Is what we're seeing the long-term effects of success?

AndersB

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So, if one were to take a scientific approach to the issue of our being so poor, one would change different factors, one by one, and see if that led to a different output. This is in fact what whe have done since SAF retired.

We've tried changing the players: We've bought experienced superstars in later parts of their careers (Zlatan, Ronaldo, Falcao, Sanchez, Casemiro etc); we've bought superstars around their expected peak (Pogba, Di Marìa etc); we've bought potentially emerging superstars (Sancho, Martial); we've bought young, and supposedly hungry, prospects (Højlund, VdB, James etc.); we've bought established, solid players (Mount, AWB, Maguire, etc). The output has been the same, and again and again and again we see good players turn up here and start regressing at an alarming rate.

We've tried changing the manager: We've tried the one hand-picked by SAF (the Moyesiah), managers with great accolades (Mourinho, Van Gaal), one with love for and ties to the club (Ole), up-and-coming and well-respected managers with success on a lower level (ETH and now Amorim). The output has been the same - though jury still out with Amorim.

We've gotten rid of Woodward, chopped and changed backroom staff, finally gotten new ownership in. The output has been the same (if not worse).

We've tried changing the set-piece coach ... enough said about that.


It should by now be quite clear that the problem isn't "the manager" or "the players" or "the director of football" or "the system" or whatnot. Though these are relevant factors, something else has to be fundamentally wrong. And more and more I am thinking that this is a form of complacency or arrogance that has sort of become engrained in the culture of the club itself. Reflected in Manchester United as a brand. Reflected in a fan-base consisting of a lot of people that jumped on the gravy-train of unparalleled SAF success, but without proper heart for the club, expecting to come to Old Trafford to see what another poster here aptly referred to as "the Opera".

What is the solution to this? I do not know. Maybe we need to become so sh*t that the Manchester United brand properly starts fading, and people stop expecting success merely because the club is what it is, that it deserves it. What I do know, is that thinking it's about changing a manager or buying the "right" player is starting to look like the maxim "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".

Thoughts?
 
I think so, yes, to a certain extent. Purely on a statistical measure, the SAF period was anomalous but it demanded that we remunerate players very highly.

At some point the performances would revert to the mean leaving a gap (or a gulf) between pay and performance.

I think even the most diligent player would be challenged to retain their hunger in that environment.
 
I still think the universe is highly pissed off at us for the Fergie years, and is hell bent on paying us back with interest for all those years of success.
 
Kellyiom said:
I think so, yes, to a certain extent. Purely on a statistical measure, the SAF period was anomalous but it demanded that we remunerate players very highly.

At some point the performances would revert to the mean leaving a gap (or a gulf) between pay and performance.

I think even the most diligent player would be challenged to retain their hunger in that environment.
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I think that would be more apt to describe a gradual decline under SAF, but there haven't really been many serial winners (for United) with us in the years after that. For example during the 2014-2015 season, we only had Rooney, Carrick and maybe Evans and Smalling that could fully be said for. The players should have been hungry enough for success.
 
AndersB said:
We've tried changing the players: We've bought experienced superstars in later parts of their careers (Zlatan, Ronaldo, Falcao, Sanchez, Casemiro etc); we've bought superstars around their expected peak (Pogba, Di Marìa etc); we've bought potentially emerging superstars (Sancho, Martial); we've bought young, and supposedly hungry, prospects (Højlund, VdB, James etc.); we've bought established, solid players (Mount, AWB, Maguire, etc). The output has been the same, and again and again and again we see good players turn up here and start regressing at an alarming rate.
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I think this is a simplification of what has actually happened to the squad over the last decade and beyond. Just the fact that we have brought in different types of players doesn't account for the overall quality. Since SAF left (and I'd argue it started a little bit before that too), there has been a gradual and steady decline in quality of players available. That is our core problem: Poor recruitment, which then leads to overrating and overpaying players that are good but not great, because they are the best players for Man Utd (Rashford, Pogba, Bruno, Maguire etc.) even though they aren't at the very top of their positions globally.

When was the last time we genuinely had world class ability in all areas of the pitch (GK, defense, midfield and forwards)? You would have to go back to 2008-09, in my opinion. By SAF's last season we did not have a world class midfield anymore, and the defense was on it's very last legs. And then it's been downhill from there. We haven't solved the midfield in more than a decade now. Yesterday three out of four players in that midfield I really hope are not here next year.

Looking at our starting line-up now and comparing to the competition is just tragic. Our best XI is filled with players that "can do a job" or "has potential". Meanwhile, the best teams in the league have had players like Haaland, De Bruyne, Rodri, Ødegaard, Saliba, Salah, Van Dijk, etc. available - just to name a few. And the level below that have individual players that would improve us massively (Isak comes to mind based on yesterday).

