Mate, it’s ironic that you claim someone else doesn’t know what they’re talking about. You’re absolutely clueless. I’m not taking anything away from Fergie, why would I? I’m saying that Man United were the biggest club in the country long before he got there. That is a fact.
'Pep' Guardiola sack watch
- Thread starter Classical Mechanic
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Mate, it’s ironic that you claim someone else doesn’t know what they’re talking about. You’re absolutely clueless. I’m not taking anything away from Fergie, why would I? I’m saying that Man United were the biggest club in the country long before he got there. That is a fact.
Yeah long before he got there, why not mentioned 1960s too.
Truth is, no league/european trophies in 20 years, biggest club, yeh right. Its like saying Milan is the biggest club in Italy right now too. Totally clueless.
The point is that being the biggest club and having the most money (which Manchester United were and had) doesn’t guarantee success. You’d know this if you had any idea at all about this game
You are just not making any sense. Whole discussion is about the huge amount Pep has spent vs Fergie building team from scratch. Then you bring up all this Atkinson shite and Man Ud being the biggest club during Fergie early days in United, while ignoring the fact that our huge success under Fergie is the biggest reason which made Man Utd super rich.
Yes you are. Your facts are fecked. We were title less in decades, had a culture issue and only had huge success under another Scotsman ages before. He rebuilt the modern day behemoth that is Manchester United. He broke the old firm rivalry. He came to a big club, but that means feck all when you're not winning and don't have the culture of excellence. See how hard it is to win at Milan now. Things change.
As an outsider I can see why he would think that, United were always a big and glamourous club. Not sure about the biggest or richest though.
No I’m not. Don’t presume to tell me what my intentions are. He came to the biggest club. Not ‘a’ big club.
He rebuilt the club from the ground up (with the help of a farsighted board who refused to sack him when many fans wanted him gone after 3 years) and laid the foundations for an extraordinarily long period of dominance. An amazing achievement.
But he didn’t do it on a shoestring (like that other clueless poster was trying to make out) and United weren’t the equivalent of freaking Leicester. Before the advent of Roman and the oil barons, Man United were the biggest club with the most money and the most fans. Factual.
Nowadays, they’re still arguably the biggest club with the most fans but they don’t have the most money. That’s the only difference.
He said relatively it was little money compared to Pep. And he's spot on yet you've gotten defensive of Saint Pep just becuase be didn't build greatness the way SAF did.
Were we not real champions when we won the title before he arrived?
I’m not getting defensive of Pep, his record speaks for itself.
Saying it’s little money compared to Pep makes no sense, because Man United had the most money at the time and there’s also this thing called inflation, you may have heard of it.
Ronaldo was transferred from Barca to Inter for a record £20 million in 97. In 2017, Neymar was bought for almost £200 million. Does this mean that Ronaldo was not sold for a lot of money? Please try and make sense.
Remind when Sir Alex could waste 50 million after 50 million (adjust it for inflation if you want) on defenders hoping one day he can get a defence sorted for the CL?
It's sad that posters like you don't just appreciate Pep, which is fine,.but you pretend that his advantages don't actually exist. Even City fans are lesser fanboys than chaps like you. United were not the City equivalent. We were a big but floundering football club that has history and might but feck all success and culture. And definitely not a country to back like your favourite Pep did. I mean Pep didn't even start getting them winning. He took parts of a winning Mancini team
and your Comparing the two.Only you can imply something nobody said and then ask for people to make sense of it after saying said nonsense. Quality argument.
Remind when Sir Alex could waste 50 million after 50 million (adjust it for inflation if you want) on defenders hoping one day he can get a defence sorted for the CL?
It's sad that posters like you don't just appreciate Pep, which is fine,.but you pretend that his advantages don't actually exist. Even City fans are lesser fanboys than chaps like you. United were not the City equivalent. We were a big but floundering football club that has history and might but feck all success and culture. And definitely not a country to back like your favourite Pep did. I mean Pep didn't even start getting them winning. He took parts of a winning Mancini team
I’m not a fanboy and I have no bias when it comes to English clubs, I just call it like I see it. Man United fans hate City so they won’t give the manager that can realistically challenge Fergie’s GOAT status his flowers (not that Fergie is definitely the GOAT, there’s many contenders for that title, Michels, Lippi, Clough, Paisley, Shankly, Busby, Stein etc.)
