Ruud Gullit: 'Manchester United are stuck living in the past'

AFC NimbleThumb said:
I don’t think we are. It’s a cop out cliche people keep spinning. If we were living in the past we’d be making better transfers & winning more often. We’re very much so living in the present, airy incompetence in every department from playing staff to most departments above the manager.

Who are the they that talk about the 90s too much? Maybe I don’t listen in enough but it just feels like another ex-pro talking for the sake of it. We do nothing with the efficiency or to the levels of success of the 90s.
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United isn't capable of "better transfers" at the moment. Many were expecting a window where United bought Bellingham and Rice, bullied Tottenham into selling Kane and found some wonderkid from the continent to steal the LW spot from Rashford. The truth is that even if the club had the money to do that the players wouldn't come here.

When you set aside all the global fans who buy United merchandise but otherwise don't actually pay that much attention to football, nobody is particularly impressed with Manchester United as a footballing project anymore.

A good window for this summer would involve filling the gaps in the squad with adequate footballers who can play Ten Hag's style. A great one would be adding Frenkie De Jong on top of that. The fans will be furious of course but if United can make a good run in European competitions this year and then qualify again next year things will turn around on the recruitment side.
 
Of course he is absolutely right. We just brought in Fergie, Gill and Bryan Robson to advise.
 
RedOrange said:
United isn't capable of "better transfers" at the moment. Many were expecting a window where United bought Bellingham and Rice, bullied Tottenham into selling Kane and found some wonderkid from the continent to steal the LW spot from Rashford. The truth is that even if the club had the money to do that the players wouldn't come here.

When you set aside all the global fans who buy United merchandise but otherwise don't actually pay that much attention to football, nobody is particularly impressed with Manchester United as a footballing project anymore.

A good window for this summer would involve filling the gaps in the squad with adequate footballers who can play Ten Hag's style. A great one would be adding Frenkie De Jong on top of that. The fans will be furious of course but if United can make a good run in European competitions this year and then qualify again next year things will turn around on the recruitment side.
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Whoever expected the bolded part is a certified lunatic.
 
He is right but its not only the football club. It is also a group of the fans. Just this week someone on this forum replied to me saying this about paying high wages (350k+)

It was never this high when SAF/Gill was in charge and we were run like a proper football club. Wealth comes to you at this club, rather than being here for the money.
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Its a nice thought and all but not how the footballing world works these days. Its about money and winning trophies at the same time. People need to stop saying that Manchester United needs to go back to the SAF days, those days are over and wont come back.
 
RedOrange said:
United isn't capable of "better transfers" at the moment. Many were expecting a window where United bought Bellingham and Rice, bullied Tottenham into selling Kane and found some wonderkid from the continent to steal the LW spot from Rashford. The truth is that even if the club had the money to do that the players wouldn't come here.

When you set aside all the global fans who buy United merchandise but otherwise don't actually pay that much attention to football, nobody is particularly impressed with Manchester United as a footballing project anymore.

A good window for this summer would involve filling the gaps in the squad with adequate footballers who can play Ten Hag's style. A great one would be adding Frenkie De Jong on top of that. The fans will be furious of course but if United can make a good run in European competitions this year and then qualify again next year things will turn around on the recruitment side.
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Noone but you were expecting Rice , Jude and Kane. Stop playing fifa
 
SirReginald said:
Well you were, it’s open whether you’ll revert to type with ETH but remember there was a certain ex SAF player (who had no business or qualifications to be your boss) bleating the United DNA horn up until the back end of last season. If that’s not living in the past then I don’t know what is.

Liverpool stopped the nauseating history crap and are now successful again, it would be wise to take note
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The United way is playing attacking, entertaining football and promoting kids. Two things we should strive regardless what club we are. Problem with Ole was that he loved to speak of the United way, but did the opposite of what that suggested.
 
Lazy analysis. What points to this, at all? If anything w removed away from what made us great with big name, shitty signings
 
I love how we’re always living in the past and yet the people who say this have no suggestion on how to fix it. It’s almost like it’s an easy thing to say to get yourself some attention and have no one actually question what you mean.

Personally, I just see shit owners and incompetence from board level down, but that isn’t ‘living in the past’.
 
It seems it's open season for snipes towards United.
 
I don’t think our club is living in the past now. Maybe it was still in the Ole days.

The problem we have is the changes don’t seem to have worked (yet) and the owners aren’t supporting the club on a downtrend by not bringing in the players needed.

It’s not living in the past it’s bad management right now and obvs a club struggling financially if we can’t spend what we could in the LVG era.
 
Every idiot in the world is being brought in to give their opinion about United these days.

So we're stuck 'living in the past'? Okay then, so we just gotta stop 'living in the past' and 'talk about the 90s' and then everything will be okay? Thanks Ruud!

Clown.
 
crossy1686 said:
Personally, I just see shit owners and incompetence from board level down, but that isn’t ‘living in the past’.
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True.

Easy thing to say - and it doesn't even make any sense if "living in the past" is equated with "sentimentality" (which it definitely is by some of our critics): our owners aren't sentimental.

They're just shit at hiring the right people.
 
“You have to adapt yourself. You have to understand that you don’t win games only with football, you need power as well.

“You need power, you need technique, you need stamina, you need the right mentality. If you see also, in midfield, you know, you need players who can play.”


This is the most interesting part of the article for me. Gullit with some advice to ETH. We need more power and stamina as well as the technique and mentality.
 
Someone said:
I think that's horseshit really. We aren't living in the past. Within the Manchester United world every man and his dog agrees that we aren't good enough and that there's a long way to go before we're competitive again.

That doesn't mean that we're no longer a big club, we're still definitely big in the sense that we have a huge fan base and are financially strong. Accordingly we should be aiming to attract a high calibre of players to help us bridge the gap, and understandably that won't always be easy without CL football.
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United is not a big club. That would mean they are relevant football wise.

The brand is big. The business is big. No argument there. Revenue streams to die for.
MU is not a football club now. At all. Its a business and a good one. What a brand. What global recognition it has. Up there with Nike and Apple.

Football wise - a total joke.

Other than history MU are not relevant these days when it comes to football. more a pardody.

Until we get the leech Glazers out and get owned by a football minded owner then we will continue on this road to mediocrity.
United the football team will end up like Everton just floating about the bottom half of the division playing in a run down stadium with delusions of grandeur and pining for the glory days gone by.
 
Okay. I remember our midfield being pretty decent in the past. It might just be that the Glazers are shit and have ruined the club.
 
McGrathsipan said:
United the football team will end up like Everton just floating about the bottom half of the division playing in a run down stadium with delusions of grandeur and pining for the glory days gone by.
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Without commenting on the actual likelihood of that happening in the foreseeable future (there are many factors involved there) - I think what you propose should be printed on a huge poster and nailed to the wall of Arnold's office.

Because that is - at the very least - the worst case scenario we're looking at. And nobody wants that - the Glazers don't want that either.
 
Dan_F said:
Okay. I remember our midfield being pretty decent in the past. It might just be that the Glazers are shit and have ruined the club.
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Exactly. The problem isn't nostalgia. It's just incompetent owners.
 
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