I do understand there are players with legendary status in the club need to be manage carefully, like Muller, Totti, Raul in their clubs, and they deserved and earned their respect. But this is not the case in Utd. Look from the outside players have high standard and professionalism like CR7, may be even Matic, Varane and Casemiro all had issues with their teammates and coaches.
Player Power
- Thread starter sugar_kane
- Start date
It's not "near enough the entire first team squad", its six or seven players who have shown themselves, on more than one occasion, of being incapable of putting the effort in, keeping themselves fit and/or presenting the right attitude.
The policy of appeasement you prefer, and our previous managers have preferred, does nothing more than kick the can down the line.
You back the players, you defend them in the press, you continue to select them...and as soon as the going gets tough they revert back to type and stab you in the back by downing tools and leaking to the media.
No thanks. I'll take my chances on taking them on, clearing them out and selecting the players who will gladly take their minutes on the pitch.
It does happen at other top clubs.
If you look at the past 5 years, we've seen loads of managers at other top clubs lose the dressing room.
Madrid: Solari and Lopetegui
Barca: Koeman, Seitien and Valverde
Bayern: Nagelsmann and Kovac
Chelsea: Potter, Tuchel, Lampard and Sarri
Spurs: Poch, Jose, Nuno and Conte
Arsenal: Emery
I don't think we're all that different but from a quality perspective, our players and managers have not been up to par. Top quality players will naturally fall out with a sub par coach. Our squad has very rarely been good enough to mask a managers deficiencies though.
You do not need a "recruitment team" and you do not need scouts, if the manager insists on getting his former players, no matter what the cost is. Like Antony and Onana. No scout can possibly know more about a player than his own manager who works with him every single day. We did not try to get a goalkeeper and ended up with Onana. ETH decided he wanted Onana and that's why he vetoed the De Gea contract. He wanted this particular player, so "recruitment" and "scouting" have nothing to do with this.
During Pre-season last summer he was apparently unimpressed with Garnachos punctuality so told him he wouldn't be selected for the first month of the season until it improved. Which was fair enough, in his case it seems to have worked.
You could argue Maguire deserves his place and I wouldn't necessarily disagree. But when he's preferred Evans, Lindelof and even Shaw over Varane at CB. That's harder to explain when Varanes been fit and available for the last 6 weeks.
You completely misunderstood the original post and you have misunderstood this. I was talking about going forward with a recruitment team, but never mind.
He sees the two centre back spots as distinct positions. The guy on the left needs to be at least reasonably comfortable playing out on that side, which Maguire and Varane aren't, and now Maguire is keeping Varane out of the team on the right side.
It didn't happen under SAF you're right, we had one of the best dressing room cultures. If there is a bad culture how it happened is anyone's guess. My bet would be United allowing a crazy Dutch bustard to get rid of 25+ Fergie players in 18 months and replace them all with mercenaries.
Having said that I don't really buy into this toxic culture theory. I find it hard to believe it can last for a decade and transfer from one group of players to the next. And also we've had seasons like last season where most were praising the teams work ethic and attitude. I think it's more a morale issue.
People would think Ten Hag is the only manager in the league to buy duff players.
I don't buy into that theory myself. Varane has played many times as a LCB for Real.
Varane is fit for one game and needs to be rotated the next. I remember a report that said his body can't handle a game every 3 days, and that was consistent with what followed last season as he was rested in some games to be kept fresh.
I think ten hag wouldn't have a problem doing the same again if he had Licha and Shaw from the beginning. However with both of them out, he likely got frustrated with not being able to choose a mainstay in the back line (he's eluded to this in the pressers).
Maguire was given his chance and to be fair, he's taken it.
Exactly. No manager is guaranteed to make perfect choices each time, but Ten Hag will have to learn to listen to any recruitment team going forward, but even that is no guarantee, look at some of the Guardiola and Klopp buys.
He's proved to be in a league of his own that's for sure
I agree with all this 100%.
I'm not in the mood to change another manager who will then have to come in and assess these same shit players and then the cycle starts all over again. Enough. Get the 40 points and weed out the bad apples. If ETH still doesn't improve then fine, we get someone else. However, we should not start any new cycle with same lazy players.
