ESPN - Why Manchester United are still a mess under INEOS ownership

Martial'sEmergingSmile

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From ESPN (multiple journalists - Mark Ogden, Rob Dawson)

This is the article Andy Mitten was talking about last week, calling it an upcoming 'bombshell'. I think that's a big stretch but it is kinda interesting in parts.

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On Brailsford:

"Brailsford held a meeting with the first-team squad shortly after INEOS took charge of football operations at the club," a source told ESPN. "He sat there in a cream shirt and pair of cream chinos, telling the players that he lived on the most exclusive street in Monte Carlo, but that he was coming to Manchester because he was going to help make United better.

"The players left the room rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. It was like they were supposed to be grateful that Dave had given up his idyllic lifestyle to save them all. All they've seen since is cost-cutting and people losing their jobs."
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Transport seething:

Three months later, the promise to "make United better" had a hollow ring to it as the first-team players threatened to pay for their own flight back to Manchester after the FA Cup final in London. The club was providing other means of transportation back from the capital. With the club holding firm, senior players pushed back and insisted they would source their own flight home.
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The Athletic wrote about this back in June. Apparently the transport offered by the club was a bus.

Bruno's contract:

For the players, sources have said that the experience of playing for Manchester United now seems like anything but representing one of the game's most illustrious teams. Two people told ESPN that Bruno Fernandes was prepared to leave this summer after growing tired of the club's repeated failure to deliver, but eventually stayed and signed a contract after, according to one source, "the club panicked and gave him a massive new deal."
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Job cuts:

Many of the players have been "underwhelmed" by the impact made by INEOS, while there has been anger within the dressing room at not simply the departure of several long-serving staff members as part of the job cuts, but also at the treatment of some of them.

"One member of the ground staff had been at the club for over 30 years," a source said. "He was let go by the club and was sweeping up on his own on his last day with tears rolling down his face. Nobody did anything for him, despite all the years he had given to the club."
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Pissing off Casemiro:

"Erik is very blunt and direct," a source told ESPN. "He's fundamentally an honest guy, but he had to be told last season to soften his approach with the players. He was too critical too often, but sometimes it was down to his use of English.

"He speaks the language, but he doesn't have a great grasp of it or the nuances. For instance, he pissed off Casemiro last season for saying he was dropped for 'football reasons.' Erik meant 'tactical' reasons, but he ended up angering a multiple Champions League winner by suggesting he was criticising him as a footballer."
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Pissing off Rashy and Sanchy:

Ten Hag's handling of Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford also caused disharmony within the squad. While there was initial support among the majority of the players for the decision to discipline Sancho for a social media outburst after the winger was dropped from the first-team dressing room, sources say the treatment was soon regarded as heavy-handed and displayed a lack of flexibility on Ten Hag's part.

Sources have told ESPN that Rashford's loss of form and focus last season was not helped by Ten Hag regularly criticising the player in media interviews -- again partly exacerbated by his limited grasp of English.
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Continuation of the #StrongMinds

Some players struggled to boost their confidence under Ten Hag's hardline approach, and sources have told ESPN that one senior player asked low-level members of staff to give him motivational talks before games to help his morale.
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"One member of the ground staff had been at the club for over 30 years," a source said. "He was let go by the club and was sweeping up on his own on his last day with tears rolling down his face. Nobody did anything for him, despite all the years he had given to the club."
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If that happened then that's deeply and unneccesarily unpleasant.

It also places the complaints about SAF losing his ambassador role into context. Who cares about a many-times-over multi-millionaire losing out on a source of more millions when working people still contributing materially to the club get treated like shit?
 
This reflects badly on INEOS and the players as well, with them being a brittle bunch. They obviously fecked up massively by caving into Bruno's demands, but I suspect the reasoning behind them not appointing a new manager when they were leaving ETH high and dry in the summer was what they presented to managers wasn't on par with what they wanted said manager to deliver. And the chaos created by them at the club - mostly in the way they've handled things, which could have been much better - is maybe part of the reason they are sticking with Erik because they know a lot of the mess is on them.
 
If the club functions the same with 250 less staff then clearly there was a considerable problem of managing headcount. Usually duplication of roles and people in positions doing work that ultimately could be done by less people or one person. I’m sorry for those people who lost their jobs. I’ve been in a company that’s been taken over and had similar stuff like this happen such as perks being removed and company restructuring which involves people being made redundant, people being put into different roles that they don’t like so they leave etc. In my experience I left not too long after as it was one of my first jobs and I was a fixed term contract and they didn’t renew me. Haven’t looked back since as every job since then has been better.