I don't doubt there is something going on mentally as well with the pressure of playing for the club, the media coverage, changes in management, etc. But at the core, it's the players and looking a bit beyond that the people that have had a say in building the squad.
 
Mike Smalling said:
I think this is a simplification of what has actually happened to the squad over the last decade and beyond. Just the fact that we have brought in different types of players doesn't account for the overall quality. Since SAF left (and I'd argue it started a little bit before that too), there has been a gradual and steady decline in quality of players available. That is our core problem: Poor recruitment, which then leads to overrating and overpaying players that are good but not great, because they are the best players for Man Utd (Rashford, Pogba, Bruno, Maguire etc.) even though they aren't at the very top of their positions globally.

When was the last time we genuinely had world class ability in all areas of the pitch (GK, defense, midfield and forwards)? You would have to go back to 2008-09, in my opinion. By SAF's last season we did not have a world class midfield anymore, and the defense was on it's very last legs. And then it's been downhill from there. We haven't solved the midfield in more than a decade now. Yesterday three out of four players in that midfield I really hope are not here next year.

Looking at our starting line-up now and comparing to the competition is just tragic. Our best XI is filled with players that "can do a job" or "has potential". Meanwhile, the best teams in the league have had players like Haaland, De Bruyne, Rodri, Ødegaard, Saliba, Salah, Van Dijk, etc. available - just to name a few. And the level below that have individual players that would improve us massively (Isak comes to mind based on yesterday).

I don't doubt there is something going on mentally as well with the pressure of playing for the club, the media coverage, changes in management, etc. But at the core, it's the players and looking a bit beyond that the people that have had a say in building the squad.
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Sure, to an extent I agree. Some of that can likely also be attributed to the general allure of playing for United not being what it once was.

However, the inherent bias here is that the quality of our current and recent squads is judged on the basis of our actual poor results. What I mean is that it is hard to know for sure if these are really poor or mediocre players, unless we also see them fail elsewhere. Though that is certainly the case with some, there is no doubt that players seem to collapse into mediocrity once they have played with us for a while.

Who knows what SAF would have gotten out of players like Fred, Sancho, Højlund, Mata - even Antony for all I know
 
No, we have still yet to pick a trusted big league manger in their prime, the closest we came to this was mourinho who was and has ever since his last chelsea stint been a heavy decline manager with outdated tactics and even then we actually had a half decent couple of seasons under which says something that if we could just get a manger still at his peak like tuchel or emery that can be trusted to handle managing in this league then I am confident we would be a top 4 side at the very least.

Ten hag and amorim are massive risks, yes they both did OK in europe and won domestic title but the Portuguese league and Dutch league are miles off the premier league and we have seen so many dud mangers and players from these league come to the epl and bomb massively.

Remember the young fc Porto manager villa boas that everyone raved about around 2010 that went on to manage chelsea and failed miserably, it's pot luck choosing managers and players from these leagues.
 
No. It's the effects of long term mismanagement, stupidity, and arrogance.

There aren't any curses. There isn't any bad luck placed on us by the universe. We are where we are because of the actions of people. People who by and large weren't fit for purpose
 
AndersB said:
It should by now be quite clear that the problem isn't "the manager" or "the players" or "the director of football" or "the system" or whatnot.
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The problems are EXACTLY those, let's not philosophize and suspect curses or occult forces working against the club. We are talking about football, a sport where 22 guys kick a ball into each other's net. Problem is our 11 is worse than other's. That's it.
 
This season brings to mind that Hemingway quote about “how did you go bankrupt?”, the answer being “Two ways - gradually then suddenly”. The effects of years of consistently poor recruitment in players and management are now so pronounced that there is nothing left to paper over the cracks and the club is in freefall. Nothing about this was inevitable had we had better people running the club.
 
Lee565 said:
No, we have still yet to pick a trusted big league manger in their prime, the closest we came to this was mourinho who was and has ever since his last chelsea stint been a heavy decline manager with outdated tactics and even then we actually had a half decent couple of seasons under which says something that if we could just get a manger still at his peak like tuchel or emery that can be trusted to handle managing in this league then I am confident we would be a top 4 side at the very least.

Ten hag and amorim are massive risks, yes they both did OK in europe and won domestic title but the Portuguese league and Dutch league are miles off the premier league and we have seen so many dud mangers and players from these league come to the epl and bomb massively.

Remember the young fc Porto manager villa boas that everyone raved about around 2010 that went on to manage chelsea and failed miserably, it's pot luck choosing managers and players from these leagues.
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Arne Slot just came from the Dutch league and winning nearly every game, same with people talking about buying players from the Dutch league - Gravenberch and Gakpo are excelling now for Liverpool. But Liverpool were left in good shape by Klopp and a successful club structure, whereas every manager seems to leave the club in a worse place for the next one here.
 
