Raphaël Varane | Como board member

[Utterly De Ligt'd]

That's not how it works though. If a player is unhappy with something, or the team is having issues, they have every right to speak about it. Especially the most experienced and those considered to be leaders. They are people, not sheep. And a dressing room has to work in harmony with the manager.

We don't really know what happened, since this is one side of things, but Varane has a lot of credit in the bank because of the career he's had and how he's conducted himself through it.
He has won it all in his career, and from start to finish has always been said to be an absolute professional.

If anything, he did what he was supposed to do from this standpoint. If the squad is unhappy about something, you tell the manager that they're unhappy. He didn't leak it, didn't down tools, he brought up the subject, as he should.

Is that how it works at your job? If you don't like your work assignment you pull your boss aside and tell him you're not doing it?

The manager/coach taking charge of the team is exactly what needs to happen for things to turn around at United and most of our fans have acknowledged that, but as soon as a manager comes in and tries it our fans all side with the primadonna players. Every manager has a style of management, and it's all encompassing. Ten Hag's job was to implement tactics to get the best out of players and win, also part of his job is managing the personality of the players. Every manager is going to have a different style, some are like Ole and make best friends with the players, some like to distance themselves from the playing staff and portray a more authoritative figure. Ole's football style was go out there and express yourself because as a team we have no real structure, so it makes sense he wasn't an authoritative figure. Ten Hag's management style is very much structured, and players are expected to fulfil their roles. Ole's management style works for him because he is relying on moments of brillance from players, so best to keep them happy and encourage freedom. Ten Hag's style is much more rigid and structured and requires following instructions, being discplined and playing as a cohesive unit, if one player doesn't play their role it cascades through the team. So it would make a lot of sense that Ten Hag's management style is more strict with an expectation of staying in line because that's exactly what is required to implement his philosophy on the pitch.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Is that how it works at your job? If you don't like your work assignment you pull your boss aside and tell him you're not doing it?

No, you pull him aside and share your concerns and hope he's open to taking your views into consideration. Which sounds like exactly what happened here.

 

[Trex]

Amorim I think is lucky, Ineos are willing to let go of pretty much anyone. This interview explains so much about how United can never play like a group that actually trains.
The players simply think they know better, everyone at City buys into Pep's vision, same thing at Liverpool under Klopp, and United under Fergie. There are different ways of playing the game but we have to stick to one, and it should be defined by the technical staff and not the players. I remember when Mata was leaving he mentioned the next manager by any means should stick to his ideas. I hope whomever doesn't fancy Amorim-ball should be gotten rid of. Good thing it seems they almost all out already. Casemiro should be moved on any means possible.
This is why we need consistency in recruitment as well, it's also why I like the idea of signing very young players because they are coachable especially when they aren't branded as Messiahs.

 

[stevoc]

You can criticise Ten Hag for a lot, but not for how he handled Ronaldo and Sancho.

Was there any benefit for the club by the way he hadnled the Sancho affair?

 

[The Hilton]

Was there any benefit for the club by the way he hadnled the Sancho affair?

This isn't really a fair framing of the question. A fairer one is be whether the outcome is better than the realistic alternative, which is that Sancho would still be at United turning in fairly similar performances to the ones he's turning in at Chelsea (only likely with a bit less motivation).

 

[stevoc]

This isn't really a fair framing of the question. A fairer one is be whether the outcome is better than the realistic alternative, which is that Sancho would still be at United turning in fairly similar performances to the ones he's turning in at Chelsea (only likely with a bit less motivation).

So was there any real benefit to United on or off the pitch then with how Ten Hag handled Sancho's attitude?

 

[The Hilton]

So was there any real benefit to United on or off the pitch then with how Ten Hag handled Sancho's attitude?

Well we're finally getting rid of him and his awful attitude, which is a benefit given the alternative is that we'd be stuck with him holding our attempts to fix the wage structure hostage.

What do you think Ten Hag should have done instead?

 

[MadDogg]

He should be bringing the squad on board with what the manager is implementing; we have seen how this plays out countless times with LVG, Jose, Ole, Rangnick etc.
Varane, Casemiro and Ronaldo wanted to focus on how things were done at Madrid, this isn't la liga and none of them were managers. Yes their feedback can be valuable, but letting the squad know they are against the managers point of view is not a good thing at all.

