Origins of Our on Field Problems: Ferguson's Final Years vs Post Ferguson Years

[Pogue Mahone]

Yeah, it was magnified ten fold post SAF. Giggs, Scholes, Evra, Rio and Vidic; we lost all five too close to each other and their replacements never stepped up. Huge influences both on and off the pitch.

I guess you could point the finger at SAF for not planning well enough. Was also terribly unlucky that his retirement lined up with all of theirs. He was needed to oversee that transition and maybe he had a plan to deal with it.

I think his plan involved Anderson, Nani, Smalling, Jones and Rafabio stepping up to replace them. Which explains why he stuck with Anderson long past the point it was obvious he wasn't fit to lace Scholes boots (or fit enough to play professsional football, period).

The heirs apparent to the players you mention are so far below our former stars it's no great surprise we went into a spectacular tail-spin when Fergie left. What is surprising (and depressing) is that we've since spent, what? Two hundred million? And don't have a single player in our squad I as good as any of the players we so badly needed to replace. Which is astonishing really.

 

[Bobcat]

I think his plan involved Anderson, Nani, Smalling, Jones and Rafabio stepping up to replace them. Which explains why he stuck with Anderson long past the point it was obvious he wasn't fit to lace Scholes boots (or fit enough to play professsional football, period).

The heirs apparent to the players you mention are so far below our former stars it's no great surprise we went into a spectacular tail-spin when Fergie left. What is surprising (and depressing) is that we've since spent, what? Two hundred million? And don't have a single player in our squad I as good as any of the players we so badly needed to replace. Which is astonishing really.

Yeah, when you look at it in retrospect, our transfer business over the last years has been abysmal, some decent signings here and there, but nowhere near the shrewd buys that Fergie was so famous for.

 

[kps88]

I think his plan involved Anderson, Nani, Smalling, Jones and Rafabio stepping up to replace them. Which explains why he stuck with Anderson long past the point it was obvious he wasn't fit to lace Scholes boots (or fit enough to play professsional football, period).

I dunno, if you believe Phelan, he was trying to bring Ronaldo back. That would have been a very un-SAF like signing, which suggests to me that he realised the squad needed something big. Would have been great to see how he handled it. I personally think we would have seen a few more RVP style signings.

 

[kunal18]

- Most of the better players currently in the team are Ferguson signings DeGea,Young,Valencia,Smalling,Carrick(till last season). and its been 3 years since SAF left.And in a SAF team these would be the bottom rung in terms of talent barring DeGea.
- Valencia has been our most potent attacker , In a SAF team there would have been 4 or 5 others who would be responsible for the creativity.
- Nani and Hernandez guaranteed goals/assists and we sold them off when we have been struggling to create anything or score much for the past 3 seasons.
- In a SAF team, there would be no starting place for slow attackers like Mata, he got rid of RVN,Beckham,Berbatov etc at different times even when their output was good but it affected the team play.
- Its absurd to blame SAF for the current state of our play as he won the title with many of the same players and would have bought better and got it working regardless of the personnel.
Its upto the new managers who have buckets load of cash and have spent that fortune and still cant seem to get a single stable starting lineup for a few games. LVG got it working for a few games 2 seasons back but then changes it all.
Ashley Young and Carrick who were the best players during that run of games.And he bought Memphis Depay who was plain shit. Depay played more games than Young last season.Not sure SAF can blamed for such stupidity.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I dunno, if you believe Phelan, he was trying to bring Ronaldo back. That would have been a very un-SAF like signing, which suggests to me that he realised the squad needed something big. Would have been great to see how he handled it. I personally think we would have seen a few more RVP style signings.

If he'd had a few more years in him I'm sure we'd have seen some exciting signings. We just got fecked by him deciding to call it a day before that happened and the people who replaced him spending so incredibly badly. A perfect storm really.

 

[united_99]

I am sorry but I can't agree with that. In Fergie's last years we were a team that simply did enough. We would either get our noses up front through Rooney or Van Persie and sit back behind to win 1/0 or 2/0 or concede first and throw the kitchen sink which worked more often than not against the average. Our displays in Europe or even against the best teams at home were far from impressive. We were out-possessed and out-played by Athletic Bilbao once ffs! When you talk about winning 5 out of 7 leagues, that is not very relevant to the quality of our football necessarily. We were solid, experienced and had some brilliant individual talent from Scholes, Carrick, Van Persie, Rooney, Vidic, Rio, Evra and so on so I am not arguing that we weren't good, I am arguing that we weren't fluid in the way you see some teams.

