Players that keep chatting to the press - Not Happy Playing for United - Howson Rant

Maybe he should be ranting about ole as a manager for building a large amount of this squad and creating the mentality within the dressing room.

You can say what you want but he should have been more favourable to Romero who was always content with being 2nd choice under both van gaal and mourinho, instead he pushed further back as 3rd choice behind henderson who we should have cashed in on straight away but for some reason ole wanted to keep him on him on the bench for 2 season and hurt his potential sale price.

Then there was herrera who was deemed that wages he wanted to be too high but he gave his all on the pitch and better than the rest of our midfield options we currently have and that includes pogba who has been the past few seasons injured for a lot of the time and creating drama around the club and will eventually leave for free this summer.

He got rid of smalling who like Jones at least understood what being a united player was about in a professional and mentality sense and instead ole opted for two push overs in lindelof and Maguire.

You had fellaini who couldn't be faulted for his commitment on the pitch and was a warrior that battled to the last minute of games and scored some important last minute winners.

And lastly there was Rojo showed more fight and spirit than a majority of our current squad.

All these players were completely content with having to fight for the place in the team under Mourinho and van gaal, unlike a lot of the sulkers that ole favoured instead of them.
 
Lee565 said:
Maybe he should be ranting about ole as a manager for building a large amount of this squad and creating the mentality within the dressing room.

You can say what you want but he should have been more favourable to Romero who was always content with being 2nd choice under both van gaal and mourinho, instead he pushed further back as 3rd choice behind henderson who we should have cashed in on straight away but for some reason ole wanted to keep him on him on the bench for 2 season and hurt his potential sale price.

Then there was herrera who was deemed that wages he wanted to be too high but he gave his all on the pitch and better than the rest of our midfield options we currently have and that includes pogba who has been the past few seasons injured for a lot of the time and creating drama around the club and will eventually leave for free this summer.

He got rid of smalling who like Jones at least understood what being a united player was about in a professional and mentality sense and instead ole opted for two push overs in lindelof and Maguire.

You had fellaini who couldn't be faulted for his commitment on the pitch and was a warrior that battled to the last minute of games and scored some important last minute winners.

And lastly there was Rojo showed more fight and spirit than a majority of our current squad.

All these players were completely content with having to fight for the place in the team under Mourinho and van gaal, unlike a lot of the sulkers that ole favoured instead of them.
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Blaming ole for getting rid of Smalling , Rojo and Fellaini :lol::lol::lol:
 
Ixion said:
You hit the nail on the head, it is poor leadership and a bad culture at the club. Unfortunately when you're run that way for 8 years you're going to amass a lot of players that don't have the right attitude, mentality etc. so I can see half the squad suddenly throwing their toys out when it gets tough as they were never right fits to begin with. Going to be a gradual process to weed them out and build a team with the right culture at the club.
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I agree. Unless the players are full on United fans what makes us think we've got a crop of world beating, passionate-to-win folk? We're currently a "last won the league nine years ago, one FA Cup and one Europa League since then" club that can pay you astronomical wages.

We've had almost a decade with absolutely no strategy. The club's media narrative was "look how amazing United are, biggest club in the world" etc, which held together for about twelve months. Why they're still pretending that is true, feck knows. We need a complete rebuild. AC Milan did it, Barcelona and Real Madrid did it, even the fecking Scousers did it. Enough of this "we're still amazing" bullshit - because as far as I can see it wasn't even to save face whilst the management work in the background to rectify the issues. Sure, they at least appear to be trying to fix it now but it's so fecking late that it'll take longer to fix the problems.

Too many seasons with both eyes focused on having players turn up for photoshoots for a noodle partner, and nobody watching the walls crumbling around them. All because our directors don't know shit about football and we hire a marketing guru who says things that don't make sense so nobody realises that, like all marketing gurus, he knows feck all about anything.