Veteran players are supposed to be the manager's enforcer in the dressing room; this is what Keane did for Fergie. Or did you think Ferguson was one to bend to the will of the squad?

Every single manager we have had post Ferguson is incompetent at using their tactics (even though they have been successful elsewhere) or do you think the common denominator is probably the squad culture at this particular club? Which, by the way, has only got worse as time has gone by.

Previous managers weren't good enough, but only ETH last season was actively setting the players up to fail (well, along with Mourinho in his last season) and playing a system that was utter stupidity. It had nothing to do with what was done at Madrid, the fact this isn't La Liga, or bending to the will of the squad. No previous manager was being consistently out-managed by relegation and even Champsionship level managers. There is no other word for what ETH did last season other than incompetence, and that was 100% on him not the players.

A leaders role isn't just to blindly follow what the guy above them tells them to do. Sure, do your best to get the players to keep trying their best (which, other than Rashford, they were still doing), but you are also the representative of the players. The dialogue should be going the other way as well, as long as it's done the right way. Hell, Keane would have gone absolutely ape-shit on ETH for what he pulled last season and they probably would have had to be pulled apart by other players.

 

[Owen Hargo]

What should he have done differently? They underperformed and thus they got benched. Ronaldo responded by going on Piers Morgan. Sancho, after getting a long mental health (?) break, responded by attacking the coach in the media over some relatively mild comments.

I get that Ten Hag lacked finesse in communication, but he was never needlessly cruel. Everyone and their grandmother knows that when an expensive young player hardly gets a minute of playtime despite the team struggling, then it can only mean poor performance on the training ground or poor attitude. He should probably still have given a vague politicians' answer instead though.

What about Amad? Barely getting any minutes and turned out to be our best attacking player. That was personal not tactical.

 

[Insanity]

I don't think that it's easy to bench someone like Ronaldo to begin with. And when he started with his tantrums he had the balls to stick to his guns.

Ronaldo can act tough, but ultimately he escaped with his tail between his legs. Ten Hag would probably have kept him on the bench for the rest of the season, which would have been the ultimate humiliation for him. But this would have hurt the team too, so letting him go was always the right choice.

"Probably" is pure conjecture by you when on evidence he played him until the very end.

 

[Real Name]

Is this Varane thread or something else?

 

[tomaldinho1]

Is this Varane thread or something else?

Yh I was confused. I saw he was at the Madrid game last night and assumed he’d given an interview or something.

 

[11101]

It’s difficult to form an opinion by hearing only one side of the story. Didn’t Varane also fall out with EtH for a brief period last year? EtH did seem to get into conflict with one player or the other - Cristiano, Sancho, Varane, Rashford, Casemiro. However, hard to take this at face value as a lot of our players seem to be pandered to and had gotten used to getting their way.

However, I agree with Varane that EtH needed to be sacked last summer.

You've listed five huge egos there. Its not hard to imagine them coming into conflict with a manager.

 

[tomaldinho1]

It’s difficult to form an opinion by hearing only one side of the story. Didn’t Varane also fall out with EtH for a brief period last year? EtH did seem to get into conflict with one player or the other - Cristiano, Sancho, Varane, Rashford, Casemiro. However, hard to take this at face value as a lot of our players seem to be pandered to and had gotten used to getting their way.

However, I agree with Varane that EtH needed to be sacked last summer.

ETH was good, in my opinion, at dropping big names apart from Bruno. Varane had that period where he was diabolically bad and got dropped and then the reports of him going against ETH surfaced. It just shows the problems faced when you stack a dressing room full of egos, because that on its own wouldn’t really be an issue but, combined with the others it just builds the animosity. ETH got a lot wrong but his treatment of the star names was spot on - he dropped the ones that underperformed and managed to get most of them out of the club before he finally got sacked.

 

[Cassidy]

Previous managers weren't good enough, but only ETH last season was actively setting the players up to fail (well, along with Mourinho in his last season) and playing a system that was utter stupidity. It had nothing to do with what was done at Madrid, the fact this isn't La Liga, or bending to the will of the squad. No previous manager was being consistently out-managed by relegation and even Champsionship level managers. There is no other word for what ETH did last season other than incompetence, and that was 100% on him not the players.

