It’s the players, not the manager

Dansk said:
I'm at the point now where I feel like it must be the fundamental club culture. For almost a decade now, across five different managers and basically three different squads, things have been mostly the same. It doesn't seem realistic that the blame can be tied to either the players or the manager. At this point, of course, the players have been completely soured and lost faith in the whole thing, so I'm not even very surprised that they're being "toxic." If everything was total chaos and non-stop failure at my workplace, I don't think I'd be going to work with enthusiasm and determination. Manchester United F.C. has become a toxic workplace environment, and nobody can thrive under that.

A lot can contribute to this. I've got experience analyzing and untangling TWE (Toxic Workplace Environments), and it's almost never as simple as "the staff are cnuts" or "the boss is incompetent." It'll be something that permeates the whole club. I'll point to such things as the fact that until very recently, regular staff at the club weren't paid a living wage. If you worked as, say, a cook or maintenance worker or whatever at MUFC, it paid less than a job at fecking McDonald's. It was expected that you would see it as a privilege to work for the club and do it for a pittance. And you wouldn't necessarily think that the feelings of the cafeteria staff has much of an impact on player performances, but these are the people they interact with day to day. These are the faces they see when they go to work. They're in that environment, and if the workplace environment is full of people who don't feel very good about it, it affects everything.

Contrast this to reports of City (and probably many other top clubs) who go out of their way to foster positivity at all levels of the club. If you play for a club where everyone loves to be, from the manager and players down to the cafeteria staff and kitmen, there won't be this cloud of negativity surrounding your job. And nobody is immune to the effects such a thing has on the subconscious. These players, who are often very young, are very much affected by the general mood and atmosphere of their workplace. These are young men, often in their early twenties, who are extremely susceptible to emotional influences, for much the same reason that there's a home team advantage because your fans are cheering you on while you play.

We all know that things have been a circus at the club for years. We were the last PL club to start paying a living wage, which I think we started doing just last year. I doubt the everyday workers all greeted the players with smiles and good vibes in the morning. The owners are parasitic businessmen who hijacked the club against its will and installed their Wall Street cronies in positions throughout the hierarchy, and leech money out of the club, money that the players are earning for them. That must surely affect the pride and joy of playing for United.
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First off man, you make some great points but it’s quite anti semitic to refer to a Jewish person as a parasite. I’m not sure you meant it but it’s definitely a thing. If you’re saying it without anti semitism I would just recommend making that clear when you bring it up.

As for the failure across five managers, I do believe what you’re saying is correct, the club as a whole clearly went through a golden age during fergie but seems like some parts of us was antiquated
On the other hand, Mourinho had us pretty great at one point. We used to be ferocious on the counter, the issue we had then were fullbacks imo, defensively that year we got second we were clearly quite strong. Perisic added in, and Maguire who knows what maguire would have been under him. It was too much of the chopping of different styles. Never forget that season we got second we started off steam rolling teams.

couple more windows and we could have been something special. Too strong in the attack for low level and mid table teams and too strong defensively for the top six.
 
TheRedHearted said:
First off man, you make some great points but it’s quite anti semitic to refer to a Jewish person as a parasite. I’m not sure you meant it but it’s definitely a thing. If you’re saying it without anti semitism I would just recommend making that clear when you bring it up.

As for the failure across five managers, I do believe what you’re saying is correct, the club as a whole clearly went through a golden age during fergie but seems like some parts of us was antiquated
On the other hand, Mourinho had us pretty great at one point. We used to be ferocious on the counter, the issue we had then were fullbacks imo, defensively that year we got second we were clearly quite strong. Perisic added in, and Maguire who knows what maguire would have been under him. It was too much of the chopping of different styles. Never forget that season we got second we started off steam rolling teams.

couple more windows and we could have been something special. Too strong in the attack for low level and mid table teams and too strong defensively for the top six.
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Bizzare.

The guy you quoted never referred to the religious status of the owners but yet you accuse him of antisemitism?

Every single United fan I have spoken to refers to the owners as 'the Yanks' (or the gimps) so I'm not sure why you posted that drivel. Unless you are being paid for doing it?
 
The Constant Gardener said:
Bizzare.

The guy you quoted never referred to the religious status of the owners but yet you accuse him of antisemitism?

