Self delusion or monumental cock up?

sammsky1

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The decision to retire is one that I have thought a great deal about and one that I have not taken lightly. It is the right time.

It was important to me to leave an organisation in the strongest possible shape and I believe I have done so.

The quality of this league winning squad, and the balance of ages within it, bodes well for continued success at the highest level whilst the structure of the youth set-up will ensure that the long- term future of the club remains a bright one.

Our training facilities are amongst the finest in global sport and our home Old Trafford is rightfully regarded as one of the leading venues in the world.

Sir Alex Ferguson, May 2013


Was SAF self deluded about the quality of his squad and youth set up or did Woodward and Moyes/LVG simply make a seismic cock up of what should have been easy peasy?
 
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When all's said and done, it was up to the players and staff to live up to SAF's words; they haven't. He can't be expected to make the difference in perpetuity.
 
sammsky1 said:
Was SAF self deluded about the quality of his squad and youth set up or did Woodward and Moyes/LVG simply make a seismic cock up of what should have been easy peasy?
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It was a set up that would have been fine... under Ferguson. Take him out of the equation and the entire thing crumbles -- as it did.
 
It was a good squad with a few key weaknesses. But as we did nothing about them, eventually the functional parts of the team also fell apart (Carrick got old, Van Persie & Rooney declined).

Had we bought a couple of decent midfielders in summer 2013, I think we would've been much better off and needed to do far less in the following windows.
 
Had the right manager followed fergie, and been given the funds lvg has had, I believe we'd be sitting in a very strong position, for the best decade
 
He left a pretty decent squad:

Strikers:

Van Persie, coming off his best season
Rooney
Hernandez, who probably deserved more games
Welbeck

Wingers:

Nani
Valencia
Young
Zaha
Giggs

Midfield:

Kagawa
Carrick
Cleverley
Anderson

Defense:

Ferdinand
Evra, still going strong
Vidic
Smalling
Jones
Evans
Rafael
Fabio

Goal Keepers:

De Gea
Lindegaard
Johnstone

The squad needed some investment in two wingers and possibly two central midfielders, two fullbacks and a center back. If as predicted we let Rooney go, that still leaves us with Van Persie, Welbeck and Hernandez in striker force. Welbeck can still play left wing.

If we had just added players like Di Maria, Schneiderlin, Herrera, Blind, Shaw and Darmian to that squad, that's pretty good right there.

Instead we bought Fellaini (dud), Falcao (another dud), Mata (in a position of no need), Rojo (decent purchase), Schweinsteiger (decent purchase), gave Rooney an inexplicably bad and immovable deal, misused Di Maria and made sure we drove Hernandez and Young's values into the ground. If you want to blame someone, you have to blame the people in charge of recruitment and transfers who acted with no clue since then along with Moyes who shit the bed as bad as anyone could and now Van Gaal.
 
Let's not act like at that time, majority didn't agree with him. Most people thought, add one or two midfielders and a defender, and the team was set. It wasn't until Moyes, then followed by Van Gaal did everyone then seem to start saying how awful the team was.
 
I think he was right, the squad just needed few quality additions and a top manager to take over, we've fecked it up on both fronts.
 
The squad which Fergie bestowed on his successor was at the very least capable of being a mainstay in the Champions League places, of that i have little doubt. With but a few fresh acquisitions, customary in any summer window, the team should also have been challenging for the league title in the near future.

Moreover, his judgement on where Rooney stood in his career path was absolutely correct. He brought in Kagawa and RVP, as well as promoting Welbeck, it was the sort of planning we've seen scant evidence of in the years since. That both Moyes and Van Gaal thought they knew better is all on them.
 
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For me it's a monumental cock up.

Moyes firing SAFs support staff, keeping Rooney and only acquiring Fellaini in his first transfer window are terrible decisions in hindsight, forget about any subsequent inadeqaute tactics or training sessions.

LVG attempt to change the clubs approach to playing football by dismantling SAFs entire sqaud and replacing with too many too soon only then to have too small of a sqaud to compete on all fronts has also glaringly failed.

