Is the adversity faced by ETH unprecedented?

Lentwood said:
I feel most football fans are really poor at understanding that assembling a squad is often a game of opportunity cost.

What I mean by that is, fans think about the game in some kind of idealistic way, based on their experience playing computer games like FIFA or Football Manager. In those games, you can sign 10 players in one window, you have perfect information about a players' abilities and you can complete a transfer and salary negotiation with a few clicks of a controller.

Translate that into the real World and fans get frustrated because they think they have spotted problems that the manager somehow hasn't. Look at this thread alone. How many examples of "ETH should have bought/sold/not bought player xyz last Summer/this Summer".

What they forget is, we went into last Summer with a squad that I think 90% of us would agree was horribly unbalanced and short of quality. In that respect, ETHs hand was forced.

"Why spend £60m on an ageing Casemiro?"...because otherwise it was another season of Fred and McTominay in CM.

"Why spend £89m on Antony?"...because, with Greenwood suspended, we had no left-footed right forward, and ETH felt that was integral to us being a more balanced side. For all the criticism of Antony, I believe we were a much better team overall for having him in it last season. Yeah, we overpaid, but that's the cost of having to do things last minute or in a reactive manner.

"Why spend £45m on Martinez?"...again, because we had no left-footed CB. So again, ETH felt we completely lacked balance.

So there we go. £200m spent net on players ETH felt were absolutely essential. So what about the goalkeeper? What about a centre forward? What about depth in midfield?

For fans, it's all so easy isn't it. What a moron ETH is! I knew DDG was finished last season, why did ETH persevere? I knew Ronaldo was finished and Martial was unreliable, why didn't that idiot ETH sign a CF?!

Answer is very obvious when you engage your brain....this is real life, real money! The reality is the opportunity cost of buying the players we bought is that we then can't buy a CF or a GK. Same again this Summer. I'm sure ETH would have loved to sign 10 players...but it's not possible with our current finances...which brings me to my last point...

The reason I call City a "cheat code team" is because, continuing with the video game analogy, they don't have "opportunity cost". When Pep wants to do something, he's done it. When he walked into City and took over a team that had won the title 12 months previously, he went about relentlessly spending, spending and spending again - 6 or 7 players at a time, until he found the right combination eventually.

The point is ETH doesn't have that luxury and Pep wouldn't have had at United either (or most teams) so you have to make do. Imagine Pep had had to stick with Joe Hart for another season. Imagine he couldn't replace both full backs and purchase a spare in one window. Imagine he couldn't sign basically half of Europe's CBs before eventually landing on a combo that worked for him.

We have to get real and understand the difficulties ETH faces in trying to implement a modern style of football on a rag-tag bunch of misfits, assembled by three or four different managers, whilst at the same time under constant pressure to deliver results.

As fans, we do have a role to play in this actually. We can help by being patience, supporting ETH, stop being so results-orientated in the short-term and let him get on with the job. For me, we shouldn't even be thinking too much about his results until next season at a minimum. We should be focusing on how effectively he is rebuilding be the squad and how effectively he is coaching his ideas into that squad.
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We have to patient but the argument that we had to buy Casemiro, had to buy Anthony is exactly what needs to stop. The club shouldn’t continue be run in such a way that we are fixated on players to such an extent that we massively overpay fees and wages. It’s how we got Maguire, it’s why he’s still here even though the manager doesn’t want him. It’s the biggest reason why the net spend is such a di

We all know it’s real money but it’s the club that pisses it away like it isn’t. The consequences of all these decisions carry over for years and until someone at the club gets it under control and puts a proper plan and structure in place the manager will have a real struggle.

I said it would take at least three years for ETH to sort out the squad, if he can avoid the sack for this season and next he might be getting somewhere but that in itself isn’t easy.

There is a lot in between you essentially saying you’d buy Maguire again almost as if it was the only option and people who thinks it’s as easy as a video game.
 