Every single United fan I have spoken to refers to the owners as 'the Yanks' (or the gimps) so I'm not sure why you posted that drivel. Unless you are being paid for doing it?
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Not bizarre at all. He called them parasites, if you would have read the post that’s what’s anti semitic. Bizarre you didn’t get that.

Since you’re in the ignorant about it, take a look at this with a clear example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_parasite

i imagine you actually didn’t know but to call me bizarre without looking it up is just a little lazy.
 
roseguy64 said:
You can't have luck for that long FFS. Whatever helps you feel better though.
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It was luck.
He arrived at a club where the players had actually been coached/trained well. The morale was very low, though.
Ole arrived, lifted the mood and the well-coached players worked hard for a manager they liked and so they delivered.

The lift in morale dropped off towards the end of the season and it could also be argued that the players were no longer being coached properly. Our results began to suffer as a result.

The following season, we started as we ended the previous season - badly.
The wheels were falling off.
At Christmas, we were around mid table.
Then Bruno arrived - he carried us on his back and single-handedly dragged us into 3rd.

The following season, Bruno again, delivered, But what helped was the lack of fans in stadia. We were winning matches, even though we were getting out-played.
Most fans realised that we were relying on individual brilliance (mainly from Bruno), rather than a well-drilled team following a good system.

The following season (2021-22), fans had returned to stadia and Bruno had now regressed (as all players do at our club). On top of this Ole was not getting lucky. This led to us getting thumped really hard.
LCFC beat us. LFC hammered us. Then MCFC made us look like fools.
Ole was then fired.

Luck had a huge part to play in Ole's "success". To argue otherwise is folly.
 
NinjaZombie said:
It's ridiculous :lol:

What has Fred contributed to the club, looking at the bigger picture? How many trophy-less seasons has it been now? Guy was a bit part player under Jose when we last won a trophy.

Works hard, yeah but that should be a minimum requirement tbh.
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IIRC, Fred hasn't ever won a trophy with us. [can someone check this?]
He arrived during Jose's last Summer - Jose didn't even want him. How do we know this? He hardly ever used him.
Fred, or should I say McFred, was part of Ole's era.
 
sunama said:
It was luck.
He arrived at a club where the players had actually been coached/trained well. The morale was very low, though.
Ole arrived, lifted the mood and the well-coached players worked hard for a manager they liked and so they delivered.

The lift in morale dropped off towards the end of the season and it could also be argued that the players were no longer being coached properly. Our results began to suffer as a result.

The following season, we started as we ended the previous season - badly.
The wheels were falling off.
At Christmas, we were around mid table.
Then Bruno arrived - he carried us on his back and single-handedly dragged us into 3rd.

The following season, Bruno again, delivered, But what helped was the lack of fans in stadia. We were winning matches, even though we were getting out-played.
Most fans realised that we were relying on individual brilliance (mainly from Bruno), rather than a well-drilled team following a good system.

The following season (2021-22), fans had returned to stadia and Bruno had now regressed (as all players do at our club). On top of this Ole was not getting lucky. This led to us getting thumped really hard.
LCFC beat us. LFC hammered us. Then MCFC made us look like fools.
Ole was then fired.

Luck had a huge part to play in Ole's "success". To argue otherwise is folly.
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Agreed.
 
sunama said:
It was luck.
He arrived at a club where the players had actually been coached/trained well. The morale was very low, though.
Ole arrived, lifted the mood and the well-coached players worked hard for a manager they liked and so they delivered.

The lift in morale dropped off towards the end of the season and it could also be argued that the players were no longer being coached properly. Our results began to suffer as a result.

The following season, we started as we ended the previous season - badly.
The wheels were falling off.
At Christmas, we were around mid table.
Then Bruno arrived - he carried us on his back and single-handedly dragged us into 3rd.

The following season, Bruno again, delivered, But what helped was the lack of fans in stadia. We were winning matches, even though we were getting out-played.
Most fans realised that we were relying on individual brilliance (mainly from Bruno), rather than a well-drilled team following a good system.

The following season (2021-22), fans had returned to stadia and Bruno had now regressed (as all players do at our club). On top of this Ole was not getting lucky. This led to us getting thumped really hard.
LCFC beat us. LFC hammered us. Then MCFC made us look like fools.
Ole was then fired.