AndersB said:
Sure, to an extent I agree. Some of that can likely also be attributed to the general allure of playing for United not being what it once was.

However, the inherent bias here is that the quality of our current and recent squads is judged on the basis of our actual poor results. What I mean is that it is hard to know for sure if these are really poor or mediocre players, unless we also see them fail elsewhere. Though that is certainly the case with some, there is no doubt that players seem to collapse into mediocrity once they have played with us for a while.

Who knows what SAF would have gotten out of players like Fred, Sancho, Højlund, Mata - even Antony for all I know
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I think it's clear that the mediocrity of these players is compounded by too many of them being mediocre. Even in our title winning squads, we sometimes had one or two average players in the starting XI. Take Cleverly and Anderson in the 2012-13 season, for example. They were surrounded by great players and leaders, so they get by. I don't doubt that you could plug some of our current players into our best squads over the last 25 years, and they would look decent by keeping it simple. We simply have too many of them now. It's a squad full of Cleverleys, Andersons, Klebersons, etc. without any top class to surround them.
 
We’ve been in decline for a long time and our terrible recruitment and wage policy has been a problem that has been growing and growing. We compounded that by renewing contracts of players who weren’t good enough but it was cheaper in the short term to retain.

I think we are now trying to break that cycle but in the short term it is a shit show. The players who we would love to offload and would save us lots of money are unsellable, others will sit out their contracts injured and it’s impossible to raise enough money from sales to plug the gaps. It’s another 2-3 years before you can really lift the financial burden of the squad (let alone all the other debt).

It’s just years and years of bad decisions catching up with us and there not being the money or PSR manoeuvrability to buy our way out of it.
 
Although a significant amount of cash has been spent on players, staff and infrastructure (training grounds etc), it feels as though United haven't kept up with some of the top flight clubs in some of these areas - or has tried and failed through mismanagement of finances and advice. I think back to the Ronaldo interview with Piers Morgan who also said this about everything being a bit dated. In short, football has moved on from those heady days of winning back to back trophies and I'm not sure in recent years United have kept up with everyone else despite it's best efforts.
 
I think I might start with a word you used a few times in your post: tried.

What exactly have the people running the club been trying to do since the Glazers took over? And how has it impacted the culture and mindset that used to underpin the success at United?

I don't think they brought in players, managers, executive and backroom staff, set piece coaches and so on to achieve sporting success at the highest level. I think it's quite clear that the aim was always just to keep the gears turning and the brand afloat at the minimum level required. And I think everyone who came into the club ended up realizing this. That they we're essentially part of a front for high level marketing. Not hitting the marks? Get a new manager in or a big name player and get the media pumped. We're in the top four and still considered relevant? Then we dial down a bit and just keep us ticking over. Don't rock the boat too much, we're here for the dividends, remember?

To the outside, United is about being the best. We have a glorious past, a commitment to excellence and the bar is always set at the very top. But if you don't match this behind the curtain in every department, it's going to feel fraudulent to people who are actually ambitious and it will also attract the wrong people. If you put cronies like Woodward and Arnold in charge of keeping a fading circus act operating, putting on a new coat of paint here and there while the roof is leaking and the club infrastructure (training facilities, data/analytics, fitness etc.) is becoming increasingly outdated, the culture at the club will end up reflecting this. If you're not setting clear and ambitious goals internally while matching them in your every decision, people inside the organization will take their cues from this in terms of what to expect of themselves and each other.

If you then combine this culture of merely keeping up appearances with a constant barrage of expectations from the outside on the manager and the players, it must feel like an impossible job. Leading to some mixture of stress, cynicism, self-preservation depending on your personality. Perhaps trying to launch new underwear brands instead of the required focus on your skillset, mental hygiene and so on.

Now that INEOS are here with another level of sporting ambition entirely, it's bound to create significant friction in the short term at least. Personally, I feel like Ratcliffe is the wrong guy for this kind of overhaul. Sure, the club is in financial difficulties, but he appears to be too cutthroat, overly involved and rushed in the short term, which could cost us the long term.

Maybe don't hire a coach with a fairly bespoke system mid-season, when he himself wanted to come in the summer? Maybe listen to the experts you've hired instead of binning them off, when they say things you don't like to hear? Try to create an atmosphere of togetherness in the face of adversity throughout the club instead of slashing the most minor staff costs and actually cancelling Christmas?

