Yes, Simon Kuper and the other guy who did Soccernomics, Stefan Szymanski.
BBC: United hold talks with Mourinho
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L3 is when LVG gets a good clap and signs autograph with the lap of honour, and L4 will be when there is no news of the sack after the FA Cup.
Can't wait.
I guess its all a matter of perspective though. I am wondering if the wealth is more evenly spread out in the PL than other leagues hence perhaps the PL is more competitive. Competitive doesn't necessarily mean it is better than other leagues though, it just means that the disparity among the teams isn't that great.
That's the old model of developing youth players slowly. That model is now dead in the era of sugar daddy ownership where clubs are under extreme pressure to buy top players in order to win trophies, or else risk being marginalized into irrelevance. We are currently well on our way to being knocked off our perch as one of the big three in world football, and another season or two of shitness will almost certainly do the trick. We need a world class manager NOW, alongside a group of top new established players who can take us back to winning leagues and making at a minimum CL semis or better.
is it really more competitive, though? Debatable.
By the final day of the season there was still more to play for in La Liga than the PL, including the title.
is it more unpredictable?
Leicsester winning the league this season was certainly unpredictable, quite incredible, actually, but aside from that, has it been overly unpredictable? Most years the top 4 is largely very predictable (last season being an example), as well as the relegation candidates. La Liga is hardly 'predictable' in comparison. Nobody predicted Atletico winning the league a few years ago, nobody predicted Villareal getting top four so soon after promotion, nobody predicted Sevilla dropping so far, etc. etc.
"The difference in quality of the top teams is also patently obvious."
This is only true because our top teams are weaker than they were 5-6 years ago, when the PL was arguably the best league in Europe.
Again, you could just as easily attribute that to the top teams getting weaker as opposed to the lesser teams getting stronger. There is no evidence, only speculation.
No other team (except for LFC and AC Milan) seem to go into "transition" or need time to find their feet.
The season when we got Moyes, MCFC or also changed their manager. So did Chelsea.
That season:
1. MCFC
3. Chelsea
7. MUFC
That's a disaster, especially when you consider that the previous year we were champions, by a big margin!
Changing manager shoudl not mean falling to 7th, then 4th, then 5th/6th.
Any other team of our standing who went from champions to 4th-7th - the manager would be ruthlessly dealt with and his reputation would've been ruined.
Changing managers and continuing to win trophies does not take any time...it should be fluid process.
we should've got top 3, in the Moyes season and should've gone for title wins in the following 2 seasons.
Moyes and LVG have been a disaster. There is no argument on this.
Yet some people have the absolute AUDACITY to be picky and not want Mourinho. Unreal.
It is just a difference of opinion then. I think there is value in development. There so much emphasis now, not just in football, on cobbling things together that work right now or to meet this quarter's or this year's targets that is so short-sighted.
Even if we are knocked off our perch so what, just makes it harder to climb back on. Doesn't mean we can never do it.
Lest we forget, we do have a world class manager now. He just didn't succeed here but he proved himself in other leagues. If trophies are paramount to your worldview then it is not fair to consider other narratives about LVG, because the facts are that he as proven himself with trophies.
And the world class manager everyone seems to pine for is the same one that crashed his team of Champions. In the same way people are claiming that Utd is on a slippery road to shittiness, how do we know that this is not the start of Jose's upcoming 10 years of failure?
My point is we will never know. I am not saying don't care, just that the overreaction over every little bit of news about the club is pretty hilarious. These days the forum is such a mess. It's often about how shitty LVG is, how inept the board is, how clueless Ed is, how the club is falling apart, how rooney is declining, how rojo is shit, how fellaini is shit, how Blind is blind, how Depay is too cocky, how bastian is past it, how mata is shit, how lingard is not United standard, how Valencia is rubbish etc etc.
Are you really putting SAF in the same bracket as those other managers? We always knew the gap between SAF and Moyes (just about anyone) is huge. It was always more likely for us to fall harder than to have sustained our high quality, particularly after almost all the staff was changed.
I agree that people are overreacting to tweets and articles. That's just the nature of transfer muppetry in the social media age. But make no mistake about, we are currently not moving in the right direction unless you think being perennial Europa League qualifiers is worthy of aspiring to. This club needs an earthquake to jolt it back into excellence from top to bottom including ownership, board, manager, and players.
You mean that everyone has to unanimously agree to elect a manager that crashed his team of champions? Mind you, I think Jose is a good manager, but seriously, whatever happened to having different opinions?
AUDACITY? Really...
They're all the blip. As will next year if LVG stays and has to compete against Guardiola/Conte/Pochettino/Klopp/(sort of) Wenger. As will the season after under Giggs, then that's half a decade of "blips". But they're no longer blips.
