I clearly remember United fans pronouncing judgement upon these players before they kicked a ball for City. Even Jesus and Ederson got the stereotypical young South American in the PL destined to flop stick. They seem to be doing just fine.
Jose Mourinho | 2017/18 Assessments | Poll Added
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Considering half of the players you names are injured, and I'm sure Smaling isn't too far behind, it probably was.
LOL. I was going to write the same thing. Grrr.......
This is our bad run...and we are still 2nd (unless Tottenham win by 8 goals). It is about damage limitation because we have lost key members of our team, our best 3 CBs are injured, Pogba and his back-up are injured, Rashford has a knock.
If we are languishing in 5th/6th place hoping for a top 4 finish in a few months then I will not stand in anyones way if they ask for Mourinho to get the sack. The minimum expectation is to be comfortably in the top 4.
I agree completely. I hope we'll at least be close.
I haven't heard anyone claim that Mourinho hasn't been backed in the transfer market.
You and others are actively debating as to who inherited a better squad. Different topics and both have clear answers.
I fear this is the beginning of collaspe after his PSG comments. That was totally uncalled for
There's many things to discuss on this topic all of which I've alluded to in my detailed post above.
The only thing clear is that we have different answers to many questions with regard to this topic.
Besides this thread is about this season. It has little to do with the squads in 2016 and more to do with what the two clubs had in the summer and how they're being managed now. Again, something I've alluded to in the post above.
I would imagine so. Now that they are playing well, they are Barcelona Mark II, yet 6 months ago when they were being dumped out of the CL and winning nothing on route to 3rd, De Bruyne was overrated and they were really far off the top sides on the continent. There is still time for Kevin to fall away and I don't expect him to keep this level. The big one is whether Sane and Sterling/Jesus, the young guns can keep going. If them 3 develop together it will be a new generation for city.
There's a very clear and obvious answer to both "has mourinho been backed" and "who inherited a better squad".
If people want to use this thread for comparing Mourinho with Pep then the players they inherited in 2016 will always be part of the discussion.
The way people use the past to justify the inexcusable present. 5 years later and almost a £1bn spent people are still blaming Fergie as though the current manager does not have any sort of responsibility.
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Clarity bollocks aside, I don't agree with your assessment of the squads in 2016 either.
And if people want to compare the jobs they're doing, so will the respective squads at the start of this season, be a part of the discussion. Because once we take that into account it's evident that neither manager has an excuse to hide behind.
Of course, you're right in that it would be hard to expect them to keep that form up but my point is that the so called average players have kicked up a notch or two. Ours are still as average as they have been before José came, which begs the question is he is actually improving them as individuals.
It's one thing to improve overall team mentality but it's about level imo to improve players as individuals. It's a shame that when one player is out, the whole team seem incapable of playing football. If Spurs lose Kane and Eriksen, or City lose Silva and KDB, I am certain that they will still be able to play football to a decent degree.
I wouldn't say the present is inexcusable. We've started the season well. However this is typical of the early period of united managers. Everything else is used as a cushion to deflect accountability. Moyes, Lvg, the players attitude/composure/quality, owners, lack of funds etc.
He isn't supposed to really. Never been his M.O. He likes ready made players who know their roles. We know that Pep teaches where a player should be in each phase of the game and its just a different style of management. One makes players better (regardless of level) the other can make a team better due to defensive organisation and tactic approach to individual games.
If we win the FA Cup and the League cup that's good enough. I'm not holding much hope for the EPL or the champions league. If he keeps delivering trophies (regardless of which ones) it's progress, right ?
We've become Arsenal apparently.
Gerard Houllier got sacked for less.
Watching Tottenham make me wonder why are we parking the bus against Liverpool. Their weakness is pretty obvious and Mourinho completely ignores their defensive problem.
Some would say we were away from home. Wembley is not Tottenham "home" either. Pochettino brilliantly well organised against Real Madrid and Liverpool back to back. Just hope he will be the next manager for us.
Some would say we were away from home. Wembley is not Tottenham "home" either. Pochettino brilliantly well organised against Real Madrid and Liverpool back to back. Just hope he will be the next manager for us.
