Just what the hell has happened this season?

charlenefan said:
Before the start of the season everyone thought we'd be challenging for the title this season, maybe not winning it but certainly challenging and he were are in February having seen

Out of the league cup in the 3rd round at home to West Ham

Beaten 0-5 at home to Liverpool

Out of the FA Cup in the 4th round at home to Championship Middlesbrough

19 points off the top of the PL table

Bar at opening day win against Leeds it's probably not a stretch to say the best week to be a United support this season was the 3 games where we had an interim interim manager in Carrick

So WTF has happened?
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We invested the lot in an incompetent manager, dragged our feet when it came to making the necessary decision (in my view the win at Spurs was our last chance to salvage the season and we didn't take it) and let the January window pass without supplementing the midfield. Three key moments iin the season where we had the chance to rescue the situation but weren't decisive when it mattered and here we are relying on RR to work some magic to come out with a decent result at the end of the season.

In the process our key players lost their heads and all it takes is a few minutes of adversity for them to turn into porridge.
 
sugar_kane said:
I honestly believe this season has been the culmination in various ways of everything that has happened under Woodward.

Ludicrous contracts given out to fringe players and youth prospects, a refusal to cut our losses on under-performers, a string of managers with completely different tactical approach, a transfer strategy that makes no sense, a fixation on star signings, putting being a brand over a football team. This has all created chaos on the pitch, and a terrible attitude amongst the players away from it.
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Pretty much.
It basialy comes down to the investment during the last years of Fergies reign just wasn’t there and when he left an ageing squad that that needed rebuilding.

The problem is Woodward took over and from day one with the Fabregas, Fellani Baines nonsense it was clear to the whole footballing world Woodward had no idea how to run the football side of the business.

To compensate he has just thrown money at the problem and it hasn’t worked. The managerial appointments have been crazy going from LVG to Mourinho…. The complete opposites in what kind of players and tactics they play and giving the both 100’s of millions to spend was just crazy. Giving Ole the job on a permanent bases and not going down the route of hiring an experienced Director of Football to select a manager, then eventually making token appointments ( Murtough and Fletcher) and screems of a man not knowing what he is doing and not wanting to bring anyone in who may raise that issue at boardroom level.

Then the continuing crazy transfer and contracts been handed out. Yes the Sanchez one was probably the worst contract given to a footballer ever, but contracts like the Rojo one given while he was injured are just as bonkers. Then we had this summer clearly had a lack of numbers In midfield and an abundance of attacking options yet we spent around 90 million on attackers and no midfielders. Leaving us with the most imbalanced squad we’ve pretty much ever had.

the bottom line is we are paying the price for years and years of footballing appoints and decisions within the club being made by those who have minimal football knowledge.
 
I've been hearing the same excuses for 9 years - Woodward, The Glaziers, the manager, players not good enough, fitness, training etc None of it accounts for the sht show we have seen this season. It might explain not competing with City and Liverpool but it doesn't explain getting hammered by the likes of friggin Watford and the myriad of other crazy baffling sht that happens weekly.
 
The curse of Adidas continues and we will never win the league with them.

It's now safe to go back to Nike.
 
A bit of an unbalanced squad, lack of any sort of structure as a team in how we sought to play or lineup, coupled with shocking form from our best defenders for a long while. So we leaked goals constantly while struggling to put together dominant creative periods at the other end (nothing new, has persisted for years generally besides post lockdown). Ole didn't have any idea how to fix it when these things showed themselves early in the year and it just got worse and worse.

These past few games under Ralf have really piqued my interest though as we have looked as solid and aggressive as we have in a while (yes I know this isn't a popular thought since everyone wants to burn the club to the ground after the FA cup loss but it was a huge fluke tbh that had nothing to do with play style). In all honesty the FA cup loss was the exact opposite of how so many games went for Ole, where we'd struggle to impose our will constantly but have a few moments of magic from Bruno and Pogba to bail us out.
 
In brief, that's all down to Ole's coaching and management. He simply acted too naive or optimistic but did not think through those tactics details nor build the system robust enough to allow his misjudgments .

