Is dropping out of the CL now, in greater context, a bad thing?

Beachryan

More helpful with spreadsheets than Phurry
Joined
May 13, 2010
Messages
12,326
This isn't a glass half-full post or silver lining because the mistakes we're making are an absolute joke and deserve highlighting, but given where we are in this squad's cycle, I'm reasonably calm about the CL exit. For 3 reasons:
1. We're not going to win the thing. We're simply not ready. No shame in that, but we are, in my honest opinion, far worse than any team to fluke a CL win in modern memory. We lack coherence, mentality and control. Best case, we get a lucky draw and make it one more round before facing a real team. Oh, and ETH's record against big clubs in England is almost the worst of any active manager.

2. There are two main things holding this team back, the first being injuries. Not having midweek matches for the second half of the season should enable big, important players like Martinez and Casemiro to come back, get into a good rhythm and not immediately overtax themselves. Further, it should let Hojland, Garnacho and Mainoo ease into the first XI as they're still ridiculously young.

3. The other big thing holding us back is coaching and structure. We are a team completely bereft of control. Our central midfield duo completed 38 passes last night. Carrick used to, by himself, complete 2.5x that, every match. And he's no Xavi/Scholes. By all accounts ETH is a 'coach' before anything else, if we give him back midweeks to actually coach these players, maybe we can finally see something come out of it. Last season we literally had 0 midweeks off for coaching, and had the most packed schedule in recent memory. It was match, recover, match, recover - there was no time for actual development, and I think it shows. If we want to truly evaluate ETH on his coaching, we have to give him time to coach the players.

This of course assumes we miss out on the Europa (please, please miss out) and that the financial impact doesn't matter because of the new structure. But again, I don't believe we'd be sticking around in the CL much longer this season regardless.

If ETH gets midweeks back, gets his squad fit and then we STILL don't look like a team moving forward, it's also not a bad thing in a way, because that will answer the ETH question too.
 
Beachryan said:
This isn't a glass half-full post or silver lining because the mistakes we're making are an absolute joke and deserve highlighting, but given where we are in this squad's cycle, I'm reasonably calm about the CL exit. For 3 reasons:
1. We're not going to win the thing. We're simply not ready. No shame in that, but we are, in my honest opinion, far worse than any team to fluke a CL win in modern memory. We lack coherence, mentality and control. Best case, we get a lucky draw and make it one more round before facing a real team. Oh, and ETH's record against big clubs in England is almost the worst of any active manager.

2. There are two main things holding this team back, the first being injuries. Not having midweek matches for the second half of the season should enable big, important players like Martinez and Casemiro to come back, get into a good rhythm and not immediately overtax themselves. Further, it should let Hojland, Garnacho and Mainoo ease into the first XI as they're still ridiculously young.

3. The other big thing holding us back is coaching and structure. We are a team completely bereft of control. Our central midfield duo completed 38 passes last night. Carrick used to, by himself, complete 2.5x that, every match. And he's no Xavi/Scholes. By all accounts ETH is a 'coach' before anything else, if we give him back midweeks to actually coach these players, maybe we can finally see something come out of it. Last season we literally had 0 midweeks off for coaching, and had the most packed schedule in recent memory. It was match, recover, match, recover - there was no time for actual development, and I think it shows. If we want to truly evaluate ETH on his coaching, we have to give him time to coach the players.

This of course assumes we miss out on the Europa (please, please miss out) and that the financial impact doesn't matter because of the new structure. But again, I don't believe we'd be sticking around in the CL much longer this season regardless.

If ETH gets midweeks back, gets his squad fit and then we STILL don't look like a team moving forward, it's also not a bad thing in a way, because that will answer the ETH question too.
Click to expand...

1. Doesn't matter if we win or not, it matters to get as far as possible, our young players need CL experience and we are Man Utd we should play in the CL later stages every year.

2. We will get better by playing actual matches not by spending 1 week in training, I just don't buy into that. If Casemiro and Martinez are not fit, they shouldn't play, it's easy. How can not playing benefit us to anything? It's not like we are in the title race and we can't take any risks.

3. Last night is not relevant in terms of midfield involvement(not that in other games our midfielders are too involved) because both teams opened up and played on the front foot for most of the game scrapping the build up play in order to win.

I don't understand why would we want to miss out on Europe, what are we playing for in the League? Why is top 4 important? We are not winning the PL either should we just take a vacation of 3-4 years until we've trained enough?
 
If you don't think it's a big deal, then you also shouldn't have been wanking over qualifying for it last season.
 