Yes, others are to blame as well but who hired them? Who provided them with zero strategic direction? Who preferred to feed their journo pals puff pieces about how amazing we were rather than actually make it reality? The fecking gnomes and the chinless banker, that's who.

And feck these players for being arseholes as well. Get the feck out of my beautiful club if you can't be arsed.

And breathe...
 
Hammondo said:
I'm not sure who the 1 or 2 are, de gea?
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Fred aswell for me. DDG has been world class this season and yet we have conceded so many and are awful.
DDG gets so underrated as when he is at his best the team is poor so people just see the goals conceded and presume he’s not be great especially non United fans
 
Would be really nice if Ralf just gives these Cnutish players the finger and plays the kids. I mean as it is we are struggling to get top four. At least this way we get to see hungry young players fighting for their chances. They might not do well but they will give it 100% effort.
 
Wow, if you are not happy to stay, then leave it! You cannot find another big fish to hook, a club who accept Poor performance but pay you silly money
 
Where is the positivity after cultural reset that bring by Ole and co?

Just get rid. It is better to endure short pain but good for long term.
 
stevoc said:
Henderson
Dalot
Bailly
Jones
Matic
Van De Beek
Pogba
Martial
Lingard

Would be a start.
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Dalot is the only modern RB we've got. The guy Ole spent for 50m looks lost going upfront. I think the issues goes way further then fringe players. It include big fee signings who are not good enough and homegrown talent whose passion is clearly set on off the pitch issues.
 
ManchesterManchester said:
Not saying your wrong, that could have been the intention and the board failed to deliver by not selling them. However, maybe you will agree that there’s no point preserving value if you can’t sell the player because he doesn’t want to go? If reports are too be believed, for example with Lingard, he had suitors like West Ham but he trusted what Ole said and thought that he could fight for his place.

Its not easy for a player to leave Man Utd, the only way is down. Ole didn’t have to tell them they are crap and he doesn’t want them, he could have just said nothing in public and privately told them they are not in his plans.

Anyway, I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m only criticising Ole, he didn’t put all these below average players on long term cushy contracts,(Mata, Jones etc). He said multiple times he’s not involved in contracts or selling players and I believe him as the other managers have said the same (Mourinho being blocked from selling Pogba and Martial).
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The fact is, we have no idea why Lingard stayed at the club. They managed comfortably without him in the second half of last season and added Sancho, so his chances of getting a run of games this season were extremely low.

Selling him last summer was an absolute no brainer. It was an extremely rare occurrence of a successful United loan and his value was never going to be higher.

The stories were that West Ham wanted him but he didn't want to go there. There were also rumours that West Ham didn't want to pay United's asking price. United will now not get a fee and Jesse will pick up a nice little signing on fee wherever he goes next summer.

My guess is that United wanted to sell him but couldn't get him to move anywhere that would pay the asking price. That's based on nothing other than the fact that it seems far more likely than Ole deciding he wanted to keep him and then never picking him.

Ole is a club man. He will defend the club position to the hilt, even if it paints him in a bad light. He's not likely to say "I wanted rid of Jesse for years and even now he's had a great loan spell, those idiots still can't sell him on".

But if Ole really did decide he wanted to keep him and convinced Jesse to stay, then it was certainly a mistake on his behalf.

On Phil Jones, if he's not on an appearance based contract then whoever signed off on that should have been sacked long ago. Of course Ole doesn't get involved in deciding player contracts. Fergie wasn't even involved in that by the end of his tenure.

Mata, I think Ole really wanted him to stay around. He was one of the few senior pros who seems like a really good influence on the dressing room. Based on the latest media storms, the club needs as many of those as they can get.
 
I think one of the biggest problems is that players sign for us thinking that we are still a big club and we are still relevant. We are not, we are a joke of a club and a shadow of our former selves. We are a disjointed, disorganized, mismanaged top 6 team and have been for ages.