We didn't really take a low risk tactical football. We didn't do anything really we just made a series of managerial appointments with nothing in common between them in terms of profile and vision.

Tactics cannot be overrated or underrated. The level of their importance simply depends on how complex the managers working in the game make them. If two managers decide to go with a basic 442 with two wide men and a deep defence, then yes tactics are useless, you simply need to get your team to be stronger/faster/mentally tougher or whatever. If one manager starts putting players between the lines or other such things, you are forced to move on and adapt. The fact of the matter is that tactics like any field that humans touch keep evolving. Managers are being more expressive with varying levels of success. It is no secret that our teams under Sir Alex were lacking in Europe. We were consistently shut down against the likes of Bayern, Juventus, Real and Barcelona and if you don't think tactics had something to do it, I would have to disagree with you.

Your last point about continuing in his footsteps is difficult to understand. I mean of course to me or any United fan I assume if given those terms; here is another Fergie, you will dominate for 20 years, have some high octane drama on a regular basis with the small downside of not being the most tactically fluid out there and rely more on risk than structure, I would take it. That's a non starter. The problem is there is no one who can ensure that or even come close to it so what is the point of looking at the impossible? The man was the last of his breed in terms of that ability to manage an entire behemoth of an operation and more importantly, he somehow made it work. If you think there is someone out there who can do that, I'd like to hear your suggestions.

Your posts would suggest we were the only team in Europe to not perform. When were we constantly shut down by Juve? Until 97 yes, in 98 we won 1 and lost 1 to them, in 99 we knocked them out and in 2003 we won both games including a 3-0 in Turin.

Barca with all of LvG's brilliant tactics didn't get out of our group in 99 and in 2008 we knocked them out with a manager who was a CL winner just two years back.

Bayern were just better in 2001, in 2010 we were unlucky at home.

The only team who were better and we didn't have much chance was Real in 2000 and 2003. But sometimes you struggle to beat certain teams. As I said we beat Juve twice that season, but a few months later they easily knock out Real.

We "struggled" between our 2 CL wins but even then 4 times we were knocked out by the eventual winner.
When we recovered we reached 3 finals in 4 years. We had a good away record and a great home CL record which Bayern only surpassed last week.

Against Barca in 2009 and 2011 you can say that in 2009 they had the better tactics and in 2011 they were just much better and younger than our team.
You could also say that even then they had Messi (like you say exactly this when defending Pep's elimination by Enrique's Barcelona).

RM were mostly worse than us between their CL wins in 2002 and 2014, still after that they managed two CLs in 3 years and it didn't take Pep's or Klopp's coaching for them to do that.

Also if we were "found out" in Europe in all those years you mention then Pep also got found out in the CL with Bayern.

While we should have won 1 or 2 more CLs you can say the same about other clubs. We had 9 years between 2 CL titles, Bayern 12 and RM 12 as well (from 2002 - 2014). But you don't need out of the world tactics to win it, Fergie didn't, Ancelotti didn't, Zidane and Enrique didn't, Heynckes didn't. You mostly win it with a good plan and a few great players.

Barca were more or less useless in that competition for 14 years until they finally won it in 2006. This all is normal and happens all the time.

What we need for now is first be competitive in England and have a functioning team, then we can think again about winning in Europe.

 

[MancunianAngels]

Think back to 2005 and the last days of the Glazer protests before the takeover.

There was a point made at the time that with Fergie effectively running the club, it didn't matter who "owned" it.

That in many ways was more true than anyone could have possibly imagined. There was no plan beyond Fergie...

Arsenal will have a similar decline when Wenger retires.

 

[Dr. Funkenstein]

Think back to 2005 and the last days of the Glazer protests before the takeover.

There was a point made at the time that with Fergie effectively running the club, it didn't matter who "owned" it.

That in many ways was more true than anyone could have possibly imagined. There was no plan beyond Fergie...

Arsenal will have a similar decline when Wenger retires.

That's why a 'United way' has to be defined without Ferguson beeing part of it. The good thing about the decision to hire Van Gaal was that it was a choice for a specific, clear direction. The bad decision was to let the direction depend on the manager. The sacking of a manager shouldn't change the direction the club is heading in.