Luck had a huge part to play in Ole's "success". To argue otherwise is folly.
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Okay. Not gonna read all that. You're right. Good luck with that.
 
The Constant Gardener said:
Bizzare.

The guy you quoted never referred to the religious status of the owners but yet you accuse him of antisemitism?

Every single United fan I have spoken to refers to the owners as 'the Yanks' (or the gimps) so I'm not sure why you posted that drivel. Unless you are being paid for doing it?
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Anti-semitism is what I see when I see the Glazers referred to as parasites. I also read Redissue, which back in the day had a few more blatant things to say along that line.
Other than that, I just see laziness. Yes, if we just complain enough, the Glazers will give us the $5B club for free.
 


The inside story of the worst Manchester United season in decades

United never had the character in their dressing room for an interim manager to operate. The United manager's authority eroded in the last months of Jose Mourinho's tenure, Solskjaer felt like a substitute teacher and the professorial Rangnick was more befitting that description.

Rangnick started to cut loose in his press conferences and that was described as the 'filtered version' by a source. The majority of the United players were never having Rangnick's methods and his diagnosis the squad required 'open-heart surgery' went down badly with them. That is now an emergency operation, although you might need to check if some at United have a heart.

Erik ten Hag will have to fumigate the dressing room. The United squad is a toxic mix of backbiting and spitefulness. A player described the mood as 'toxic' and Jesse Lingard was unfussed Paul Scholes publicised his description of the dressing room as a 'disaster' after the Arsenal defeat.

Those close to one player referred to Rangnick as 'specs' behind his back, craven playground bully behaviour that should be rooted out, not rewarded with a new contract. The squad's disillusionment was a source of fascination to Ferguson, who used backchannels to gauge the mood.

One player complained Rangnick 'talked to him like a child' and 'did not give a s---e' about Rangnick's advice. Another player was dubbed a 'teacher's pet'. One senior player spoke disparagingly of any competitor for his position. Some players found Anthony Elanga's playing time mind-boggling.

A player who took umbrage with criticism he received from Solskjaer two months into the season said the Norwegian was 'finished'. A month later, Solskjaer was. Once some contracts have expired, the nest will be sparser but some vipers are still slithering.

The in-fighting actually went public when a player scored and barely celebrated. An enthusiastic teammate encouraged him to smile in front of a nearby camera, which only incensed the player, irritated by his teammate's apparent obsequiousness. This happened with United winning in a game they won.

Come the listless defeat at Goodison Park in early April, a source close to one player said several players had 'mentally checked out'. Everton players were distinctly unimpressed by United in the reverse fixture six months earlier and rued drawing 1-1.

The season was still salvageable when Rangnick was introduced to the press at Old Trafford on the first Friday of December but the rot that had set in under Solskjaer was incurable. Paul Pogba resented his half-time introduction in the 5-0 evisceration by Liverpool with the visitors 4-0 up and he lasted 15 minutes of the second-half until his expulsion. Pogba left the pitch sooner at Anfield.

Ronaldo's gravitas was largely appreciated at United, particularly by the younger players, and he was holding the dressing room together in the final weeks of Solskjaer's tenure. Ronaldo's presence cowed Maguire and some players partially blamed their own downturn in form on Maguire's struggles. One player suggested Maguire got an easier ride than other United centre-backs as far back as the 2-0 home defeat to Burnley in January 2020.

A meeting attended by senior players and Rangnick was held without Maguire in February and caused ructions. Pogba was present and retrospectively apologised to Rangnick as he did not want to appear as though he was undermining the manager. Dressing room sources described a senior player's behaviour in the meeting as a 'hijacking'.

Eric Bailly abhorred Maguire's privileges and questioned how he could continue to start whilst underperforming. Another player claimed Maguire was 'not good enough'. Several teammates agree Bruno Fernandes's wasteful approach is 'a problem'.

A reporter new on the Manchester beat wrote United suspected where the 'unsavoury leaks' had emerged from. Like in Murder on the Orient Express, more than one passenger stuck the knife in.

Towards the end of Solskjaer's tenure, United players were at the end of their tether with Solskjaer. He held a team meeting and asked the players if they still trusted him. A player noticed almost everyone was avoiding eye contact and 'looking at their shoes'.