Regarding Brailsford, I can’t imagine he’ll be seen as much as he was earlier this year now that Ashworth is in. Brailsford is an INEOS Sport division guy rather than a United guy on a day to day basis.

Their handling of the manager situation is stroke-inducingly bizarre. They clearly don’t rate ETH yet they backed him and they won’t sack him despite horrific results this season, as well as over a years worth of plausible reason to do so.

It will be a fecking bitter pill to swallow as a fan if we’re essentially ditching this season as they wait for their preferred candidate to come in next summer. It’s bad enough watching our matches with ETH’s horrific football from an entertainment perspective. If the seasons been chucked in the toilet and ETH has licence to do whatever he wants (providing he doesn’t totally shit the bed and put us in a relegation fight, which he will get sacked and get laughed out the country as biggest feck up merchant since Liz Truss) then what’s even the point of caring what happens in games this season?

At the moment for me, the United match is on in the background as a form of white noise entertainment as I do something else that doesn’t annoy and frustrate me.
 
With the Rashford thing, I felt EtH defended him constantly last season, even after his antics and horrible form. Some of the other stuff sounds disconcerting though.
 
Everyone with iq higher than their sho size could see this coming.

We missed out on Qatar when old man Jim threw the Glazers a life line. That was the absolutely worst outcome possible and we will feel that the next few decades unfortunately. .

The future looks grim indeed.
 
just your typical click-bait

they probably are shit, lets be honest, but its gonna take a bit long to establish for certain as they're still clearing up previous messes

I do think they've royally fecked up the ten hag situation though
 
Irwin99 said:
With the Rashford thing, I felt EtH defended him constantly last season, even after his antics and horrible form. Some of the other stuff sounds disconcerting though.
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Yep. A lot of it seems spoilt and entitled from the players as usual.

Not organising anything for long serving staff leaving the club is not good though.
 
It sounds like he said, they said, bollocks again. It’s Utd, it’s slow news day. Let’s make some news up on rumours and lies. TH hasn’t got a grasp of English, let’s use that to stir the pot. Rashford playing shit, not his fault Sancho, Casemiro Bruno not their fault. And the biggest laugh, Brailsford moaning/bragging to multi millionaires? Load of bollocks.
MEN rag always make bad shit up as they have to sell to Manchester primarily.
 
What mess that took years to rectify?

We're not talking about building the new La Massia or new stadium. Just getting functional football again.

Sack the manager, identify problematic player and tell them this is their last warning, empower the new manager to act with iron hand, results. If things dont work out, analyse from there and improve.

You dont need 3 years to know ETH is the wrong un. Keeping him is bad for the morale.

Nobody is expecting a title push, just correction of course and start doing the basic right. Then we'll see from there.

Football is no magic. You employ the right person and see improvement. The way 99.999% other clubs are doing.
 
They've been at the helm for a few months, even SJR stated that the people they've introduced have only been in the job for a matter of weeks.

Things won't change overnight, even if this report is a load of absolute crap, which it most definitely is.
 
Johnny boy 98 said:
Everyone with iq higher than their sho size could see this coming.

We missed out on Qatar when old man Jim threw the Glazers a life line. That was the absolutely worst outcome possible and we will feel that the next few decades unfortunately. .

The future looks grim indeed.
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"We missed out on Qatar..."

Christ, what has football fandom become...?
 
Somehow Rashford always finds a way to find an excuse to loose form under every manager.
 
We fans are part of the problem, we hate context and love falling for clickbait. INEOS have been in place for less than a year to fix a decade long problem. It's going to take a lot of unfavourable decisions and short term losses to achieve any substantial and sustainable gains. Folks expecting a change overnight were delusional.

The one thing I can firmly criticize them for is the handling of Ten Hag, they made a hash of that. He should be gone and tbh with him gone and someone competent in charge, a lot of the spotlight will be taken off them. As long as EtH is in charge and results continue going the way they are, INEOS will remain under scrutiny. These off the field stories will continue to be used by media to further exarsurbate the situation. EtH being sacked will be the stone that kills a lot birds for INEOS. They need to act quick.
 
It's all a bit obvious isn't it? We had more staff than City - and that's including the staff they have spread out over 5 teams spread across continents. Cuts had to happen, and there's always gonna be pain that goes along with that.