 

[gav81]

Your last point about continuing in his footsteps is difficult to understand. I mean of course to me or any United fan I assume if given those terms; here is another Fergie, you will dominate for 20 years, have some high octane drama on a regular basis with the small downside of not being the most tactically fluid out there and rely more on risk than structure, I would take it. That's a non starter. The problem is there is no one who can ensure that or even come close to it so what is the point of looking at the impossible? The man was the last of his breed in terms of that ability to manage an entire behemoth of an operation and more importantly, he somehow made it work. If you think there is someone out there who can do that, I'd like to hear your suggestions.

We would be heading off-topic on this thread so I have quoted your post and responded in post #415 here.

 

[Adebesi]

We would be heading off-topic on this thread so I have quoted your post and responded in post #415 here.

I knew before I even clicked where you were going with that.

 

[Theonas]

Your posts would suggest we were the only team in Europe to not perform. When were we constantly shut down by Juve? Until 97 yes, in 98 we won 1 and lost 1 to them, in 99 we knocked them out and in 2003 we won both games including a 3-0 in Turin.

Barca with all of LvG's brilliant tactics didn't get out of our group in 99 and in 2008 we knocked them out with a manager who was a CL winner just two years back.

Bayern were just better in 2001, in 2010 we were unlucky at home.

The only team who were better and we didn't have much chance was Real in 2000 and 2003. But sometimes you struggle to beat certain teams. As I said we beat Juve twice that season, but a few months later they easily knock out Real.

We "struggled" between our 2 CL wins but even then 4 times we were knocked out by the eventual winner.
When we recovered we reached 3 finals in 4 years. We had a good away record and a great home CL record which Bayern only surpassed last week.

Against Barca in 2009 and 2011 you can say that in 2009 they had the better tactics and in 2011 they were just much better and younger than our team.
You could also say that even then they had Messi (like you say exactly this when defending Pep's elimination by Enrique's Barcelona).

RM were mostly worse than us between their CL wins in 2002 and 2014, still after that they managed two CLs in 3 years and it didn't take Pep's or Klopp's coaching for them to do that.

Also if we were "found out" in Europe in all those years you mention then Pep also got found out in the CL with Bayern.

While we should have won 1 or 2 more CLs you can say the same about other clubs. We had 9 years between 2 CL titles, Bayern 12 and RM 12 as well (from 2002 - 2014). But you don't need out of the world tactics to win it, Fergie didn't, Ancelotti didn't, Zidane and Enrique didn't, Heynckes didn't. You mostly win it with a good plan and a few great players.

Barca were more or less useless in that competition for 14 years until they finally won it in 2006. This all is normal and happens all the time.

What we need for now is first be competitive in England and have a functioning team, then we can think again about winning in Europe.

Your post would be relevant had I made the point that we were not consistent in Europe. If anything, I made the point more than once that we what is happening to us now is nothing out of the ordinary when you look at other European giants. When people argue that missing out on the top 4 or not being competitive in Europe is some sign of eternal doom, I thought it was a simple case of short memories because of the very same examples you mention about Barcelona, Real, Bayern and the Italian clubs.

So yes I agree with you, consistency wise, we were as good as anyone if not better with the exception of that period between 2004 and 2007 I suppose. My point was not about that though, it was about what I think our inability to produce a 9 or 10/10 side during those years. If I am going to pick the stand out teams of the past 20 years, I would pick the Milan team from the early '90s, Juventus of the late '90s, the late Barcelona side and a special mention for one season achievements to Ajax 1995 and Bayern 2013. I think all those teams reached a level of dominance and authority in their games against fellow big teams that I don't think we have achieved in 20 years. You should also remember that I am saying this in the context of our game, how it evolved and how it measures up against the rest so this is not a dig as you seem to take it, it is more of an evaluation of where our strength and weaknesses lied. If I had to pick now between 20 straight years of domestic dominance and consistent European competitiveness over say Barcelona's ups an downs with the ups being higher than anything we had, I still would pick the former any time of the day so again I am far from complaining just pointing that as good as we had it, and I do think we were the luckiest fans in the world, we had flaws.

