How do you convince players who are enjoying a very comfortable living, to care about winning trophies again?

Enforcing a squad-wide performance-based contract system would be a good start. Offer the players juicy incentives like goals, assists, what have you, but significantly drop their weekly salary. This should be mandatory across Europe, in my opinion.

Make them earn their cash.
 
To be honest as someone who grew up watching 90s United, I don't recognise the United of this post Fergie era, in terms of the wages we pay and the transfers we make.

United were never the best paying club, even in England. That was Chelsea. Which was why they had the likes of Vialli, Gullit, Desailly, Casiraghi etc at their club.

90s United were always linked with the big names like Marcelo Salas, Zamorano, Batistuta, Kluivert (who eventually came to Newcastle on a big contract) etc but we never got them partly because the Italian and Spanish clubs paid them money we were never comfortable paying. Fergie himself was on less money than George Graham at one point (hello Martin Edwards!)

So Fergie did things differently. He got players who were less so called reputable and build a team that wanted to actually play for United and also win football matches.

I think paying the wrong players big wages is a huge reason why we're so inconsistent now. Some of these players can play, but they are also hard to manage and motivate. Martial's wage is close to or even more than Salah, I read. How did we even get to that when Martial has nowhere near matched Salah's numbers and performances? Rashford is on money that his performances have not justified for a couple of years now. About 3-4 years ago, Shaw had a good 3 months before we extended his contract and gave him a payrise. How is Juan Mata still at the club when he's done feck all the past couple of years. It's ridiculous.

Ole talked a lot about cultural reset. The reset that needs to happen starts with how we negotiate contracts.
 
Rooney on his final years at Man Utd. No wonder the club is fcked up.

"I remember once when I got to training the day after a loss, I was still so angry and went into the changing room with Michael Carrick. We found Jesse Lingard and Paul Pogba dancing to music." - Rooney on his final years at Man Utd.
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From this point on, stop rewarding mediocrity. If the likes of Shaw and Rashford receive new contracts on improved terms, it'll be clear that we have learned nothing.
 
Sadly you can't because as soon as you overpay a player...

• You can't sell him or give him away because other clubs can't afford his wages
• He doesn't need to perform at 100% because he knows he's getting paid top dollar.
• Other players around him think it's unfair that he's being paid more than them yet doesn't work as hard which impacts their performance and morale.
• He won't sign a new contact that includes a wage reduction or performance related clauses.

Which means... the club is stuck with players like that until their contract expires... and some clubs out there are sometimes silly enough to give that players a new contract :wenger:


The only thing a club can do is learn from it and make sure that in future...

• When signing a promising young player - he is not overpaid but instead get performance related bonuses and a wage increase each year etc.
• When signing a middle aged player from mid table teams - we don't pay him the wages of a World Cup winner, a wage increase each year with performance bonuses is fine.
• When signing any player - we should only need to pay him a small percentage more than his current team pay him.
• When signing players over 24 - pay attention to who their agent is... certain players are happy to employ agents who often use the media to undermine a manager.

You hear players say how they grew up dreaming of playing for Manchester United - so playing for us should be an honour for them, were they dreaming of playing for Manchester United because we'd pay them more than anyone else? I don't think so, we need players with the attitude of wanting to come here, improve, be the best they can be and win things, not the attitude of players who want to come here just to get paid handsomely... it would take years to get everyone in our squad who has the wrong attitude out of this club.

Many years ago... Paul Pogba thought he was better than he was... the way he and his camp treated this club was disrespectful... but we went and paid a stupid fee to bring him back... I hope we have learnt from that and don't sign players who are happy to use agents who they know try to undermine clubs.


M.U.G.A

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They need to be stimulated by producing a more competitive environment around them where they truly feel they can be replaced the moment they stop performing by someone eager to take an opportunity. The club also needs to know how to cut their losses and be quicker to move on players if they don't make it despite of how expensive they were. Having a more strict wage structure also helps, it makes easier to move on players. Manchester United is a big and popular club so there's still plenty of players who would like to get an opportunity, is just a matter of having a stable project and having higher standards.
 
Ahmer Baig said:
Rooney on his final years at Man Utd. No wonder the club is fcked up.
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You could say that - but IIRC Rooney wasn't using that episode to illustrate how bad things were at United specifically. In fact, he wasn't actually having a go at Pogba and Lingard - who accepted the fact that he (as a senior player, with an old school mentality) didn't approve of them dancing and whatnot.

His point was that modern players have a different mindset when it comes to certain things - which means they have to be handled differently.