It’s bad for the club. We fight all year for a top 4 spot and chance to play CL football to go out straight away. Pointless
 
Had this conversation in another group too. Generally, I think, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to drop out of CL (and for me personally, out of EL as well). This only applies though, if some things are made sure of:

- don't want to go into yes or no for ETH but when CL or EL are important for him to stay, then of course, try to achieve it.
- young players have to get regular game time, game time for specific squad members without a future has to be restricted
- it can't mess with our transfer dealings, if our main target for this or that position only wants to come when CL is a given, then try to achieve it
- time saved has to used to implement stuff on the training pitch

I don't know what can be achieved in terms of training and implementing stuff while competitions are ongoing. But I am sure that it is next to impossibe to do as long as we have so many games in midweek. I also don't know if ETH is the man to get it done but I think, we have to make a step on the training pitch not just adding players. Working together as a team means you need to be organized and stuff has to be drilled in. I don't see that with our team at all - if it is possible to do in training, I am happy to give up on CL. We are not going to win anyways, don't see a point in flukey results or maybe getting banged by an in-form team. Same goes more or less for EL, nothing really to win there - if you win it, people will say we should have won because of the spending, if we don't win it, more or less people will talk about an embarassment.
 
The way we’ve lost out, yes it is.

it might not be a bad thing for our league finish.. but the whole point of the highest finish in the league.. is to play in the champions league. All that hard work for nothing if we bottle it like we do.
 
It is a bad thing. The only way to progress and have any chance to win this darned competition is through experience and you only get that by playing more CL matches. Look how long it took City to win it. Playing in the CL requires a different mentality and you get better at winning more matches the more you play. Our players have very little experience of this and it's no wonder we're out yet again.
 
As long as we don’t go the Europa League as well. Have more time during the week to train more instead of traveling all over Europe.
 
Yes it’s a bad thing. I’d rather be in the CL than concentrating on fighting to get in it again. What’s the point of even qualifying for it otherwise? Not to mention the lost experiences of the players and fans, the revenue we miss out on, the future difficulty of attracting top players. It’s all around depressing and awful. But hey, at least we can concentrate on getting top four again so we can repeat the process next season.
 
Man Utd has literally had players die in pursuit of the European Cup. Humiliation in Europe has no wider context. It's a disgrace to the club's legacy and everything it stands for.

We will get what we deserve. Nothing more, nothing less. However, there's no pretending it isn't a complete catastrophe.

These players will have to suck it up and do it better to make up for it.
 
This is why I never got the thinking of making it into the top 4 is the be all and end all. Why signings are deemed good because they helped achieve this short term goal at the expense of a long term structure. We were never going to win it, so it was just a case of being in the competition to be in it. It's been a decade plus of this. And when we inevitably get knocked out, it then becomes about qualifying for it again even though we know we'll be a nonentity again. Rinse and repeat.

To truly get over this hump, we need to look past just getting into the top 4 to be in it. Our full concentration needs to be on building a team that can compete long term. If, by doing so, we miss out on Europe for a season or two like a Liverpool or Arsenal did, so be it. At least by the time we're next in it we might do something.
 
Regresses the achievement of the previous season, if you don't qualify for the group it's just as viable as finishing 5th last season. So it undermines the managers credibility.
 
To go out in such embarrassing fashion isn't a positive. You might say we're not ready to compete in the latter stages anyway and so going out of Europe altogether will reduce our fixtures and help us in domestic competition, but the likelihood is we'll falter in those in a similar manner too.
 
I feel like we just have to accept the situation we are (likely) in. ETH was backed to a decent level, many of the players are on the younger side, so let's see what he can do as players are now coming back and the injury crisis is a bit better - I see no point sacking him now, even more so because we're in constant limbo on Sir Jim, but he has only to fix the midfield setup in my opinion before we see vastly better performances. Maybe Mainoo can be the catalyst for that.

ETH has to stick to his guns, he might as well go out on his terms so that means playing Mount, playing Antony, sticking with Onana. If he has a vision of what this team can be, we have to see in the next few games otherwise pressure is going to grow to near Ole sack watch levels.
 
We need something to play for. I think winning a domestic cup is probably more aligned with our standards at the moment. We’re not winning the UCL, Europa or even Conference. Not in the next 2 years at least.
 
Aka lower your standards to excuse ten hag flopping in Europe with an easy group,
 
Skills said:
If you don't think it's a big deal, then you also shouldn't have been wanking over qualifying for it last season.
Click to expand...
Have you ever heard about something called context?
 
The whole point of the Champions League for top clubs like United is the injection of huge cash guaranteed by qualifying for it (more so by advancing to the latter stages), and equally importantly, the glory of playing in big matches against big European clubs in the knock-out stages.

