Henderson, Pogba, Lingard, Cavani - The invisible importance of their exits

MalaysianRed7

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Henderson - Cut a horribly dispirited figure on the bench last season. Apparently stormed out of training when Ralf said De Gea would play the cup game against Villa. Many rumours that he was one of the players behind the leaks. That useless, conceited interview last night about the club who still pays his wages.

Pogba - In a 6 year contract, he essentially begged for a move in every international break for the last 5. That “coincidental” Instagram post containing the most irritating smirk I’ve ever seen in my life after Mourinho was sacked. Calling a £300k a week offer from United “nothing”.

Lingard - Posting about West Ham almost on a fortnightly basis while still being employed by United. Exposed to be one of the leaks by Scholes.

Cavani - In fairness, I feel bad about including him here when you take his first season into account. However, he pretty much went on holiday last season under the excuse of injuries, despite being fit to play for Uruguay every international break. Nevertheless, he’s only here because this sort of behaviour might set a precedent that players can simply not play should they feel like it.

So, clearly 4 players with horrific attitude problems, 3 if you discount Cavani. I think we can deduce from here, which many fans already have, that they were the rotten eggs in the dressing room. Their departures might be more important than any signing we make this summer, if only for dressing room harmony and not showing their teammates that they can step out of line like that as well with no consequences. As Steve McClaren said, you don’t win football matches without a good team spirit.
 
You can add Ronaldo to the list of horribly toxic personalities. Problem is that he’s still there.

But all in all, I agree with your post. I think it’s great that they are all gone. We now need to focus on bring in 2-3 more players before the deadline.

Jones, Bailly, Wan Bissaka and Telles should all also leave, but for sporting reasons, and to raise funds for further incomings. Amad, Hannibal and Pellestri should also go out on loan.

The dressing was absolutely fractured and toxic last season and it needed to be cleaned up. You can’t win anything if everyone isn’t pulling in the same direction. I have high level inside knowledge of the situation, and I will tell you that the biggest problem of all, Ronaldo, is the issue that needs to be dealt with most urgently. He simply has to leave.
 
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simonhch said:
I have high level inside knowledge of the situation, and I will tell you that the biggest problem of all, Ronaldo, is the issue that needs to be dealt with most urgently. He simply has to leave.
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If this is true, why do you think the club are keen to keep him?
 
So easy to lay the morale/discontent problem on those who were already leaving. Now that it's time to be consistent with the big name we are going full blown hypocrites. Makes it kind of pointless. Even Rashford was as much a leaker as Lingard and Cavani actually had a better case for wanting to leave than Ronaldo. I don't blame the disgruntled players as being the main problem in that dressing room. They were misled into staying in the first place. A few of them were also away from the dressing room for a good chunk of the season. The named actors behind things like the captaincy row and dressing room factions are still here anyway.
 
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They created the most toxic environment in football but it’s all fault by Ole giving them false promises of game time
 
MalaysianRed7 said:
So, clearly 4 players with horrific attitude problems, 3 if you discount Cavani. I think we can deduce from here, which many fans already have, that they were the rotten eggs in the dressing room. Their departures might be more important than any signing we make this summer, if only for dressing room harmony and not showing their teammates that they can step out of line like that as well with no consequences. As Steve McClaren said, you don’t win football matches without a good team spirit.
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Cavani spent a season mostly on annual leave and reportedly picking and choosing when to play and he's supposedly the one to be discounted from these vague "horrific attitude problems" allegations?

Meanwhile the guy that was valued by the interim manager due to his efforts mediating issues in the dressing room gets labelled a rotten egg. Seems fair

Pogba got on with Ralf Rangnick

Rangnick valued Pogba’s efforts to mediate aspects of the dressing room. He was also one of the players to command major respect from Cristiano Ronaldo.

At the final whistle of that 2-0 win, in which Ronaldo scored the opening goal, Pogba gave encouragement to centre-back Harry Maguire whose final touch had been to clear the ball into the stands. “We have to believe in ourselves,” Pogba said. “You’re an £80 million player for a reason.”

On another occasion, when a meeting of some players with Rangnick about form turned unexpectedly into a targeted tactical discussion, Pogba went back later to apologise to United’s interim manager for the way things had gone. [Source]
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This thread is just a convenient attempt at turning guys that were leaving anyway into boogeymen. It's OK to feel positive and look forward for the future under the new manager without resorting to this.
 