A leaders role isn't just to blindly follow what the guy above them tells them to do. Sure, do your best to get the players to keep trying their best (which, other than Rashford, they were still doing), but you are also the representative of the players. The dialogue should be going the other way as well, as long as it's done the right way. Hell, Keane would have gone absolutely ape-shit on ETH for what he pulled last season and they probably would have had to be pulled apart by other players.

He set his team up how he setup Ajax, and its only your opinion he set the team up to fail, we are now 15th in the league with far less injuries by the way

 

[stevoc]

Well we're finally getting rid of him and his awful attitude, which is a benefit given the alternative is that we'd be stuck with him holding our attempts to fix the wage structure hostage.

And we could have only sold Sancho after the manager having a public fued with him and freezing him out for months.

Call me a sceptic but we could have used some common sense skipped all the drama and just sold the prick.

What do you think Ten Hag should have done instead?

Sold him in summer 2023 if he was such a problem. It's not like his attitude nose dived 3 days after the transfer window closed.

Failing that he should have kept a lid on his press conferences and kept club business behind closed doors. And then maybe call Sancho in and sort things out instead of banning him, depriving the club of an attacking option. And devaluing an asset in the process.

Basically the opposite of what both of them dud at every turn.

 

[stevoc]

He set his team up how he setup Ajax, and its only your opinion he set the team up to fail, we are now 15th in the league with far less injuries by the way

I don't believe he did at all. Ten Hag himself admitted this.

At no point did he look like he was trying to implement a possession based system.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...usg=AOvVaw3NDn173QG3UbAJ3yAEJMWe&opi=89978449

 

[Cassidy]

I don't believe he did at all. Ten Hag himself admitted this.

At no point did he look like he was trying to implement a possession based system.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj5ieX64NKLAxVpUkEAHdilOy8QFnoECC0QAQ&url=https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11667/12999071/erik-ten-hag-says-it-is-not-right-to-question-man-utd-players-character-and-insists-his-philosophy-is-clear&usg=AOvVaw3NDn173QG3UbAJ3yAEJMWe&opi=89978449

It's a good thing his Ajax team was not a possession-based side then. Or setup in the final season was quite similar to his Ajax side it won't be exactly the same as he said as you don't have the same players

 

[That_Bloke]

It’s difficult to form an opinion by hearing only one side of the story. Didn’t Varane also fall out with EtH for a brief period last year? EtH did seem to get into conflict with one player or the other - Cristiano, Sancho, Varane, Rashford, Casemiro. However, hard to take this at face value as a lot of our players seem to be pandered to and had gotten used to getting their way.

However, I agree with Varane that EtH needed to be sacked last summer.

Varane has always been a consumate professional who never had any problem with his managers or the dressing room. Until Ten Hag. And you can't really say that Varane belongs to the spoiled kid category.

This interview confirms what many guessed about Ten Hag's authoritarian ways and his tendency to fall out with players, as well as the fracture between him and the dressing room at the end of his second season. INEOS should've booted him out right after the FA Cup.

 

[stevoc]

It's a good thing his Ajax team was not a possession-based side then. Or setup in the final season was quite similar to his Ajax side it won't be exactly the same as he said as you don't have the same players

Ten Hag's philosophy that he brought with him from Ajax, was possession based according to him.

"I came here with my philosophy, based on possession, but I wanted to combine it with the DNA of Manchester United, the players and their characters.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

Is that how it works at your job? If you don't like your work assignment you pull your boss aside and tell him you're not doing it?

I don't think he did that. In the interview he says that the main issue was Ten Hag's style of managing relationships:

"I said I didn’t agree with certain ways of doing things regarding the relationship between him and the team. It wasn’t something that I thought was good for the team because some of the players weren’t at all satisfied. It was not good in terms of the relationship with the coach."

At most jobs people aren't going to be as open with their manager. But football isn't quite like most jobs because the contract situation is quite different, your manager can't really "fire" you and all that. So it's pretty useful for people who are essentially stuck together in the short term to talk things through.

 

[The Hilton]

Sold him in summer 2023 if he was such a problem. It's not like his attitude nose dived 3 days after the transfer window closed.

Failing that he should have kept a lid on his press conferences and kept club business behind closed doors. And then maybe call Sancho in and sort things out instead of banning him, depriving the club of an attacking option. And devaluing an asset in the process.

