feels it's still a bit too early and I can understand that (even though I disagree with it considering this season is just a continuation of last season), but the longer we leave it the more likely it is we just sacrifice this entire season.
 
With the firing of ETH now one year too late, one starts wondering if the current leadership is too passive.
 
They’re objectively shit.

Radcliffe trusts Brailsford who is a charlatan. Between the pair of them they appointed well (seemingly), but slow.

The pace that they repaired the apparatus has seen us sign poorly and perform worse.

All these cost savings won’t be worth a rub if we’re not in Europe.

It’s been a qualified disaster. Might be good long term but we’ve gone backwards in quite a few areas. Shambles.
 
It's not looking good brev. The English Glazer's. One step forwards, two steps back.
 
I’m not sure, exactly, what Ineos was supposed to magically accomplish. Ashworth, Barrada and Vivell were all good hires. This sort of process takes time when you have full control and a clean slate to work with.

What Ineos actually controls and what the Glazers and others have a primary hand in still seems a grey area to me. There is still a bloated inherited payroll, and the debt maintenance alone is a killer. If Ineos was allowed to buy United outright with a cash flush investment partner… then they could be addressing more of these issues.

Not saying ETH is the answer, but the Glazers still need to be gone as much or more.
 
MadDogg said:
There's a large gap in between 'better than ETH' and 'good enough to be our fulltime manager'. We should be able to find someone in that range. You are the one who seems to be saying that there's no point sacking ETH unless we can find someone capable of the latter.

The players were fine under Ole as interim. And as for why should players listen to an interim, the likes of Wilcox and Ashworth won't be going anywhere. If the players (who are still trying under ETH, but are just being set up to fail) decide they can't be bothered under an interim, the guys in charge now are the ones bringing long-term stability and it'll just let them know which players can't be relied on and need to be moved on. Like a professional club, instead of the amateur hour that we have been for the last decade or so.

Nobody expects us to become a 'special team' with an interim. While obviously we'd hope for better, the intended goal would be to just stabilise us to have a solid 6/10 season. Nothing special about that. But it's obviously better than the 2/10 form that we've been carrying on for far too long (and the FA Cup is the only thing stopping it being 1/10).

I'm sure the club and ETH did discuss expectations and timeframes, but there's no such thing as a guarantee if one side of the equation is performing below minimum expectations. It does appear that the club feels it's still a bit too early and I can understand that (even though I disagree with it considering this season is just a continuation of last season), but the longer we leave it the more likely it is we just sacrifice this entire season.
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No.. Its when he was compared to Rangnick and apparently Rangnick done a good job? Since when did Rangnick do a good job?

Jose left the team in 6th place... Ole finished in 5th place.. he has good results based on a new manager bounce but he bottled top 4, lets not all rewrite history.

I mean as soon as we decided to keep Ten Hag there was like a 70% chance we were sacrificing a season, the only way Ten Hag succeeded this season for me if he put a title challenge. Unfortunately, its got to a point he cant even challenge for 3 points against top 10 opposition.

I am not against getting an interim, I am against getting one for sake of a change, like a RVN, who has been given a chance as a coach and guess what? We are scoring even less goals, we look nothing different than last season which tells me its also a coaching issue.
 
A large part of the success of any club is largely down to having a strong executive team in place and INEOS have assembled one of those

Provided they keep their nose out of footballing decisions, they’ve done their bit. Even the Glazers/Woody could have delivered success if they’d hired the right people - it’s hardly like we’ve not spent money over the past ten years.

The challenge we have is the rules have changed on financials and we can no longer spend in the same way.

We’ve put the right team in place but ten years too late and I’m not sure how we catch up now in the current context of tighter rules on spend and a much more competitive league.

Changing the manager would be a start, but the squad is fecked and will take years to fix - by which time even more teams will have caught up to the top six.

I think the smartest thing they could do is hire a manager who suits this group of players (ie, pragmatic) not who plays the nicest football. We don’t have the pieces to make it work and it’s delivering terrible results and destroying the confidence and morale of an already fragile group of players.
 
I think there's a naivety about certain things, if the speculation is true about their approach to affairs.

Having someone who doesn't work with the players every day setting the parameters of how we'll play just seems ridiculous. Rigidity in sticking with the same approach because it's policy to do so, regardless of whether it works or not, whether it comes from a manager or a director of football is bats***
 
They have certainly hit the ground running, installing football minded people, cut unnecessary jobs that can be done by one person rather than 3/4, have invested in the training ground, started the process of regenerating OT and the surrounding area.
All of the above they get a A+ in my book…they now have to sort out what’s most important, the football team itself and so far it a B- …they have invested in the squad but my fear is they invested in the wrong players as they have the wrong manager in place wanting those players and not driving them to play good fast attacking football, scare the shit out of teams etc. I hope it’s because they don’t want to pay out but they really should have pulled the trigger in summer. This is the next critical step in their steering of the ship.
 
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