How much do 'vibes' matter? And is Ruben too negative?

SparkedIntoLife said:
I've long admired the regular match goers at United for their steadfastness in supporting the team despite tough circumstances. That stoicism seems to be eroding at a faster rate at the moment. The booing of Zirkzee highlighted that. It feels like there's a rise of toxicity at Old Trafford. The Glazers have seemingly been replaced by INEOS as the evil overlord villains as initial optimism about their partial takeover has been quelled by price hikes, job cuts, some poor footballing decisions and rhetoric that doesn't jive with the socialist, working class culture of Manchester.

Ralf Rangnick's interim spell at United was a disaster on the pitch. Yet he tickled the ears of dissatisfied fans with words of revolution such as 'open heart surgery'. The players were totally zapped of belief but it didn't matter to many fans; they were shite anyway and would be replaced in the revolution. Anthony Elanga was an early face of the revolution - hard working, humble but actually quite average. Rashford (and Ronaldo to a lesser extent) was an early scapegoat.

ETH came in and sent Ralf packing. He established a lot of control in terms of transfer choices, the footballing structure, oversight of the Under 21s etc. Yet his tone was different. He reminded us that these players had finished second only a year before. He claimed that Rashford was world class. He spoke positively about evolution and not revolution. What happened that season? We finished third and won the Carabao Cup. Rashford scored 30 goals. He didn't commit to the Ajax free flowing style he was recruited for. He played a slightly more possession based version of the counter attack that suited us under Ole.

Many of us suspected that season's success was a veneer and that major cracks were being covered up. The bold thing to do would've been to sell Rashford, Fernandes and Casemiro for decent money and commit to the style that got ETH to the job. He did make big changes in that second season but they were weird compromised ones, still trying to shore horn in players that didn't suit his overall philosophy. The writing was on the wall from there but negativity was muted somewhat by the emergence of Mainoo and development of Garnacho.

Ruben Amorim came in with charm, conviction and charisma. He aligned with what I consider the real aspects of United DNA - giving youth a chance and attacking football, not systems or formations.

He's come in to find a club that's probably further away from where he wants us to be than he expected. Media noise, INEOS fuelling negativity in their financial decisions and the busy Christmas period haven't helped Ruben. Yet two months later, he is coming off more and more negative. The results have been poor but most of us excuse them because we like the manager, like his vision and know that the club is in a mess and reaping the consequences of years of bad decisions from the top down. It would be disingenuous for Ruben to be super positive, ignoring the bad results/performances and I'm certainly not wanting him to abandon his principles or system.

I just wonder whether the negativity has gone too far. Do we not need our figurehead to talk up the club's potential a bit more? Sporting fans have said that Amorim can look very pained on the sidelines, even when things were going great. But is the morose body language hurting us a bit when the club feels so negative already? And why hasn't any of our youngsters gotten involved when the current lot have been performing so badly and there's huge gaps in the squad? Are they far from ready, not good enough or being protected? Protected from what?

I think we're better than we're showing. Do we need a revolution? Of course but we're in freefall atm, players already low resale values are crashing and the mood at OT is poor. Surely there's got to be more positivity beyond 'Amorim is the saviour'.

For the record, I think we have the right guy at the wrong time. I am concerned, though, at the power he wields, the 'saviour' narrative that's forming and the leadership vacuum from top. We kept Andreas Georgsen who is allegedly one of the best set pieces coaches in the world (he preceded Joper at both Brentford and Arsenal and only left Arsenal for a managerial opportunity). For me, his marginalisation is a bigger, more worrying story than it's being made out to be. Wilcox seemingly insisted he stays. Wilcox got his wishes. But if he's being marginalised, then Wilcox didn't get his wishes. While we definitely need a strong Head Coach who will stick to his convictions, I'm wary of the Head Coach who is overly parochial in his mindset and doesn't work well within the footballing structure, especially when so young and relatively inexperienced.

Ultimately, in hindsight, should we have just gone full Vibes FC with Ruud til the end of the season and then bring in Amorim in a position of strength with some resale value on players he wanted to ditch, some PSR wiggle room and more of a clean slate? Is this yet another terrible miscalculation from INEOS? Have we sucked Amorim into the negativity vortex? Does he need to be a little more flexible? And a bit more 'fake it to you make it' with some positive affirmation before then really kicking ass and clearing house? I'm not talking formation/style compromise but at least general discourse and demeanour?
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Rangnick was correct in his assesment. But cliche as it may be you cant sack 11 players at one go.

He can't continue his job when he demonized (rightly) 80% of the squad. They won't play for him and will make his life difficult, and wont bear any results.

Digruntled employee is one thing, disgruntled 80% employee is another.

But i think the management sees that and take action, starting by unceremoniously axing Rashford who they probably deemed as the rotten apple
 
SparkedIntoLife said:
Do we need a revolution?
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The short answer to a very lengthy OP can be summarized by saying “yes” to this. Vibes only get you so far, we’ve tried it with Ole and those kind of things don’t give you long-term success unless you have a healthy football organization and great squad (a bit like Real Madrid of the past decade where vibes were more important than anything else).

But, unlike that first spell with Ole, we don’t even have an extremely talented squad with players like Pogba, De Gea, Martial or a younger Bruno & Rashford that could provide world class performances when properly motivated, the squad is absolutely average even on its best day with our brightest potential stars being way too young and inexperienced or long past it. And when the vibes inevitably evaporate (and they will unless you keep winning week after week which isn’t sustainable on vibes alone), you’re left with spoiled and unprofessional players who aren’t capable of handling the pressure and don’t have an established system to fall back onto.
 
Granted I didn’t see the Newcastle press conference but I don’t find Amorim negative at all.