Of course you don't need innovative tactics or whatever to win, I am not anybody can ever argue that point. Football teams and their success are a big combination of tactics, finances, personnel, mentality, suitable environment such as the league they play in, and luck. You don't have to be great in all of those to be a great team and I would struggle to name a side that had 9 or 10 in all of these factors with the possible exception of Barcelona. I think throughout our years under Fergie we were at a disadvantage when it comes to our league because of its uniqueness and how different it was to the European game which strictly relates to tactics, I think every English team suffers from that to be fair. We also were at a disadvantage since we were never the top destination for the top Latin talent compared to the Italian and Spanish clubs. So it is not very black and white, there are a lot of overlapping factors, I am just trying to distinguish the difference between winning a CL and being a great CL winner.

I sort of agree about your last point and being competitive in England. However I don't see why the two are mutually exclusive. Ideally for me, a great team is a great team but I still see where you are coming from. It kind of relates to my point about the uniqueness of the league. This very idea that home and Europe are two separate entities tells a lot about the problems our teams find in Europe. Maybe you are right and we need to separate the two but I still think if you have a proper good team, it should be good enough anywhere which admittedly might be naïve.

 

[MancunianAngels]

That's why a 'United way' has to be defined without Ferguson beeing part of it. The good thing about the decision to hire Van Gaal was that it was a choice for a specific, clear direction. The bad decision was to let the direction depend on the manager. The sacking of a manager shouldn't change the direction the club is heading in.

A director of football is the way to go.
Someone who can work with the manager, CEO and head of the academy. It also gives the club some stability if there's a new manager every 2/3 years.

I still think Mourinho will be a success but it will take time. Despite the money spent, I think top 4 and a cup would represent a successful season. Still a lot of issues on and off the pitch.

 

[mark_a]

There was no succession plan to follow Sir Alex.

The decision to place blind faith in a manager who'd never really won anything immediately following, was merely a symptom of the hubris and cluelessness of the club. The fact that said manager changed the staff and dented player confidence, combined the intense media pressure made this situation worse. We then hired what might possibly have been the right manager (to follow SAF) at the wrong time (after Moyes). He had to follow a partial job done by Moyes (& poor signings: blame Woodward), and a squad bereft of confidence.

This decline was set in motion in SAFs last few years. The club should have planned for him leaving better than it did, perhaps not leaving so many decisions in his hands. For me the club should always prepare for dealing with situations. "what if our boss leaves, have we got our eye on anyone?". By the same logic that the scouting network is always eyeing up players. The club had 10 years from his almost-retirement in 2002 to realise that a poorly planned succession can be a disaster.

Then it comes to the inexcusable bit, that this is exactly what happened to United after Busby. The club only had to look at it's own history for evidence of a badly handled ending of a successful managerial reign.

The Glazers are a factor too. I suspect them not being "football people" meant they left it all to SAF & co. The fact that it was the untouchable Manchester United, a finely tuned history-rich trophy machine, meant it could be just left to tick over and success would come flooding in probably contributed to this hands-off approach. I'm not saying I want an interfering owner, in reality what you want from an owner is the business savvy to keep things going and successful off the field. However, the Glazers are more like financial Vampires than anything. Could they ultimately hold the answer to why the club didn't sign so well in the last years of SAF? Possibly.

Whatever, we're still saying that the roles of certain players were never adequately replaced (Scholes etc..).

 

[united_99]

Your post would be relevant had I made the point that we were not consistent in Europe. If anything, I made the point more than once that we what is happening to us now is nothing out of the ordinary when you look at other European giants. When people argue that missing out on the top 4 or not being competitive in Europe is some sign of eternal doom, I thought it was a simple case of short memories because of the very same examples you mention about Barcelona, Real, Bayern and the Italian clubs.

So yes I agree with you, consistency wise, we were as good as anyone if not better with the exception of that period between 2004 and 2007 I suppose. My point was not about that though, it was about what I think our inability to produce a 9 or 10/10 side during those years. If I am going to pick the stand out teams of the past 20 years, I would pick the Milan team from the early '90s, Juventus of the late '90s, the late Barcelona side and a special mention for one season achievements to Ajax 1995 and Bayern 2013. I think all those teams reached a level of dominance and authority in their games against fellow big teams that I don't think we have achieved in 20 years. You should also remember that I am saying this in the context of our game, how it evolved and how it measures up against the rest so this is not a dig as you seem to take it, it is more of an evaluation of where our strength and weaknesses lied. If I had to pick now between 20 straight years of domestic dominance and consistent European competitiveness over say Barcelona's ups an downs with the ups being higher than anything we had, I still would pick the former any time of the day so again I am far from complaining just pointing that as good as we had it, and I do think we were the luckiest fans in the world, we had flaws.