No. A few years ago we weren't winning anything. World class teams don't get built overnight. Be patient, if in the next season he doesn't win the PL or the CL then it's time to thrown him under the bus
If he is not shifting from that then we have a long way because the only way is to spend a ton and recycle every year. I don't know how sustainable that will be given the current economic climate in the window
Let's be honest, Mourinho is a coward when he knows the odds are against us.Watching Tottenham make me wonder why are we parking the bus against Liverpool. Their weakness is pretty obvious and Mourinho completely ignores their defensive problem.
Some would say we were away from home. Wembley is not Tottenham home
We have no reason to play so negatively, he's completely killed our momentum and our confidence has taken a big dive since then.
Decision to park the bus against Liverpool looking more and more gutless.
Absolute dire at the back and we didn't even test them.
Said it before. A good win away against Liverpool would have galvanised the team for the games to come.
Absolute dire at the back and we didn't even test them.
Said it before. A good win away against Liverpool would have galvanised the team for the games to come.
well he is the biggest spending manager in footall history with £1.08bn/8 clubs/90 players purchased, ahead of Ancelotti £876m/8 clubs/74 players purchased so again it is his M.O. and I am sure the board are aware of this and have made assurances to back him.
I'm not saying throw him under the bus if we don't win one do those two. But his objective is to challenge for/win the big trophies now. It would not be a successful season if we fail on that objective. I see no reason to pretend we'd have done well although I'd still give him more time.
Also it has to be said that Jose is brought in for success. I've never enjoyed watching his teams (bar Madrid) or found his development of young talent great. So if we're backing a manager who is defensive and is much better with experience over youth, then you need to deliver success.
If we play spanking attacking football and develop our talent well, I'm full of patience.
It's impressive how easily he's managed to feck up the confidence of our team in merely a week.
He actively seeks to create issues. It's as if he isn't happy unless he's acting like a tosser in the press, falling out with a player or going out of his way to make us the most gutless team to face our rivals. Spurs have predictably scored three in 45 minutes.
We still haven't been very good this season, in spite of the celebration on here, and (as predicted) we were going to stumble this month, bringing most of you lot back down to earth.
He'll get sacked here, and I don't foresee success. I haven't been convinced last season and this week has only cemented my initial impression of his first season in charge.
He actively seeks to create issues. It's as if he isn't happy unless he's acting like a tosser in the press, falling out with a player or going out of his way to make us the most gutless team to face our rivals. Spurs have predictably scored three in 45 minutes.
We still haven't been very good this season, in spite of the celebration on here, and (as predicted) we were going to stumble this month, bringing most of you lot back down to earth.
He'll get sacked here, and I don't foresee success. I haven't been convinced last season and this week has only cemented my initial impression of his first season in charge.
He may be one of the best managers in the world but he is a very cautious manager He needs to become braver.This cautious football is killing my spirit and you can imagine what it's doing to the team.As Fans we can tolerate cautious winning football but if you are not winning it becomes horrible to watch.
Yeah I get your point. But arguably he does not have the squads he had at his previous teams in terms of talent.
Looking like the game against Spurs is going to be very crucial.
Lose that and the atmosphere around the club could turn sour very quickly.
Lose that and the atmosphere around the club could turn sour very quickly.
Absolutely
After the Liverpool game a few posters slated the performance and rightly pointed it how weak Liverpool are defensively. They were shouted down and told how good united actually were. That was a total crock of shit. We played ultra conservatively against a side who were there for the kill.
It was similar to Chelsea against United at OT when Moyes took over. We were rubbish but Chelsea didn't attack because Mourinho was too cautious. That's just who he is. He'll bring more eatable performances, but when you really want him to.go for it he won't.
It was similar to Chelsea against United at OT when Moyes took over. We were rubbish but Chelsea didn't attack because Mourinho was too cautious. That's just who he is. He'll bring more eatable performances, but when you really want him to.go for it he won't.
City had a better squad at the start of both seasons, I don't really think it's that debatable.
Fault still lies with the manager (Jose) here.
The manager should always be at least partially at fault, but in this case we are obviously missing our best defender, our best midfielder, and our best goal scorer, so blaming Mourinho doesn't exactly tell the whole story.
It's absolutely is. But let's agree to disagree on that since this is going nowhere.
I'm not sure our players are capable of playing how Spurs have today to be honest.
Just hope we are put those contract talks on hold. Think end of the season would be a good time to assess the situation. Currently, we are on a downward spiral and looking seriously devoid of ideas.