Jury is still out on Amorim and I suppose Ratcliffe and INEOS as well. I like Amorim and I hope he'll succeed, but how many losses and how much short term pain will he be allowed? We can only hope that things will somehow click or we get to act in the January market. Preferably both.

At least I do believe we are now trying to create sporting success instead of merely keeping the turnstiles moving. But obviously just trying is not enough at this level.
 
One of the ways that our (relatively) recent success is an issue is that fan expectation and opposition schadenfreude are sky high.

At another, less successful, club the manager and the players are under way less pressure. A player or manager can come in, make mistakes, adjust and improve. At United, every defeat or even draw is analysed primarily in terms of United's failings, not opposition success.

If a new keeper comes in at Spurs and makes a weak parry in one of his early matches it will barely be noticed. At United he can expect every back page to lead with "ONAN-IST" and a full size picture of him looking dejectedly down at his gloves. At Arsenal a new manager can come in and steady the ship by gradually improving. At United our expectation is that a new manager will make us win all (or the vast majority) of our matches. You can't come in and stabilise things by fighting hard for a few draws - a draw is just another episode in the crisis. Equally on the pitch, if United go one down we can't play try to salvage a draw, before we even equalise we know the pressure is on for us to get a winner. The pressure bears down on the players and and they respond by making our already incoherent style of play even more frantic.
 
The closest comparison is sadly Liverpool whose success matched ours and whose fall off was as big. Im not sure they ever hit lows as low as where we are now but they had plenty of false dawns with cup wins, some managers that looked good but couldnt sustain it and in the end there was no magic trick - they ended up getting a top level rare type of manager. We can only hope amorim is that. If he isn't then we rinse and repeat.

Either way, we have to forget this league season and do anything but get relegated. Who knows, we might bundle our way to a europa run. Even Klopp himself had a rough run not long after taking over with 5 defeats and 2 draws in 10 league games, followed by a spell of small shoots of progress, and a weak enough end to the season, with 1 win in the last 5. He finished with 48 points from 90 in his first season, with 8 league defeats from when he took over. Im not doing the klopp v amorim comparison, just highlighting that even when a club has got the right guy, this isnt unprecedented to do poorly initially. But definitely it needs to be improving by end of january - the current form cant go on.
 
The only thing we never changed are the owners. Maybe, just maybe having people own the club who neither care for the club not the sport is a real problem because they are incapable of making good decisions when it comes to recruiting staff or their business partners. For everyone looking at Ineos there were enough red flags about how they are running their other "projects" that we weren't too optimistic about them being in charge but our owners saw it as the only valid choice to profit even in the future of off their investment and bringing new money in at the same time. At no point they considered if Ineos were the right people to run this club.

In the past when they had to run this club they usually put people in charge because they knew them or had worked with them before in some capacity because their inability to judge people based on skill and knowledge made those the only viable choices for them.

The only reason that all of this incompetence wasn't a problem form day one of their ownership was due to SAF running the show, they just had to let the man cook. They just had to stay out of his way as much as possible but all that ended with his retirement. Since the Glazers had to put people in charge that made decisions about how to run this football club we are in rapid decline and that won't be fixed until the day the Glazers and all the people they brought in leave the club.
 
It's honestly just poor recruitment of coaches and players, nothing more, nothing less.

It's all hindsight but it is worrying when large sections of an online fanbase (let's be honest, few of us work in football) can call major issues before they occur i.e. Mourinho's appointment, signings like Ibra, Cavani, Varane, Case, Matic being short term fixes, doubts about why we're spending such high fees on Maguire or Mount. The emotional rush to make Ole permanent, the constant rewarding of fat contracts to players who aren't good enough.

I do think people are forgetting Ineos are in their first full season and have had one transfer window, the massive issue with results is what most of us said we wanted i.e. to suffer for a season and actually do a proper rebuild of the club. You have to draw a line under the Glazer years because so much has changed in terms of club structure, it's obviously not started well but performances have been better than where we are in the league. People get so panicked about results game to game, what really matters this season is Amorim puts his system in place and performances trend upwards as we get the season's end. We aren't getting relegated, we just will end up around where we were last season in my opinion.
 
When you're owned by a string of fake-rich billionaires who don't have the best interests of the club at heart and want to skim off the revenues whilst using the club as collateral to borrow billions from the bank, it's no surprise the club is where it is today? If the club was run by a supporter's trust you would not be where you are today. Real Madrid's model should be what Utd aspire toward, a club as profitable as Manchester United do not need a billionaire owner leeching TV revenue or sacking the tea lady to save 25k.