Of course you don't need innovative tactics or whatever to win, I am not anybody can ever argue that point. Football teams and their success are a big combination of tactics, finances, personnel, mentality, suitable environment such as the league they play in, and luck. You don't have to be great in all of those to be a great team and I would struggle to name a side that had 9 or 10 in all of these factors with the possible exception of Barcelona. I think throughout our years under Fergie we were at a disadvantage when it comes to our league because of its uniqueness and how different it was to the European game which strictly relates to tactics, I think every English team suffers from that to be fair. We also were at a disadvantage since we were never the top destination for the top Latin talent compared to the Italian and Spanish clubs. So it is not very black and white, there are a lot of overlapping factors, I am just trying to distinguish the difference between winning a CL and being a great CL winner.

I sort of agree about your last point and being competitive in England. However I don't see why the two are mutually exclusive. Ideally for me, a great team is a great team but I still see where you are coming from. It kind of relates to my point about the uniqueness of the league. This very idea that home and Europe are two separate entities tells a lot about the problems our teams find in Europe. Maybe you are right and we need to separate the two but I still think if you have a proper good team, it should be good enough anywhere which admittedly might be naïve.

I see where you are coming from, I think we just disagree in some details.

Though if you mention Bayern 2013 as a really dominant side you can menion us in 1999 too.

Bayern hammered Barca yes, but the final with Dortmund was a close game and they also were beaten twice in that CL run.
In the league both their games with Dortmund ended in a draw, though they were only beaten once by Leverkusen.

Us in 99, the only big team to beat us was Arsenal once in the league. Apart from that we either won or drew against other big teams. In the FA Cup we also eliminated all of Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. In the CL whereas we didn't beat Barca or Bayern in the group, we also didn't lose to anyone in the entire competition.
Plus we didn't have 5 weeks winter break unlike the Bundesliga.
Our team in 2008 weren't beaten by a top team either I think, but especially in Europe our style was more exciting/dominant in 99.

However as you say, there are factors which won't allow an English team to dominate Europe for several years. The best players mostly are from South America + Figo/Zidane/CR and all of them especially culturally are much closer to Spain/Italy than England (or Germany).
No matter how much more money goes into the English game, the very best talent will go to Spain as long as Barca and Real don't turn mediocre.

The best which we can do is show consistency in PL and Europe (like United and Chelsea did a few years back) and in one or two seasons hope that this will also be good enough for Europe.

That's at least what United have done. Both times we won the CL under Fergie came at the same time as we won 3 PLs in a row. Which again points out to our consistency.

And I couldn't see us doing what Milan or RM did in the 00s in terms of being bad in the league (they came 5th and 7th) but winning the CL. We needed to be consistent to do well in the CL.

 

[Denis79]

I think the truth lies somewhere inbetween. SAF did leave an aging "weaker" squad but not as bad as Moyes made them look I think. Looking back it's incredible how good SAF was at getting that little extra out of his players. It's hard to remember how good or badly we played in SAF's last seasons because he somehow always managed to get decent results. I think that he left a squad that was a bit to old in key positions and that made it a bit hard for the following managers and this switching managers twice already doesn't make things easier either.

SAF should have invested a bit more in the squad ( though you can't blame him since he did manage to get results ) and we should have never appointed Moyes. I think a mix of those two things are showing in the problems we have now.

 

[Yorkeontop]

Right ok. Apologies if I wasn't clear.

Essentially, yes, I'm asking if people do believe (and if so to what extent) that the deep-lying performance issues we've been seeing since Fergie retired, actually began before he retired. You use the phrase 'parroting for 2 years' which indicates to me this is the case but I was never sure.

While I do point out that I remember people bemoaning our playing style at the time I couldn't be certain if opinions had changed in the intervening period. Not necessarily just in the sense of looking back with rose-tinted spectacles (although that might be case for some) but also because others may feel that with the way things are now we perhaps never truly appreciated just how lucky we were.