Player sources believe Solskjaer's legacy has been one of distrust. Several still under contract want to leave as they feel they were sold a pup by the former manager and it has driven a wedge between them and the club.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ll-news/man-united-news-inside-story-23661212
 
TheRedHearted said:
Not bizarre at all. He called them parasites, if you would have read the post that’s what’s anti semitic. Bizarre you didn’t get that.

Since you’re in the ignorant about it, take a look at this with a clear example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_parasite

i imagine you actually didn’t know but to call me bizarre without looking it up is just a little lazy.
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Calling a parasite a parasite isn't antisemitic whichever way you look at it. Unless you think that they can get a free pass because of their ethnicity?
 
The Constant Gardener said:
Calling a parasite a parasite isn't antisemitic whichever way you look at it. Unless you think that they can get a free pass because of their ethnicity?
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Certain words hold different connotations for different religions, ethnicities, genders etc. it holds a double meaning cause of history. If he or she didn’t know that’s fine, but once anyone looks at that link they’d understood you can articulate that in another way.
once again not saying it was deliberate, but now that the user knows; it’s a easy decision to make.
 
The squad was chaos when Jose took over, even more when Ole took over and it wasn’t less chaos when Rangnick came.

The problem has been that neither Jose, Ole or Rangnick had the opportunity to make drastic squad changes. They were more or less stucked with players, and the club believed only ad hoc patching was necessary.

Now is the best time United ever have had to build a new squad. MANY outgoing players and this season everyone finally have realised United has to build a new squad from so to say scratch; flicking isn’t enough.

It’s a dream situation for both us and ETH. Finally a United manager is in position to form his own squad. I can’t see any downside for ETH; it’s almost impossible for him to fail. He will get tremendous backing.
 
The players will let down the manager again.

Some are not utd quality and some are mentally broken.
 
Our squads probably worse off than the one we had when they hammered us 4-0 in May? What were we expecting to happen, nothing will change until the Glazers go
 
Moreover, it's the same fecking clowns who are fecking the manager. Let's go through all of the suckers I've noticed negatively today.
  • McTominay... Pointless footballer and fumbles everything.
  • Maguire... Absolute shambles at the back (play the offside trap, you moron!).
  • Bruno... He plays as if he doesn't know how to play football anymore.
  • Shaw... Just embarrassing. Mourinho may have been an asshole, but he was absolutely right about you.
  • Rashford... Just retire and go into politics already. Danny Welbeck was shite by lots of standards, but you are now worse than Welbeck.
  • De Gea... What the feck was that on the second Brighton goal? Does the notion of rebound control even a thing anymore?
I could carry a sign that says "I'm with stupid" and it would apply to those names at the moment.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
Moreover, it's the same fecking clowns who are fecking the manager. Let's go through all of the suckers I've noticed negatively today.
  • McTominay... Pointless footballer and fumbles everything.
  • Maguire... Absolute shambles at the back (play the offside trap, you moron!).
  • Bruno... He plays as if he doesn't know how to play football anymore.
  • Shaw... Just embarrassing. Mourinho may have been an asshole, but he was absolutely right about you.
  • Rashford... Just retire and go into politics already. Danny Welbeck was shite by lots of standards, but you are now worse than Welbeck.
  • De Gea... What the feck was that on the second Brighton goal? Does the notion of rebound control even a thing anymore?
I could carry a sign that says "I'm with stupid" and it would apply to those names at the moment.
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I know this is a Man Utd. fan site so what I'm about to say maybe of no concern to many people (and it maybe a source of pleasure to Scottish members!) but bloody hell, the shenanigans at Man United these last 18 months are really going to feck things up for Gareth Southgate and England.

I mean how many games does he have to experiment with before the World Cup in November? There can't be many. Furthermore, the England Manager is well known to pick people who have done well for him in the past even if they are out of form/favour with their clubs. What chance will we have with Maguire and Shaw in defence, Sancho on the wing and Rashford up front vs Brazil, on a hot hot day? Not much I'd imagine. Such a shame after 2018 and 2021...
 
Azhar88 said:
I know this is a Man Utd. fan site so what I'm about to say maybe of no concern to many people (and it maybe a source of pleasure to Scottish members!) but bloody hell, the shenanigans at Man United these last 18 months are really going to feck things up for Gareth Southgate and England.