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Lentwood said:
I feel most football fans are really poor at understanding that assembling a squad is often a game of opportunity cost.

What I mean by that is, fans think about the game in some kind of idealistic way, based on their experience playing computer games like FIFA or Football Manager. In those games, you can sign 10 players in one window, you have perfect information about a players' abilities and you can complete a transfer and salary negotiation with a few clicks of a controller.

Translate that into the real World and fans get frustrated because they think they have spotted problems that the manager somehow hasn't. Look at this thread alone. How many examples of "ETH should have bought/sold/not bought player xyz last Summer/this Summer".

What they forget is, we went into last Summer with a squad that I think 90% of us would agree was horribly unbalanced and short of quality. In that respect, ETHs hand was forced.

"Why spend £60m on an ageing Casemiro?"...because otherwise it was another season of Fred and McTominay in CM.

"Why spend £89m on Antony?"...because, with Greenwood suspended, we had no left-footed right forward, and ETH felt that was integral to us being a more balanced side. For all the criticism of Antony, I believe we were a much better team overall for having him in it last season. Yeah, we overpaid, but that's the cost of having to do things last minute or in a reactive manner.

"Why spend £45m on Martinez?"...again, because we had no left-footed CB. So again, ETH felt we completely lacked balance.

So there we go. £200m spent net on players ETH felt were absolutely essential. So what about the goalkeeper? What about a centre forward? What about depth in midfield?

For fans, it's all so easy isn't it. What a moron ETH is! I knew DDG was finished last season, why did ETH persevere? I knew Ronaldo was finished and Martial was unreliable, why didn't that idiot ETH sign a CF?!

Answer is very obvious when you engage your brain....this is real life, real money! The reality is the opportunity cost of buying the players we bought is that we then can't buy a CF or a GK. Same again this Summer. I'm sure ETH would have loved to sign 10 players...but it's not possible with our current finances...which brings me to my last point...

The reason I call City a "cheat code team" is because, continuing with the video game analogy, they don't have "opportunity cost". When Pep wants to do something, he's done it. When he walked into City and took over a team that had won the title 12 months previously, he went about relentlessly spending, spending and spending again - 6 or 7 players at a time, until he found the right combination eventually.

The point is ETH doesn't have that luxury and Pep wouldn't have had at United either (or most teams) so you have to make do. Imagine Pep had had to stick with Joe Hart for another season. Imagine he couldn't replace both full backs and purchase a spare in one window. Imagine he couldn't sign basically half of Europe's CBs before eventually landing on a combo that worked for him.

We have to get real and understand the difficulties ETH faces in trying to implement a modern style of football on a rag-tag bunch of misfits, assembled by three or four different managers, whilst at the same time under constant pressure to deliver results.

As fans, we do have a role to play in this actually. We can help by being patience, supporting ETH, stop being so results-orientated in the short-term and let him get on with the job. For me, we shouldn't even be thinking too much about his results until next season at a minimum. We should be focusing on how effectively he is rebuilding the squad and how effectively he is coaching his ideas into that squad.
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Top post, bud. 80% of the money EtH has spent was actually replacing players who left, thereby filling huge voids in the first team, let alone trying to fix the squad.
 
Roboc7 said:
We have to patient but the argument that we had to buy Casemiro, had to buy Anthony is exactly what needs to stop. The club shouldn’t continue be run in such a way that we are fixated on players to such an extent that we massively overpay fees and wages. It’s how we got Maguire, it’s why he’s still here even though the manager doesn’t want him. It’s the biggest reason why the net spend is such a di

We all know it’s real money but it’s the club that pisses it away like it isn’t. The consequences of all these decisions carry over for years and until someone at the club gets it under control and puts a proper plan and structure in place the manager will have a real struggle.

I said it would take at least three years for ETH to sort out the squad, if he can avoid the sack for this season and next he might be getting somewhere but that in itself isn’t easy.

