It's not the players fault!

devilish

Juventus fan who used to support United
Joined
Sep 5, 2002
Messages
62,889
Or not exactly

I find the likes of Howson and Goldfish latest 'our players are charlatans' to defend the manager as hilarious

a- this is mostly ETH's team with a big chunk of those players having played either under him (Antony, De Ligt, Mazraoui, Martinez, Eriksen) or are from the same pool he came from. Did he saddle us with loads of charlatans then?
b- the rest are players that he and his best mate Rio keep defending. I am referring to the likes of Rashy, Mainoo, Mount and Maguire. Are they charlatans?

English Rambo/Sir Alex should really name and shame whom the charlatans are!

I do think that we have a lack of commitment in the team :cough: Shaw :cough: but is eclipsed by a mix of horrible tactics and a serious lack of talent particularly upfront.
 
I wouldn’t take anything seriously from Goldbridge. One of the worst out there, keeps changing his opinions (which is fine to some degree). Has been calling out the players throughout even when 90% of the team has been replaced by ETH which doesn’t make sense.

Past couple weeks he has been trying to dig himself out of this huge hole he has dug himself into. He also rates players based on their FIFA rating.
 
People have been saying it's the players fault for years.

Only problem with that is that almost all of the playing staff have been replaced in the last few years, and we're still rubbish.
 
ayushreddevil9 said:
I wouldn’t take anything seriously from Goldbridge. One of the worst out there, keeps changing his opinions (which is fine to some degree). Has been calling out the players throughout even when 90% of the team has been replaced by ETH which doesn’t make sense.

Past couple weeks he has been trying to dig himself out of this huge hole he has dug himself into. He also rates players based on their FIFA rating.
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It's amazing considering that each and every signing made were given the thumbs up by both rambo and goldfish. Actually they were further proof of how good eth is in persuading them to join us
 
The players thing is absolute bollocks. They'll all have their flaws in terms of ability or game intelligence as with any squad, but there has been a lot of turnover of the squad under various managers since that narrative began. The majority of players have been decent or very good at other teams before we've signed them, and have shown it for us in patches too.

Is it more likely that we've hired a handful of inadequate managers that have failed to consistently motivate, inspire and manage their squads to the level required...or that we've signed lots of professional footballers that actively don't try for the biggest club most of them will play for?
 
All of the following are true:

1. The manager is not good enough
2. The squad is not good enough to win the PL and CL
3. The club has been very poorly run (jury still out on the new regime)

But I agree that our players are probably not as bad as they seem. For one thing, many of them seem to perform better for their national team. It's typically the other way around when it comes to top players.
 
Rotten culture.

Our ex players that got out of our environment seems to be doing better, or to the very least functioning well

You can say United is probably above their level, but we're really making them much worse, and this is instance keeps on happening again and again.
 
We have a good squad that should be making top four. We all know what the problem is.
 
It must be difficult to feel motivated when the standards seem so mediocre and uninspiring from the management above you.
 
It’s the most annoying and incorrect argument ever.

“Those damn players throwing the manager under the bus again!”

It’s nearly a whole new fecking squad. Does this mean that every player we purchase is a lazy cvnt who can’t wait to lose every game and not pass a football accurately 5 yards? All the 50+ players we’ve bought in the last 12 years? It’s a stupid fecking argument.

It’s the coaching. It’s obvious.
 
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It's clear as day that there is a system issue. No team in the Premier league (or much further afield tbf) are so incredibly easy to play against
The goals we concede are often the simplest pieces of play you'll see in the game and they happen over and over again.

Our players might be garbage but until this system issue is fixed I feel like it's impossible to judge them fairly. No one playing in this shape is capable of thriving imo
 
Goldbridge speaks a lot of shit.

He just called Van Basten overrated.
 
ayushreddevil9 said:
I wouldn’t take anything seriously from Goldbridge. One of the worst out there, keeps changing his opinions (which is fine to some degree). Has been calling out the players throughout even when 90% of the team has been replaced by ETH which doesn’t make sense.