In short, I doubt Rooney is giving his players (at Derby) the "send Keano in to break their legs" treatment many of our fans seem to advocate. If he'll turn out to be a genuinely top manager (which some think), that'll probably be one of the reasons, i.e. that he's not stuck in the past, insisting on methods that worked a couple of decades ago.
 
jem said:
From this point on, stop rewarding mediocrity. If the likes of Shaw and Rashford receive new contracts on improved terms, it'll be clear that we have learned nothing.
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Exactly, their current contracts should not even be matched, no one else would pay it should we decide to sell. Offer them reduced contracts and if they don't accept then their agents can shop around and see who offers them better. This also applies to Pogba( he might get get it from PSG but they are just as reckless at spending as our board) and De gea, no mattter how good he is currently playing he should be offered far less than he is currently on, simply because no one else would pay him that much.

I don't know about offering performance based contracts, although I also don't think United's current contract practice would significantly differ from other club's own on that metric. I believe the issue is the board or whoever made payment decisions over the past decade seem to be incompetent at evaluating a player's market rate or value as at the time of contract extensions. I don't know if this makes sense but what am saying is, it's not really the way the contract is structured that's the issue ( it wouldn't be significantly different from industry standard in that sense) but more the valuation placed on the player and contract not matching with market reality.

It's like the wage budget is too big and is evidently our main competitive advantage in recruiting and keeping players, so we've neglected due diligence or rather undertaking inaccurate ones. I know there are outliers such as De gea when Madrid were hot on his chase and we had to make a significant offer to keep him but still it shouldn't have been as much as it was because no one was going to pay him that much and he would have been willing to accept far less to stay.

Overall I agree with several posters that to move the club forward, the vision probably has to come from the top (hopefully Murtourgh) deciding what style of play he wants for the team, what type of players we would need to achieve this and identify what type of managers can best deliver this vision. And then when discussing renumeration for potential and existing players it should never be above the market rate (as in what the player can get if shopped around by agents) for the profile of said player.

There would be instances where the recruitment or retainment of a player would be crucial for the evolution of the playing staff personnel or to complete a significant role in the team, if the timeline is such that there are no available alternatives of the same quality in the market and there is significant competition for such player, then the wage demand of the player should be compared with existing limits of the highest earner in the playing squad and offers I think should never be more than 20-30% of that limit and if the player is unwilling to accept that leave him be. Basically just be like Bayern.

If the speculated wages of our players from the press are correct and Woodward was the one in charge of contracts before, then it's a bit surprising an account can't accurately extimate the market price of an asset unless of course he is profiling them wrongly.
 
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Ahmer Baig said:
Rooney on his final years at Man Utd. No wonder the club is fcked up.
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Is that Paul Pogba, the world cup winner dancing to music??

What's that got to do with anything?! :lol:
 
Why does everyone assume we were paying players peanuts under Sir Alex??

United have has a history of paying high wages and it's always been the case.

The way to make players want to win is by getting that first trophy, once they get the first you then introduce new blood and competition to the team, which should drive the players forward to want more.

But it's been said already in this thread, our current squad just isn't good enough to win that trophy yet.
 
I would not say that this is an United situation.

Yes, the wages the club pays are over the top but, big picture wise, the amounts of money that top footballers make are obscene and whether they get paid 20 or 30% more hardly changes that.

The point that I am trying to make is that top footballers at all clubs are set for life and their motivation to perform does not come from money yet, players in nearly all top clubs are motivated to win things, with United and PSG being notable exceptions.

Which brings us down to the culture of the club. If I would wager a guess, the issue are problematic personalities in the dressing room. From the limited information we get as outsiders, it seems that the problems in particular are Pogba and Neymar.
 
I think only Pep and Klopp, maybe Simeone? will come into the club with that fear factor. Where if you don't work hard, you don't play and if you sulk, you are gone. Thought Jose would have had a similar impact but he chose to play bossman through the media.

Would have included Tuchel in the list but he did give Lukaku a run of games after the interview fiasco to prove himself and if he had scored often he probably will still be playing.

Best hope is Pep and Klopp leave and they replace them with managers with no clout and everyone is at a similar level.
 
Hound Dog said:
I would not say that this is an United situation.

Yes, the wages the club pays are over the top but, big picture wise, the amounts of money that top footballers make are obscene and whether they get paid 20 or 30% more hardly changes that.

The point that I am trying to make is that top footballers at all clubs are set for life and their motivation to perform does not come from money yet, players in nearly all top clubs are motivated to win things, with United and PSG being notable exceptions.