Was he asked to do the same (or similar) things to what he'd be asked here?
Maguire seemed to be predominantly a LCB before Ten Hag came in (at least for us), so it's not as simple as where they've played previously.
I've definitely seen breakdowns of how Maguire's play hinders forward progress when he plays on the left.
Currently his body is having to handle 0 games every 3 days depsite being fit.
Just thinking. how many post-Ferguson players would you all say have been an outright success at United?
For a reason. There's no value in resting him every other game and having feck all chemistry being built in the backline because of it.
Play as a left CB, defend and pass out from the back. Yes of course.
Yeah the reason is the managers fell out with him. I'm not buying that chemistry theory either (Ten Hag just decided this 2 months into the season did he?), he's rotated between Evans and Lindelof, and now Lindelof and Shaw. Plus Lindelof and Maguire despite regularly playing together for 4 years always look like they've just met and have little chemistry as a partnership. So it's definitely not that.
There's no sensible explanation why all of Johnny Evans, Lindelof or Luke Shaw are being selected at centreback ahead of Varane every game. Except for a falling out behind the scenes.
Ah but where you are wrong is that top clubs don’t go a decade with these issues. Not just that, too clubs can still get success and top 4 in their leagues even with unsuccessful managers because the squads they build are good enough on their own to do it. Top clubs don’t rely on top managers to keep them in the top 4 and there’s plenty of examples of top clubs winning stuff with less then famous managers.
The EPL has not been too strong for United to be too 4 every year. Worse then transfers in has been player retentions and contract extensions that’s been so bad and hardnessed a toxic culture of zero ramifications for under performance.That falls on the club , not the managers.
There's no credible report of a fall out though.
Varane is a RCB, he doesn't compete with Evans, Shaw or Lindelof as they are considerations for LCB. He has been displaced by Maguire because Maguire can stay fit. Maguire has been the only consistency in the back 4 and that's Varanes position.
To a midfield and attack structured and operating similarly?
These are genuine questions, by the way. I've barely paid any attention to Madrid's tactical set up.
Well... to a structured and operating midfield and attack at all. Let's leave it at this.
Fair. Probably easier to operate there when you've got Modric and Kroos ahead of you, and not McTominay and Amrabat.
Completely agree with you but I think the culture of the club starts at the top and is a result of the structure, when Sir Alex and Gill were basically everything bar the owners no one dared take the piss but now there’s no structure because the parasites only care about money it’s easy for the players to throw the manager under the bus then on to the next one.
With a proper footballing structure in place players will tow the line or be moved on, no more big wages for poor performances and no more ‘jobs for the boys’ as Blanc and Brailsford won’t allow their reputation to be dragged down to keep players happy so for me the structure and culture are one and the same.
Lisandro Martinez, Bruno, Luke Shaw and Ander Herrera were all good transfers.
Zlatan too. Not very many others if any
So what you are saying is that the club will tell ETH they don't trust his assessment of players, even about his own former players, and someone else will decide who to buy and whom to sell. For example, someone else will decide to sell Onana and sign De Gea or some other keeper. And who cares what ETH wants? Did I get it right?
Sure, I agree this might work. Especially if that other person is capable, unlike ETH.
If the club also finds someone to create a proper playing system, it would be even better. And if they find someone else to make the right sub decisions during games, it would be great!
(But I still don't see any "player power". )
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There were some "bad" transfers that ended up actually being managed well, like Dan James, Lukaku and Di Maria. Typically the club holds on to their mistakes too long, though.
Most fans perceive this as the result of a lack of accountability but I think it's more a product of decisionmakers at the club being terrified of admitting mistakes and being excessively risk averse because they're afraid of losing their jobs. They can always defend giant transfer fees for big names, because the CEO and Board are all Real Estate and Investment Banking people, and striking huge deals is how they got where they are. It's harder to defend something like binning off a player who's past it to buy one who's better but lesser known, because if it goes wrong it looks worse than just maintaining an existing asset.
This is true of the fans, too. Binning off Fred and De Gea and replacing them with Mount and Onana turned a good chunk of fans against ETH immediately. They want the big names and they want to keep the players they've heard of.
The toxic environment around Man Utd is the product of the way the club's been run. I struggle to see how we fix it short term.