Past couple weeks he has been trying to dig himself out of this huge hole he has dug himself into. He also rates players based on their FIFA rating.
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He is a bit weird. Through the summer he was raving about the competence of the new pkayers

And then after that fateful spurs game…where they were all involved was crying that the squad is terrible and needs an overhaul
 
Pughnichi said:
He is a bit weird. Through the summer he was raving about the competence of the new pkayers

And then after that fateful spurs game…where they were all involved was crying that the squad is terrible and needs an overhaul
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Yep. It was comical and blatant agenda in favor of ETH after the Spurs game. And now slowly he is trying to act neutral because he knows the sack is coming and even he wants it.
 
You just have to look at Villa when Gerrard got sacked v Emery .
 
Spoony said:
Team's not good and ETH doesn't have it in him to get better out of them.
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The team is not good enough to win the EPL title but its certainly not a 14th place squad either. This squad is a top 4-6 one. If not then all the spending we've done throughout the summer was a waste and heads should roll
 
It doesn't have to be one thing or the other. Ten Hag has been awful. Our players have been terrible. I do think players like Maguire, Rashford and Bruno shouldn't be playing. They're supposed to be leaders but they're anything but.

What I'd like for one summer is to sign nobody. Work with the mess we have, promote some youth and see what happens .The money we piss away on transfers and wages is one of our biggest problems.
 
devilish said:
The team is not good enough to win the EPL title but its certainly not a 14th place squad either. This squad is a top 4-6 one. If not then all the spending we've done throughout the summer was a waste and heads should roll
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True. And I think this team would eventually finish top 7 even with ETH. He's probably not lost the squad but they certainly struggle with his management. The man can't communicate or empathise with them. Will be interesting to see where he goes from here. Still think we should bring Ralf back, heh.
 
devilish said:
The team is not good enough to win the EPL title but its certainly not a 14th place squad either. This squad is a top 4-6 one. If not then all the spending we've done throughout the summer was a waste and heads should roll
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It’s a top 4-8 squad - Chelsea, us, Spurs, Newcastle and Villa are negligible in terms of quality of squads. However, if we get into starting 11s then I think you can genuinely argue ours is the weakest of those teams and even teams like Brighton and West Ham have multiple players that start for us - our attacking options are absolutely pitiful. This isn’t defending ETH - firstly he’s had a big hand in building the squad and secondly we’re fecking 14th.
 
The players aren't the problem unless your expectation is to win the title, then yes, they aren't good enough. For me, I focus on what is the first problem that needs solving. Until our squad plays to their capability and not way below their talent level, then it is the manager who is the problem. Because their #1 job is to get the most out of what they have, not have some hypothetical system that maybe could work if they had the best player in the world in every position, but is a disaster otherwise.
 
Pughnichi said:
He is a bit weird. Through the summer he was raving about the competence of the new pkayers

And then after that fateful spurs game…where they were all involved was crying that the squad is terrible and needs an overhaul
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Anyone whose been following the United stand for years know that it was considered as a banter channel by everyone. Serious youtubers would never go as guests there and anyone with a bit of brains/integrity (ex Flex) left once they built a certain reputation. Decent players (Rio, Gaz, Scholes etc) would never go there or invite goldfish on the overlap, something that cause grievance with the guy. In fact he loves bashing them. The only former players I can think off who went on the channel were nobodies (Foster) and turncoats (Paul Ince). Goldfish inside knowledge was also a joke. His 90% club (ie players he believed we're going to sign) turned out to be a jinx

Then ETH (SEG) comes in, Goldfish was the first to break out the Hojlund (SEG) deal and he even got an interview with Hojlund that seem to have caused rifts between him and some other players who allegately didn't like to have the guy around (his spat with Rashy is well known). Not only that but Goldfish transformed from a reactionary guy who would sack anyone at a moment notice to the fiercest of ETH's loyalists. You wonder why.
 
I find it hard to judge the quality of the squad, and particularly some newer signings, under ETH. There's just too much noise due to the way he sets the team up, which you can very easily argue lends itself to the players looking bad.

But what I would say in the players' defence is that of all the manager-about-to-be-fired periods we've been through post-SAF, this is one of the ones where the players have most looked like they were at least working hard on the pitch.