Personally I don't think it's contradictory on one hand to be honoured to have had SAF as our manager and all the incredible achievements he made during his time here while at the same time acknowledging that perhaps some of the more negative issues we are now experiencing may partly have their routes in the final years of his tenure. I just wanted to see how many others felt the same way.

Does that make sense?

No need to apologise mate. As you can tell by the responses in this thread, this is an issue that holds a lot of relevance still. And yes it is has been discussed before but it never gets old really. Especially as the years go by and we get an even better perspective on it.

 

[Theonas]

I see where you are coming from, I think we just disagree in some details.

Though if you mention Bayern 2013 as a really dominant side you can menion us in 1999 too.

Bayern hammered Barca yes, but the final with Dortmund was a close game and they also were beaten twice in that CL run.
In the league both their games with Dortmund ended in a draw, though they were only beaten once by Leverkusen.

Us in 99, the only big team to beat us was Arsenal once in the league. Apart from that we either won or drew against other big teams. In the FA Cup we also eliminated all of Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. In the CL whereas we didn't beat Barca or Bayern in the group, we also didn't lose to anyone in the entire competition.
Plus we didn't have 5 weeks winter break unlike the Bundesliga.
Our team in 2008 weren't beaten by a top team either I think, but especially in Europe our style was more exciting/dominant in 99.

Fair enough mate. The '99 United team is my favourite team of all time. I think our '08 team would have beaten them but I still prefer that side and can't see myself liking a team more. However, as exciting and thrilling a comeback is, it more often than not means you were not very good. Against Juventus and Bayern as well as away performances to Inter were all either solid, thrilling, stubborn, or whatever you want to call it, but complete performances they weren't. I don't think we produced anything close to Bayern's wins at Arsenal, Juventus and Barcelona in that run. We won those games through sheer blood mindedness, individual quality (Keane and Beckham), and a bit luck. The evidence of that for me is that the following years against the likes of Bayern and Real, we were consistently unable to outplay them which led to Sir Alex's decision to stop trying to make sure we were solid in terms of numbers behind the ball instead.

However as you say, there are factors which won't allow an English team to dominate Europe for several years. The best players mostly are from South America + Figo/Zidane/CR and all of them especially culturally are much closer to Spain/Italy than England (or Germany).
No matter how much more money goes into the English game, the very best talent will go to Spain as long as Barca and Real don't turn mediocre.

The best which we can do is show consistency in PL and Europe (like United and Chelsea did a few years back) and in one or two seasons hope that this will also be good enough for Europe.

That's at least what United have done. Both times we won the CL under Fergie came at the same time as we won 3 PLs in a row. Which again points out to our consistency.

And I couldn't see us doing what Milan or RM did in the 00s in terms of being bad in the league (they came 5th and 7th) but winning the CL. We needed to be consistent to do well in the CL.

I perfectly agree with all of that. I remember people complaining that Fergie was too stingy with the money or that Moyes couldn't attract the best players or that we weren't good enough on the pitch to attract players like Real or Barcelona. All of that was utter BS. English teams and even German ones I would say were never capable of competing for the top Latin and Mediterranean talent. If Milan and Juventus could now somehow offer similar wages to us, they would be a more favourable destination. It's about when you are a kid and who your idols are and where are they playing. Argentinian and Brazilian kids grew up watching Maradona, Batistuta, Romario, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, their old playing in Italy and Spain, so of course to them that's where the highest form of prestige is. We to them are an exotic land that now happens to be rich as well.

I had a lot of discussions on the merits of those Milan and RM sides and I realize this is a controversial view but I simply can't rate teams that fail to dominate or at least win their domestic league. RM's last 5 CL triumphs came in years where they did not win their league title. Milan are the same in the mid '00s. This to me automatically eliminates them from the discussion about the great teams of the past two decades. Their strategy seem to work though as I think to them, European wins are the best form of exposure and building a profile and you can't argue with their profile.

 

[ghagua]

Half a billion spent on transfers, 3 managers and 4 years later we're still trying to blame Fergie's underspending on the utter crap that we're putting on the pitch. Even with Fergie's underspending, he could not stop winning. Maybe the manager that we have needs to play his best players in the team, and coach them on how to play a decent attacking game.

 

[united_99]

Half a billion spent on transfers, 3 managers and 4 years later we're still trying to blame Fergie's underspending on the utter crap that we're putting on the pitch. Even with Fergie's underspending, he could not stop winning. Maybe the manager that we have needs to play his best players in the team, and coach them on how to play a decent attacking game.