There is a lot in between you essentially saying you’d buy Maguire again almost as if it was the only option and people who thinks it’s as easy as a video game.
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It's not that he HAD to buy those players specifically, my point was more that ETH believed that he really need a reliable CM enforcer, a left footed CB and a left footed AMR as a priority. In that position, new to the role, new to the Premier League and with only two/three months to assemble a squad, I can personally understand why he went safe with Casemiro and two players he knew very well from Ajax, rather than gambling on unknown quantities.

If we're still consistently buying only players ETH knows and/or ageing players for rival teams from next window onwards, I'll be disappointed - but I think it makes sense short term from ETHs perspective
 
Lentwood said:
It's not that he HAD to buy those players specifically, my point was more that ETH believed that he really need a reliable CM enforcer, a left footed CB and a left footed AMR as a priority. In that position, new to the role, new to the Premier League and with only two/three months to assemble a squad, I can personally understand why he went safe with Casemiro and two players he knew very well from Ajax, rather than gambling on unknown quantities.

If we're still consistently buying only players ETH knows and/or ageing players for rival teams from next window onwards, I'll be disappointed - but I think it makes sense short term from ETHs perspective
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But thinking short term is the issue and when you spend 150m on a RW who isn’t good enough and a midfielder who you most likely need to replace in a couple of years the medium and long term repercussions don’t make sense.

From ETH’s perspective he doesn’t care what we spend on particular players but this summer he has felt the impact of spending so much on someone like Anthony last summer. This is what happens year after year.

We are years away from competing, we have been since SAF left. At some point you have to break the cycle of making these short term decisions or history repeats.
 
Roboc7 said:
But thinking short term is the issue and when you spend 150m on a RW who isn’t good enough and a midfielder who you most likely need to replace in a couple of years the medium and long term repercussions don’t make sense.

From ETH’s perspective he doesn’t care what we spend on particular players but this summer he has felt the impact of spending so much on someone like Anthony last summer. This is what happens year after year.

We are years away from competing, we have been since SAF left. At some point you have to break the cycle of making these short term decisions or history repeats.
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Antony cannot really be called a short term decision. If he was good enough (and didn't have the off-field crap) he could play here for a decade and would have been worth the money. It's just a really bad misjudgment of ability and character.

On Casemiro you can go either way. Obviously, he will soon have to be replaced, so you could argue it's too short term. On the other hand, I don't think we make the CL without him, and I don't know that there was an alternative that could have made the same impact. Maybe there was, but it's hard to tell for sure.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Antony cannot really be called a short term decision. If he was good enough (and didn't have the off-field crap) he could play here for a decade and would have been worth the money. It's just a really bad misjudgment of ability and character.
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It's still early to act like Antony is a bust on the pitch. There are plenty of players who take until their mid to late 20's to really hit their stride.
 
RedOrange said:
It's still early to act like Antony is a bust on the pitch. There are plenty of players who take until their mid to late 20's to really hit their stride.
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Sure, he could turn it around. Crazier things have happened. It would be a surprise to me though.
 
Snow said:
Not this summer. Burnley and Brentford have a higher net spend than United this season. 200m isn't anything special these days in the PL. Just means you're above average. There's a PL tax for all the clubs then clubs like United get a little bit extra tacked on.
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This is not true.
 
It's been a tough start to the season for various reasons but won 2 lost 2 is OK. I think EtH will be fine. Expect results to improve once the new signings Mount, Hojlund, Amrabat are integrated after the international break. The forward line is threadbare with Greenwood gone, Sancho in the departure lounge, and Martial perennially unfit. Good thing that the manager is adept at improvising because he will need to this season.
 
Club in the dumps, violence and financial problems. The sale in the dumps and players with attitude problems, he is in the shits.
 
Completely unprecedented, It’s an absolutely terrible job at the moment and he’s managed the off field stuff really well in my opinion. And despite that, there’s morons on internet fan forums saying he should be sacked, he must wonder whether it’s worth the bother.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Antony cannot really be called a short term decision. If he was good enough (and didn't have the off-field crap) he could play here for a decade and would have been worth the money. It's just a really bad misjudgment of ability and character.