Tons of football clubs have been screwed by such a ownership model and if it takes a club like Utd to get relegated and be stuck in mediocrity for a longer time for the British government to bring in legislation to tackle the problem, it may actually be worth it. I wouldn't hold my breath though and most Utd fans can't seem to even fathom why United are not as successful as Bayern or RM despite being as profitable as them in the past. The difference is that those top clubs are not run to enrich the Glazers or Jim Ratcliffe unlike Utd, and Utd fans should be up in arms since they have never needed a billionaire in the first place.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
Arne Slot just came from the Dutch league and winning nearly every game, same with people talking about buying players from the Dutch league - Gravenberch and Gakpo are excelling now for Liverpool. But Liverpool were left in good shape by Klopp and a successful club structure, whereas every manager seems to leave the club in a worse place for the next one here.
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As I said it's pot luck, liverpool also brought nunez from Portuguese league for 100 million and he has turned out as bad as antony
 
To answer your question, yes.

The problem is, in what was then recent history, we had never had to deal with "change". Sir Alex was always at the helm leading the way. Along with a lot of other things, overall all heading in one direction gave us long term success. Everything followed everything else. The was a long term plan because he was it. The success we had during this period meant we were totally unequip to deal with "change". Other teams had dealt with changes of manager, shit we hadn't for 27 years.

After that it was just a mess. You made a great list of changes we have made, but the trouble is they were never coherent. It was always shot in the dark stuff. New manager, new style, new set of players and so we rinsed a repeated with Woodward rolling the dice every three years hoping if he through enough mud at the wall it might soon stick.
 
I'd say that what we're seeing is the long-term effects of absolutely and unequivocally failing to plan for the long-term. It started from essentially the moment Sir Alex retired and Moyes was appointed his successor, and has spiralled hopelessly to the point we're at right now.

Ed Woodward was almost uniquely unqualified for the role he was parachuted into during the same summer that Moyes joined the club, and it very quickly became apparent. That first summer post-Ferguson was a disaster, with the singular signing of Fellaini (for 3 million more than he'd have cost had the singing been completed a month earlier, by the way) doing nothing to resolve the issues of a threadbare midfield and an ageing defence. I think what has been really staggering, though, is that somehow this situation didn't improve and, I would argue, got even fecking worse when Woodward was replaced by Richard Arnold and John Murtough.

It'd be absolute nonsense to describe Woodward's tenure as the head of football operations as anything even approaching "sublime" but I guess I'd describe the switch from Woodward to Arnold as less "from the sublime to the ridiculous" and more "from the ridiculous to the absolutely batshite insane". What I mean by this is, perhaps more by luck than judgement, under Woodward there did at least seem to be some recognition of the need for a baseline level of quality in the side that meant that, whilst results were never resoundingly impressive, we seldom fell out of the top half of the Premier League either. Another way I'd state it is to look at all the big money (setting the "big-money" bar here at 50 million pound base fee) signings Woodward made and compare it with the Arnold/Murtough combo.

WoodwardDi Maria
Pogba
Lukaku
Wan-Bissaka
Maguire
Sancho
Arnold/MurtoughCasemiro
Antony
Mount
Hojlund

There is a consistent theme throughout this table of gross overpayment and a complete lack of thought as to how these signings will fit into a cogent system. With that said, the least you would say about Woodward's list is that, when we signed them, all were either before or in their prime years and all bar AWB had been starting consistently for teams in one of the top five leagues in the world (England, Spain, Italy, France and Germany) over a period of at least three seasons. From Arnold and Murtough's list, only Mount ticks both of those boxes and even he came with injury woes. Case surely ticked the box for experience at the highest level but was 30 when we signed him, Hojlund was signed for 64 million off the back of literally one season in Serie A (in which he scored 9 goals in 32 appearances, which is hardly a spectacular tally for a striker), and Antony was signed for a staggering 85 million off the back of two seasons worth of football in the fecking Eredivisie.

All this is to say that what we're seeing right now is the culmination of a football "strategy" that has gone from staggeringly bad to, somehow, staggeringly even worse to the point where we've assembled a squad which is not just poorly constructed but no longer even has a particularly high level of quality that can bail us out in a good chunk of matches.
 
A lot of great, interesting replies here so far, hats off to you all. I largely agree with what is being said.
 
AndySmith1990 said:
No. It's the effects of long term mismanagement, stupidity, and arrogance.

There aren't any curses. There isn't any bad luck placed on us by the universe. We are where we are because of the actions of people. People who by and large weren't fit for purpose
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I've never argued there is a curse or bad luck. But it seems to me there is something to the whole culture around the club, the general ambiance, in addition to all the critical media coverage, that gets the worst out of a lot of the actors involved. A form a collective psychology if you will - not an uncommon phenomenon. It is clearly not the only factor, but it certainly seems like A factor
 
AndersB said:
So, if one were to take a scientific approach to the issue of our being so poor, one would change different factors, one by one, and see if that led to a different output. This is in fact what whe have done since SAF retired.