It's really getting tiresome considering the money we have spent / wasted since his retirement. Hell, even if we would have had a super duper team in 2012 or 2013 it would have been past its peak by now and some rebuilding would still be needed.

Maybe Jose can't rebuild? Ranieri started to build his Chelsea team after all and made some important signings before Jose came.

At Inter the core was also there before he came and the team turned into rubbish after it had won the treble (obviously Benitez isn't blameless here).

It's time for Jose to come up with something. United and Woodward have done everything to provide him his shiny new toys, now it's time to deliver.

 

[gav81]

The discussion started on this thread, moved to the Roy Keane Myths thread and is now relevant here again!...

Since it doesn't seem like we disagree much on the other points, I will only address the last part of your post. It is hard to make a bullet proof argument about our football in those last years under Fergie as one's exciting football is not everyone else's. I would however argue that there was a general consensus on this board among other that our football was hardly comparable to the best teams in Europe or even the likes of Dortmund or City in that period. The transfer of Kagawa I remember generated so much buzz because people were hoping he will change that to no avail of course. I would also cite our performances against the likes of City, Chelsea, Real and Liverpool or even the likes of Bilbao where all we did is sit back behind the ball losing the midfield and being pressed all over the pitch relying on the individual brilliance of Van Persie, Scholes or Rooney. I don't know about you but that's not what I'd call performances befitting one of the biggest clubs in the world. Against the rest of the league, our games were either ones where we got our noses up front and sat back behind the ball to defend a lead or ones where we did not defend well and ended up throwing the kitchen sink which albeit being exciting and enthralling, is still indicative that we were very flawed.

After Fergie, the only relatively modern manager we had is LvG and his tenure was overall a disappointment. That however doesn't mean that a more coaching/tactical oriented approach does not work. A quick glimpse at the best teams in the world would tell you that. We sadly don't exist in our own little island where we play by our own rules. We have to adapt to the modern order whether we like it or not because everybody else is. You seem to equate the failure of individuals with the failure of a system which I think is a very common attitude. People don't like someone's coaching, rightfully and then go on to write off everything he did from his performance, principles and ideas. My point is that just because LvG failed in the end, not everything he stood for or believe in is wrong.

We had to adapt to the modern order... because... 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st in Ferguson's last seven seasons wasn't good enough? Notwithstanding Ferguson's retirement, I'm not sure the system or results were something that really needed fixing, and I don't see an advantage in the 7th, 4th, 5th and, currently, 7th positions that change has brought.

I think it is fine to equate the failure of individuals with failure of the system - that includes formation, tactics, training, mentality, everything. It's a whole topic in itself, but perhaps some systems are not suited to some players or some clubs (without the drastic overhaul to go with it that still doesn't necessarily end in success). At the end of the day the best system is one which gets the most from the players, entertains most if not all supporters and gets results.

Ferguson's system by and large achieved all that at United and I would be happy to see it continued. I think perhaps you are selecting isolated performances and results which do not reflect our seasons as a whole to counter that – you know, we can't win them all.

I mean Bilbao, sure we were not at our best, and they were an in-form team at the time, went all the way to the final (incidentally that was the season Keane criticised our Champions League exit to Basel prompting the 'feud' with Ferguson to ignite in public). Yet the next season, still under Ferguson's system, we bounced back to win our first four Champions League group games to progress and looked favourites against Ronaldo's Real Madrid before we went down to ten men and subsequently conceded a freak two goals in three minutes.

However, in the same season we lost to Bilbao, we beat all of City, Chelsea and Liverpool along with results like 3-0 vs Tottenham, 8-2 vs Arsenal, 5-0 vs Fulham, 5-0 vs Wigan, 5-0 vs Wolves. And similar in Ferguson's final season where again we beat City, Chelsea and Liverpool along with scoring 3+ goals in 16 out of our 38 Premier League games.

So I'm not having it that our standard was not 'befitting one of the biggest clubs in the world'. If you really think that, then, no offence intended, but apart from it being a little bit spoilt, maybe it's like Ferguson would say, “Sometimes you look in a field and you see a cow and you think it's a better cow than the one you've got in your own field. It's a fact. Right? And it never really works out that way.”

So it seems Fergie, so it seems.