Manchester United reads the Caf

Sky1981

Fending off the urge
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Ever since the sacking of Louis Van Gaal, it seems that the Manchester United management reads the caf, or at least gets their opinion on a lot of things in line with the Caf.

From the signing of Jose, buying Pogba, the purchase of Maguire, hiring Ole, Rangnick, to appointing Eric Ten Haag

Now I don't frequent any other sites, but you can bet we almost collectively agreed on many of the steps Manchester United took, without a hindsight off course.

What says you?
 
Sky1981 said:
Ever since the sacking of Louis Van Gaal, it seems that the Manchester United management reads the caf, or at least gets their opinion on a lot of things in line with the Caf.

From the signing of Jose, buying Pogba, the purchase of Maguire, hiring Ole, Rangnick, to appointing Eric Ten Haag

Now I don't frequent any other sites, but you can bet we almost collectively agreed on many of the steps Manchester United took, without a hindsight off course.

What says you?
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Did people on here want Maguire? As I remember it not many were enthusiastic. Some did, but the rest were split between "no" and "well I guess he's better than we've got" (which turned out not to be true).
 
Fabio Rochemback said:
Did people on here want Maguire? As I remember it not many were enthusiastic. Some did, but the rest were split between "no" and "well I guess he's better than we've got" (which turned out not to be true).
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He was at least on about 60% approval rate as a great signing back then. Young, English, looks good at a glance.

I might need to dig back but yeah his name is touted as potential target (as is Sancho) long before United has any official news on buying them.
 
I would imagine it’s pretty much nailed on that it’s someone at the clubs job to gauge fan opinion and what better place to do that than the biggest Utd forum? Although on second thoughts with the present owners they probably don’t give a feck and sacked the guy.
 
Blackbeard said:
I would imagine it’s pretty much nailed on that it’s someone at the clubs job to gauge fan opinion and what better place to do that than the biggest Utd forum? Although on second thoughts with the present owners they probably don’t give a feck and sacked the guy.
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This is exactly the sort of things I expect from the inept Glazer's management.

Going in with the Public opinion is the best way to buy time, and fans would be more tenacious in defending the players they like (Martial). ETH being fan favorite would get much more leeway when things go south than if they appoint Pochetinno for instance where half the caf were already decided he's a fraud.
 
Id be interested in the physiological happenings behind transfers and football supporters. There’s definitely a glass half full attitude to them and convincing yourself a player will be a good signing - particularly on this forum. Also must be some sort of dopamine release regardless of ability.

The ‘miserable’ people in the transfer forum probably have one of the better track records yet still get shouted down about things
 
Are we still the biggest forum? We only have 47k members, that's like 0.0000783% from our 600 million fanbase
 
Really?

Then why did it take so damn long to get Phil Jones off the books?
Why is Maguire still here?
Why are the players still so reluctant to press?
Why have the Glazers not fecked off yet?
 
Fabio Rochemback said:
Did people on here want Maguire? As I remember it not many were enthusiastic. Some did, but the rest were split between "no" and "well I guess he's better than we've got" (which turned out not to be true).
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My wife, who's only real interest in football is watching the odd game because I am, couldn't believe we were signing Maguire. Her exact words were "He is not good enough for United", whilst our club thought he was.

Wasn't that long ago she also thought you got a penalty for a violent tackle anywhere on the pitch.
 
Micky Targaryen said:
Really?

Then why did it take so damn long to get Phil Jones off the books?
Why is Maguire still here?
Why are the players still so reluctant to press?
Why have the Glazers not fecked off yet?
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1. Nobody want Jones, he's injured and on high wages comparatively speaking to his availability and readiness. And looking back IIRC there was a patch when he recovered, plays for 2-3 games and people go mellow and thinks he's a good head to have in the dressing room. The usual stuff, hence he got his new contract.

2. Some players are still defended heavily in here, Rashford, Bruno, even Maguire up until last season still have people defending and making excuses for him.

3. Seriously? The Glazers for all we know thinks the United could get much higher, and as much as we loathe to they stick to their guns rejecting 6bn offer on the tabel.
 
Not sure the higher ups at United reads this forum, but Luckhurst most certainly uses the forum as inspiration for his tweets/articles.
 
I wish they did... I would actually like Arnold, Murtough & co to explain the rationale behind their signings and the overall strategy of the club. I've gradually stopped watching games, partly because of increasing responsibilities and partly because it frustrates me to see the same mistakes over and over. It has stopped being enjoyable, to the extent that it just spoils my mood.
 
Varun1 said:
I wish they did... I would actually like Arnold, Murtough & co to explain the rationale behind their signings and the overall strategy of the club. I've gradually stopped watching games, partly because of increasing responsibilities and partly because it frustrates me to see the same mistakes over and over. It has stopped being enjoyable, to the extent that it just spoils my mood.
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Tehre is no strategy, its all spin. We were told there was a scouting and recruitment reset under Ole. Look where that got us. These morons are clueless
 
The board are frequent posters on this forum. When they see us in a good mood, they dump it, giving potential buyers silent treatment for months. But once we're pessimistic they DM Pilib de Brun to start posting about inevitable takeover. Rinse and repeat. The mods, the funny posters, the site admins, the boy scouts... actors, everyone actors, actors all of them actors!!
 
If they do. The Brighton game showed how Ten Hag isn't comfortable trusting his backup options to influence games in a positive manner. Give the man the right types of players so we don't have to watch those kind of train wreck matches.
 