We've tried changing the players: We've bought experienced superstars in later parts of their careers (Zlatan, Ronaldo, Falcao, Sanchez, Casemiro etc); we've bought superstars around their expected peak (Pogba, Di Marìa etc); we've bought potentially emerging superstars (Sancho, Martial); we've bought young, and supposedly hungry, prospects (Højlund, VdB, James etc.); we've bought established, solid players (Mount, AWB, Maguire, etc). The output has been the same, and again and again and again we see good players turn up here and start regressing at an alarming rate.

We've tried changing the manager: We've tried the one hand-picked by SAF (the Moyesiah), managers with great accolades (Mourinho, Van Gaal), one with love for and ties to the club (Ole), up-and-coming and well-respected managers with success on a lower level (ETH and now Amorim). The output has been the same - though jury still out with Amorim.

We've gotten rid of Woodward, chopped and changed backroom staff, finally gotten new ownership in. The output has been the same (if not worse).

We've tried changing the set-piece coach ... enough said about that.


It should by now be quite clear that the problem isn't "the manager" or "the players" or "the director of football" or "the system" or whatnot. Though these are relevant factors, something else has to be fundamentally wrong. And more and more I am thinking that this is a form of complacency or arrogance that has sort of become engrained in the culture of the club itself. Reflected in Manchester United as a brand. Reflected in a fan-base consisting of a lot of people that jumped on the gravy-train of unparalleled SAF success, but without proper heart for the club, expecting to come to Old Trafford to see what another poster here aptly referred to as "the Opera".

What is the solution to this? I do not know. Maybe we need to become so sh*t that the Manchester United brand properly starts fading, and people stop expecting success merely because the club is what it is, that it deserves it. What I do know, is that thinking it's about changing a manager or buying the "right" player is starting to look like the maxim "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".

Thoughts?
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I agree on some point. It’s not a good culture at the club and that must change. But player wise I don’t think our recruitment has been good. Just look at who we got right now. How many of them would you keep and how many would you sell?

It’s not many I would keep, that’s for sure. Maybe 6-7 at most, and that’s probably stretching it.
 
Bad recruitment
Negligence from upper management/owners
Not modernizing the infrastructure
Sticking to 90s ideas
 
Mmm-Qatarian said:
I'd say that what we're seeing is the long-term effects of absolutely and unequivocally failing to plan for the long-term.
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Correct.

That doesn't mean planning for the long-term was ever easy. It was anything but easy. Fergie was a larger-than-life managerial phenomenon of a pretty much unprecedented kind.

I don't blame United for failing to transition into a new Fergie-less era seamlessly.

But it could have been handled better - obviously.

And the way things were handled once it became obvious that United were now very clearly and very dangerously adrift after Fergie had left the helm - well! That was - and still is - extremely damnable.

The amount of money wasted in the last decade or so - is shocking, utterly astounding.
 
It's just the long term effects of Glazer ownership, as simple as that. They've run the club into the ground. And somehow they've managed to get someone in to take the fall. It's kind of mind blowing.
 
No, we're seeing the long-term effects of failure from the decision makers at the club, past and present.
 
Any organization's tone is set by the leader, and a culture of excellence requires a strong charismatic leader.

That was SAF, in other sports teams Shankley, Klopp, Mohrinho, Brady, Montana, Mahomes etc.

I think such a leader has been missing since SAF, current cost saving actions probably also degrade any expectations of excellence.
 
AndersB said:
So, if one were to take a scientific approach to the issue of our being so poor, one would change different factors, one by one, and see if that led to a different output. This is in fact what whe have done since SAF retired.

We've tried changing the players: We've bought experienced superstars in later parts of their careers (Zlatan, Ronaldo, Falcao, Sanchez, Casemiro etc); we've bought superstars around their expected peak (Pogba, Di Marìa etc); we've bought potentially emerging superstars (Sancho, Martial); we've bought young, and supposedly hungry, prospects (Højlund, VdB, James etc.); we've bought established, solid players (Mount, AWB, Maguire, etc). The output has been the same, and again and again and again we see good players turn up here and start regressing at an alarming rate.

We've tried changing the manager: We've tried the one hand-picked by SAF (the Moyesiah), managers with great accolades (Mourinho, Van Gaal), one with love for and ties to the club (Ole), up-and-coming and well-respected managers with success on a lower level (ETH and now Amorim). The output has been the same - though jury still out with Amorim.

We've gotten rid of Woodward, chopped and changed backroom staff, finally gotten new ownership in. The output has been the same (if not worse).

We've tried changing the set-piece coach ... enough said about that.