TsuWave said:
Cavani spent a season mostly on annual leave and reportedly picking and choosing when to play and he's supposedly the one to be discounted from these vague "horrific attitude problems" allegations?

Meanwhile the guy that was valued by the interim manager due to his efforts mediating issues in the dressing room gets labelled a rotten egg. Seems fair



This thread is just a convenient attempt at turning guys that were leaving anyway into boogeymen. It's OK to feel positive and look forward for the future under the new manager without resorting to this.
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If I needed information on Pogba being a supposedly good influence in the dressing room, I’d have rewatched the France all or nothing documentary. He came across reasonably well there. However, the cold hard facts are that he showed absolutely no regard for the fans, the manager and the club in almost every international break from 2017-18 onwards. Fans will never tolerate that. I’m not trying to turn him into a boogeyman; he did that himself.
 
TsuWave said:
Cavani spent a season mostly on annual leave and reportedly picking and choosing when to play and he's supposedly the one to be discounted from these vague "horrific attitude problems" allegations?

Meanwhile the guy that was valued by the interim manager due to his efforts mediating issues in the dressing room gets labelled a rotten egg. Seems fair



This thread is just a convenient attempt at turning guys that were leaving anyway into boogeymen. It's OK to feel positive and look forward for the future under the new manager without resorting to this.
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You are easily impressed man. The problem with all of that with Pogba is that it's just talk/words and no action.
 
MalaysianRed7 said:
If I needed information on Pogba being a supposedly good influence in the dressing room, I’d have rewatched the France all or nothing documentary. He came across reasonably well there. However, the cold hard facts are that he showed absolutely no regard for the fans, the manager and the club in almost every international break from 2017-18 onwards. Fans will never tolerate that. I’m not trying to turn him into a boogeyman; he did that himself.
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I'm not catering to your needs. The autopsy articles of his exit from United state he was a good influence in the dressing room and valued by his manager for it. The juxtaposition of your verdict on him and your verdict on Cavani was just curious to me. Unless you think Cavani's time at United was him holding the fans, the manager and the club in the highest regard?

Pogba is a Juventus player. A seemingly happy one at that - he stressed how important it was for him to go somewhere he's happy - a choice he made for less money when United's offer was still on the table. I would hazard a guess he doesn't much care for what United fans will tolerate at this point, and it would just be best for United fans to move on rather than these jab at ex players feel-good exercises.
 
Elcabron said:
You are easily impressed man. The problem with all of that with Pogba is that it's just talk/words and no action.
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Hardly so, in fact, me not being easily impressed is the crux of the post you quoted. I mean, the core of said post is me questioning the labels attached to some players that the OP is seemingly willingly to allow Cavani to go without.

Besides, those quotes are words that describe actions. A report - filled with quotes and timed instances. Pogba's return to United didn't go how most wanted from a sporting perspective, but I also don't believe him to be the rotten egg people here try to regularly paint him as. Plenty to corroborate this.
 
Conspiracy central of the Caf, all this talk of toxic players from a toxic fan base.
I can see how the players are going to get along with one another better this season, smaller squad, a manager who isn’t going to feed them illusions about their playing time. But how are the fans going to move on from the constant toxic moaning?
 
Henderson: I do think there is talent there and he is PL proven. Throughout this forum there are threads devoted to his merits over De Gea. However considering his recent comments about not wanting to let the new manager see him train because he'd probably want to keep him was a shocking look inside his thought process. I do understand it as a career choice though , risking another wasted season over a battle in training camp with a world cup coming up would be foolish. As to how his departure effects the dressing room, I don't have the evidence to decide either way. I will say Heaton seems like a more positive replacement.

Pogba: Very good player whose performances for us have been largely mischaracterized by both fans and media. He was not a roaring success but he was hardly a failure. He is also a model professional, religious family man and beloved by his teammates. In the end it was time to part ways, that was the correct decision but I'd be happy to have Pogba on my team.

Lingard: I think of Lingard as a success story of our academy. This is a kid who has been with us since he was 7, 30 caps for england, fa cup winning goal. Ultimately he wasn't deemed good enough and his performances let him down so he was let go.

Cavani : This dude mailed it in the second half of last year. Yes it was a lot of players who mugged the fans off but he was one of the worst offenders. Cavani, Ighalo, Ibra, Ronaldo all these stop gap old strikers . We need a striker badly, the likes of Haaland and Nunez will pay their teams back with shit loads of goals. We need someone to compete with those cnuts.
 