Gordon Godot said:
Tehre is no strategy, its all spin. We were told there was a scouting and recruitment reset under Ole. Look where that got us. These morons are clueless
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The same reset that got us Maguire who simply did not have the pace under a manager that played on the counter. And no forward-planning in terms of strikers - granted the MG thing happened but who else was going to be our ST besides him.

Frankly, it's astounding how bad decisions have been. Sure this lies with Murtough & co, but ultimately it's on the Glazers for not putting the right people in place.

I was all for giving Murtough & co time, but the lack of forward planning and the number of players with links to ETH is changing my opinion on them.
 
Sky1981 said:
Ever since the sacking of Louis Van Gaal, it seems that the Manchester United management reads the caf, or at least gets their opinion on a lot of things in line with the Caf.

From the signing of Jose, buying Pogba, the purchase of Maguire, hiring Ole, Rangnick, to appointing Eric Ten Haag

Now I don't frequent any other sites, but you can bet we almost collectively agreed on many of the steps Manchester United took, without a hindsight off course.

What says you?
Click to expand...

Anyone who has ever laced up a pair of boots has a thread dedicated to them in the transfer forum.
 
Sky1981 said:
Ever since the sacking of Louis Van Gaal, it seems that the Manchester United management reads the caf, or at least gets their opinion on a lot of things in line with the Caf.

From the signing of Jose, buying Pogba, the purchase of Maguire, hiring Ole, Rangnick, to appointing Eric Ten Haag

Now I don't frequent any other sites, but you can bet we almost collectively agreed on many of the steps Manchester United took, without a hindsight off course.

What says you?
Click to expand...

I don't expect it's just the caf but yes I've thought this for a while. Schneiderlin was the first big one as everyone here wanted him and suddenly magically we did, even before links became concrete.

I reckon there is a department at the club that takes data in about potential new signings from social sources and puts them into some kind of marketing algorithm. You'd have to think they'd be mad not to as a commercial business.
 
I think people on the caf think way too highly of most big football clubs and the lengths they go to.

Highly doubt they have people that would have the time to scour forums for fan opinion. Marketing works using real data.

Similar to how some think everything is state of the art tech and data driven science when it comes to players and their performance/fitness. The reality, quite obviously most of the time, isn’t quite that and very likely much more mundane.
 
Christ I hope not. There's some seriously demented individuals on here. Imagine if there was a forum dedicated to whatever job you nobheads do and every time you looked at it you had people saying that you and literally everyone you worked with should be sacked because you're useless and they like the look of this Romanian kid that they played as on job simulator2023 and think he'd be an improvement on you.
 
@Sky1981 for what it's worth I did know an extremely high level footballer who used to look at the ratings they got in the newspapers out of 10 after every game .... ;). I'd not be surprised if they looked at the ratings tool on here unironically.
 
Not sure about club management but probably someone on the social media side.

I reckon a lot of journos have accounts on here. I’d be surprised if a player or two isn’t on here for a laugh and just winding people up. Probably lots of player’s friends and relatives. Plus Shoretire’s dead was on here wasn’t he?
 
GazTheLegend said:
Christ I hope not. There's some seriously demented individuals on here. Imagine if there was a forum dedicated to whatever job you nobheads do and every time you looked at it you had people saying that you and literally everyone you worked with should be sacked because you're useless and they like the look of this Romanian kid that they played as on job simulator2023 and think he'd be an improvement on you.
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True, but this place is like Mensa compared to the comments sections on social media or pretty much any of the interactive football platforms.
 
Sky1981 said:
Ever since the sacking of Louis Van Gaal, it seems that the Manchester United management reads the caf, or at least gets their opinion on a lot of things in line with the Caf.

From the signing of Jose, buying Pogba, the purchase of Maguire, hiring Ole, Rangnick, to appointing Eric Ten Haag

Now I don't frequent any other sites, but you can bet we almost collectively agreed on many of the steps Manchester United took, without a hindsight off course.

What says you?
Click to expand...
Not to mention sending Geenwood out on loan.

We are speculation here, but yes, I think the Board will take fan opinion into consideration when certain decisions are made, along with a many other considerations. And it's not so stupid to do so, because if the club hire an unpopular manager, it will not take many losses before the fans turn against him, which again would make it harder for him to succeed.
 
VeevaVee said:
I think people on the caf think way too highly of most big football clubs and the lengths they go to.

Highly doubt they have people that would have the time to scour forums for fan opinion. Marketing works using real data.

Similar to how some think everything is state of the art tech and data driven science when it comes to players and their performance/fitness. The reality, quite obviously most of the time, isn’t quite that and very likely much more mundane.
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There are social listening tools that crawl social media for sentiment, buzz, keywords. This includes X, Reddit, and forums. Isn't that real data?
 
Pronewbie said:
There are social listening tools that crawl social media for sentiment, buzz, keywords. This includes X, Reddit, and forums. Isn't that real data?
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Not the same as reading the caf as some have said though is it?
And even they used those for potential purchases, as some have also said, what useful information can they possibly gain from that? Shirt sales? Exposure maybe.
 
VeevaVee said:
Not the same as reading the caf as some have said though is it?
And even they used those for potential purchases, as some have also said, what useful information can they possibly gain from that? Shirt sales? Exposure maybe.
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Are you arguing for the sake of argument's sake? This is literally literally what marketing depts / agencies do. I've over a decade in the industry.
 
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