It should by now be quite clear that the problem isn't "the manager" or "the players" or "the director of football" or "the system" or whatnot. Though these are relevant factors, something else has to be fundamentally wrong. And more and more I am thinking that this is a form of complacency or arrogance that has sort of become engrained in the culture of the club itself. Reflected in Manchester United as a brand. Reflected in a fan-base consisting of a lot of people that jumped on the gravy-train of unparalleled SAF success, but without proper heart for the club, expecting to come to Old Trafford to see what another poster here aptly referred to as "the Opera".

What is the solution to this? I do not know. Maybe we need to become so sh*t that the Manchester United brand properly starts fading, and people stop expecting success merely because the club is what it is, that it deserves it. What I do know, is that thinking it's about changing a manager or buying the "right" player is starting to look like the maxim "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".

Thoughts?
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It’s an interesting point of view but I think one of your main premises is flawed - ie, that we’ve tried multiple different approaches and none of them worked therefore there must be another factor at play.

It’s precisely because we’ve tried so many different approaches that we’re in this mess. It’s caused us to waste hundreds of millions of pounds and resulted in a complete mess of a squad. We’ve had a succession of managers with conflicting styles who have been given free reign over transfers, instead of working to a consistent overarching vision and ensuring all resources are channeled towards supporting this.

It’s meant that instead of seeing continual progression we’ve lurched backwards and forwards, sideways and up and down.

This, plus consistently rewarding mediocrity with inflated wages and hype.

If you go back in time and install a competent CEO after Gill then we would still be competing for the title, as we’d have sensibly invested our budget instead of constantly squandering it.

In the meantime while we’ve wasted money and financially hamstrung ourselves the rest of the league have grown stronger and all still raise their game against us.

Perhaps there is an element of our past success inflating egos and senses of entitlement and shortening patience - but it is only a small factor.

The worst part is, it’s continuing under Ineos as they lurch from one style of manager to another. We’ve at least shown a bit more competence in tree transfer market (Zirkzee aside) and seem to realise prudence around contracts is super important.
 
djd said:
Any organization's tone is set by the leader, and a culture of excellence requires a strong charismatic leader.

That was SAF, in other sports teams Shankley, Klopp, Mohrinho, Brady, Montana, Mahomes etc.

I think such a leader has been missing since SAF, current cost saving actions probably also degrade any expectations of excellence.
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Our decline started under SAF though.
 
Johnthedevil said:
It's just the long term effects of Glazer ownership, as simple as that. They've run the club into the ground. And somehow they've managed to get someone in to take the fall. It's kind of mind blowing.
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Yep.

They ultimately let Fergie run everything which made sense at the time but meant there was massive holes everywhere once he retired. Even some non footballing decisions had to go through him.

One example. A friend worked for years in the commercial team and was told that Fergie was concerned about the negative impacts of social media so much that he essentially put pressure on the club not to launch a Twitter account when all the other teams were doing so.
 
The simple answer is, it's entirely down to the Glazers. Not some mystery phenomenon.

They bought a successful club, saddled it with debt and ran it into the ground over a 20 year period.

Arguably we could have been successful under the Glazers, had they appointed a competent CEO.

So whilst I saw our decline is due to the Glazers, since they appointed Woodward, Woodward, Woodward's incompetence is the primary cause of our current predicament.
 
It’s simple. We were run by people who didn’t know a jot of how to run a football club. If the parasites had have had a single good idea and employed a Berrada equivalent after Fergies time, telling him you build your back room team, manager, players, scouts, youth teams etc. Just concentrate on the football side and we will back you. Commercial side will be run by Woodward, I bet we would have been a lot better off and who knows maybe the leeches wouldn’t have been hated as much and definitely the club would be run a lot better.
 
One of the words I would use to describe the club at the moment is 'tired'. Everything about our play making looks tired, OT stadium looks tired, leaking roof, mice in the kitchens, etc.

In the last eighty or so years we have experienced two major periods of football excellence, the Busby era and the Ferguson era, in between we had years of wandering in the football wilderness, culminating in the lowest point when relegated to Div 2 in 1974.

There are many similarities now, with those 'wilderness years', we swapped managers fairly regularly, even after some had won silverware, they were still dispatched. The various managers had their own brands from teams that were described as 'watching paint dry' under Dave Sexton, to some 'Cavalier' stuff under Ron Atkinson. Although there was at times despair in this period, the 'tiredness' that now permeates throughout the club was not evident and extensions to OT continued, holding on to, as it did, the unshakable belief that one day United would be back.