TsuWave said:
Cavani spent a season mostly on annual leave and reportedly picking and choosing when to play and he's supposedly the one to be discounted from these vague "horrific attitude problems" allegations?

Meanwhile the guy that was valued by the interim manager due to his efforts mediating issues in the dressing room gets labelled a rotten egg. Seems fair



This thread is just a convenient attempt at turning guys that were leaving anyway into boogeymen. It's OK to feel positive and look forward for the future under the new manager without resorting to this.
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SA players tend to see club football as a job. There are exceptions of course like Javier Zanetti who loves Inter as much if not more then the class of 92 love United. However most tend to show that level of loyalty only to their national team. That doesn't mean that they aren't professional. Cavani was a professional for most of his career (including his 1st year with us) However once they decide to leave then you'll better not stand in their way especially if they are heading towards the end of their contract and they have that last opportunity to add yet another golden name to their CV (in this case Barcelona).

In my opinion United need a serious revamp in the football side of things. We need people who understand different cultures and we definitely need experienced guys who understand modern football and can handle complex issues like transfers (ins and outs) in an effective way etc. What we have is a hot mess who are pretty much knee jerk (Henderson does decently well at some low EPL club so we go and give him a huge contract etc), insular and lack the experience/CV to truly engage with the manager and come out with viable alternatives to his targets. Which is why United are looking more and more the Eredivisie best XI
 
TsuWave said:
I'm not catering to your needs. The autopsy articles of his exit from United state he was a good influence in the dressing room and valued by his manager for it. The juxtaposition of your verdict on him and your verdict on Cavani was just curious to me. Unless you think Cavani's time at United was him holding the fans, the manager and the club in the highest regard?

Pogba is a Juventus player. A seemingly happy one at that - he stressed how important it was for him to go somewhere he's happy - a choice he made for less money when United's offer was still on the table. I would hazard a guess he doesn't much care for what United fans will tolerate at this point, and it would just be best for United fans to move on rather than these jab at ex players feel-good exercises.
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He never did, so I don’t really care about that. Also, why wouldn’t I or other fans take jabs at ex-players? Last season’s team was the most dislikable in our history. Time for us to fix the culture now.
 
MalaysianRed7 said:
He never did, so I don’t really care about that. Also, why wouldn’t I or other fans take jabs at ex-players? Last season’s team was the most dislikable in our history. Time for us to fix the culture now.
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Ridiculous take on Cavani. The guy dialled in a full season on full pay, made himself available for about 30% of our games and 85% of international games. Refused to play when the club considered him fit. The biggest disgrace of a mercenary to dump himself at United since DiMaria
 
It would seem that Henderson's United career is over, although his criticism is of people no longer at the club. His "outburst" surprised me but it is clear he would have started the season had he not been ill/injured and so I do have some sympathy for him. it was certainly odd that he didn't get a run in the cup competitions as has now become sort of policy.

I've not entered the "who is the leak" argument as I have absolutely no idea and I'm not sure anyone here really has. Henderson seemed the quiet type to me so the interview was even more strange but don't think there's any evidence he was leaking stuff. He has disappointed me but he wasn't wrong about Ole. Part of me hopes he has a really good season and returns next year with a good reason to become first choice but i think he's probably done. However, to lump him in with the useless Pogba is a "no" for me.

On that subject, I do feel we didn't handle the Cavani situation terribly well either. Yes, he does seem to have had a diva strop but surely we knew what we were getting when we signed him and he was great that first season, both in performance and passion. Some players need to be loved and have an arm put around their shoulder (SAF with Cantona). Had someone done that, I still think he would have scored enough goals to get us into the top four
 
They also all barely played last season. More than happy to see the back of all of them.

Matic and Mata I feel sorry for, didn’t play much themselves but proper professionals and had decent cameos in their final games.

Still, all of these needed leave, we just need to get extra bodies in to replace them ASAP.

Definitely agree on Cavani too. The guy asked to leave multiple times and spent most of last season on holiday anyway. The cnut didn’t wanna be here but we let him jug us off like we do with most players.
 
Greck said:
So easy to lay the morale/discontent problem on those who were already leaving. Now that it's time to be consistent with the big name we are going full blown hypocrites. Makes it kind of pointless. Even Rashford was as much a leaker as Lingard and Cavani actually had a better case for wanting to leave than Ronaldo. I don't blame the disgruntled players as being the main problem in that dressing room. They were misled into staying in the first place. A few of them were also away from the dressing room for a good chunk of the season. The named actors behind things like the captaincy row and dressing room factions are still here anyway.
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Do you have any proof at all for that or are you just trying to get digs in at two players?