On Casemiro you can go either way. Obviously, he will soon have to be replaced, so you could argue it's too short term. On the other hand, I don't think we make the CL without him, and I don't know that there was an alternative that could have made the same impact. Maybe there was, but it's hard to tell for sure.
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The decision to spend so much on Anthony was short term strategy, we needed a RW, this is who the manager wants and then before you know it he’s cost over 80m and is on 200k a week. He joins our 70m RW who is on 300k a week and the two others we have who cost another 25m at least between them.

It’s understandable why ETH wanted him and he contributed last season but for the manager to achieve what he wants he still needs a RW. And misjudging both his ability and character is a huge error.

Who knows where we finish without Casemiro, it’s about more than 1 season though and when you’ve spent so much on someone at that stage of their career, you will either need to quickly find a cheap replacement or spend big and neglect something else.

ETH inherited a shit show on and off the pitch, I don’t blame him as he just doesn’t have the support or competence above him which is why we never manage to progress beyond a certain point before going backwards.
 
spiriticon said:
Not really. I think clubs that have had points docked or on the verge on bankruptcy are in greater adversity.

We're not in a good place though, that's for sure.
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Or ones who have had almost all their team die in tragic accidents.
 
Roboc7 said:
But thinking short term is the issue and when you spend 150m on a RW who isn’t good enough and a midfielder who you most likely need to replace in a couple of years the medium and long term repercussions don’t make sense.

From ETH’s perspective he doesn’t care what we spend on particular players but this summer he has felt the impact of spending so much on someone like Anthony last summer. This is what happens year after year.

We are years away from competing, we have been since SAF left. At some point you have to break the cycle of making these short term decisions or history repeats.
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We have paid a transfer fee for 8 players under ETH - average age of 24. Not sure he can be accused of short-termism at all.

Also, I'd argue that every single one has improved the first XI in some way, bar Bayindir and Malacia, who were bought for backup/competition.

NAMEAGEFEE
TYRELL MALACIA23£13M
ALTAY BAYINDIR25£4.5M
ANDRE ONANA27£47M
LISANDRO MARTINEZ24£48.5M
MASON MOUNT24£55M
CASEMIRO30£60M
RASMUS HOJLUND20£72M
ANTONY22£89M
ERIKSEN30FREE
 
It’s mental how big a hole we’ve found ourselves in. Greenwood gone, Antony is trouble, Sancho mentally checked out, Varane injured, Shaw injured, Malacia injured, Mainoo injured, Amad injured, Mount injured.

And club sale pending. I mean, given the circumstances, im not sure if we’re even favourites for top 4 anymore. The rest should fancy their chances ahead of us now.
 
Lentwood said:
We have paid a transfer fee for 8 players under ETH - average age of 24. Not sure he can be accused of short-termism at all.

Also, I'd argue that every single one has improved the first XI in some way, bar Bayindir and Malacia, who were bought for backup/competition.

NAMEAGEFEE
TYRELL MALACIA23£13M
ALTAY BAYINDIR25£4.5M
ANDRE ONANA27£47M
LISANDRO MARTINEZ24£48.5M
MASON MOUNT24£55M
CASEMIRO30£60M
RASMUS HOJLUND20£72M
ANTONY22£89M
ERIKSEN30FREE
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Yes. Besides no matter what you spend in two years you aren’t going to replace an entire squad but simply augment or improve it. He has to rely on what he’s inherited too and cannot control Martial, Sancho, injuries etc The only where he has erred is Antony.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
It’s mental how big a hole we’ve found ourselves in. Greenwood gone, Antony is trouble, Sancho mentally checked out, Varane injured, Shaw injured, Malacia injured, Mainoo injured, Amad injured, Mount injured.

And club sale pending. I mean, given the circumstances, im not sure if we’re even favourites for top 4 anymore. The rest should fancy their chances ahead of us now.
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yes, it’s actually crazy. Seems like an impossible basis for creating the cohesiveness and hierarchy within the squad in order to implement ETH’s tactic and principles.