Some posts moaning about our midfield squad options, but clearly the original plan has been set up to play 4231 , and Pogba / Fred / McT / Matic are competing for 2 positions . You can't say we don't have the squad ready as that was what Ole wanted. If Ole thought about a plan B to play 433 , then he probably would ask one more MC in the team . Some may argue Ole considered VDB as a MC option but he flopped, then Ole simply did not trust his squad or assess his player well enough as VDB rarely played. If Ole made a proper assessment, he should have determined that VDB would not fit , then in Summer window he asked for a new MC and let VDB go.

Another squad mystery was bringing back Ronaldo and now blamed all failure on him. Don't forget Ole mentioned couple times that he had the veto power to the recruitment, so he could say No if he did not think Ronaldo could fit in. In Ole's mind, he naively thought Ronaldo could elevate the team taken his world-class goal scoring records. But in reality, Bruno was playing the role as what Ronaldo does right now , Ole did not clarify their roles but let them play at instinct , which caused the imbalance and left midfield wide open. Ole either should see the imbalance and clarify/fine-tune their roles , or drop one of them . But he never had the gut or insight to do it.

Last season Ole stretched too thin on those key players like Bruno, Rashford, Maguire , and Shaw, they never got properly rotated and rested; and this season they are just both mentally and physically fatigue and could not perform the same level. Again Ole did not understand such way was not sustainable in modern football and they were not Lampard who can play consistent and start every single game as well. On the other hand, Ole's tactics relied heavily on individual brilliance, without these key players carrying the team, the performance just dropped drastically.

In sum, Ole did not have the technical acumen nor the strong will for this job. Of course, our board also did not have the acumen to know about it, and therefore they let the bubble flow for 3 years until it bursts.
 
Plant0x84 said:
Disagree. Hiring Ole as interim was a far stranger decision than appointing him full time. Given his run as interim everybody was begging Woodie to give him the contract.
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I was talking about the latest contract..
 
Plant0x84 said:
Fair enough, although even that kinda made sense at the time. It’s only been this season the wheels came off.
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He lost a final to Villarreal after getting us knocked out of the champions league for not getting 1 point out of the last 3 games.

It was not deserved at all. It was criminal
 
By keeping Ole in charge and not replacing him with a proper manager last season, it's cost us even 5% of a chance of signing Haaland and other top quality.
 
A slide that began towards the end of last season hasn't been halted by Ole and now Ralf. The business men running club didn't help by not bringing in the priority signing in summer (quality CDM)

These group players don't react well to adversity the lack of leadership is a big issue it will be achievement in itself if Ralf manages to steady the ship and finish the season in 4th.
 
We finished 2nd last season but have went backwards this season. Made some very bad decisions in transfer market.
DM should have been priority.
 
I actually think it's the summer transfer window of 2020 thats hurt us.

Telles, Pellistri and Cavani was understanble signings. But we purchased Donny and Amad when we really didn't need either of them at the time and we still don't. If that money had been used to address the midfield - who'd now be on his second season, this would be a lot different.

Summer 2021 was a great window - where we brought in 3 top players for positions we needed to fill. Built a Ferrari and forgot to install the engine.

That being said - the coaching should have done better with the midfield provided.
 
Every team bar one were shocking last season, we are pretty much just as bad whilst the others have improved. Keeping Ole was a recipe for disaster along with not signing a top class midfielder.

Add to this the egos, questionable characters and general lack of spines in the squad I was always under the assumption that this season would be a battle for top 4.

The guys running the club are completely inept with regards to football. Great business men they may be but it’s been proven year after year what a joke they all are. So yeah pretty much understandable why we are a shit show of a top club.
 
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Bestietom said:
We finished 2nd last season but have went backwards this season. Made some very bad decisions in transfer market.
DM should have been priority.
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Finishing 2nd last season was like finishing 2nd under Mourinho, when you're so far behind the top team and the football you've been playing has been average to say the least, the 2nd place is an illusion for me
 
I was expecting us to finish 4th this season. We are currently 4th but it will be a struggle to stay there. I've been disappointed in our performances and pissed off we are unlikely to win a trophy but not really surprised.

It's laughable so many of our fans were expecting us to challenge for the title, the only good to come from such folly is that it meant Solskjaer was exposed and was never going to last the season.
 
kouroux said:
Finishing 2nd last season was like finishing 2nd under Mourinho, when you're so far behind the top team and the football you've been playing has been average to say the least, the 2nd place is an illusion for me
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We finished 2nd and this was the time to improve in the areas we were most vulnerable which everyone knew was midfield. We didn't, and this is why we are suffering this season again.
 
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