BBC Sports Desk: Can Man Utd be restored to its former glory?

Rhyme Animal said:
Ed Woodward has been, literally, like a curse upon Man Utd…

His era began with Moyes and has ended with the Greenwood controversy, and in between that is just 8 / 9 years of comically bad decisions one after another that you’d struggle to make if you wanted Utd to succeed.

Recovering from Woodward would take a major reset from the owners - which I doubt will happen.

I think the reality is basically that until the Glazers feck off out of Utd it’ll remain a joke club tbh.
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Hard to attribute much blame to Woodward for Greenwood allegations, although you do wonder if our club and clubs generally are doing as much as they could/ should to educate the players in respect and modesty. Greenwood joined as a 6 year old. There has been a lot of time to help shape him.

Of course innocent until proven guilty at this stage, but it's rare to have so much 'evidence' thrown into the public space, which at this point would appear to be 'evidence' as opposed to the fake material aspect that was suggested early on.

I'm sure you don't end up in two days of questioning if there is a simple explanation! But still need to let due process take place.
 
UnitedFire said:
Hard to attribute much blame to Woodward for Greenwood allegations, although you do wonder if our club and clubs generally are doing as much as they could/ should to educate the players in respect and modesty. Greenwood joined as a 6 year old. There has been a lot of time to help shape him.

Of course innocent until proven guilty at this stage, but it's rare to have so much 'evidence' thrown into the public space, which at this point would appear to be 'evidence' as opposed to the fake material aspect that was suggested early on.

I'm sure you don't end up in two days of questioning if there is a simple explanation!
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I heard from numerous sources, who I thought were all full of it at the time, that Greenwood had a massive attitude problem that could one day blow up.
I never for one moment thought it would be anything beyond him acting like a big time charlie though.
There have been suggestions for years the players have it too easy at OT, they are basically indulged, which we have seen several times with under performing players getting lucrative and lengthy contracts - that's on the people running the club.
Look at the leaks when Ralf took over and changed what was demanded of them...
 
The league has changed and is much tougher than it ever was under SAF. United cannot possibly dominate, but can compete for titles again.
 
No but we could become a top club again who is in the mix both in Europe and domestically every year. We face the same challenge as Arsenal in that regard.

I would be happy with that to be fair...good side playing good football with a a squad that plays for each other and wants to be at the club. Reaching the latter stages of cups and having genuinely competitive matches against other top sides - not the sit and break tactics we have seen agains PSG, Liverpool,City etc.over the last few years. Some exciting young players to cheer on who play without fear.

if all of that was in place...I couldn’t give a fuk about dominating...a few trophies here and there will give me something to invest in again after years of real joylessness being a Utd fan, not looking forward to games and dreading others.
 
No.

Despite this 'cultural reset' that's been shoved down our throats the last 3 years, our options down the middle epitomises our appalling and pathetic planning that's in place. A chronically injured Cavani, who turns 35 this month, and Ronaldo who turns 37 within a few days, who also still has 18 months left on a contract for obscene money.

Regardless of what has happened with Greenwood, from a footballing perspective, those options show zero long term planning and why the club would put itself in this position is beyond me.

This isn't a dig at Ronaldo or Cavani, the former has done reasonably well since he came back. It's just evidence of the shortsightedness that flows throughout the club from top to bottom.

I don't even know how we get out of this issue within the next 18 months, as Haaland sure as shit isn't joining.

And let's not even start on the midfield issue.
 
marktan said:
It is better but I don't think it will be enough. Teams like Sevilla and Brighton have a lot of experienced footballing men making transfer decisions, and they largely get it right. Our transfer team signed off on AWB and Maguire, and that's the best way they could decide to spend £130m on good but not amazing defender and a RB that can't attack. Those transfer personnel are likely still there so I don't see our transfers getting much better just because one or two people have changed. Either that and or we don't really have an analytical transfer team using data properly and the transfers were just down to Ed and Ole, which is just as bad.
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I feel like, even our good bits of historical business, those players were never top ten or top twenty players in their positions globally.

RvN while a good player was not a top twenty striker in 2001.
 
No I think we have to stop dreaming

Out beloved club it’s now a different thing compared to the past

United now it’s more like Tottenham at 360°

A top 8 club in premier league fighting for conference league
 
In terms of returning to former glories, not a chance. I just hope we stop wasting so much money. I don’t mind supporting a mid-table club, its the supporting a mid-table club that spends as much as the champions and hands out ridiculous wages to mediocrity that gets me down.
 