I work in the corporate world and this is just about the worst example of succession planning or 'change management project' I have ever seen. 2.5 years on, we have no SAF legacy or infrastructure and nothing meaningful in its place. I don't think anyone could have even planned for it to be so bad with sabotage!
 
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golden_blunder said:
Had the right manager followed fergie, and been given the funds lvg has had, I believe we'd be sitting in a very strong position, for the best decade
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100% agreed. Had Mourinho been appointed then and given £300m to spend, we'd have won a title and maybe even a CL too.
 
That squad got 89 points in each of the last 2 years under Ferguson, of course it was a good squad.
 
This is ridiculous. After everything SAF did for the club you want to blame him for the performances after he retires. Get a life and let SAF enjoy his life in retirement.
 
If Van Gaal had known with the benefit of hindsight that our medical department is run by amateurs, I'm sure he wouldn't have sold a single defender or striker. His squad management wasn't bad at that time but he did not factor in career crocks like Jones along with season ending injuries to Valencia, Rojo and Young.
 
Skills said:
It was a good squad with a few key weaknesses. But as we did nothing about them, eventually the functional parts of the team also fell apart (Carrick got old, Van Persie & Rooney declined).

Had we bought a couple of decent midfielders in summer 2013, I think we would've been much better off and needed to do far less in the following windows.
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This basically. Also I always get the feeling that the criticisms of our youth structure and facilities is just more easy shots at United while we're struggling. I mean, Fergie was here for over 25 years and we dominated english football while having the best youth facilities, yes? Fergie said himself we have among the finest training facilities and a great youth structure. So I don't really buy into these criticisms about our facilities and that "it will take years to get them up to scratch".

Go back to 2013 summer, and if we brought in 2 proper midfielders then, and a quality winger, then we would have had an excellent team I think. One that would just need a change in the center backs in 2014, and then the forwards in 2015. Instead we did nothing, in fact made things worse by bringing in 2 players who didn't suit the squad and were #10's at best (one being a mediocre target man), so in the summer when LvG came in, he had to clear out a few of the attacking mids, and we were left with a team with no pace. Van Gaal at least has made a more balanced squad, it's just thread bare now.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
If Van Gaal had known with the benefit of hindsight that our medical department is run by amateurs, I'm sure he wouldn't have sold a single defender or striker. His squad management wasn't bad at that time but he did not factor in career crocks like Jones along with season ending injuries to Valencia, Rojo and Young.
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What have injuries got to do with style of play?
 
golden_blunder said:
What have injuries got to do with style of play?
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There's no style of play if you are rolling around entirely different defensive set ups from one week to the next. We played a must win champions league game with two teenagers in defense and patch ups everywhere else.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
If Van Gaal had known with the benefit of hindsight that our medical department is run by amateurs, I'm sure he wouldn't have sold a single defender or striker. His squad management wasn't bad at that time but he did not factor in career crocks like Jones along with season ending injuries to Valencia, Rojo and Young.
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Last season he had a nightmare of injuries up to around xmas.

He gave a public dressing down of the Premier league for having no xmas break meaning players factually cannot recover properly

For the following season he sold all our strikers and cut the squad despite having an extra champions league campaign to play for. He has nobody to blame but himself
 
clarkydaz said:
Last season he had a nightmare of injuries up to around xmas.

He gave a public dressing down of the Premier league for having no xmas break meaning players factually cannot recover properly

For the following season he sold all our strikers and cut the squad despite having an extra champions league campaign to play for. He has nobody to blame but himself
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We were two deep at every position when we started the season, name one other team anywhere in Europe that has more depth than that. People keep asking for youngsters to get their chances and players like Lingard, Varela, McNair, BoJack etc won't get chances if you hoard mediocre players like Jonny Evans and Rafael forever.
 