I mean how many games does he have to experiment with before the World Cup in November? There can't be many. Furthermore, the England Manager is well known to pick people who have done well for him in the past even if they are out of form/favour with their clubs. What chance will we have with Maguire and Shaw in defence, Sancho on the wing and Rashford up front vs Brazil, on a hot hot day? Not much I'd imagine. Such a shame after 2018 and 2021...
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Quite random, but anyway I'm not sure any of those except Maguire are seen as key players so will it really make any difference?
 
There seems to be a bunch of players who believe that if they are fit, they will play or get meaningful substitute minutes no matter what - Rashford, McTominay, Fred, Bruno, Sancho, Shaw, Maguire - and there lies the problem. Players on fat contracts who have no competition or ambition to succeed at United. They don't care as long as they are top-half of the table.
 
TheRedHearted said:
Not bizarre at all. He called them parasites, if you would have read the post that’s what’s anti semitic. Bizarre you didn’t get that.

Since you’re in the ignorant about it, take a look at this with a clear example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_parasite

i imagine you actually didn’t know but to call me bizarre without looking it up is just a little lazy.
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Well, maybe you are the lazy one as a simple Google search would've showed you that there is also a term "parasite/parasitic businessman".
Go push your agenda elsewhere.
 
ilrm said:
There seems to be a bunch of players who believe that if they are fit, they will play or get meaningful substitute minutes no matter what - Rashford, McTominay, Fred, Bruno, Sancho, Shaw, Maguire - and there lies the problem. Players on fat contracts who have no competition or ambition to succeed at United. They don't care as long as they are top-half of the table.
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You list these names and write with a confident tone. Do you know something others don't? I get Bruno, Rashford, Maguire. Maybe even Sancho. But Fred, McT and Shaw have been benched and have stayed on the bench for prolonged periods. I don't see any reason to believe they have belief that they will start.
 
georgipep said:
Well, maybe you are the lazy one as a simple Google search would've showed you that there is also a term "parasite/parasitic businessman".
Go push your agenda elsewhere.
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You can’t tell me I’m pushing an agenda when there’s a term like that. Just because there’s a double meaning doesn’t negate the meaning that’s been used during and even before a genocide. He made it clear it’s not what he meant, that’s different
 
TheRedHearted said:
You can’t tell me I’m pushing an agenda when there’s a term like that. Just because there’s a double meaning doesn’t negate the meaning that’s been used during and even before a genocide. He made it clear it’s not what he meant, that’s different
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You ignore the fact that the term he used is a term itself, but cool.
 
A lot of these players, under good coaching for the past 5 years instead of the nonsense we've had, would do perfectly well in the squads of the top teams. It is a game now where players really need to learn what they're meant to do, as instructed by the manager and coaches, and have the technical and physical qualities to carry those things out.

The era of the individual is gone, there are for the most part now the best cogs for the best machines. Over the past few years, Man City and Liverpool have built Maseratis and Ferraris. Man Utd have built a Robin Reliant.
 
Bastian said:
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If the comments effected them so badly that they arent good enough like he said, then they werent good enough in the first place. You will always have doubters and need to prove them wrong. Its terrible when the doubter is in charge and your manager, but he isnt. So now they need to get to proving him wrong and stop whining as if they arent paid huge amounts of money to at least look like they're trying to open teams up and score goals.
 
Told you, it was always the players. The current and the previous manager share no blame.
 
It's mostly on the players but honestly nobody forces ETH to play the fat feck at left back when he just bought Malacia. Also nobody forced him to go for a midget at the back. So he's not completely without fault. However, the player material he has at his disposal is shocking
 
I said it after some of the performances last season. I dont care who the manager is winners don't produce the sort of gutless performances that happened last season. None of these players are up to the job.
 
These players aren't good enough under any manager. Don't know how much clear it can make it. Shouldn't continue to pick some of them admittedly, but we're not exactly blessed with options.
 
Problem is there's too many players that need replacing.

We have a very odd squad of expensive crap that can't gel or work hard for each other. Perhaps even a top manager can't bridge the gap properly. I'm sure over the months we can improve but I feel there's too much wrong between the players to be flowing well and we'll need to identify some more to replace. The club and manager might not be good enough on early evidence so far to shape the squad. Ten Hag needs help from an actual DOF.
 
Keep this one near the top until it sinks in with a good section of fanbase.

to be clear it’s no.1 the club, who oversaw this assemblage of players over many years.
 
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