We really need some players to step up big time to pull us through this season without potentially collapse completely. Like Rashford did last season where he scored for fun over a long period of time.

What a complete mess of a season this has turned out to be in the matter of a few weeks.
 
Meh... he's not playing for anything other than top 4

He's losing one prospective Youth, potentially 1 mediocre winger at best.

Sure the injury doesn't help but none of them are long term, we'll get players back pretty soon.
 
Yes. I can't think of any other manager that has to suffer so much at a big club just to get to work. All the dramas and injuries, they happen at the same time and it's ridiculous.

Hopefully they'll all be settled after this season where we'd have no more pointless players with bad/loser mentality at the club, along with new owners ready to support him. At this point I don't even care about which players will remain. As much as I hate saying it, these incidents that occurred since he became manager are too much for the club to progress properly. And outside of Antony, I can't say his transfers (not counting loans) are that bad. And even Antony is only bad due to the latest scandals involving him, guilty or not, we don't need any more dramas to be brought to this club.

I fecking hate this season.
 
Lentwood said:
I feel most football fans are really poor at understanding that assembling a squad is often a game of opportunity cost.

What I mean by that is, fans think about the game in some kind of idealistic way, based on their experience playing computer games like FIFA or Football Manager. In those games, you can sign 10 players in one window, you have perfect information about a players' abilities and you can complete a transfer and salary negotiation with a few clicks of a controller.
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This pretty much sums it up. I honestly think a majority of fans think they know more than scouts, coaches, and managers, without realizing there is no such thing as fixed, numbered ratings in real life and acquiring players takes agreement by 3 parties. It's mind-numbingly easy to say "we overpaid for this player" or "why didn't our scouts target that player" after the fact.
 
Lentwood said:
I feel most football fans are really poor at understanding that assembling a squad is often a game of opportunity cost.

What I mean by that is, fans think about the game in some kind of idealistic way, based on their experience playing computer games like FIFA or Football Manager. In those games, you can sign 10 players in one window, you have perfect information about a players' abilities and you can complete a transfer and salary negotiation with a few clicks of a controller.

Translate that into the real World and fans get frustrated because they think they have spotted problems that the manager somehow hasn't. Look at this thread alone. How many examples of "ETH should have bought/sold/not bought player xyz last Summer/this Summer".

What they forget is, we went into last Summer with a squad that I think 90% of us would agree was horribly unbalanced and short of quality. In that respect, ETHs hand was forced.

"Why spend £60m on an ageing Casemiro?"...because otherwise it was another season of Fred and McTominay in CM.

"Why spend £89m on Antony?"...because, with Greenwood suspended, we had no left-footed right forward, and ETH felt that was integral to us being a more balanced side. For all the criticism of Antony, I believe we were a much better team overall for having him in it last season. Yeah, we overpaid, but that's the cost of having to do things last minute or in a reactive manner.

"Why spend £45m on Martinez?"...again, because we had no left-footed CB. So again, ETH felt we completely lacked balance.

So there we go. £200m spent net on players ETH felt were absolutely essential. So what about the goalkeeper? What about a centre forward? What about depth in midfield?

For fans, it's all so easy isn't it. What a moron ETH is! I knew DDG was finished last season, why did ETH persevere? I knew Ronaldo was finished and Martial was unreliable, why didn't that idiot ETH sign a CF?!

Answer is very obvious when you engage your brain....this is real life, real money! The reality is the opportunity cost of buying the players we bought is that we then can't buy a CF or a GK. Same again this Summer. I'm sure ETH would have loved to sign 10 players...but it's not possible with our current finances...which brings me to my last point...

The reason I call City a "cheat code team" is because, continuing with the video game analogy, they don't have "opportunity cost". When Pep wants to do something, he's done it. When he walked into City and took over a team that had won the title 12 months previously, he went about relentlessly spending, spending and spending again - 6 or 7 players at a time, until he found the right combination eventually.