Best goal scorer? Lukaku was on the pitch mate. And I'm reasonably sure it's within the manager's job description to ensure his side isn't so thin as to be rendered completely impotent the moment they lose their best midfielder/defender. How are we supposed to contend for a title if we get rolled by the opposition every time one of our first teamers gets injured? This is down to the manager. He's had two seasons to fix this.
Precisely this, we've had our best start for 6 years but people can't accept the fact we are not top. Thereby again repeating the same arguments, they have had same time, similar amount of money. How dare we are not level on points with City? Forgetting the fact we're without our best and most influential player in Pogba for past month and squad is ravaged with injuries in central midfield and defence.
Every man and his dog knew what Mourinho's approach was going to be in big away games, he had a far more talented side at Real Madrid yet every time he played Barcelona or Atletico it was on the back foot. Why are people finding it so hard to accept his approach away to Liverpool when they themselves knew what they were getting with him? It simply doesn't make any sense to me to moan about things we've known for eternity.
Pep didn't take over peak Barca but the quality of players which he inherited were much better than ones inherited by Mourinho. Ask yourself, who are best players for Manchester City? David Silva, Sergio Aguero, Kevin de Bruyne, Vincent Kompany? All were present before Pep stepped in, now compare the situation with us. With the exception of De Gea, who exactly of top tier did Mourinho inherit? All our top performers under him have been signed under his reign be it Ibra, Pogba, Bailly, Matic or Lukaku.
Also when you look at the holes in squad which respective managers had to fix, Pep had to reduce overall age of the squad and fix the defence. Lots of overpaid, past it players were moved on to his credit but in the end there was only one real weakness i.e., their backline and I am not going to post the numbers which it took to fix that. Come to the other side, we had a strong base of De Gea and Valencia in defence but 3 of the other positions needed addressing. One of them still remains a major issue still after 3 windows (Left back), move on to midfield it consisted of past it Carrick, much maligned Fellaini and Ander Herrera. He had to address that too. In attack we were complete shambles with only Rooney as a recognized CF along with Rashford, still lacking a creative #10 and a wide man. He's tried to address all of that, his signings show that but even you yourself would agree we lack a proper left back and a winger. Thereby meaning more holes for Mourinho to plug. I look at City's squad and their weakeness is only in depth (mainly a DM) whereas not only there is a lot of deadwood still in our squad we still lack specialist players in certain positions. Again going back to my original point, Mourinho's task has been more difficult than Pep.
Your third para pretty much answers the questions you're asking of him, on paper we are a match for them. But, take out 2 of our most important player in Bailly and Pogba and our centre backs are not 'better' than City anymore nor are our midfielders.
I know full well how much deadwood Pep has shifted but he has brought in more players to make up for it compared to Mourinho who has brought in 7 in space of 3 windows, given time Mourinho will be same and take our squad up a level.
Speaking of their attack, they key personnel still remain David Silva, de Bruyne and Sergio Aguero. All were performing at a very high level before he went there, he has integrated youth to them but take out his signings in Jesus, Sane and B Silva and they'd still put most team to swords. Would the attack which Mourinho had at helm last summer do that?
Coming to his other signings, only new CM he has brought is Gundogan and that is more for cover rather than first team. The mid trio which is so crucial to his philosophy and with which he's dominating games of Fernandinho, Silva and KDB was already at his disposal. His biggest job was to fix the defence and even that took more than an year. Mourinho has had to fix/revamp our entire XI basically be it defence, midfield or attack.
Except for Bailly, Jose has had a brilliantly performing defense since he came. The problems were clearly our attack as could be seen under LvG. Jose has had 3 windows and brought in Mkhi, Pogba, Zlatan and Lukaku for a combined outlay of more than 200 million pounds. Yet he is nowhere closer to fixing our attack. So Pep has improved City massively from a similar starting point as Jose with similar funds yet Pep got the easier task? Anything to avoid looking at the actual cause of our horrendous attacking prowess it seems.
The squad is not as bad as it is being made. Injuries are a problem, but it is still his job to make the team play well. Not to mention, the players that are playing are still good players.
The team have no cohesion, the tempo is slow, the passing is not good and these are things that can be worked and improved in training.This is down to coaching, we were not beaten by Real Madrid or Barcelona, it was fecking Huddersfield.
The team have no cohesion, the tempo is slow, the passing is not good and these are things that can be worked and improved in training.This is down to coaching, we were not beaten by Real Madrid or Barcelona, it was fecking Huddersfield.
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