From David Moyes saying we should aspire to be at the level of City, a CL winner Jose calling finishing 2nd his biggest achievement, Ragnick saying all our players are shit… I think Amorim is a very positive and pleasant individual.

He says he will fix everything including the leak. Says we will see improvements from day 1. Wants to play attacking football even when we are struggling at 14th. Why is he suddenly a negative manager?
 
What he should do is be really positive and tell everyone what a great job they’re doing and that we’re exactly where we want to be, 0 improvement needed
 
lex talionis said:
What we should have done is sack ETH at the end of last season, then bring in Amorim…or whoever the best available manager at the time would have been.

But if that’s too obvious and we’re talking about what to do right after the November sack of ETH, in retrospect we should have stuck with Ruud for the rest of the season. We have too many prima donnas for Ruben’s system to work. I really like Ruben and support what he’s trying to do, but I fear he’s been put into an impossible situation and may find himself sacked in a month or two as our situation continues to deteriorate because of these effing prima donnas.
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There was a report that United were offered Amorim in the summer when they were considering other managers like De Zerbi, Tuchel, McKenna (etc), but decided against him because his style wouldn’t fit the players we had. If true, then it begs the question why we hired Amorim because if he didn’t fit then, why would he fit now? ‍ :confused:

Personally we should have stuck with Ruud for the rest of the season while researching the best managers around and deciding the best route for the team going forwards (ie how do we want to play). Yes, it runs the risk someone else will appoint Amorim in the meantime, but there would be other managers available and who’s to say Amorim’s philosophy and style would have been the best fit anyway?

For me, Amorim’s appointment seemed like certain individuals panicked to make a quick appointment that showed “ambition”, despite clear question marks over his fit with the existing squad and apparently deciding against him in the summer.
 
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BeretWearingEnt said:
Vibes don’t sustain success, a culture of accountability and a growth mindset are the main requirements for a high performing team in any industry
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Agree with this wholeheartedly, vibes is supposed to be a byproduct of success, not the pre-requisite, being successful will lead to positive vibes.

For far too long, we had a culture that tolarated mediocrity, which translated to having a group of player that have no qualms of performing poorly week in week out, without any consequences from the club, during SAF era, there was this ruthless edge to the club, probably driven by SAF personally, that ruthless edge prevented the club from keeping shit players, we remember that he likes of Bebe, Obertan l, Diof, etc didn't last too long and were sent packing, since then, we see the likes of Martial, Rashford, Bruno, Shaw Lindelof, DDG, etc ... Not only stay for long years but get extensions and pay rises, some of them are the highest paid in the world, this has to change somehow and the players have to know this is the worst of the worst and the situation must change, they either have to perform and deliver or be labeled shit and relegation contenders, they can no longer hide behind managers or tactics, Zirkzee being jeered and booed should signal the start of match going fans turning on players.
 
I want a manager (or head coach) that's honest about team performances and doesn't try to gaslight the fans. One of the things that really annoyed me about Ten Hag was the team could have served up the biggest pile of shite football, and he'd come out and say we played well or we controlled the game when we patently hadn't! He either thought the fans were blind or stupid, or he genuinely believed in what he was saying which made fans doubt he even knew what he was doing!

I think the biggest culprit for negative "vibes" or negative energy around the club is that mean miserable bastard Ratcliffe and his penny pinching which only serves to hurt matchgoing fans, ordinary low paid staff and former players in need of financial support, the savings from which probably wouldn't cover Luke Shaw's quarterly salary.
 
I’ve watched the interview with Sky Sports released today where he talks more about his feelings on the current state of the squad and his feelings for the future. It was really good and well balanced.

I think I just need to accept that this manager wears his heart on his sleeve but generally he believes in himself, believes in the elements he has to work with but yes, it will be a slog. That’s totally fair enough.

I suspect he’s been a bit overwhelmed by all the media commitments and finds it hard to be positive when he has to do a press conference straight after a crushing defeat.

In fairness, we see similar from Guardiola who can seem incredibly morose and downbeat when things don’t go City’s way. I suppose I’m conditioned to Ten Hag and Solskjaer in recent times who seemed almost unerringly positive… and look where they ended up.
 
If the players aren't onside they should be moved on, they're so weak mentally and afraid of a bit of hard work despite their massive salaries

Most of the few who do work hard aren't good enough

There is far too much player power at this club and has been for far too long. None of this current rabble can justify they are bigger than the club

If RA can address this i fully support him. The decision to keep ETH was absolutely appalling i said before the FA cup we could win 10-0 and I'd still sack him because the rest of the season was so dire. And not only did we keep him, we backed him to sign more dross. Great decision!
 
I was thinking the same thing after watching part 2 of pre match interview yesterday.
He came across quite negative and I was wondering how the heck is he going to win matches if he is so negative.
What got me was when he said we were only better in the 2nd half against Newcastle because they Newcastle dropped off in the 2nd half.
I don’t care how bad we are, we shouldn't be losing to Forest,Bournemouth and Newcastle at home without putting up a fight.
He needs to win games and needs to lift the players if he doesn’t he will be sacked
Football is about confidence and being right mentaliy as well.
The manager jobs is not just about tactics and formations he needs to get the confidence and mentality of the players right as well.
 
He's certainly as negative as Mourinho, and perhaps as negative as us possible against the bigger teams. Its more understandable than with Mourinho because of where we are in the table and the likelyhood of the better teams outscoing us by a mile if we try too hard to attack and leave ourselves open. We always end up conceding though and if you set out to just defend and not attack, its very hard to suddenly start attacking well to get the goals to get points from the match. I dont like it, but other managers (like Mourinho) would do it and it is understandable. But for me personally I think its more than points that are on the line. And when we set up like this we lose hope as well as points.
 
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