The point is ETH doesn't have that luxury and Pep wouldn't have had at United either (or most teams) so you have to make do. Imagine Pep had had to stick with Joe Hart for another season. Imagine he couldn't replace both full backs and purchase a spare in one window. Imagine he couldn't sign basically half of Europe's CBs before eventually landing on a combo that worked for him.

We have to get real and understand the difficulties ETH faces in trying to implement a modern style of football on a rag-tag bunch of misfits, assembled by three or four different managers, whilst at the same time under constant pressure to deliver results.

As fans, we do have a role to play in this actually. We can help by being patience, supporting ETH, stop being so results-orientated in the short-term and let him get on with the job. For me, we shouldn't even be thinking too much about his results until next season at a minimum. We should be focusing on how effectively he is rebuilding the squad and how effectively he is coaching his ideas into that squad.
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Very good post, would have hit the like button on this one if there was one.
 
On top of the off field fires we’ve also got a highly toxic fan base to put up with, who seem intent on putting the blame on the manager in a club that has zero executive leadership. How many times to do we need to do this dance before realising the manager isn’t the actual problem?
 
DRJosh said:
On top of the off field fires we’ve also got a highly toxic fan base to put up with, who seem intent on putting the blame on the manager in a club that has zero executive leadership. How many times to do we need to do this dance before realising the manager isn’t the actual problem?
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Oh I am well aware they are the guilty party,just wish we could see what style Erik is trying to implement. Honestly think unless they sell up we will see no improvement off the pitch
 
So. Three potentially very important players all unavailable for selection at once, despite not being injured. One for the rest of the season (and probably permanently), two potentially long term. Can anyone think of anything this dramatic happening at any other club ever?
 
DRJosh said:
On top of the off field fires we’ve also got a highly toxic fan base to put up with, who seem intent on putting the blame on the manager in a club that has zero executive leadership. How many times to do we need to do this dance before realising the manager isn’t the actual problem?
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To be fair moaning fans on the internet probably don’t have a detrimental effect on Ten Hags management .
 
Ludens the Red said:
To be fair moaning fans on the internet probably don’t have a detrimental effect on Ten Hags management .
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It absolutely does if it affects the overall reputation of the club and marketability. We’ve essentially become a global meme of organisational inaptitude and I don’t put it beyond the Glazers to make short sighted decisions to appease a disgruntled fanbase who are already dissatisfied with how the sale of the club went (or didn’t go).
 
Pogue Mahone said:
So. Three potentially very important players all unavailable for selection at once, despite not being injured. One for the rest of the season (and probably permanently), two potentially long term. Can anyone think of anything this dramatic happening at any other club ever?
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Nkunku (best attacker), Reece James(captain), Badishelle and some could say fofana as well (best defenders). Main goalkeeper (kepa) went on loan and talking bad about the chelsea project, and a list of other important injuries as well. It is not unprecedented as chelsea seems to be having worse luck in terms of injuries after the overhaul they had.

But, the Antony allegations and sancho problems are issue unrelated to injuries that I do not believe any other manager are currently facing.
 
DRJosh said:
It absolutely does if it affects the overall reputation of the club and marketability. We’ve essentially become a global meme of organisational inaptitude and I don’t put it beyond the Glazers to make short sighted decisions to appease a disgruntled fanbase who are already dissatisfied with how the sale of the club went (or didn’t go).
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I mean that’s some stretch isn’t it. People wanted Ole out about five mins into his reign and he still lasted a few years and even got a new contract.
Even if for arguments sake online fans influence the glazers decision making to that extent, it still doesn’t effect how Ten Haag manages on a day to day basis..which I thought was the discussion being had.
i also don’t know why people pretend that Manchester United are the only fanbase whose fans complain online. It’s the same at every club….
 
