CL Final - How far are we from reaching this level of football?

It’s all about recruitment. We can’t afford any more mistakes, expensive signings need to be guaranteed first teamers who are consistent in form and fitness. We also need to spot talent earlier and get value on players before they go to Brighton or Palace. If we can then fill the squad places with talent from our academy, and generate funds by selling those we don’t think will make it like Chelsea and City manage to do. Finally, I think we have to ne ruthless and take a loss on shipping out the expensive mistakes, including ETH’s even if he stays. I actually can’t believe we spent £185 million on Mount, Sancho and Wan-Bissaka who are not even remotely close to being selected for England’s 33 man Euros squad. Would kind of hope that £185 million would at least get you one of the best 30 odd players from their country!
 
Rojofiam said:
You are genuinely fecking clueless if you believe this bang average Dortmund side is miles ahead of any of the top 8 teams in the PL. I can't believe that somehow the general consensus on here is always some godawful take.
Click to expand...
Farmers league, comical level of defending etc.
 
Sarni said:
Farmers league, comical level of defending etc.
Click to expand...

No, I'm not one of those.

The Bundesliga is a decent league. However, the PL is undeniably better and Dortmund are more of a cup team than a strong league team, similarly to us recently. And several of their CL performances were pretty underwhelming this season as well, despite making it to the final. When this current United side are at their best, we are a better team than Dortmund, despite them having some really good players like Schlotterbeck, Maatsen, Adeyemi and a few others.
 
Pintu said:
Inter qualified from their group ahead of the Barcelona that won la Liga that year… And they played toe to toe with City in the final (Guardiola said he was lucky to win that final, given Lukaku’s misses)… The Liverpool we defeated this year is the one that got destroyed at home by Atalanta…
Click to expand...
And the Barcelona you are talking about were defeated by us in the Europa League that year. My point was not about diminishing Inter's quality, I was just pointing out that you can have relatively less challenging seasons in the CL. The true mark of quality is consistency as anything can happen in a one off season.
 
Rojofiam said:
You are genuinely fecking clueless if you believe this bang average Dortmund side is miles ahead of any of the top 8 teams in the PL. I can't believe that somehow the general consensus on here is always some godawful take.
Click to expand...
A bang average side that got to the final, we didn't even get out of a relatively easy group, yeah I'm clueless, but not as much as you are
 
Red in STL said:
A bang average side that got to the final, we didn't even get out of a relatively easy group, yeah I'm clueless, but not as much as you are
Click to expand...

So you base your opinion on this one thing? Comparing the two teams' CL results this season?
 
Rojofiam said:
So you base your opinion on this one thing? Comparing the two teams' CL results this season?
Click to expand...
No I don't but you seem to be under the impression that we're a lot better than we actually are, in fact their CL record over the last decade is way better than United's as well
 
Red in STL said:
No I don't but you seem to be under the impression that we're a lot better than we actually are, in fact their CL record over the last decade is way better than United's as well
Click to expand...

What does the last decade have to do with it? Dortmund barely have anyone in their squad that didn't join them in the last 4-5 years, and we're similar. Also, if you look at Dortmund's CL record in previous seasons, it's far from impressive. 3rd in their group behind Ajax and Sporting in 2021/22, lost to a mediocre Chelsea team in the round of 16 last season, struggled to beat Sevilla in 20/21 and then lost to City in the QFs, lost to PSG in the round of 16 in 19/20. They're not the Dortmund of Klopp anymore, they've become a selling club that usually finishes top 3 in the Bundesliga without much of a hassle, and will occasionally make a deeper CL run like they've done this season...but that won't mean they're a better team than most top 4 contender Premier League teams, which is basically what we have been for the last 11 years, despite the current season being a really bad one. This is another case of one team getting heavily overrated whilst another team heavily underrated which leads to some absurd takes on here.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
Or you know, the opinion that we should have been 12th or so if we weren't pretty lucky with some results in our own league this year. Opinions might be based on that too
Click to expand...