None of us know who the leaks were. Why are people still stating ‘for a fact’ that XYZ were involved
 
I like how Cavani is seemed as the good guy :lol:

The man asked to leave twice in two years. Decided to have some random break at the start of the season and then decided not to turn up for the second half of the season.

Meanwhile all the other guys just wanted to play and win. Clearly social media is bigger than what they do on the pitch.
 
TsuWave said:
I'm not catering to your needs. The autopsy articles of his exit from United state he was a good influence in the dressing room and valued by his manager for it. The juxtaposition of your verdict on him and your verdict on Cavani was just curious to me. Unless you think Cavani's time at United was him holding the fans, the manager and the club in the highest regard?

Pogba is a Juventus player. A seemingly happy one at that - he stressed how important it was for him to go somewhere he's happy - a choice he made for less money when United's offer was still on the table. I would hazard a guess he doesn't much care for what United fans will tolerate at this point, and it would just be best for United fans to move on rather than these jab at ex players feel-good exercises.
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Without getting into the debate about Pogba being a good guy or not, his only real option was Juventus. No other big clubs were interested.
 
RaddyRed said:
Without getting into the debate about Pogba being a good guy or not, his only real option was Juventus. No other big clubs were interested.
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PSG were most definitely interested.
 
Agree with OP. I can only hope that we didn't keep players with poor attitudes in addition to the said players. I have my doubts over Bailly as well who's wasted a good part of his career on the bench.
 
::sonny:: said:
They created the most toxic environment in football but it’s all fault by Ole giving them false promises of game time
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I partially agree with this. Henderson was promised he would compete with De Gea but ended up with COVID at the start of the season, while De Gea's form was good. Difficult to replace a keeper midway when performance of the team is crap. Cavani would have been in Ole's plans but sudden arrival of Ronaldo in the last week of Aug changed everything. It was too late for Cavani to leave and it resulted in us reneging on play time. Pogba and Lingard, I have nothing but hatred.
 
JPRouve said:
PSG were most definitely interested.
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I think there was interest but not sure they got to the stage where Pogba turned down a contract offer. Was maybe the fan backlash that scuppered that deal.

I think Pogba isn't toxic in the dressing room and I would guess he is the opposite and in fact quite popular. His injury concerns and lack of consistent tactical discipline put most off from doing a deal.
 
RaddyRed said:
I think there was interest but not sure they got to the stage where Pogba turned down a contract offer. Was maybe the fan backlash that scuppered that deal.

I think Pogba isn't toxic in the dressing room and I would guess he is the opposite and in fact quite popular. His injury concerns and lack of consistent tactical discipline put most off from doing a deal.
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He turned out a contract, there were no fans backlash. He had more than Juventus as an option.
 
Jeppers7 said:
Ridiculous take on Cavani. The guy dialled in a full season on full pay, made himself available for about 30% of our games and 85% of international games. Refused to play when the club considered him fit. The biggest disgrace of a mercenary to dump himself at United since DiMaria
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Worse than Alexis Sanchez? Come off it. He was a disgrace last season but he genuinely tried and dug us out of huge holes under Ole. It’s no excuse but I can also imagine he wasn’t too pleased that we conned him into signing a new contract at 34 just to buy Ronaldo.
 
RaddyRed said:
PSG fans made banners and sung anti Pogba songs.
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Not PSG fans, some PSG fans put some sheets outside of the stadium one day, they don't represent hundred of thousands of fans and there has never been any fans backlash. The only widespread negative point that I have seen among PSG fans was Pogba's injury proneness.
 
Down more to Ole than individuals to be honest.

Henderson and Lingard wanted to leave or be given more game time and he kept both and then didn't play them. We even had a very good offer for Lingard from West Ham given his contract situation.

Pogba should have gone years ago just on the basis he clearly didn't really want to stay and wasn't reliable on the pitch.

Cavan also had to be talked into staying and then we immediately signed Ronaldo so he was never going to play.

I wouldn't say the behaviour of the players doesn't deserve criticism, but in every case it could have been avoided by just managing them fairly, or at least not managing them like a clown. Which in each case would have just meant selling them or letting them leave rather than keep them and force them to be miserable.

It's also probably cost us 50m+ in missed transfer fees, and now we're busy quibbling over fractions of that amount when trying to sign players.
 
noodlehair said:
Down more to Ole than individuals to be honest.

