It’s the players…

Wazzaduke33 said:
It’s a squad built from 4/5 differing ideas across 4/5 regimes. We’ve never allowed a full cycle to develop over 3 + years. Klopp got 3 to win his first trophy, binning Moyes after 8 months was tragic, that’s where it all went wrong and it’s never been rectified. He had feck all to spend Moyes, nothing, regardless of what you think of him he’s a good manager and proved it pretty much everywhere he’s been
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Disagree, as many successful managers have shown the ability to have players playing a specific style quite quickly. That first Klopp team was abysmal defensively but they ran like lunatics and played good stuff even with crap players. Then they signed Salah/Mane/VVD etc and transformed into the elite side.

The only manager that’s managed to do that for us was LVG. Problem was the style was horrid and outdated.
 
For me it comes down to the ability of the manager to get the best out of the players he has. A squad needs a baseline level of quality based on expectations, but whether or not they reach, underperform, or exceed that level depends on the manager's man/squad management and tactics. This separates managers like SAF, Ancelotti, Klopp, and Pep from everyone else. World-class managers are as rare as world-class footballers, so it's reasonable to assume it might be hard to find/develop one.

That's to say, it's a bit of a cop-out to brand the players as lazy or downing tools. The manager's job is to motivate the squad and get the best out of them.
 
At United it’s us the fans. Are we on the side of the football club or players and managers?

Many in my generation are still on the side of SAF over the club.Till it becomes about just the club and nothing else ie owners, CEO, managers or players the club will not be at a consistent high level.

Players or Manager win a trophy and fans make it all about them, that not sustainable because it’s the identity of the club that’s facilitated that victory. If only SAF had Busby Babes on his case telling fans what is wrong with what he and the players are doing.

Players, managers and owners are supposed to add their name to the history of the club but not become the club. It takes one misstep for every high to crumble and sides picked.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
Disagree, as many successful managers have shown the ability to have players playing a specific style quite quickly. That first Klopp team was abysmal defensively but they ran like lunatics and played good stuff even with crap players. Then they signed Salah/Mane/VVD etc and transformed into the elite side.

The only manager that’s managed to do that for us was LVG. Problem was the style was horrid and outdated.
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Its about the overall plan though

1. DOF setting out a plan of how the club will recruit
2. Style of play - pressing, counter, possession
3. Recruit players to fit that style
4. Don’t compromise on the strategy
5. Bring in a manager who plays the style you want

We’ve consistently done only parts of the above, never all at once
 
It is just cheaper to sack the manager than the players. It is a different thing if only one player has a problem. Then it becomes easier. But if manager loses the approval of good majority of dressing room. he will get kicked out, fair or not. It is just too cost prohibitive to throw away big money players and get another set of big money players.
SAF was in a different era. That era is gone.
 
MackRobinson said:
For me it comes down to the ability of the manager to get the best out of the players he has. A squad needs a baseline level of quality based on expectations, but whether or not they reach, underperform, or exceed that level depends on the manager's man/squad management and tactics. This separates managers like SAF, Ancelotti, Klopp, and Pep from everyone else. World-class managers are as rare as world-class footballers, so it's reasonable to assume it might be hard to find/develop one.

That's to say, it's a bit of a cop-out to brand the players as lazy or downing tools. The manager's job is to motivate the squad and get the best out of them.
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SAF struggled at the start also.
 
RedDevil@84 said:
It is just cheaper to sack the manager than the players. It is a different thing if only one player has a problem. Then it becomes easier. But if manager loses the approval of good majority of dressing room. he will get kicked out, fair or not. It is just too cost prohibitive to throw away big money players and get another set of big money players.
SAF was in a different era. That era is gone.
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It's literally the opposite, it's too expensive to keep players if they are not right for the club. This is why big clubs offload often, we are basically the only ones who don't.
 
I reckon it's the club.

We've had these "it's the players/managers" threads before and we've seen the same cycles over ten years. The club is responsible for creating it over and over.

Over a billion spent and not one title or CL challenge.
 
Hammondo said:
It's literally the opposite, it's too expensive to keep players if they are not right for the club. This is why big clubs offload often, we are basically the only ones who don't.
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How? If say 5 players have a problem with the manager, how do you get rid of them without paying them all off.
 
Yep, it’s the players. There are obviously other issues like injuries, recruitment etc but right now, senior players like Fernandes and Rashford are going missing when we need them to be the best players on the pitch.
 
Why is it always the players for some of you?

Why the constant need to absolve the managers from any blame?
 
Eddy_JukeZ said:
Why is it always the players for some of you?

Why the constant need to absolve the managers from any blame?
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We've had 5 managers since Sir Alex retired. Every time a new one comes in, there is a sudden upturn in results then collectively the players drop off. How is that the manager's fault? How can 5 managers have the same thing happen? For me, it mostly boils down to two things, the piss-poor spending/recruitment and the weak/defeatist attitude of the players. I don't think anyone completely absolves the manager but sacking Ten Hag now would be utterly stupid.
 
KingCantona87 said:
We've had 5 managers since Sir Alex retired. Every time a new one comes in, there is a sudden upturn in results then collectively the players drop off. How is that the manager's fault? How can 5 managers have the same thing happen? For me, it mostly boils down to two things, the piss-poor spending/recruitment and the weak/defeatist attitude of the players. I don't think anyone completely absolves the manager but sacking Ten Hag now would be utterly stupid.
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The players have been entirely different too. It's easy to motivate a team to have a bounce back season and get top 4. Making the step up requires a lot of coaching nous and maintaining that level requires good man management to keep the players motivated and engaged. And it's the toughest job in football to do, to actually go from a top 4 team to a title challenging team. Teams crash and burn, implode, whatever, because expectations get raised and then when the team doesn't actually end up playing to that level, the morale drops much further than before.
 