Which brings us down to the culture of the club. If I would wager a guess, the issue are problematic personalities in the dressing room. From the limited information we get as outsiders, it seems that the problems in particular are Pogba and Neymar.
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What makes United and PSG notable exceptions? PSG have won plenty and United haven't won plenty because they are far from having the a top team.
 
JPRouve said:
What makes United and PSG notable exceptions? PSG have won plenty and United haven't won plenty because they are far from having the a top team.
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In fairness, given the relative strengths of the leagues and PSG's financial stranglehold over Ligue 1 it's WAY easier for them to win trophies than for united.
 
Actually, the solution is that we sign players with the desire to win. The man city model when they were rewarding players with high contracts. How comes their club is so competitive even after initially they threw money at players? It's because they weeded out the lazy asses and got footballing men
 
Greyfog said:
I think only Pep and Klopp, maybe Simeone? will come into the club with that fear factor. Where if you don't work hard, you don't play and if you sulk, you are gone. Thought Jose would have had a similar impact but he chose to play bossman through the media.

Would have included Tuchel in the list but he did give Lukaku a run of games after the interview fiasco to prove himself and if he had scored often he probably will still be playing.

Best hope is Pep and Klopp leave and they replace them with managers with no clout and everyone is at a similar level.
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United could have taken the policy of anyone undermining the coach leaves ages ago. They didn't need to bring in a 'scary' coach to achieve this.

Instead the club has actively contradicted coaches decisions over players, allowed disrespectful behaviour to go unpunished and created a culture where players can get away with half ar$ing.

People say bring in Simeone. But what happens if he comes and he says you gotta get rid of a Player FC favourite who's driving a lot of social media interaction. The club was at pains to stress it wanted Martial and Van de Beek back after they were loaned out. Why would they change that attitude?

If you have a manager saying X player can leave and the club saying actually nah, we won't respect your judgement on this player, what message does that send to the squad? If you want players to believe their futures at the club depend on the manager lots has to change. Right now players know they can be dog$#!+ and get new contracts 'to protect value'. There's no fear of the coach (or anyone else!)
 
The only way we could reign it in is to have paybands. Age up to 22 max £100,000 23-25 £160,000, 25-28 £220,000 28=32 £280,000 max then a tail off if kept on after. These figures can be anything of course and as the seasons move on can be slightly increased.
Then add an achievable team bonus to this, for winning a game, scoring more than 3 goals a game, 4 goals etc Clean sheets, winning a trophy etc.
This way there is an ongoing reward for hard work and teamwork.
 
JPRouve said:
What makes United and PSG notable exceptions? PSG have won plenty and United haven't won plenty because they are far from having the a top team.
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It is not about winning as an absolute it is about what the clubs got for the money invested. PSG dropped Ligue 1 twice when they should be walking it while United make the CL only a half of the time. So, I am not saying that United should win loads, I am saying they should be doing better given the money spent.
 
There needs to be a wage cap at the club.
No one should be on over £200k a week, and that’s only if they’ve got obvious world class talent, which currently no one at our club qualifies for. If and when they win things they can talk about new contracts and pay rises. Until then your focus is to win things. If you don’t win anything during your 5 year contract, you’re sold at the end of it. Simple as that. No more brands, no more using United as a platform to launch a business, you want to do that then you give up your playing time.
 
Pickle85 said:
In fairness, given the relative strengths of the leagues and PSG's financial stranglehold over Ligue 1 it's WAY easier for them to win trophies than for united.
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That's not the point, it's not about how easy it may be to win or not. Winning Bundesliga or Serie A with Bayern and Juventus has been easier and I don't see anyone consider that their players aren't motivated to win. People don't make that point about Ajax or Celtic who are significantly wealthier than the competiton.

In all honesty the entire thing is suspect. Why United fans think that their players are special creatures that aren't as competitive as the average athlete or who think that they are themselves better competitors/have more character is a mystery it's as weird as it gets.
 
JPRouve said:
That's not the point, it's not about how easy it may be to win or not. Winning Bundesliga or Serie A with Bayern and Juventus has been easier and I don't see anyone consider that their players aren't motivated to win. People don't make that point about Ajax or Celtic who are significantly wealthier than the competiton.

In all honesty the entire thing is suspect. Why United fans think that their players are special creatures that aren't as competitive as the average athlete or who think that they are themselves better competitors/have more character is a mystery it's as weird as it gets.
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Ah sorry, I misunderstood. Agree with your second paragraph, broadly. I do think we have a few 'bad apples' but our problem is more with the quality of what we have. Better sides are better equipped to carry players that coast a little more.
 