It's like SAF left a sword that just needed to be sharpened, but instead we hired a pair of incompetent blacksmiths to beat the shit out of it with a 200m hammer.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
There's no style of play if you are rolling around entirely different defensive set ups from one week to the next. We played a must win champions league game with two teenagers in defense and patch ups everywhere else.
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Sorry don't agree. Even when we've had most of our players available the tactics have been the same
 
gerdm07 said:
This is ridiculous. After everything SAF did for the club you want to blame him for the performances after he retires. Get a life and let SAF enjoy his life in retirement.
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Erm? Where did I blame SAF in my OP?! I simply asked a question (and then gave my own opinion a few posts later!)

I was just re reading his retirement press release again and was struck by how clearly he articulated his belief .... and yet were are where we are right now.
 
golden_blunder said:
Sorry don't agree. Even when we've had most of our players available the tactics have been the same
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We were top of the league when we had a full squad available. The attack wasn't great but there was a hope that we would build and improve with more games of everyone getting to know one another, the defensive organization was getting rave reviews from people including Neville, Carragher, Adam Bate and every other analyst out there. Instead it has been nothing more than a damage limitation exercise since the players started dropping like flies.

Can you imagine any other team surviving with 3/4 starting defenders out? Me neither.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
He left a pretty decent squad:

Strikers:

Van Persie, coming off his best season
Rooney
Hernandez, who probably deserved more games
Welbeck

Wingers:

Nani
Valencia
Young
Zaha
Giggs

Midfield:

Kagawa
Carrick
Cleverley
Anderson

Defense:

Ferdinand
Evra, still going strong
Vidic
Smalling
Jones
Evans
Rafael
Fabio

Goal Keepers:

De Gea
Lindegaard
Johnstone

The squad needed some investment in two wingers and possibly two central midfielders, two fullbacks and a center back. If as predicted we let Rooney go, that still leaves us with Van Persie, Welbeck and Hernandez in striker force. Welbeck can still play left wing.

If we had just added players like Di Maria, Schneiderlin, Herrera, Blind, Shaw and Darmian to that squad, that's pretty good right there.

Instead we bought Fellaini (dud), Falcao (another dud), Mata (in a position of no need), Rojo (decent purchase), Schweinsteiger (decent purchase), gave Rooney an inexplicably bad and immovable deal, misused Di Maria and made sure we drove Hernandez and Young's values into the ground. If you want to blame someone, you have to blame the people in charge of recruitment and transfers who acted with no clue since then along with Moyes who shit the bed as bad as anyone could and now Van Gaal.
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I agree with all this. We've been rudderless since Fergie left. I'm not sure how he's to blame for that (other than perhaps being the one who pushed for Moyes.)

One thing I somewhat disagree on is Evra. I think we have a tendency to romanticize his last years with us, but the reality is that his last 3 years with us were pretty poor, full of moments of switching off, not getting back, etc. Wonderful player in his prime (and, for all I know, has been good in Italy,) but he was clearly on the decline at United.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
The squad that Fergie bestowed on his successor was at the very least capable of being a mainstay in the Champions League places, of that i have little doubt. With but a few fresh acquisitions, customary in any summer window, the team should also have been challenging for the league title in the near future.

Moreover, his judgement on where Rooney stood in his career path was absolutely correct. He brought in Kagawa and RVP, as well as promoting Welbeck, it was the sort of planning we've seen scant evidence of in the years since. That both Moyes and Van Gaal thought they knew better is all on them.
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He's really been proven correct on this one. It's interesting to imagine what would have happened to RVP's United career had Fergie stuck around.
 
Ferguson left us a decent squad -- one which lifted the EPL trophy -- but needed only a few good buys (and sells) and a competent manager.

The appointment of Moyes was a monumental cockup. Whether that was Ferguson's fault or not I'm not sure, but he hardly left the squad in a sorry state.
 
jem said:
I agree with all this. We've been rudderless since Fergie left. I'm not sure how he's to blame for that (other than perhaps being the one who pushed for Moyes.)