Rojofiam said:
No, some people are capable of realizing that this current side has two versions: A, the suicidal setup that we've seen for most of the season, and B, last season's tactics that ETH decided to revert to from the Arsenal game onwards and we've suddenly improved. Version B is not far away and there's tons of evidence for that. Nothing is stopping either ETH or a potential new manager from abandoning version A and for us to get back on track next season. It's more like ETH's stubbornness is fooling a lot of people into thinking we're a mid-table side.
Click to expand...
 
Sky1981 said:
Hahahaha

Dortmund is average yet United on their best days can win the CL.

I want whatever you're smoking mate.

There's positivity and there's delusion
Click to expand...

Is that what I said? Good to know.
 
Rojofiam said:
No, some people are capable of realizing that this current side has two versions: A, the suicidal setup that we've seen for most of the season, and B, last season's tactics that ETH decided to revert to from the Arsenal game onwards and we've suddenly improved. Version B is not far away and there's tons of evidence for that. Nothing is stopping either ETH or a potential new manager from abandoning version A and for us to get back on track next season. It's more like ETH's stubbornness is fooling a lot of people into thinking we're a mid-table side.
Click to expand...
I think the problem with thinking that there are two version of United based on Eric's whims and linking that to hypothetical CL runs, is that you would not see that United that we saw the last 3-4 matches. It was reverted to that due to Ten Hag being in absolute desperation. We were in pretty bad spots throughout the season and he still didn't revert to that style. So there is no reason to think he would revert to that style in the CL unless his job was on the line and I'm not sure it gets to that early on in the season unless United are that crap in the league again.
 
sparx99 said:
I know we must always see things the most negative way possible but the CL group stages were partly just a comedy of errors and partly us being not good enough. I don’t think it is that hard to imagine us finishing that group stage with 12pts in an alternate reality. We had leads and threw them away, bizarre Rashford red card, Casemiro red card, Onana gaffes.

Sometimes football just goes that way. We were as competitive with Bayern as Arsenal were.
Click to expand...
In alternate reality I am born in Denmark not in Bosnia.
We had disaster CL campaign and historical bad season in PL. We were bad this season.
 
Rojofiam said:
If you truly believe that, you're just following casual narratives based on surface-level knowledge, without any real contextualization or delving deeper into things.

Our football has been awful for 90% of the season, but when we were set up well (last few games, some Carabao games, and actually Galatasaray and CPH away in the CL come to mind), we showed that we're still as good as our 22/23 side, except with Onana, Hojlund, and Mainoo added to the team, whilst only losing De Gea and Fred in exchange. ETH really messed up the whole season by being stubborn and not sticking to last year's pragmatic approach, but when he did, we were a good side. Dortmund aren't better than that team. In fact, I'd say they're definitely worse than that team.
Click to expand...

There will be many tears around October when people realise how bad we were this year. And we are losing our best CB and DM.

Our fans need to lover expectations.
 
In Rainbows said:
I think the problem with thinking that there are two version of United based on Eric's whims and linking that to hypothetical CL runs, is that you would not see that United that we saw the last 3-4 matches. It was reverted to that due to Ten Hag being in absolute desperation. We were in pretty bad spots throughout the season and he still didn't revert to that style. So there is no reason to think he would revert to that style in the CL unless his job was on the line and I'm not sure it gets to that early on in the season unless United are that crap in the league again.
Click to expand...

ETH's future at the club isn't guaranteed at all. And even if he stays, this current setup will either have to be ditched, or they'll sign 4-6 players for him in order for it to work. If it still doesn't, then ETH will go.
 
Juicy Juiced said:
In alternate reality I am born in Denmark not in Bosnia.
We had disaster CL campaign and historical bad season in PL. We were bad this season.
Click to expand...

Our disaster CL campaign was decided by small margins. In some of the games, we deserved 3 points and got 1 or 0. If you think 6 games is a big enough sample size anyways, your logic is flawed.
 
Juicy Juiced said:
There will be many tears around October when people realise how bad we were this year. And we are losing our best CB and DM.

Our fans need to lover expectations.
Click to expand...