It’s totally understandable.
Not being English doesn't stop from you being incorrect.
Let's do this. How is Clough a contender for SAFs crown? Go on, make a case. Two ECs and all, but would you compare their records and come back with a strong case for him being SAFs equal/better? This should be fun.
Pep has had a head start at every club he's been at. He's never built a club up from scratch like Sir Alex has done twice. Laughing at the posters who don't get this.
Yes appreciate him for the brilliant manager he clearly is, but at least acknowledge the differences. No two careers are the same anyway.
It's hilarious people think they are unbiased and they are objective in in their ratings
He won with two provincial football clubs, Derby and Forest.
He took a club that had been in the second division for a decade (Derby) into the first division and won the title in the first division within a couple of years.
He also took Forest out of the second division and then immediately won the first division league title in his first top flight season and then won back to back European Cups. I mean, it’s self explanatory, I’m not sure what your confusion is.
Before Leicester won the league, many thought that his success with Forest was the greatest achievement in football history in terms of taking a small club to the summit. Many still think that.
Well, that's just weak. Just don't make grand sweeping and seemingly generic statements if you can't back them up.
What generic statement? And how is that weak? Do you understand the difficulty of those achievements?
You seem pretty clueless as well, TBH
And you sound like a moron. Who sees everything as the same just because he can't be bothered to admit one is better than the other. What next? Mourinho same as Sir Alex? Maybe Wenger too? Maybe try and write similar write up for Sir Alex and then ask yourself why you feel so stupid? Cough is clearly an atime great. But every great isn't the same. Rooney isn't Best isn't Messi. fecksake.
Liverpool had 18 league titles and 4 European Cups when Sir Alex took over United who had 7 and hadn’t won a title in two decades.
Liverpool were the biggest club in England. Insane to suggest otherwise.
Most successful, not biggest. Manchester United had the highest average attendance in the entire country when they were playing in the freaking second division, in 1974-5.
You asked a question, I answered it. Try not to cry and address what I actually wrote rather than losing your cool. It’s not a good look for you, given your clear lack of actual knowledge, acumen and experience. Why aren’t Clough’s achievements ATG in your addled mind?
Oh and highest average attendance in 1974/75 ten years before Fergie even arrived is the metric to use above all else?
Youre aware as well that Old Trafford was bigger than Anfield during that period too right?
Absolutely Ridiculous argument, Liverpool literally dominated domestic and European football whilst we won about two FA Cups. Household reputable names like Keegan, Souness, Rush, Dalglish etc.
I mean I can’t believe I’m siding with Liverpool but Christ talk about serious mental gymnastics to spin an overall argument in your favour.
Trying to build a case "against" SAF in a Manchester United forum won't bring nothing but anger from the fans. Why are you doing that, specially here?
Manchester United have been the best supported English club in the UK and around the world for decades, way before Fergie’s arrival . They’ve pretty much always had the biggest stadium and sizeable resources. The only ‘mental gymnastics’ is in trying to claim that they were somehow a rustic, provincial club before Sir Alex’s arrival.
If you can point to one word or sentence I’ve written in my posts that was actively critical of him then I’ll accept your construction that I’m ‘building a case against him’. If not then you (and all the emotional ones) will have to accept that that’s not actually what I’m doing. I’m providing context.
I am not being emotional, just explaining the common sense for human behaviour. A football club is pretty much like a religion in many aspects, in case you didn't noticed. Why even bother providing context for a club legend like SAF? Do you really think Man Utd fans will not react?
Reading a few articles, they claim United were still called Britain’s most famous club even in the 80s. I’ve watched something years ago that claimed despite United’s barren spell, they still were the most famous or biggest club in England.
Ah moving goalposts . I didn’t say that and nobody else did. Nobody would dispute United were a big club but you specifically bolded that suggestion from another poster and went against it and specifically said that United were the biggest. United were not the biggest club in England, Liverpool were.
Liverpool were the main starters in the drawing of a more global fanbase due to their success in the 70’s and 80’s.