Amadaeus said:
Nkunku (best attacker), Reece James(captain), Badishelle and some could say fofana as well (best defenders). Main goalkeeper (kepa) went on loan and talking bad about the chelsea project, and a list of other important injuries as well. It is not unprecedented as chelsea seems to be having worse luck in terms of injuries after the overhaul they had.

But, the Antony allegations and sancho problems are issue unrelated to injuries that I do not believe any other manager are currently facing.
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:lol: go away…
 
Ludens the Red said:
I mean that’s some stretch isn’t it. People wanted Ole out about five mins into his reign and he still lasted a few years and even got a new contract.
Even if for arguments sake online fans influence the glazers decision making to that extent, it still doesn’t effect how Ten Haag manages on a day to day basis..which I thought was the discussion being had.
i also don’t know why people pretend that Manchester United are the only fanbase whose fans complain online. It’s the same at every club….
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Ole’s a bad example to use to try and argue that the Glazers won’t give in to pressure from fans. You could argue he was given his long term contract for exactly that reason.
 
Having just watched Channel 4' s documentary on SAF, "Never Give In". I'd say: yes. I'd forgotten what a total mess the club was in when he arrived. People know it was bad but it was rotten to the core.

He watched a youth match a few days into his reign and absolutely bollocked the team afterwards. Some of his descriptions of our early games were critical to put it very very mildly and he admitted he had no idea how bad things were when he took on the job...(the doc was filmed soon after his recovery from the major brain scare and I was really pleased to see how well he looks and, more importantly given what happened, how well he sounds).

To be fair, I think ETH faces an almost as difficult uphill climb and, of course, Fergie didn't have the vampire Glazer family to deal with. But the answer to the question still remains yes...

PS If you haven't seen the doc, watch it (I presume it's on catch-up/All 4)
 
The Doc had a lot of shit to deal with: chopping down the Busby deadwood, relegation promotion, 8,000 hooligans following the club up and down the country, Liverpool, etc
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Ole’s a bad example to use to try and argue that the Glazers won’t give in to pressure from fans. You could argue he was given his long term contract for exactly that reason.
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But you still had a significant amount of the fanbase who didn’t want him and they were very vocal about it online. Ultimately it’s even the same for Ten Hag, for all those vocally critical there’s an equal amount backing him to no fault which kinda makes that posters suggestion even more unlikely. Online Fan base is far too split for the glazers to be making decisions based on their opinion.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Antony cannot really be called a short term decision. If he was good enough (and didn't have the off-field crap) he could play here for a decade and would have been worth the money. It's just a really bad misjudgment of ability and character.

On Casemiro you can go either way. Obviously, he will soon have to be replaced, so you could argue it's too short term. On the other hand, I don't think we make the CL without him, and I don't know that there was an alternative that could have made the same impact. Maybe there was, but it's hard to tell for sure.
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Jesus, how can you say it's a really bad misjudgment of ability and character? When it comes to ability it's still far too soon to say. And on character? What evidence do you have to say his character is not up to standard?
 
Amadaeus said:
Nkunku (best attacker), Reece James(captain), Badishelle and some could say fofana as well (best defenders). Main goalkeeper (kepa) went on loan and talking bad about the chelsea project, and a list of other important injuries as well. It is not unprecedented as chelsea seems to be having worse luck in terms of injuries after the overhaul they had.

But, the Antony allegations and sancho problems are issue unrelated to injuries that I do not believe any other manager are currently facing.
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:lol: not even remotely comparable. Isn't James already back in training? Nkunku best attacker? He hasn't played a single game for them yet! Kepa (main goalkeeper) is also funny as feck. They've wanted shot of him for ages.
 
DRJosh said:
It absolutely does if it affects the overall reputation of the club and marketability. We’ve essentially become a global meme of organisational inaptitude and I don’t put it beyond the Glazers to make short sighted decisions to appease a disgruntled fanbase who are already dissatisfied with how the sale of the club went (or didn’t go).
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Our recent shirt sponsorship deal shows that to be inaccurate at best.
 
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