My expectations for next season are getting top 4 and winning the EL. That's far from unrealistic. Yes, we were awful this year and were lucky to finish even in 8th. But that doesn't change the fact that this squad is way better than 8th. These two things can be true at the same time.

Regarding losing our best CB and DM...eh, not really. Casemiro is past it and easily replaceable. Same with Varane. He's a good box defender but there are dozens of promising CBs out there who also possess that. I really don't think we'll miss them at all.
 
Juicy Juiced said:
Table doesn't lie. We finished last.
Click to expand...

Over 6 games, it can absolutely lie. We did have some bad performances, but we deserved to win both Galata and Copenhagen away. That's 5 points lost due to Onana howlers, a Rashford red card, and other bad decisions from the ref. As bad as this league campaign has been for us, we were arguably unlucky not to advance in the Champions League.
 
Rojofiam said:
My expectations for next season are getting top 4 and winning the EL. That's far from unrealistic. Yes, we were awful this year and were lucky to finish even in 8th. But that doesn't change the fact that this squad is way better than 8th. These two things can be true at the same time.

Regarding losing our best CB and DM...eh, not really. Casemiro is past it and easily replaceable. Same with Varane. He's a good box defender but there are dozens of promising CBs out there who also possess that. I really don't think we'll miss them at all.
Click to expand...
If ETH stays, top6 at best.
Love your optimism.
We are in downfall since that final against Newcastle.
 
Rojofiam said:
Over 6 games, it can absolutely lie. We did have some bad performances, but we deserved to win both Galata and Copenhagen away. That's 5 points lost due to Onana howlers, a Rashford red card, and other bad decisions from the ref. As bad as this league campaign has been for us, we were arguably unlucky not to advance in the Champions League.
Click to expand...

Luck has nothing to do with it, especially against Copenhagen and Galata. Plus, losing by "small margins" to those teams is nothing to be proud of. Dortmund actually finished first in a group with PSG, Milan and Newcastle! Small margins my ..., we were shit.
 
Last edited:
Juicy Juiced said:
In alternate reality I am born in Denmark not in Bosnia.
We had disaster CL campaign and historical bad season in PL. We were bad this season.
Click to expand...

Yeah, for sure. It’s just sometimes when you aren’t a great team you can’t cope with bad luck as well. Fergie’s teams could win despite a refereeing mistake or with 10-men. This team was nowhere near that level and it showed anytime something went wrong (whether it was their fault or luck).
 
Red in STL said:
No I don't but you seem to be under the impression that we're a lot better than we actually are, in fact their CL record over the last decade is way better than United's as well
Click to expand...

I think they have a point that Dortmund aren't that good. They were 5th in the Bundesliga
 
Imo . This year's CL final was not very good, Real were awful but you new they'd pull it out from somewhere they don't lose finals.. Dortmund had the better of the game but no quality...

City must be looking at this season thinking feck me 2 games have done us another treble...hahaha.. Real next year be much much better .. that doesn't mean they win CL though..
 
CallyRed said:
Just need a good structure in place and no injuries
Click to expand...

If it was that easy, why haven't the highly paid people at MUFC unable to make this happen?
The truth is that it is far more complicated.
We need new structure, the right people in charge, an entire new playing squad, a completely new mindset amongst the playing squad and more likely the backroom staff all need to be changed.
From top to bottom, we need a complete change and that is not easy.

Even now, we are seeing the board waste time in deciding who the manager is next season.
They'll make decision eventually but by then it'll be too late for the incoming manager to make changes.
Next season will be a write-off and 12 months from now will be the manager's first pre-season.

The senior management of this club is atrocious at doing their job.
 
We've seen a few sides that weren't really all that great fluke their way to a Champions League final over the last couple of decades. With good recruitment we are not many years away from that, in theory. The 2018/19 Spurs that got 71 points in the league reached a CL Final. With a good portion of luck, it's not impossible that we do something similar in a few years time.

However, to go into a new season and be considered one of the favorites from the start is another matter entirely. That's probably at least five years away, if not more.

Then again, Klopp took over a very average Liverpool side in 2015, had them in a CL final in 2018, won it in 2019.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.