There's absolutely no point advocating the benefits of being knocked out in the group stages for top clubs. The notion of doing better in the league or improving the fitness of key players is only 'theoretical'. We are not talking about some lame-duck tournament but the pinnacle of club football.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
FC Bayern and Galatasaray is not really an easy group, there was much easier groups we could have had.
Click to expand...
Oh come on. It is Gala. Not Real Madrid. You only had to defeat Gala and Copenhagen to go through. That’s pretty easy and should not be a concern for a club of United‘s magnitude.
 
The only rationale I could think of would be if you were looking to create as solid a platform as possible for a complete reset under the new ownership dispensation - meaning having CL football in order to be as attractive as possible to transfer targets.

This feels a bit like asking employees to be energetic and motivated to train their replacements though.
 
Skills said:
If you don't think it's a big deal, then you also shouldn't have been wanking over qualifying for it last season.
Click to expand...
I wasn't . Because we were not going to light up the CL anyway
 
Last edited:
Lee565 said:
Aka lower your standards to excuse ten hag flopping in Europe with an easy group,
Click to expand...

Exactly , it was an easy group , assuming you are a decent team. But the reality is there was Bayern and 3 makeweight teams of which we are the worst.

Pointless grasping at straws to save this dumpster fire , long time an English joke , we are now a European joke as well.
 
"We need to lose in the Champions League so we can qualify for the Champions League!", rinse repeat.

Arsenal are top of the league, despite having midweek football. Liverpool are playing well despite the same. Chelsea have no midweek football but are still shite etc.

When United finished 2nd in 2017/18 and 2020/21, we played European football, all of our best seasons in our history involved a heavy European schedule. A team of United's prestige and budget should play in the best possible competition they can at all times.
 
Beachryan said:
3. The other big thing holding us back is coaching and structure. We are a team completely bereft of control. Our central midfield duo completed 38 passes last night. Carrick used to, by himself, complete 2.5x that, every match. And he's no Xavi/Scholes. By all accounts ETH is a 'coach' before anything else, if we give him back midweeks to actually coach these players, maybe we can finally see something come out of it. Last season we literally had 0 midweeks off for coaching, and had the most packed schedule in recent memory. It was match, recover, match, recover - there was no time for actual development, and I think it shows. If we want to truly evaluate ETH on his coaching, we have to give him time to coach the players.
Click to expand...

Now I have to stop you here because having midweek matches in the second half of the season is something that all serious clubs out there crave for. If those other clubs' players are able of learning anything in spite of having their midweeks being busy, I see no reason for our players to learn anything for whatever time is given.

Arsenal play in midweeks and are topping the league right now. City... same thing. Liverpool play on Thursdays and yet are not fazed by that at all. Chelsea have their midweeks off, but where are they now?

The last thing we need is to give those players another excuse to justify their own shortcomings.
 
The team could still do with the knock-out game experience, and the EL is a chance to qualify for the CL as well. We might not get it through the league.

Hope we give it all to beat Bayern, and then we see what happens. 2nd place is still not impossible.
 
We're basically tiery 3 club in Europe at the moment so it's a bad thing. But prestige apart, we'd probably be out of this competition in 1/8th so I'm not that bothered.

I'd like us go far in Europa League though, I think we have a shot and I'd rather have an European trophy than league / fa cup.
 
#07 said:
Man Utd has literally had players die in pursuit of the European Cup. Humiliation in Europe has no wider context. It's a disgrace to the club's legacy and everything it stands for.

We will get what we deserve. Nothing more, nothing less. However, there's no pretending it isn't a complete catastrophe.

These players will have to suck it up and do it better to make up for it.
Click to expand...

Well said.
 
It's a bad thing for the financial loss alone. Don't expect any January signings now.
 
In the context of "at least it saves us getting embarrassed by proper teams" then there's that.

In the context of "we've spent hundreds of millions to get beaten by Copenhagen and Galatassary" it is completely unacceptable .

It's not a good thing, it's a stain on the club frankly and everyone involved with Manchester United will understand that I'm sure, but we were never going to win it with the team playing the way they have been this season.
 
I don't see a point in mythical top 4 cup if we are going to just embarrass ourselves in Champions League when we are there. The only benefit would be having more time and energy to focus on the league, so that we can maybe get another top 4/5 finish again and get obliterated in Europe again (and I bet our group will not be anywhere near as easy as it was this year).

CL is the only dim hope of having any success this year. We are not going to win the league, we are out of League Cup and unless we get extremely favorable draw in FA Cup we are not winning that either. We obviously won't win CL but going through 1 knockout round would already feel like huge success.
 
"Let's drop out of the CL to maximize our odds of qualifying for the CL"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.