If the manager is incompetent, then the players under him will always eventually run out of patience, confidence or hunger (or all three). Players are human too, and if the person in charge of you is incompetent or even downright vindictive (Mourinho) then it breeds a bad mentality throughout the entire workplace. And for a job that requires a huge physical workload at the top of your game, with the pressure of doing it in front of the world, that has a much larger knock-on effect than it does at the normal office or factory job. That has been the case with Moyes, LVG, Mourinho and Ole. No matter what you think of the players under them, there's no doubt that all four of them simply weren't good enough (the middle two were at one point but were past their best by the time they were here). We could have had the current City team or our late 00's team and it would eventually have gone pear-shaped.

Having a situation like that for a few years is easily recoverable. Having it for a decade is much harder. Combine that with mismanagement at the upper level where players are overpaid and overhyped which basically encourages laziness and selfishness, and it's just something that has been allowed to fester and become ingrained throughout the entire club.

To turn it around you need significant player turn-over in a short period of time (which we've done fairly well under ETH, but still not as much as I'd hoped) with the correct players (big question marks over this) and then have good coaching and man-management. And that needs to be consistent for a good period of time to cleanse away the weak mentality and ingrain a new stronger one.

I'm not giving up on ETH yet. He certainly does seem to have focused on bringing in players with more of a fighter mentality which we certainly needed. His in-game management, tactics and coaching is where more of the problems do seem to be, and they are actually easier to recover from. Whether it's by him or by the next manager, I do think we are now in a much better position going forward than when ETH arrived. We're being screwed a bit at the moment with the sheer amount of injuries and also some bad luck with refereeing decisions, so I don't think we're as bad as what is being made out. I'm happy to wait until we get more of our injured players back and see how we go before I start thinking of writing him off. That goes for the players as well.
 
Any glimmer of success seems to go to straight to their heads, as if they have proved everyone wrong and are now 'back' to being a top team again.

Playing well against a Palace team without their best players...shouldn't have been reason to celebrate or relax.
 
ETH has in total signed 16 players including loanees in 18 months. If it's to point blame at the players then the manager is also in the cross hairs. United are I'd say 2 players away from this team being identified the complete managers team. Other managers have made more impact with less so as it stands both the players and the manager are responsible for the poor results and performances. It's funny no one was saying this last season so it is recency bias. The manager has been backed he has a responsibility to deliver.

De Bryune wasn't signed by Pep but he still is the managers player just as Bruno is to EtH (captain) and Rashford given his contract renewal.
 
I’m at a loss to explain what’s happening now really.

When Jose said the players had the wrong mentality I thought he was right, despite him being the wrong man for the job as well.

With Ole it was clearly a combo of both. He wasn’t up to the job and the players were taking liberties.

ETH is no nonsense and has got rid of the players I felt were the issue. The turnover since Jose said the players were the problem is almost the entire squad. ETH has been strong and has fixed the lack of discipline that Ole brought into the squad. He came here with a proven track record of being able to coach players and teams. I’ve never sensed the job was too big for him.

His signings have been hit and miss for sure and that’s possibly my biggest concern with him. It feels like he’s been allowed to sign mostly players he knows and has worked with rather than working with the scouting team. Not that they’ve shown themselves to be competent in fairness.

I just don’t know now where to put the blame. Can it still be the players when we’ve had such a high turnover now? I know I’ve just said his signings have been hit and miss but in terms of mentality they all seem like winners and hard workers. Not the kind of players who down tools and throw the manager under the bus like we had before.

Can it be the manager when he seemed so competent at the start and came with the rep as possibly the best up and coming coach around? I don’t think he’s great at using subs and it seems like we are physically not strong enough but that doesn’t explain our lack of cohesion and style.

I always felt like I could see where the issues were in the past but now I really just don’t know.
 
When I started the post what I meant moreso wasn’t so much our only problem is our players, moreso the culture of the sport allows players to under perform or down tools with absolutely no ramifications. As such, you see teams form flip flopping unless you have extremely strong managers (few and far between) AND a well run club.

There just isn’t a successful club that hasn’t got both and is doing well. Roman knew how to run Chelsea a certain way, high manager turnover and turf out players who aren’t good enough fast. It worked for him cause the club was built to make it work.

United has a cluster f**k, mish mash, change between managers approach to things. If not only has an awful, inefficient squad management issue, but it just expects managers to fix these inneficiences , along with making the squad just work where we are expected to challange at the top end of the table.

So yeh, players are a massive issue, the culture of football is beholden to players who can take years off and get paid millions.

But uniteds problems run waaaaayyyy beyond players and managers.
 
Definitely the players but it’s the enablers that perpetuate this abhorrence.

Fans - overrate them - player fc - indulging individuals and care less about the team as a whole. I miss the days of competition for places.
Owners - bakers that don’t eat bread. You have to be a consumer to understand your product.
Managers - your job is to win games and clear all obstacles. If you’d rather play politics, go be a politician.
Directors - too busy cooking the books by over valuing assets to con the owners. This lot are criminals and should be in jail for financial crimes.

Under SAF fans wanted Giggs out because he went through that injury phase and missing games, what he did was change a good few things to deal with it. Zombie football was a thing. Veron wasn’t making us a better team, he was moved on. RVN stopped benefitting the team, we cut him loose. At no point was an argument based on the club not catering to the players.

When did this phenomenon come into existence here?

Player FC is destroyed this club. Great PLAYERS don’t guarantee success but great TEAMS do.
 
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