Liverpool were the main starters in drawing a domestic fanbase from black and Asian brits who previously had no interest in football. These are facts. Throw that in with having numerous iconic players, arguably the most famous stand in football, domestic and European domination and you will find Liverpool were the biggest team in the land in the 80’s.
How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?
I wasn’t accusing you of being emotional, I was referring to the other posters
Absolutely, Manchester United were not only the biggest club in England but the biggest in the world (if you measure it by fandom), even with Liverpool’s trophy dominance. I think it’s a combination of the Busby babes, the Munich disaster and the Best/Law/Charlton team that spread United’s fame to all corners of the globe. Best and Charlton are icons in a way that no Liverpool player is really, controversial though that opinion is. Maybe Keegan at a stretch?
You're so wrong it's untrue my man. During the course of Fergie's reign (1986-2013) , Liverpool spent more on transfers than Man United. Look it up.
I very much doubt that is true. Fergie spent well over half a billion in his 25 years at United and broke the British transfer record no less than seven times (Pallister, Keane, Cole, RVN, Veron, Ferdinand and Berbatov).
in his last few years though, he did tighten the purse strings and had success with some pretty underwhelming squads.
You answered poorly and essentially doing what I'd expect you to - making your initial argument come across a half baked one. As impressive as Clough's achievements are, to anybody with a working brain cess, which you may be lacking to be fair, they are a few levels below those or Sir Alex's. If you are unable to do that, then it's a whole lot to the drawing board for you.
Like I said, just because someone is a great of the game, it doesn't mean that they are comparable to the greatest. Not unless you're trying to disingenuous. I can go around claiming Zalatan is Messi equivalent or some absurd thing like that everybody knows it isn't worth taking seriously. Just your post wasn't. I just wanted to see yourself try hard to justify such a lame claim. At least you tried, albeit wrongly.
And Milan was probably Italy most famous or biggest club too. Do you expect them to dominate the league for next 2 decades because of that?
That’s why you are being so wrong and has been ridiculed in this thread. Transfers like Keane, Cole, RVN, Veron, Ferdinand, Berbatov etc are mostly bought from money generated by huge success under Fergie’s team, not the other way round. You just don’t use this compare with Pep spending which are all generated from oil money, it’s stupid comparison.
You are just totally clueless.
When Man Utd won league title under Fergie the very first time, difference between the money we’ve spend on our squad, when compared to other elite clubs in England, isn’t as big as you’ve made out, it’s simply not the case when you keep implying we’ve spend huge in magnitude because we were by far biggest and richest club. Especially when compared to City squad today and considering the magnitude of difference in spending in related to other clubs, it’s nothing.
Man Utd (92-93)
1. Pallister - 2.3m
2. Parker - 2m
3. Hughes - 1.8m
4. Cantona - 1.2m
5. Ince - 1m
(Other players like Bruce, McClair cost around 800k, big Pete, Irwin, Kanchelski cost around 500-600k, Sharpe 200k, Giggs 0 etc. I didn’t count Robson becos he was in his retiring years and didn’t really feature much. We did spend another 1m on Dublin though, so that’s the biggest difference there)
Arsenal (92-93)
1. Ian Wright - 2.5m
2. Keown - 2m
3. Seaman - 1.5m
4. Linighan - 1.2m
5. Limpar - 1m
(The rest range from 300-750k, depends)
Leeds (92-93)
1. Rocastle - 2m
2. Wallace - 1.6m
3. Dorigo - 1.3m
4. Lukic - 1m
5. Hodge - 900k
(The rest around 500k plus minus, depends)
Liverpool (92-93)
1. Stewart - 2.3m
2. Weight - 2.2m
3. James - 1m
4. Barnes - 900k
(The rest under 500k)
I just don’t see the huge advantage we are having in terms of spending. The top signings are in similar range, and then mid range signings are more or less similar, we have spend a fair amount on those ~500k bargains, which is nothing huge. At most we are only talking about maybe around 1m - 1.5m difference in total spending, which is equivalent to 50-60m in today’s money, more or less I guess. It’s fair to say it’s nothing if compared to Pep’s City spending vs other clubs spending (around 300-500m difference)
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