Even in the games where the results are bad, I don't particularly see a lack of effort. It's more a lack of organisation and some really braindead decisions.
 
Mickeza said:
It’s a top 4-8 squad - Chelsea, us, Spurs, Newcastle and Villa are negligible in terms of quality of squads. However, if we get into starting 11s then I think you can genuinely argue ours is the weakest of those teams and even teams like Brighton and West Ham have multiple players that start for us - our attacking options are absolutely pitiful. This isn’t defending ETH - firstly he’s had a big hand in building the squad and secondly we’re fecking 14th.
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top 4 if in good form, top 8 if our form is utterly shit and plagued with injuries. I'd say that we're 3rd-6th in normal circumstances.

14th is utterly dross
 
I generally like Howson and Stretford Paddock, but I just can't get with their takes on Ten Hag.

It's so obvious that the guy should be sacked. Painfully obvious. Mind numbingly, eye gougingly, hair pulling out obvious.

Personally I think the players are much better than what we're seeing right now. How much better I don't know, but no way should this squad look this bad. I don't think the players have given up or downed tools, I don't think they're unprofessional or don't want to be there, it's not like the squad towards the end of Ole's tenure, where half the squad wanted out and the commitment wasn't there. These guys are trying, and we're not getting a chance to see their actual level.
 
devilish said:
top 4 if in good form, top 8 if our form is utterly shit and plagued with injuries. I'd say that we're 3rd-6th in normal circumstances.

14th is utterly dross
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I don’t think you can have our attacking options - which for me is by far the most important position in football - and claim to have the 4th best squad in the country. If you asked Newcastle, Villa, Chelsea and Spurs fans if they’d swap their squads for ours I’d be astounded if the majority of any of them said yes. Eriksen and Evans are legitimately starting games for us - the squad is absolute bobbins relative to what we’re trying to achieve and it will remain bobbins regardless of who is in charge until we start signing footballers that are better than the teams we are supposedly competing against sign.
 
The blame largely fell on the players for a long time, and rightly. and im sure there still is some sense of toxicity lingering around the club, its up for debate which players that involves.

But Ten hag has made the changes he wanted, hes got in players he wanted this season, we have them mostly available, and its still rubbish on the pitch. And its not like before, where they seemed to be giving up on the manager, they just look clueless and no idea what they are doing.. thats on the manager.

Howson's argument that we have a clear style of play is nonsense. Fair enough, its not fully on the manager when players cant do the basics and play a 5 yard pass. But the set up of the team and positioning/ massive holes throughout the pitch are on the manager. We are FAR too easy to play against.
 
Not the players fault? It's complicated. In some cases yes it is or at least partially. As long as Rashford visits a nightclub and tells ten Hag the next day that he doesn't feel good and cannot train, it's his fault too. As long as Malacia refuses to listen to the club and flies to Holland to get his surgery done and then disappears for 2 months so no one knows at the club how his recovery is going, it's his fault too. Unprofessional attitude. On the other hand despite the current squad isn't strong enough for the top3, with a competent coach the top4 could be a realistic goal.
 
I do not believe that any (or very few) players do not want to give their all, play as well as they can or win games, every game

When we see players "downing tools", "not giving it 100%" etc... I think this comes as a consequence of frustration, confusion, lack of confidence and even depression, players do not wilfully down tools just because they don't like something or somebody.

Players experience pressure the likes of which most people could not begin to relate to, if I am having a bad day at the office, I do not have millions of people watching my every move, can you imagine being in that situation when things are going badly, it isn't hard to see why poor performances and results week on week have a exponentially negative impact

I am a manager of staff, and for the main part I can affect their performance drastically if I do not manage them and situations effectively, morale is a massive factor in how people perform, just because these are players on millions each week it doesn't change anything

These are players who have mostly been within football since a very young age, they understand football, tactics, positions, systems, so when they are consistently asked to do things which aren't working trusting a process wears thin, I think that is the point our players are now reaching, they keep trying to do what the manager is asking, keep seeing it fail and probably understand why it is not working, so when asked to keep doing it that is when their individual contributions drop off, even if they are giving it 100%, it ain't rocket science!
 