As is often said in the financial markets, are we at the start of a bear market or is this a mere correction and we'll be chugging upwards again? Only time will tell.
Oh I think most clubs, especially the top 10 in my view do aspire to be champions, to be in the CL. But not many clubs have that infrastructure, the wealth, the reputation and the management. I just happen to think we have most of those ingredients already and that our management is doing a good job.
I can't compare our club to the likes of City or Chelsea. Our scenario is totally different. There is no way chelsea can be compared to us. None of these clubs have had the same manager for 25 years.
Great para, you have succinctly summarised some of our biggest problems.
I agree with the gist of what you are saying here tho. I mean, it is a fairly two dimensional way of looking at Van Gaal, given that a lot of my (especially non-United supporting) mates were pointing out when Van Gaal arrived that his successes were a long way in the past. I said no no no, he won the league with Bayern, he did really well at the WC, he did well with AZ. And they said, yeah, OK I guess so... but they looked unconvinced. And to be fair in retrospect I can see clearly what they saw. Winning the league with Bayern is not exactly a massive achievement. The WC was really one great performance and then dogged refusal to concede (which looks quite familiar) for the rest of the tournament. AZ was an achievement but he did have money, it came after some awful seasons and it was "only" Holland. His reputation was made in the 90s and his CV is far ore chequered than Mourinho's.
BUT you are right that Mourinho is coming off the back of an awful season (or half season) and yes, it could be that he has lost it. He could come and continue to be disastrous for us. I posted months ago that he has had a decade ish of being at the top and while many managers have spells at the top, most struggle to sustain it - that is the real difference between SAF and most other managers that have assembled great teams. So it is entirely possible that Mourinho will never scale his former heights again. I for one acknowledge that as a risk. I just dont see any better options out there at the moment, and that includes sticking with Van Gaal.
(I was just joking with my first line by the way, I dont agree with all those criticisms at all.)
Agree with you here. 5-6 years of 5th to 7th positions would be a trend. But I think the chances of that happening is small.
Why?
2 more years makes 5. Unless scraping 4th for one of those years fundamentally changes the perception? I dont think many would say it does.
We are over half way there. That is why people are panicking.
If he wins the FA tin cup he will expect us to keep him. That's our level now
I think LVG sold himself to Ed and the board as a manager that would put foundations in place, to be a strong hand in transition. And perhaps that's what the board thought they were getting. But his CV is definitely outdated I agree.
I would say, if you wanted to build foundations I think LVG is less of a risk than Mourinho. If you wanted short term results, LVG is more of a risk than Mourinho.
Does it really need an earthquake? Are we really that earth-shatteringly bad?
The reality is that we're not. A change of manager - Mourinho - and a couple of clever signings in the summer and we're back headed in the right direction.
The club is doing well off the pitch. We're addressing the academy issues and we're employing more scouts. We've got some very good players in the first team squad already.
Some of the posts on here would have you believe things are a lot worse than they really are. Had we been able to score a few more goals and win a couple of games in December we'd be sat in 2nd or 3rd. There's nothing in it between the teams at the top in the slightest.
Well thank goodness you aren't in charge, at the very least. You're going to justify saying it's ok for him to stay another year after all this crap based on the argument that "anything can happen" and "we don't know what to expect" and "maybe it gets worse and maybe it gets better"? We are in no position to dick around. Based on an entire season of evidence, we can safely conclude that things will deteriorate or we will stay the same as this year; struggling to make Champions League spots, creating among the fewest chances in the league, passing backwards the most, scoring fewer than relegation threatened and newly promoted teams while the man himself blames pundits and all sorts of factors for our poor performances while ignoring his own faults.
Because I believe that we are quite well-run and our board will act.
Even now, my opinion is that we know exactly what we are doing. We are not firing LVG yet because he's probably still within his targets. Even if top 3 is really his contractual requirement for the second season, I think the club has enough class not to fire him before the FA Cup final. Some fans argue it will galvanise the players but similarly it could disrupt. Such abrupt events have impacts that cannot be predicted.
Moyes was appointed very likely on SAF's recommendation. We were "romantic" enough to employ a supposed manager for longevity giving him a 6-year contract, "respectful" enough of the authority that was SAF's judgment, but wise enough to set a hard target that gave us an immediate out-clause on the six-year term.
I happened to think it is the same with LVG. Obviously the board is clear about what LVG needs to achieve. I have no doubt that if his targets are not met, he will be axed. But his failure probably wasn't so apparent so early. So if you believe those rumours about Mourinho's pre-contract, Ed hedged his bets. If LVG failed he would have a ready manager, if LVG didn't fail to meet targets, he would pay Mourinho off. Or maybe if you believe the reports, maybe he pays Mourinho a year's wages to take a sabbatical so that he can be appointed in 2017.