Its simple really, stop offering stupid money to average players.

We are paying out some of the biggest wages to average squad players. We're about to finish high end of mid table so offer mid table value renewals, 300k? Na you played at a 70k level. We'll probably have a few players walk away but i can honestly count on one hand the number of players in this squad I'd be sorry to see go.

Couple that with a strong manager who dictates how things need to be done (see Conte interview about winning and attitude) then we'll be on the right path.

However what's going to happen is marcus will get a bumber pay rise despite the fact he's playing like prime bebe. Why? Because he's home grown, he's a good lad, he's upset some fans said some bad words to him..... Then we can never get rid if we need to, look at Jesse, should've been gone 10 times over, choose to stay as no one will match that £.

The club is rotten to the core, almost to the level where i don't even care anymore...... Almost
 
I think we do need to implement a very strict wage structure. Since Keane got his big contract in the early 2000’s and Rooney around 2010 it’s got progressively worse.

What does that mean? It means that if Bruno won’t resign this summer to extend his contract on an appropriate wage then instead of holding us hostage we look to sell him either this summer or next summer.

We’ve given in on far too many negotiations over the years and only recently we’ve read about a possible Luke Shaw extension and pay rise. In no way does he deserve either currently. He had his best season last year but his current deal has 1 year left with an option to extend another season. We should tell Shaw to show us you deserve a new contract next season, sell him this summer, or activate the extension and sell him with one year left. He doesn’t have any better offers than Man Utd.

Allowing Pogba to leave and maybe moving on from De Gea could be a good chance for wage reset. It’s worth remembering there was talk of unrest because of Alexis’ wages.
 
Relevated said:
Actually, the solution is that we sign players with the desire to win. The man city model when they were rewarding players with high contracts. How comes their club is so competitive even after initially they threw money at players? It's because they weeded out the lazy asses and got footballing men
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They were prepared to take the financial hit by moving players on at a loss or probably subsidising their wages. We have to do that. If we have to pay half of Martials wages for a couple years so be it.
 
One of the things with negotiating new deals should be comparables across the league. So when Rashford comes knocking you look at someone else who’s scored an average of 10 PL goals a season in terms of their wages. You don’t get paid like Mo Salah or Harry Kane because you produce 1/3 of their output. You get paid like Danny Ings cos that’s your level.
 
Hound Dog said:
It is not about winning as an absolute it is about what the clubs got for the money invested. PSG dropped Ligue 1 twice when they should be walking it while United make the CL only a half of the time. So, I am not saying that United should win loads, I am saying they should be doing better given the money spent.
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Which has nothing to do with wanting to win or not, United do not have and haven't had a group of player that guarantees or should guarantee a place among the 4 best teams in the PL, it's as simple as that. And PSG lost to teams that performed as well if not better against every other teams, it had nothing to with motivation. It's not as if the competition was playing poorly.

And money invested guarantees nothing, it's terrible indicator because in this context it assumes that the players are worth their prices. When you purchase Fred or Paredes for +50m you are a mug and are never going to get that value on the pitch, the same applies to Andy Carroll and his big transfer.

The reality of United is that in that since SAF retired the team has never had one of the top 5-10 manager, not once. And more importantly outside of De Gea, they haven't had a bonafide world class player in his prime. United have consistently been an EL team on the verge of CL football. Why?

Our best defenders have mainly been Maguire and Smalling, our best CM has been in inconsistent Pogba but our most common midfield a combination of Fred and McTominay, we haven't had a single world class wide player nor striker. And it's not due to motivation or money, we didn't bring players that would guarantee that kind of level.
 
For me it's mainly down to two things.
1. Rewarding underperforming players with monstrous contracts (Martial, Sanchez, De Gea, Ronaldo etc.).
2. Spending 80m on a very average Maguire, making him the captain almost instantly and then letting him start every game he's fit regardless of his performances.
 
JPRouve said:
Which has nothing to do with wanting to win or not, United do not have and haven't had a group of player that guarantees or should guarantee a place among the 4 best teams in the PL, it's as simple as that. And PSG lost to teams that performed as well if not better against every other teams, it had nothing to with motivation. It's not as if the competition was playing poorly.

And money invested guarantees nothing, it's terrible indicator because in this context it assumes that the players are worth their prices. When you purchase Fred or Paredes for +50m you are a mug and are never going to get that value on the pitch, the same applies to Andy Carroll and his big transfer.