Mickeza said:
I don’t think you can have our attacking options - which for me is by far the most important position in football - and claim to have the 4th best squad in the country. If you asked Newcastle, Villa, Chelsea and Spurs fans if they’d swap their squads for ours I’d be astounded if the majority of any of them said yes. Eriksen and Evans are legitimately starting games for us - the squad is absolute bobbins relative to what we’re trying to achieve and it will remain bobbins regardless of who is in charge until we start signing footballers that are better than the teams we are supposedly competing against sign.
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If ETH could get a tune out of Rashford, Bruno and Hojlund then we would score goals. The trouble is that he doesn't. Sure Rashford is a inconsistent but ETH's chaotic tactics simply doesn't help. Everyone is playing shit at this point
 
A lot of people forget these days that signing a player isn’t an automatic guarantee of upgrading the team, Pep replaced his defence like 3 times in the days before their dominance, we have this weird mindset where the manager signs some players and if they aren’t brilliant.. “he must be a useless manager then, because he has different players now” maybe we just replaced bad/average players with bad/average players? .. nothing is guaranteed
 
big_jeffstar said:
A lot of people forget these days that signing a player isn’t an automatic guarantee of upgrading the team, Pep replaced his defence like 3 times in the days before their dominance, we have this weird mindset where the manager signs some players and if they aren’t brilliant.. “he must be a useless manager then, because he has different players now” maybe we just replaced bad/average players with bad/average players? .. nothing is guaranteed
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All of the players are either playing within themselves or way off their standards though, it's not just one off players here and there.

Who's Kissing Cameras? said:
vs. Arsenal in the FA Cup 2011. This starting XI should debunk every ETH apologists’ excuse
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Shows what an all time great he was. He did it a number of times.
 
I think it's also clear that there is something seriously wrong at the club that goes beyond players, coaches or even a manager. Good people - be they players, coaches or administrators come in having performed well elsewhere, but the longer they spend at the club, the more they fall into the same habits of people we saw before them.

I don't know that it can still be blamed on a hangover from Fergie, or if it's the weight given to a so called "United way", or it's just a toxic working culture behind the scenes, but I had hoped Ineos and their fires & hires would be the ones to break it. Maybe they will be and this is just the night being darkest right before the storm, but it feels like a lot of the same old shite is still happening.
 
big_jeffstar said:
A lot of people forget these days that signing a player isn’t an automatic guarantee of upgrading the team, Pep replaced his defence like 3 times in the days before their dominance, we have this weird mindset where the manager signs some players and if they aren’t brilliant.. “he must be a useless manager then, because he has different players now” maybe we just replaced bad/average players with bad/average players? .. nothing is guaranteed
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True but there's something called progression that needs to be taken into account. We have been in decline since ETH first season. That despite he basically saddled us with his former squad
 
RedFanaticTattooist said:
Not the players fault? It's complicated. In some cases yes it is or at least partially. As long as Rashford visits a nightclub and tells ten Hag the next day that he doesn't feel good and cannot train, it's his fault too. As long as Malacia refuses to listen to the club and flies to Holland to get his surgery done and then disappears for 2 months so no one knows at the club how his recovery is going, it's his fault too. Unprofessional attitude. On the other hand despite the current squad isn't strong enough for the top3, with a competent coach the top4 could be a realistic goal.
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Those are 2 players one of whom was brought by the manager himself. So how can eth be part of the solution if his own players have attitude problems themselves?
 
devilish said:
It's amazing considering that each and every signing made were given the thumbs up by both rambo and goldfish. Actually they were further proof of how good eth is in persuading them to join us
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Who is Rambo?
 
ayushreddevil9 said:
I wouldn’t take anything seriously from Goldbridge. One of the worst out there, keeps changing his opinions (which is fine to some degree). Has been calling out the players throughout even when 90% of the team has been replaced by ETH which doesn’t make sense.

Past couple weeks he has been trying to dig himself out of this huge hole he has dug himself into. He also rates players based on their FIFA rating.
Click to expand...
It is very amusing watching Goldbridge try to row back on his previous opinions. None of it would be an issue if he didn't work so hard to make the whole thing about himself.
 
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