As long as managers see Maguire & McFred as automatic starters we've no chance of improving.
 
I have learned to stop worrying and love the possibility of the Saudis.
 
For sure this season does not look to be going in the right direction and if we don't make the CL then class players will not join us.

The simple fact that the club has not addressed our biggest problem in the team - a good midfielder - for some time now, shows that they have no idea or simply don't want to look ahead.

As long as the dividends are coming then they don't really care.
 
If we were serious as a football club they would have backed Ralf in the January window, the notion that there wasn't a player that could have improved the squad is ridiculous.

Agree with what others have said, we're going nowhere fast with the parasites running the club. McFred, Maguire, Wan Bissaka and a past it Matic won't be helping us to the title anytime soon.

Not a chance under these guys.
 
First and foremost are we a football club or a brand? I thought winning pulls in the top sponsors and money…how are these idiot owners still doing it after over 10 years without a proper significant trophy.
we have to do something, this is beyond a joke now, fans have to react, it goes from disaster to disaster! Arsenal and Newcastle will be PL champions before us, mark my words and city will just keep running away with it most seasons. If this keeps up we will end up being the noisey neighbours. The lack of sound investment and knowledge scares me to the point of wondering how these Americans are rich.
The Tom Brady speech the other day says so much about where there priories lie.
 
What I notice is that we seem to get the easy passes wrong ... through passes behind the player ... a player standing waiting for the ball and it’s behind him... a player running down the wing does a 1-2 and either doesn’t get it back or the pass is behind him.
I think it comes down to having not very intelligent footballers
 
Everyone who has been worried about the glazers taking charge have been 100 percent right ever since they took over with saddling the club with debt (which if they tried to do in such a way following the economic crisis would be totally illegal now due to the changes brought in). These leeches have been sucking the life blood out of the club for years now. And it’s ok speaking to the tampa bay buccaneers fans but the think is they’ve only just started in the last few years being relevant all because of Brady and their manager. Pre Brady they won absolutely feck all. So much so that I remember the old 606 bbc forums when these parasites took over.
This is from tampa fan in 2004

"I'd be worried if I was a Manchester United fan because I think his interest is in business rather than the sport itself," said the Buccaneers fan and Tampa native Jim Freeman. "His interest is in winning also, but mainly because it increases the worth of the business."
"We might have won the Super Bowl but what have we got now?" added Freeman. "We're 1-5. As a sports fan I hope that doesn't happen to Manchester United."

I hope it doesn’t happen to Manchester United, the ramblings of a fan at the head of tampa bay back in 2004, said they know how to build a franchise but nothing else. Do not forget that tampa had been god awful for a decade under these leeches. They are not bothered about where we finish as much as I’m bothered about who’s won the netball league. The absolute state of this football club is a joke I could talk for hours. And the cherry on top the wifi went down so couldn’t sell and food or drink what a farce.
Poor ragnick was brought in because we’re willing to change and learn from your experience. Nope he’s a scape goat, they hate him cause he tells the truth and mark my words he won’t be at all involved in the club past the end of the season. They don’t want to listen to him because he’s right and he knows the club shouldn’t be paying 250k to martial and pay 80 million for slab head. They’d rather put their fingers in their ears and sing La la la la la than admit or have any accountability.

This club will sink and in the next few years I believe it’ll be painful to watch, the only way to stop this rot is to get into the foundations and remove these from the club? What can we do though you ask? Don’t go to the ground do not buy the tickets do not buy the merchandise!
‘But I’ve been going all my life I can’t not go now!’ Your club has gone it died in 2004 the club we love is not ours it’s in the hands of parasites. Every single supporter should unite and get these out of our club, pray Jeff bezos is reading this come and save us from these vultures.
Expect it to get worse because it is, the club is in a hole, knocked out to Middlesbrough the star of the future arrested for rape. It’s on its knees.

let’s hope something changed but the warning was right there in 2004 if you cannot see that your blind, we’re up against teams that all they want to do is win.Us winning is about 8th in their list of priorities, therefore we’ll never compete.
 
Maysie99 said:
If we were serious as a football club they would have backed Ralf in the January window, the notion that there wasn't a player that could have improved the squad is ridiculous.

Agree with what others have said, we're going nowhere fast with the parasites running the club. McFred, Maguire, Wan Bissaka and a past it Matic won't be helping us to the title anytime soon.

Not a chance under these guys.
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They took Dividends on 7th January instead. That’s the problem, no matter if they make good or bad decisions. If the club is doing terrible or good, they always take their reward.
 
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