When people say the 'biggest club in the world' nonsense I always cringe yet this seems to be how we attract big name players still. A big fat cheque and our history. No wonder players feel like crap once they arrive and see the weight of the problems first hand. Then they realise that they are expected to change things with wonder goals and passes or if they make one mistake then the fans start hating on them rather than supporting them (because he cost X millions, he shouldn't make mistakes).

It's the type of player that we attract too, man, it has happened too many times that top/world class players have come to United on a fat wage and been bang average. Loads of people come to United to semi-retire, I swear. Mercenary United for sure.

The squad needs gutting and rebuilding, again. Hopefully this is where Ralf show his worth. Lets get it right this time and stop this.
 
jesperjaap said:
Its not even about being bad apples to me, yes there do seem to be a few. Its more a case of so many players infividually not peforming or even showing desire and work rate or seemign to take a wage and not even barely playing.

We have a bloated squad, we have quite a few players witin that squad who have been here over 3 or 4 managers. Though none of the managers for me have been the right ones to really bring us forward, cant keep blaming the manager when the same failings and rifts keep cropping up with several differnt managers.

Simple truth for me is so many of these players are over rated individually, inconsistent individually or just dont seem to have a winners attitude individually.....put that togethr collectively and how does any organisation create a winning side?

Of course a fair proportion of the blame there has to lie with either the managers, scouts or the clubs for the actual signins made over the last few years. There have been very few I have been excited about as signings, so many never seemed right to me at the time right back to the Fellaini Mata window. Only been a couple of windows over seven years I thoguth were good.

One thing has dissapointed me every single window though is the number of players leaving, has never been enough and though it was amazing the fee we got for James.....this summer was probably the worst, number of players who really should be moved on is in double figures for me...easily
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Completely agree with your assessment of the players. As you say, we have had really bad scouts combined with trying to be cheap. I know we have spent bucket loads but that’s because we have bought quantity rather than quality. As you say the squad is way too big and its full of over the hill or sub-standard quality players. The losers mentality the players have which you referred to probably comes from the owners who are happy with 4th place and average managers.

I also agree with your frustrations about moving players on. It probably irks me more than anything else. The board over rate all of our players and seem to value their own opinion above reality and they end up with egg on face (Pogba, Lingard about to walk for nothing). Players are only worth what someone else will pay for them, not what we think they are worth.

You can just imagine that the Glazers and Woodward probably still think that Mata is worth millions because they paid £40m for him back in the day!
 
Why is the board silent over these inappropriate behaviours?
 
devilish said:
Dalot is the only modern RB we've got. The guy Ole spent for 50m looks lost going upfront. I think the issues goes way further then fringe players. It include big fee signings who are not good enough and homegrown talent whose passion is clearly set on off the pitch issues.
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Let's be honest Dalot isn't much better, modern fullback yeah maybe but he's also average (at best) at attacking and awful at defending. Add to that he doesn't seem to want to be here.

Having spent £50m on Wan Bissaka I don't see him leaving any time soon so we should get used to him being here, hopefully Laird can make the step up next season I don't mind AWB as a back-up.
 
POF said:
The fact is, we have no idea why Lingard stayed at the club. They managed comfortably without him in the second half of last season and added Sancho, so his chances of getting a run of games this season were extremely low.

Selling him last summer was an absolute no brainer. It was an extremely rare occurrence of a successful United loan and his value was never going to be higher.

The stories were that West Ham wanted him but he didn't want to go there. There were also rumours that West Ham didn't want to pay United's asking price. United will now not get a fee and Jesse will pick up a nice little signing on fee wherever he goes next summer.

My guess is that United wanted to sell him but couldn't get him to move anywhere that would pay the asking price. That's based on nothing other than the fact that it seems far more likely than Ole deciding he wanted to keep him and then never picking him.

Ole is a club man. He will defend the club position to the hilt, even if it paints him in a bad light. He's not likely to say "I wanted rid of Jesse for years and even now he's had a great loan spell, those idiots still can't sell him on".