As for Ten Hag, I find it a bit lazy to blame it on his grasp of English. He's just a poor communicator. Ajax had trouble with him in this area and we knew it wasn't his forte when we hired him. It is clear that he's been told to soften his approach though, and perhaps that has undermined him somewhat. Telling the guy you have to change his ways after canvassing the market for a replacement doesn't look fantastic.

I don't mind so much that they kept him, but triggering his extension and making him twice as costly to sack seems like a very poor business decision from people who are supposed to be making good business decisions, in spite of the pain of them.
 
Players leaking stories to the press again rather than taking responsibility for their own rubbish performances.
Good times.
 
The Brailsford thing does feel like that time where Clive Woodward was at Southampton. I don't get it.
 
Disappointing they haven't been able to fix the club in 6 months

Too bad Sheik Jazz was broke
 
Pickle85 said:
"We missed out on Qatar..."

Christ, what has football fandom become...?
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I think we did, yeah. That's my opinion and you are obviously free to have your.

May I ask what's so bad about being owned by some people in Qatar as opposed to being owned by Jim and the Glazers?

Judging by your post it sounds like it's something horrible. Why is that? Please enlighten me.
 
If players are not happy with the situation then they can always hand a transfer request. I bet they won't though. We should not have kept Bruno btw
 
Tibs said:
Always wanted the Qatar take over
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We'd be so much better off. We could've saved that groundskeeper's wages by simply killing a few migrants workers in Qatar. We could even have saved SAF's £2m-a-year in free money by killing a few thousand migrants worker in Qatar. Plus, we could have killed a few hundred of thousands of migrants workers in Qatar to boost that transfer kitty, hire lawyers to sue the PL six ways from Sunday, and even turn ol' Jazzy Bear from an imaginary despot into a real life person. What a boat we missed.
 
Different angle. INEOS asked players to take the bus for a few months because then they wouldn't have to sack a bunch of people, including the man who has been around for 30 years. The players were up in arms about not having domestic jet flights - and were unwilling to do so to save someone else's job. When they spoke to Sir Alex about how much they had to cut, he immediately offered to cancel his wages.

SAF would have smacked them all and shoved them into the bus, and we all know it.
 
We heard the same things under the Glazers, under other managers. I don't think INEOS have been amazing yet I can understand they've only been here 6 months. Will need a longer sample size to see whether they are good or bad for the club. Regarding the players getting offended, good, they got offended under every manager and would likely get offended under Fergie. Rashford as always has an excuse, I didn't see Ten Hag and INEOS there in his other crap seasons.
 
Tibs said:
Always wanted the Qatar take over
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So go follow psg. They've done a great job failing in Europe, destroying their league and alienating their best players.

Sounds like just who we need.

Sky1981 said:
Sack the manager, identify problematic player and tell them this is their last warning, empower the new manager to act with iron hand, results. If things dont work out, analyse from there and improve.
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Sacking managers and invigilating the next manager under the new 'emergency powers' is the exact failing of the past decade.

devilsadvoca8 said:
We fans are part of the problem, we hate context

The one thing I can firmly criticize them for is the handling of Ten Hag, they made a hash of that. He should be gone and tbh with him gone and someone competent in charge,
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'We hate context' but your solution is to sack the manager without naming a replacement.

Saying things like 'we need a competent manager' is all well and good, but the fact you will not risk your neck naming a replacement reminds us that some fans really are the problem.

didz said:
We'd be so much better off. We could've saved that groundskeeper's wages by simply killing a few migrants workers in Qatar. We could even have saved SAF's £2m-a-year in free money by killing a few thousand migrants worker in Qatar. Plus, we could have killed a few hundred of thousands of migrants workers in Qatar to boost that transfer kitty, hire lawyers to sue the PL six ways from Sunday, and even turn ol' Jazzy Bear from an imaginary despot into a real life person. What a boat we missed.
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Yeah, yeah, but the west...

Laurencio said:
The players were up in arms about not having their flights paid - and are unwilling to do so to save someone else's job. When they spoke to Sir Alex about how much they had to cut, he immediately offered to cancel his wages.

SAF would have smacked them all and shoved them into the bus, and we all know it.
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Yep.
 
Sounds to me like the players are acting like a bunch of divas.

The only thing that’s really saddening is the job losses, in an ideal world people would have been kept employed out of sentiment but that’s not how you run a business unfortunately.
 
Feck the players.
The job losses are sad but look at the size of the workforce compared to other clubs. We were bloated.
 
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