Henderson and Lingard wanted to leave or be given more game time and he kept both and then didn't play them. We even had a very good offer for Lingard from West Ham given his contract situation.

Pogba should have gone years ago just on the basis he clearly didn't really want to stay and wasn't reliable on the pitch.

Cavan also had to be talked into staying and then we immediately signed Ronaldo so he was never going to play.

I wouldn't say the behaviour of the players doesn't deserve criticism, but in every case it could have been avoided by just managing them fairly, or at least not managing them like a clown. Which in each case would have just meant selling them or letting them leave rather than keep them and force them to be miserable
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Harsh but fair. We’re well rid of all of them but we should have moved them all on much earlier. Even ignoring the possibility we mistreated them the way they’ve been handled has cost the club an enormous amount of money in missed transfer fees.
 
noodlehair said:
Down more to Ole than individuals to be honest.

Henderson and Lingard wanted to leave or be given more game time and he kept both and then didn't play them. We even had a very good offer for Lingard from West Ham given his contract situation.

Pogba should have gone years ago just on the basis he clearly didn't really want to stay and wasn't reliable on the pitch.

Cavan also had to be talked into staying and then we immediately signed Ronaldo so he was never going to play.

I wouldn't say the behaviour of the players doesn't deserve criticism, but in every case it could have been avoided by just managing them fairly, or at least not managing them like a clown. Which in each case would have just meant selling them or letting them leave rather than keep them and force them to be miserable.

It's also probably cost us 50m+ in missed transfer fees, and now we're busy quibbling over fractions of that amount when trying to sign players.
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This.
 
noodlehair said:
Down more to Ole than individuals to be honest.

Henderson and Lingard wanted to leave or be given more game time and he kept both and then didn't play them. We even had a very good offer for Lingard from West Ham given his contract situation.

Pogba should have gone years ago just on the basis he clearly didn't really want to stay and wasn't reliable on the pitch.

Cavan also had to be talked into staying and then we immediately signed Ronaldo so he was never going to play.

I wouldn't say the behaviour of the players doesn't deserve criticism, but in every case it could have been avoided by just managing them fairly, or at least not managing them like a clown. Which in each case would have just meant selling them or letting them leave rather than keep them and force them to be miserable
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Indeed for all the players mentioned they have a good reason to be upset and also the club needed to let them go or fix the existing issues. At PSG Cavani had an issue with not starting as often as he thought he should and I suspect that it was his initial issue but Cavani started getting injured with PSG and the club(PSG) rightfully decided that they could and shouldn't trust him for the majority of games. It was a good gamble but selling him after the first season was the best approach.

Lingard and Henderson are PL starting caliber players, they may not be CL team starters but they are PL starters so it's strange that they would agree on being part time footballers, rumours say that the club kind of lied to them and made them believe that they would get more time than the manager intended to. Both of them should have been sold when both sides realized that they made a bad mistake.

For Pogba it's a bit more complicated, it seems that the club sold a project that it failed to build which will logically push a certain caliber of player out in pretty much all clubs not named Real Madrid, now since 2019 the club should have realized that Pogba's injuries weren't normal and that the prudent approach was to sell him because both parties would benefit from it, the club didn't and everyone soured.
 
JPRouve said:
Not PSG fans, some PSG fans put some sheets outside of the stadium one day, they don't represent hundred of thousands of fans and there has never been any fans backlash. The only widespread negative point that I have seen among PSG fans was Pogba's injury proneness.
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Lots of anti Pogba chants due to his parents Marseille links. Home and away. That's a good percentage of their fan base.

Anyway, will have to agree to disagree or we will go round in circles, like mist Pogba threads .
 
noodlehair said:
Down more to Ole than individuals to be honest.

Henderson and Lingard wanted to leave or be given more game time and he kept both and then didn't play them. We even had a very good offer for Lingard from West Ham given his contract situation.

Pogba should have gone years ago just on the basis he clearly didn't really want to stay and wasn't reliable on the pitch.

Cavan also had to be talked into staying and then we immediately signed Ronaldo so he was never going to play.

I wouldn't say the behaviour of the players doesn't deserve criticism, but in every case it could have been avoided by just managing them fairly, or at least not managing them like a clown. Which in each case would have just meant selling them or letting them leave rather than keep them and force them to be miserable. It's also probably cost us 50m+ in transfer fees.
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It is probably much more. Pogba should've been sold in 2019, Henderson in 2020 and Lingard in 2021.

If they were sold at those times, they could have brought in 100m at least.
 
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