But if Ole really did decide he wanted to keep him and convinced Jesse to stay, then it was certainly a mistake on his behalf.

On Phil Jones, if he's not on an appearance based contract then whoever signed off on that should have been sacked long ago. Of course Ole doesn't get involved in deciding player contracts. Fergie wasn't even involved in that by the end of his tenure.

Mata, I think Ole really wanted him to stay around. He was one of the few senior pros who seems like a really good influence on the dressing room. Based on the latest media storms, the club needs as many of those as they can get.
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Wasn't there loads of tweets out last summer that this big European club was interested in Jesse and that big European club was interested in Jesse. If it was his people it backfired.
 
stevoc said:
Let's be honest Dalot isn't much better, modern fullback yeah maybe but he's also average (at best) at attacking and awful at defending. Add to that he doesn't seem to want to be here.

Having spent £50m on Wan Bissaka I don't see him leaving any time soon so we should get used to him being here, hopefully Laird can make the step up next season I don't mind AWB as a back-up.
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Dalot is not a world beater but he's got more potential then AWB. He can play both as LB and RB and he's a modern FB who doesn't look lost when crossing into the opponent's half. In my opinion its time we should focus less on the fee and more on the talent.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
Wasn't there loads of tweets out last summer that this big European club was interested in Jesse and that big European club was interested in Jesse. If it was his people it backfired.
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Not sure. Is Raiola still his agent? If so, that might explain why leaving on a free for a big signing on fee was the preference.
 
POF said:
Not sure. Is Raiola still his agent? If so, that might explain why leaving on a free for a big signing on fee was the preference.
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I thought he had changed agents again. Wasn't he really pally with Pogba at the time.
 
ManchesterManchester said:
It’s ridiculous to blame the players, fair enough if it was one or two bad apples but if half the squad isn’t happy then something is seriously wrong. That is a due to poor leadership and a bad culture at the organisation.

I obviously dont think it’s professional to down tools but I don’t want to start slating our players, it doesn’t feel right. Howson should direct his anger at the board as they wanted all those players here and sanctioned every contract.

We heard Ole with our own ears that Lingard and Henderson have big parts to play etc. That’s not a dig at Ole, the whole club has just had no standards. Hopefully this is the end of crazy decisions to extend players with no future here for the deluded opinion that they are worth something.
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Supporters pay a lot of money to watch them play. Ah so they're not happy? What do you think would happen if you and I start downing tools at work? We're not in that sort of position are we?

They owe it to the fans, who pay a lot of money, to give it their all on the pitch. They're not doing that, they'd rather spit in our faces.

So, no it's not ridiculous to blame a bunch of overpaid millionaires.
 
Marcelinho87 said:
Because acknowledging it would fuel the fire..

Keep this stuff in house.
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Because the board are the source of the problem. We sign players on crazy wages, often with no clarity of why or where they will play, renew them even if they are playing poorly or always injured, refuse to sell them or loan them. Then we seem surprised players are unhappy and moan? Really?
 
devilish said:
Dalot is not a world beater but he's got more potential then AWB. He can play both as LB and RB and he's a modern FB who doesn't look lost when crossing into the opponent's half. In my opinion its time we should focus less on the fee and more on the talent.
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To say Dalot isn't a World Beater is a massive overstatement mate, at this point in time he's barely even a north west of England beater. His crossing keeps being mentioned as one of his strengths which says it all about his weaknesses as his crossing is average.
 
Used to be that the club had an us vs the world mentality. Now those assholes who are supposed to be representing the club are leaking stuff to the media who are always ready to stick the knife in to the club and it's fans.

feck these leakers, whoever they are.
 
ManchesterManchester said:
Not saying your wrong, that could have been the intention and the board failed to deliver by not selling them. However, maybe you will agree that there’s no point preserving value if you can’t sell the player because he doesn’t want to go? If reports are too be believed, for example with Lingard, he had suitors like West Ham but he trusted what Ole said and thought that he could fight for his place.