One thing I somewhat disagree on is Evra. I think we have a tendency to romanticize his last years with us, but the reality is that his last 3 years with us were pretty poor, full of moments of switching off, not getting back, etc. Wonderful player in his prime (and, for all I know, has been good in Italy,) but he was clearly on the decline at United.
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He was also the only player immune to squad rotation. If you exclude his debut season, he played an average of 45 games per season along with 50+ games for France in that period. He never went anything less than full pelt either when he played. No wonder he was jaded.
 
Its not SAF`s fault that he is genius of manager,people can say this one or that one is best ever but for me there is no better. There will be managers in the future with more trophies but most of them will be won in cnut Jose style. You come in,you suck everything out of a team and leave.

Back to OP question,think neither of those 2,maybe Sir Alex wasnt aware how good he is at the moment,you just won a PL,then you tell everyone that squad is in a great place etc.,maybe Woody and Moyes made some decision based on Sir Alex description of things. Then you have players as dropping a bit disappointed due SAF retiring,like RvP for example and so on.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
The squad that Fergie bestowed on his successor was at the very least capable of being a mainstay in the Champions League places, of that i have little doubt. With but a few fresh acquisitions, customary in any summer window, the team should also have been challenging for the league title in the near future.

Moreover, his judgement on where Rooney stood in his career path was absolutely correct. He brought in Kagawa and RVP, as well as promoting Welbeck, it was the sort of planning we've seen scant evidence of in the years since. That both Moyes and Van Gaal thought they knew better is all on them.
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Yeah. I was quite shocked when he dropped Rooeny for Welbeck for that CL game vs Mourinho's Madrid, but he also got that tactically correct until Nani got sent off.

Rooneys downward trajectory since then has been consistant and for exat.y ten reasons SAF said they would.
 
sammsky1 said:
For me it's a monumental cock up.

Moyes firing SAFs support staff, keeping Rooney and only acquiring Fellaini in his first transfer window are terrible decisions in hindsight, forget about any subsequent inadeqaute tactics or training sessions.

LVG attempt to change the clubs approach to playing football by dismantling SAFs entire sqaud and replacing with too many too soon only then to have too small of a sqaud to compete on all fronts has also glaringly failed.

I work in the corporate world and this is just about the worst example of succession planning or 'change management project' I have ever seen. 2.5 years on, we have no SAF legacy or infrastructure and nothing meaningful in its place. I don't think anyone could have even planned for it to be so bad with sabotage!
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As much as i hate Moyes and don't hate LVG i must say that is our problem in a nutshell. I had faith in him to rebuild this squad, last summer (2014) way more players than i would have liked left but i trusted him and then this summer wholesale changes again. With many players allowed to leave without even being replaced, the transfer window came and went and the reinforcements i expected never materialized and i was left scratching my head. I mean going into a season with only two recognized fullbacks, like that was never going to feck us over during the season.

The squad is way too thin in numbers and quality. I always thought anyone who took over from SAF just had to keep things ticking over. Replace players as and when they needed to be replaced, add some quality to midfield and maybe splash a bit of cash on a superstar Ferguson wouldn't have. That way the winning mentality and experience that Ferguson built up could be preserved and the squad slowly rebuilt over a few years.

What Van Gaal done in terms of managing this squad is for me nothing short of mental, 20+ players out the door very few upgrades in quality of the players brought in. £300+ spent to assemble a smaller squad that is arguably weaker and still has glaring issues that need addressing before we can compete at the top again.

Basically between Moyes and mostly Van Gaal it has been a complete clusterfeck. As you say we couldn't have made it worse if we actively tried.
 
That squad + a couple of CM signings and a manager who can motivate at the highest level would have done just fine in the transition season. i dont think it needed a near 100% player turnover like we have seen. We needed a Mourinho/ancelotti calibre manager to come in and have a smooth transition, Moyes + woodward + the decimation of the entire backroom staff just lead to player moral and performances collapsing. Im not saying it would have been plain sailing, but the overall performances of the squad did not accurately represent its strength.