Even in transfers, I think Ed has done well.
Let's say we do scrape 4th for another season. LVG will be gone in any case. We have a new manager. Will the manager bring us to success immediately.
Let's say we win the league next season. LVG will be gone to retirement. We have a new manager. Will the manager continue to maintain that success?
I actually think LVG will be gone this season, because I don't think we will win the FA cup. I hope we do of course, but I think even if we do LVG probably didn't meet his top 3 target that was mentioned earlier in the year.
That was my original point about how the reactions were hilarious.
We are not as bad as it has been made out to be.
You mistake me. It is only ok for LVG to stay if he has met the targets set for him by the board. If he hasn't he goes, it's pretty simple.
Based on an entire season of evidence in 2014-2015, Chelsea should have won the league this year. Did you also safely conclude Leicester would win the league this season. When I say "anything can happen", I don't mean it as a support for LVG to stay. I simply meant even Jose is not a guarantee but many fans seem to act like he guarantees success and if he isn't coming they've lost their right arm.
Anyway, I wasn't arguing whether LVG should stay or not, or whether Mourinho should be appointed or not. In LVG's case, it seems straightforward to me: Meet your targets, stay; fail your targets, go. All I see, in my limited view, is that we have covered our bases pretty well - hence little need for panic.
Perhaps. He might expect it, doesn't mean he gets it though. Didn't someone once post that his KPIs this year was 3rd place and a trophy? He's certainly failed one in that case then.
Nobody has any idea what his KPIs are, it is all guesswork.
It isn't a simple case of meet targets yes/no. Look. Look. At how we perform on the pitch, look at our performance and season statistics. There was zero progress through the season. This is different from Leicester. The characteristics, the direction and the way we perform under Louis has been evident early on. And have they changed at all? No. People do know that Jose isn't guaranteed success but the reason they want him is because he is a step back in the right direction. More importantly, we have to break ourselves out of this sphere of mediocrity that Louis has created by constantly lowering standards and being happy with the shite he creates. Even if City lost to Swansea and we scrapped 4th and won the FA Cup there is no reason to say it is "ok for him to stay".
How anticlimactic would it be if we did get Jose and ended up finishing 8th next year anyway.
There are many millions of reasons why he might not do that.
Well he's gonna be sacked, most likely, but I reckon they'd let him spin it as a mutual decision/early retirement so he can go perform sex masochism on Truus in Portugal...
Agree. Looking at how quickly we fired Moyes when we didn't make top 4, I am just drawing the conclusion that LVG's targets are still within reach.
I guess it depends on whether he would rather be seen to leave on his terms, or be fired.
I dont see him announcing it before the cup final but I can see it being framed as his decision when he does leave, because he'll see the writing on the wall.
Unless of course there is no writing on the wall.
I dont see him announcing it before the cup final but I can see it being framed as his decision when he does leave, because he'll see the writing on the wall.
Unless of course there is no writing on the wall.
I think the difference is we still have something to play for - even if it probably isnt something that is contractually relevant, shall we say. And I agree with what you said earlier that sacking the manager before the game is just an unnecessary risk in terms of morale. As well as being pretty lacking in class.
Also, if it is a contractual thing, a KPI, to get 4th, then the fact that we are mathematically still capable of getting 4th probably is relevant. These things have to be black and white. If it states in his contract he gets X if we fail to qualify for the CL, and he gets Y if we do qualify, then the fact we could theoretically win 18-0 against Bournemouth and qualify for the CL is relevant.
As a fan, I get what you are saying. I have been bored of our matches many times this season. That doesn't mean I think it is ok.
AS for scraping 4th and winning the FA cup, my point is fans will still want him to go but the board may let him stay if it is within the targets. The point is statistics could be painted in any fashion to support a narrative.
I happen to think we are pretty fair as a club.
The problem is completely structural which is quite ominous in terms of the future. The Glazers are completely hands off and have allowed the likes of Fergie, Bobby and friends make all the wrong decisions including appointing David Moyes to manage Manchester United, appointing Ed Woodward - an inexperienced investment banker, to be chairman of Manchester United, appointing Louis van Gaal who has been complete crap. So obviously it's not just about buying player A or B, the problem is fundamentally structural and starts at the very top and permeates its way all the way down to the players.
Yea, as a fan I do dread some of the matches we play. But I respect the club for being fair and willing to uphold the contract they signed (if that is truly what it is). I will despair the day we become like Real and fire our manager one man's whim.
No one knows for sure what's happening of course, but if rumours about Mourinho's pre-contract is true I actually like what the board is doing. We are covering our bases essentially. No one really loses out, except maybe many fans' health!
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