Its not easy for a player to leave Man Utd, the only way is down. Ole didn’t have to tell them they are crap and he doesn’t want them, he could have just said nothing in public and privately told them they are not in his plans.

Anyway, I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m only criticising Ole, he didn’t put all these below average players on long term cushy contracts,(Mata, Jones etc). He said multiple times he’s not involved in contracts or selling players and I believe him as the other managers have said the same (Mourinho being blocked from selling Pogba and Martial).
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I keep seeing this stuff but does anyone really believe that Solskjaer was telling Lingard in private that he should stay because he had big plans for him? Really?

Let's examine the facts Solskjaer barely played him for 6 months in the first half of 2020, tried to sell him, barely played him for another 6 months in the latter half of 2020, then loaned him out and briefed the press that he's available after a successful loan period at West Ham.

All the while assembling the following front 4 options.

---------------------------------------------Bruno/Pogba
Sancho/Greenwood/Amad------------------------Rashford/Martial
-------------------------------------------Ronaldo/Cavani

I honestly can't decide which idea is more silly that Solskjaer was telling Lingard in private he could break into this team or that Lingard would actually believe that shit.

Jesse has been eyeing a big fat free agent fee so didn't want to leave and/or United priced him too high and scared off interested clubs. That's why he's still here, even now Jesse is blowing smoke up people's arses about wanting to stay and fight for his place. He could have fooled me because I seen no fight from him against Young Boys.

DomesticTadpole said:
Wasn't there loads of tweets out last summer that this big European club was interested in Jesse and that big European club was interested in Jesse. If it was his people it backfired.
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Yeah there were a few clubs being mentioned around the same time some of the press were pushing the story that Jesse was only interested in leaving United for a CL level club. :lol:
 
stevoc said:
I keep seeing this stuff but does anyone really believe that Solskjaer was telling Lingard in private that he should stay because he had big plans for him? Really?

Let's examine the facts Solskjaer barely played him for 6 months in the first half of 2020, tried to sell him, barely played him for another 6 months in the latter half of 2020, then loaned him out and briefed the press that he's available after a successful loan period at West Ham.

All the while assembling the following front 4 options.

---------------------------------------------Bruno/Pogba
Sancho/Greenwood/Amad------------------------Rashford/Martial
-------------------------------------------Ronaldo/Cavani

I honestly can't decide which idea is more silly that Solskjaer was telling Lingard in private he could break into this team or that Lingard would actually believe that shit.

Jesse has been eyeing a big fat free agent fee so didn't want to leave and/or United priced him too high and scared off interested clubs. That's why he's still here, even now Jesse is blowing smoke up people's arses about wanting to stay and fight for his place. He could have fooled me because I seen no fight from him against Young Boys.



Yeah there were a few clubs being mentioned around the same time some of the press were pushing the story that Jesse was only interested in leaving United for a CL level club. :lol:
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Now he can't even get on the pitch. How the mighty Jesse has fallen.
 
Granted, some of the players are tossers and creating a toxic atmosphere, but this is largely a problem of our own making. There are plenty of players who should have been moved on long ago that we've held onto for inexplicable reasons. So many who aren't getting game time and never will, it's like we hang onto these people because selling them is too much hassle.
 
Red00012 said:
Blaming ole for getting rid of Smalling , Rojo and Fellaini :lol::lol::lol:
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All these at least showed fight when they were on the pitch and considering who had replaced them it has worked out very poorly.
 
stevoc said:
To say Dalot isn't a World Beater is a massive overstatement mate, at this point in time he's barely even a north west of England beater. His crossing keeps being mentioned as one of his strengths which says it all about his weaknesses as his crossing is average.
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One has to take in account the role he is going to play (squad player), if the salary reflects the role he is in and the qualities he offers (ex versatility). OShea was far from a world beater but he suited us in the role that we needed him in.
 
