Do you think our club will ever return to the elite stature?

Sir Erik ten Hag

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We have witnessed powerhouses in the past whittled into obscurity (Nottingham Forest, Blackburn...etc). Nottingham Forest even used to win a European trophy. Yet they never recovered to the old elite status again. Leeds United is another example. Or the old Italian powerhouses like AC Milan, Napoli...seem further and further away from the power seats in Europe despite their old acclaims.

Do you think this is the case for Manchester United? What if the period under Fergie was just a miracle and now our time in the elite stature is truly over for good? Not all old powerhouse teams can regain their statuses, as the examples above. We used to think we are "too big to fail" (Particularly the 2014-2017 period). Now it's been more than 10 years after Fergie's retirement and our situation looks all the more darker. How long until 10 years become 20 years, 50 years, a century...etc.

I think a lot of us have cruised through these 10 years thinking we are just incompetent at the moment and would bounce back to the top eventually. We never sit down and think of the probability that it may never happen. Nothing is really "too big to fail" in this day and age, with incompetence at the board level.
 
I think you should delete this shameful thread.
United rose back more than once in its history and if 10 years of misery has made you make this thread I understand but in no way do I not think United will not be on elite level once again.
 
norm87cro said:
I think you should delete this shameful thread.
United rose back more than once in its history and if 10 years of misery has made you make this thread I understand but in no way do I not think United will not be on elite level once again.
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The football landscape in this modern age is far more unforgiving. Italian clubs still haven't really bounced back despite how strong Serie A used to be.
 
Sir Erik ten Hag said:
The football landscape in this modern age is far more unforgiving. Italian clubs still haven't really bounced back despite how strong Serie A used to be.
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On the contrary I feel that the modern football landscape will unfairly work in our favour to prevent us from ever losing our status as an elite club. Bodies like the European Club Association are basically ensuring that clubs like ours will always remain in the elite band of the sport regardless of 'form', even if form refers to a decade of non-success. Unless there's a dramatic change in the direction of travel of football governance, there'll be multiple nets that prevent us from falling in a way that Forest or Leeds would've experienced.
 
united had a chance with jassum but blew it. i think the last decade will actually be remembered as the good times in the coming years.
 
Wait, you just created a thread about throwing away Bayern game? And now this thread. Make up your mind.
 
It'll be a long- time, not just because of City's cheating with impunity, but because so many apparently devoted fans are happy to accept mediocrity and make convoluted excuses for managers - as well as certain players - because they nick the odd result or labour towards beating lower-end teams, or run around a bit (without in many cases showing for the ball). Its an ownership issue too, of course: as has been discussed elsewhere, there are ways of getting the Glazers out, but again, despite the fact that there are fans in a position to cause trouble for them, there's a reluctance to, a reluctance which certainly wouldn't be so universal amongst a similar group of Liverpool fans, let alone Italian or Spanish 'ultras' or their equivalents....

If we do get new sporting control and the manager is pressurized to (or replaced by someone who will) give more opportunities to our technically-best academy players, rather than relying on also-rans and yes-men or darlings of parts of the club hierarchy, and the club commits to attracting the very best young talent, then we may at least have a shot of regaining domestic competitivity. Until we become centred around (first and foremost) sporting excellence, with everything else ancillary and there just to ensure formal compliance, then I can't see us fully regaining any kind of pre-eminent status.
 
rimaldo said:
united had a chance with jassum but blew it. i think the last decade will actually be remembered as the good times in the coming years.
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I have to agree. It's not just us not moving forward. It's lots of other teams getting well funded. We had a jassim train back to relevancy but the Glazers made us miss the train the feckers.
 
Despite the fact that we have been champions of England a record 20 times, only three managers actually won the title. Mangnall (3), Busby (5), Ferguson (13).

So, it's been down to the individual brilliance of three managers, rather than a strong club structure. Similar to how many matches are won by individual brilliance, rather than solid teamwork.

We therefore need to build a strong club structure, and develop effective team play, to be consistently successful.

Can INEOS and ETH be the answer?
 
Sir Erik ten Hag said:
We have witnessed powerhouses in the past whittled into obscurity (Nottingham Forest, Blackburn...etc). Nottingham Forest even used to win a European trophy. Yet they never recovered to the old elite status again. Leeds United is another example. Or the old Italian powerhouses like AC Milan, Napoli...seem further and further away from the power seats in Europe despite their old acclaims.

Now it's been more than 10 years after Fergie's retirement and our situation looks all the more darker. How long until 10 years become 20 years, 50 years, a century...etc.
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The situation isn't darker than ever. We're in pretty much the same position as 10 years ago.

Forest was successful before money started to flow into football. They missed the boat essentially. Leeds went bankrupt which the Glaxers wouldn't allow. Blackburn had a rich owner who left. The Italian clubs have made less money as their league declined.

Whereas we were successful as many more fans started to watch, we're one of the wealthiest sporting teams on earth, we're in a league that's increasingly dominating the sport and we've one of the largest fanbases of any team ever.

Sir Erik ten Hag said:
The football landscape in this modern age is far more unforgiving. Italian clubs still haven't really bounced back despite how strong Serie A used to be.
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Football is more forgiving than ever if you're rich. Bayern and PSG screw up plenty but as long as their money keeps coming in, they dominate their leagues.

As long as the club is rich, it has a chance. If it isn't, then we're in trouble.

We'll likely go through the current cycle until someone with a brain manages the clubs vast resources effectively and then we'd win again.
 
Forest and Blackburn were never 'powerhouses' - they had a couple of great years in their entire history and that's mostly it

Doesn't compare to our history, a better comparison is to look at Liverpool's barren years or even ourselves until the 90s

And yes I do believe we will win the top trophies again, but we need a change of ownership
 
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If we can somehow find a way to stop throwing matches and channel our anger into hope, we can change the narrative that United are finished and return to our rightful place as the elitest of the elites.

More concerned about Europe tbh. Like Ibrahimovic we generally don't do well in Europe.
 
We have to see if Ratcliffe and his minions can improve the whole structure of the club, from the bottom up. Surely we should be better with his fresh ideas than the parasite model?
 
wolvored said:
We have to see if Ratcliffe and his minions can improve the whole structure of the club, from the bottom up. Surely we should be better with his fresh ideas than the parasite model?
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That's the best hope I've had in a while. Our issue isn't small things like who's captain or even who is the manager (as some daft pundits think). It's how the entire club is run. That might be about to change.
 
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