The culture of the club encourages and rewards mediocrity. Just look at how we pay players for struggling to finish in the Champions League places. De Gea is still sitting around waiting for someone who's willing to pay his wages. Last year he was the best paid keeper in the league. United did that. Look at what's happened to Jesse Lingard in his quest for the same kind of cash United paid him. Is it any wonder that players we want to get rid of don't leave? Nobody will pay them anywhere near as much as we will. Even if we can find clubs that would be open to a transfer fee, they can't match the wages.
So those players are happy to Winston Bogarde it. Happy to sit on the bench and create a toxic atmosphere, hoping the coach will get fired and they'll get a 'second chance' under a new coach. Why would they believe this wouldn't happen? Some players are on their third or fourth second chance. The senior management continually removes coaches and briefs out that everyone will get a chance to impress the new coach. If you've been at this club since Van Gaal, why would you change your behaviour? Why would you believe the club would suddenly stop handing out new contracts for averageness and pursue a serious clear out?
So of course we have a bunch of demotivated players, pretty confident they'll keep getting paid come what may, waiting to outlast another coach who tried to impose discipline on them. Like all of us, they've seen this story. They know that the people who run Man Utd see it as cheaper to sack a coach than remove a dozen players. Even if a coach comes in and wins a trophy, they know he doesn't have enough cache to keep his job if they down tools.
How do you fix that? Unless the club is willing to accept serious losses on a lot of players and make some significant changes to the playing staff, this endless cycle of s-t will simply continue on.
Be it Ten Hag or his successor, the Man Utd coach will continue to be a hostage to the players: Entirely reliant on buttering them up and staying on their good side for his survival. That's not a pathway to success.
The culture of the club encourages and rewards mediocrity. Just look at how we pay players for struggling to finish in the Champions League places. De Gea is still sitting around waiting for someone who's willing to pay his wages. Last year he was the best paid keeper in the league. United did that. Look at what's happened to Jesse Lingard in his quest for the same kind of cash United paid him. Is it any wonder that players we want to get rid of don't leave? Nobody will pay them anywhere near as much as we will. Even if we can find clubs that would be open to a transfer fee, they can't match the wages.
So those players are happy to Winston Bogarde it. Happy to sit on the bench and create a toxic atmosphere, hoping the coach will get fired and they'll get a 'second chance' under a new coach. Why would they believe this wouldn't happen? Some players are on their third or fourth second chance. The senior management continually removes coaches and briefs out that everyone will get a chance to impress the new coach. If you've been at this club since Van Gaal, why would you change your behaviour? Why would you believe the club would suddenly stop handing out new contracts for averageness and pursue a serious clear out?
So of course we have a bunch of demotivated players, pretty confident they'll keep getting paid come what may, waiting to outlast another coach who tried to impose discipline on them. Like all of us, they've seen this story. They know that the people who run Man Utd see it as cheaper to sack a coach than remove a dozen players. Even if a coach comes in and wins a trophy, they know he doesn't have enough cache to keep his job if they down tools.
How do you fix that? Unless the club is willing to accept serious losses on a lot of players and make some significant changes to the playing staff, this endless cycle of s-t will simply continue on.
Be it Ten Hag or his successor, the Man Utd coach will continue to be a hostage to the players: Entirely reliant on buttering them up and staying on their good side for his survival. That's not a pathway to success.
One way could be to immediately Sancho all problematic players - it will be a very clear decision, understandable for everyone. A whole bunch of toxic time servers would be sanchoing themselves outside of the first team squad, and the manager would be working with those players who remained.
Essentially a back room team which would be capable of vetoing some of his suggestions as Klopp was overruled when he did not want Salah, but working together.
But hell, by all means get rid of Ten Hag and find the manager who can strike gold with every purchase.
If you don’t see “player power” it’s not my problem.
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Funny how far Casemiro’s stock has fallen.
Daley blind as well
Your problem seems to be "manager power", not "player power". What does "player power" has to do with what you are saying?
You seem more interested in being condescending and gawd knows whatever trip you’re on rather than see the point in the post you decided to respond to.
I mean, call it "employee power" and its universally a good thing
Do we think it unlikely any decision will be made until Ratcliffe‘s people are in place?