We went out and replaced players basically like for like for big money. is the difference between Kagawa and mata really 20m pounds+? is the difference between Nani and memphis performances worth 25m? theres a lot of players there that if you put them side by side with their replacements the difference a lot of the time is marginal albeit heavily opinion based.

It had some heavy, heavy weaknesses, but the rebuild so far has been a bit underwhelming.
 
R'hllor said:
Its not SAF`s fault that he is genius of manager,people can say this one or that one is best ever but for me there is no better. There will be managers in the future with more trophies but most of them will be won in cnut Jose style. You come in,you suck everything out of a team and leave.

Back to OP question,think neither of those 2,maybe Sir Alex wasnt aware how good he is at the moment,you just won a PL,then you tell everyone that squad is in a great place etc.,maybe Woody and Moyes made some decision based on Sir Alex description of things. Then you have players as dropping a bit disappointed due SAF retiring,like RvP for example and so on.
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SAF virtually told Moyes in public to sell Rooney, I'm sure a definitive conversation was had in private! Yet Moyes retained him on a record breaking salary.

SAF virtually told Moyes in public to retain his support staff at least for the first few months. I'm sure a more definitive conversation was had in private. Yet Moyes sacked the lot of them and replaced with Steve round and Phil Neville.

SAF virtually told Moyes in public to take his time asserting his ideas into the club. I'm sure a more definitive conversation was had in private. Yet Moyes then overhauled the entire training schedule and pre match rituals.

Moyes was the wrong candidate in the first place but he then had to swing his dick before the season even started!
 
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sammsky1 said:
SAF virtually told Moyes in public to sell Rooney, I'm sure a definitive conversation was had in private! Yet Moyes retained him on a record breaking salary.
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I have no doubt SAF had planed/expected Rooney to leave, and the squad built around RvP up front and Kagawa in the hole, in a 4-2-3-1 or something like that. With Welbeck as RvP's long term replacement. Which may, or may not have worked with RvP's decline and Welbeck's desire for more football as a striker, but it was worlds different from what happened.
 
sammsky1 said:
SAF virtually told Moyes in public to sell Rooney, I'm sure a definitive conversation was had in private! Yet Moyes retained him on a record breaking salary.

SAF virtually told Moyes in public to retain his support staff at least for the first few months. I'm sure a more definitive conversation was had in private. Yet Moyes sacked the lot of them and replaced with Steve round and Phil Neville.

SAF virtually told Moyes in public to take his time asserting his ideas into the club. I'm sure a more definitive conversation was had in private. Yet Moyes then overhauled the entire training schedule and pre match rituals.

Moyes was anyway the wrong candidate in the first place but then he had to swing his dick before the season even started!
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Yea i agree,dont want to be miss understood. If Moyes accepted all advices he might have better chance to stay a bit longer but then again he might be stupid enough to care what everybody would say about him in that scenario.
 
stevoc said:
What Van Gaal done in terms of managing this squad is for me nothing short of mental, 20+ players out the door very few upgrades in quality of the players brought in. £300+ spent to assemble a smaller squad that is arguably weaker and still has glaring issues that need addressing before we can compete at the top again.

Basically between Moyes and mostly Van Gaal it has been a complete clusterfeck. As you say we couldn't have made it worse if we actively tried.
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I don't even think I'd try that on Football Manager!!!! (Might do so and see what happens!)

You're right, with hindsight, it's just nuts.
 
We're unlikely to truly progress until we hire a manager who views Rooney objectively; not on the basis of his reputation, star status, or influence/power at United, but objectively. Whether it ends up with Wayne staying & being number one choice, or going, there has to be a dispassionate analysis...for the sake of the club's future.
 
R'hllor said:
Yea i agree,dont want to be miss understood. If Moyes accepted all advices he might have better chance to stay a bit longer but then again he might be stupid enough to care what everybody would say about him in that scenario.
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No worries :)

I don't think Moyes is stupid, he was simply way way out of his depth.

It's abit like asking me to drive a Formula 1 racing car when I've only ever driven my BMW X5!!

It will be a horrific car crash and there would be mess and blood!
 
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