Zen86 said:
Granted, some of the players are tossers and creating a toxic atmosphere, but this is largely a problem of our own making. There are plenty of players who should have been moved on long ago that we've held onto for inexplicable reasons. So many who aren't getting game time and never will, it's like we hang onto these people because selling them is too much hassle.
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As someone else said, the players who want to leave should be moved away from the first team and kids brought in to replace them. If they are not going to be used why have them in there. It isn't a glorified fitness centre.
 
Lee565 said:
Maybe he should be ranting about ole as a manager for building a large amount of this squad and creating the mentality within the dressing room.

You can say what you want but he should have been more favourable to Romero who was always content with being 2nd choice under both van gaal and mourinho, instead he pushed further back as 3rd choice behind henderson who we should have cashed in on straight away but for some reason ole wanted to keep him on him on the bench for 2 season and hurt his potential sale price.

Then there was herrera who was deemed that wages he wanted to be too high but he gave his all on the pitch and better than the rest of our midfield options we currently have and that includes pogba who has been the past few seasons injured for a lot of the time and creating drama around the club and will eventually leave for free this summer.

He got rid of smalling who like Jones at least understood what being a united player was about in a professional and mentality sense and instead ole opted for two push overs in lindelof and Maguire.

You had fellaini who couldn't be faulted for his commitment on the pitch and was a warrior that battled to the last minute of games and scored some important last minute winners.

And lastly there was Rojo showed more fight and spirit than a majority of our current squad.

All these players were completely content with having to fight for the place in the team under Mourinho and van gaal, unlike a lot of the sulkers that ole favoured instead of them.
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All these players you've mentioned.. Not good enough. None of them.

I would have kept Romero as second choice mind.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
As someone else said, the players who want to leave should be moved away from the first team and kids brought in to replace them. If they are not going to be used why have them in there. It isn't a glorified fitness centre.
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That works for the odd player sure, but you can't realistically do that when the problem is this widespread. They'll just become even more vocal and cause even more problems.
 
devilish said:
One has to take in account the role he is going to play (squad player), if the salary reflects the role he is in and the qualities he offers (ex versatility). OShea was far from a world beater but he suited us in the role that we needed him in.
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Yeah hopefully a squad player somewhere else. As I said I don't see us selling AWB so I would hope we have a better option at RB than either of them. So for me that should mean bye, bye Diogo.

Dalot makes John O'Shea look like Denis Irwin btw.
 
Zen86 said:
That works for the odd player sure, but you can't realistically do that when the problem is this widespread. They'll just become even more vocal and cause even more problems.
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At least you would find out who is the one going to the press. Some of them are not particularly bright.
 
The United said:
True with some of them.

As I said in another post, RR should follow up with his own words. Let those who wants to leave. Play kids. I mean if most of us and the club convince that this season is a write-off for a fresh start.
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Then show that we mean business, start with THE biggest name or ringleader, personally I would start with Maguire. Show that it doesn’t matter how much you cost or who you THINK you are, no one is bigger than the club. See how many follow suit when they realise they are gone, I can guarantee you this, they won’t get the obscene mercenary fees (sorry but salary implies that you work for your money and this lot certainly do not) elsewhere. The players have been well and truly found out now, before they could hide behind Moyes coking from a lower level club, LVG, Mou and his reputation and Ole with his experience. Regardless of what he has or hasn’t won, RR has a proven track record of implementing a system and building from the ground up, he also speaks with intelligence.
 
I’d guess Howson’s service in Afghanistan and Iraq has nurtured his communication style a little, but you can’t really argue with anything he says. In fact , I wholeheartedly agree. I do think it’s a manifested wider problem in football in general however, we’ve removed all the values that brought young players through with the right beliefs that led to the correct behaviours, and we now have what we have. United are just leading the way, as usual. Unfortunately this time it’s not in a positive light.
 
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