Basically the opposite of what both of them dud at every turn.

Most of what you suggest isn't really based in reality.

In order to sell him, there would have to be a buyer - we've had to take a big loss to ship him off to Chelsea. And as we've seen with multiple managers and now at multiple clubs, there isn't any "sorting things out" with regards to Sancho, he's just not motivated enough to be a reliable option.

Regarding the press conferences, you make a fair point, but given how many chances Sancho was given I can understand why ETH went public in an attempt to put pressure on Sancho to start behaving more professionally.

 

[Utterly De Ligt'd]

I don't think he did that. In the interview he says that the main issue was Ten Hag's style of managing relationships:

"I said I didn’t agree with certain ways of doing things regarding the relationship between him and the team. It wasn’t something that I thought was good for the team because some of the players weren’t at all satisfied. It was not good in terms of the relationship with the coach."

At most jobs people aren't going to be as open with their manager. But football isn't quite like most jobs because the contract situation is quite different, your manager can't really "fire" you and all that. So it's pretty useful for people who are essentially stuck together in the short term to talk things through.

One of the bigger issues in the modern game and the reason the lifespan of a manager in the current game is something like 16 months. The manager really has no authority, he does something the players don't like they through their toys out the pram and get the manager sacked. No recourse for the players ever because clubs treat them like the most valuable commodity that is above all else and they know that and exploit it.

It's essentially the same arrangement as working at a unionized workplace, the employees do whatever the feck they want because they have union protection and management doesn't. Most squabbles between management and workers usually leads to the manager losing.

 

[stevoc]

Most of what you suggest isn't really based in reality.

Selling a player isn't based in reality?

Not sure I agree Sancho circa summer 2023 was a very sellable asset before the public spat. But he could have been loaned out at the very least. What we ended up doing anyway after he was banned and didn't play for 5 months.

In order to sell him, there would have to be a buyer - we've had to take a big loss to ship him off to Chelsea. And as we've seen with multiple managers and now at multiple clubs, there isn't any "sorting things out" with regards to Sancho, he's just not motivated enough to be a reliable option.

Due in no small part to the entire debacle and suitors knowing United were desperate to get rid of him.

Regarding the press conferences, you make a fair point, but given how many chances Sancho was given I can understand why ETH went public in an attempt to put pressure on Sancho to start behaving more professionally.

Speaking about your own players negatively in the press rarely works out positively. There's a reason Alex Ferguson (other than the odd occasion) said it was something he was against doing because it was bad for squad morale.

 

[stevoc]

One of the bigger issues in the modern game and the reason the lifespan of a manager in the current game is something like 16 months. The manager really has no authority, he does something the players don't like they through their toys out the pram and get the manager sacked. No recourse for the players ever because clubs treat them like the most valuable commodity that is above all else and they know that and exploit it.

It's essentially the same arrangement as working at a unionized workplace, the employees do whatever the feck they want because they have union protection and management doesn't. Most squabbles between management and workers usually leads to the manager losing.

Modern football? It wasn't much longer in the 80s or 90s.

A Managers main job is unsurprisingly to manage people, many top managers will treat different players differently to get the best out of them. Top managers know how to command respect.

 

[The Hilton]

Selling a player isn't based in reality?

Not sure I agree Sancho circa summer 2023 was a very sellable asset before the public spat. But he could have been loaned out at the very least. What we ended up doing anyway after he was banned and didn't play for 5 months.



Due in no small part to the entire debacle and suitors knowing United were desperate to get rid of him.



Speaking about your own players negatively in the press rarely works out positively. There's a reason Alex Ferguson (other than the odd occasion) said it was something he was against doing because it was bad for squad morale.

How does one sell something nobody wants to buy?

Sancho has never been a sellable asset for us, due to his poor performances and ridiculous contract. We've had to give Chelsea a very favourable deal just to get rid of him. United's steadily escalating attempts to get some professionalism out of him have little bearing on things in comparison to his wage and well known poor attitude.

The idea that Ten Hag's press conference is what stopped a potential sale, when he was the third manager in a row unable to get Sancho to act like a professional, is frankly ludicrous. He was well known as overpaid, ineffective, and unprofessional long before.