The start of the long march back was arguably the return to the top flight in 1975/76, with Tommy Doc. The 'Doc' knew he needed a massive clear out of personnel, but that meant negotiating relegation and bouncing straight back, which he did accomplish. However, we were still some ten or so years off from the arrival of Alex Ferguson, and the change of status of the club from being the Edwards family hobby, it became the family business under Martin Edwards, then quoted on the stock exchange and ultimately the eventual arrival of the Glazer's.

We had to wait for the 'second coming' via SAF (who almost didn't make it either) until he led the storming of the EPL, and the mission to knock Liverpool off their perch, throughout the 90's and the 00's, culminating in the Glorious Treble in 1999/2000.

Since then and SAF's stepping down, the pattern for the club moving forward has been remarkably similar to the ending of the Busby Era, we have had numerous managers, some have won silverware as before, but
none have been able to take us forward to the pinnacle of professional football.

There does now seem to be a 'tiredness', a lack of spirit, a sense of nobody really knows what to do, permeating throughout the club. Ownership has of course influenced things, but it had been hoped with the arrival of Sir Jim and INEOS this would change, but whilst the early steps of bringing in top Directors seemed a good start, there have been many missed-steps. Even the idea of a new stadium has not raised the gloom as it slowly sinks in for fans that the 'theatre of dreams' maybe in danger of being lost.

We are in a dark place just now and the way out is not at all clear, if the fall-out from all this is to follow what happened after the Busby era ended, then relegation battle is a reality, are we ready for it?
 
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There is no rule book anywhere that states: a period of success must then allow a period of failure! But what certainly is true that unless there is a successful plan implemented, inevitably failure may follow.

So the way to look at the post SAF era is that we, as a club, planned poorly and kept making the same mistakes such that the period of failure has lasted over a decade. There are a number of people responsible for this including owners and even SAF himself, and case studies will be written on how not to run a football club, even a business for that matter, how Utd have been run.
 
AndersB said:
So, if one were to take a scientific approach to the issue of our being so poor, one would change different factors, one by one, and see if that led to a different output. This is in fact what whe have done since SAF retired.

We've tried changing the players: We've bought experienced superstars in later parts of their careers (Zlatan, Ronaldo, Falcao, Sanchez, Casemiro etc); we've bought superstars around their expected peak (Pogba, Di Marìa etc); we've bought potentially emerging superstars (Sancho, Martial); we've bought young, and supposedly hungry, prospects (Højlund, VdB, James etc.); we've bought established, solid players (Mount, AWB, Maguire, etc). The output has been the same, and again and again and again we see good players turn up here and start regressing at an alarming rate.

We've tried changing the manager: We've tried the one hand-picked by SAF (the Moyesiah), managers with great accolades (Mourinho, Van Gaal), one with love for and ties to the club (Ole), up-and-coming and well-respected managers with success on a lower level (ETH and now Amorim). The output has been the same - though jury still out with Amorim.

We've gotten rid of Woodward, chopped and changed backroom staff, finally gotten new ownership in. The output has been the same (if not worse).

We've tried changing the set-piece coach ... enough said about that.


It should by now be quite clear that the problem isn't "the manager" or "the players" or "the director of football" or "the system" or whatnot. Though these are relevant factors, something else has to be fundamentally wrong. And more and more I am thinking that this is a form of complacency or arrogance that has sort of become engrained in the culture of the club itself. Reflected in Manchester United as a brand. Reflected in a fan-base consisting of a lot of people that jumped on the gravy-train of unparalleled SAF success, but without proper heart for the club, expecting to come to Old Trafford to see what another poster here aptly referred to as "the Opera".

What is the solution to this? I do not know. Maybe we need to become so sh*t that the Manchester United brand properly starts fading, and people stop expecting success merely because the club is what it is, that it deserves it. What I do know, is that thinking it's about changing a manager or buying the "right" player is starting to look like the maxim "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results".

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Certainly arrogance is part of the problem, alongwith complacency, ignorance and apathy. Ive no doubt many supporters became arrogant during SAFs years and why not? For years and years we had to look on as Liverpool won all before them, as Nottingham Forest and Villa enjoyed European Cup success as our fortunes declined. SAF changed all that, bringing incredible success to the club and kept his promise to knock Liverpool off their perch.....and it felt bloody good! Pride comes before a fall and Manchester United had further to fall than anybody.

The board and owners have since shown unadulterated ignorance regarding how a successful football club is run, putting commercial success before success on the pitch, although the former cannot be sustained without the latter, as, despite the global power of the United "brand" is now becoming clear.
With every season that passes without trophies apathy sets in, from the owners and board down to the players and supporters.
How we get out of this Ive no idea; we've changed managers, coaches, players, tactics and even tea ladies to little avail, so I can only think the reason for our malaise is down to the choices of managers, coaches and players and these choices come from the very top, the owners and board. Is it not time we changed them?
 
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