The reality of United is that in that since SAF retired the team has never had one of the top 5-10 manager, not once. And more importantly outside of De Gea, they haven't had a bonafide world class player in his prime. United have consistently been an EL team on the verge of CL football. Why?

Our best defenders have mainly been Maguire and Smalling, our best CM has been in inconsistent Pogba but our most common midfield a combination of Fred and McTominay, we haven't had a single world class wide player nor striker. And it's not due to motivation or money, we didn't bring players that would guarantee that kind of level.
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We simply disagree. My opinion is that the squad was never enough to compete for the biggest prizes, but I do thinkit was good enough for top4, constantly since 2014. While I do agree that the quality of the players is a part of the problem I also think that the motivation of the players is another piece of the overall problem and this is what this thread is about.
 
Hound Dog said:
We simply disagree. My opinion is that the squad was never enough to compete for the biggest prizes, but I do thinkit was good enough for top4, constantly since 2014. While I do agree that the quality of the players is a part of the problem I also think that the motivation of the players is another piece of the overall problem and this is what this thread is about.
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So in your opinion each year only 4 teams have had the squad to compete for top 4 since 2014?
 
Hound Dog said:
No, but I think that United should have made top 4 more than half of the time since then. 6 out of 8, say.
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Why? Because that's not based on the quality of players or managers compared to the other teams competing for those 4 spots

Since 2014, City, Liverpool and Chelsea have mainly had 3 of the better teams/managers and then you have depending on the seasons Arsenal, United and Liverpool. Outside of the club's name leading one to put it in the top 4, United have been an EL club, with EL players and managers. Our issue hasn't been that we underachieved due to players not wanting to win, we simply have had inferior players and managers.
 
Relevated said:
You seriously don't understand that?
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No,

I am asking why a world cup winner who has many titles to his name, dancing in a changing room has anything to do with this thread?
 
Ahmer Baig said:
Rooney on his final years at Man Utd. No wonder the club is fcked up.
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There is the exact same scenario in the movie Moneyball. Brad Pitt being the sporting director is walking in the dressing room and smashing the fecking music player.

We are fecked with this kind of players. Any good manager will get ride of them. Mourinho was right. The board should have sacked both him and Pogba.
 
Champ said:
No,

I am asking why a world cup winner who has many titles to his name, dancing in a changing room has anything to do with this thread?
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Because this « world cup winner » is not a winner and doesn’t care about winning. He was carried in this French team, every French knows it. He sprends loosing mentality by not carrying about winning or not as long as they have their paycheck. Mourinho was right, he was a parasite. A parasite can reckon one of his own after all.
 
I remember Olympic athletes saying that the 'extra 1%' which makes them compete for medals is mental, and that the other 99.9999% of the human race don't have that mentality to win. I imagine having a salary bigger than most other footballers, plus the culture at the club which filters from the owners (basically the goal is to make them money, not win anything) has eroded anything mental which would bridge that last %. Basically the owners need to go before this happens.
 
Champ said:
Is that Paul Pogba, the world cup winner dancing to music??

What's that got to do with anything?! :lol:
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Winning a World Cup say less about a player then performing every week for his club. Consistency is the most important thing and Pogba has none.
Ronaldo and Messi never won a World Cup. They were the best because they were consistent, scoring 50 goals a season all along their careers, and hated loosing.
Ferguson instilled this hating to lose mentality in his players and this club. We were carried by strong personalities who hated to lose.

Now we have jokers of players who only cares about the last clip and gold chain with their name on it.
Every good and professional player walking into this dressing room must feel depressed. Poor Varane…the guy won 4 champions league, one World Cup and he is walking into this joke of a dressing room.
 
Honestly i dont think its that complicated. You get a manager who sets a standard and winning target. You give him a good structure to make sure we buy well. The manager will bench players who dont preform well, and play their replacement.

Our issue is that our second string is nowhere near good enough, so we have to keep playing and paying players who are underperforming. And our transfers haven't really provided equal-abled replacements.

Once players become dispensable, then they either perform or they sit out. Having said all that, a strict wage structure is necessary, but to attract players in that case, we would need a manager players want to play for, and to be competing for top prizes. If we dont win and we dont pay, we cant attract the right players.
 
Simple ie a high staff turnover.. Being associated with a huge club like Manchester United pays big time. Can you imagine the JLingz brand name thriving with Burnley? Players need to know that if they are not up for scraps then they would be easily shown the door and replaced
 
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