Self delusion or monumental cock up?

[Leftback99]

It's been a monumental cock up there's no doubt about it. 'Deadwood' like Evans, Welbeck and Rafael, all United through and through would be starters right now or at least better back up than what we have.

 

[devilish]

Your hate for Fergie and the Class of '92 is unprecedented. After reading your posts for nearly one and a half years, I still cannot tell if you are an opposition fan, someone on a WUM or just not very bright; which in itself means that you are succeeding in what you are doing. You are good.

What does "mainly due to his vast knowledge of EPL" mean? Fergie and United, in his time at the club, were very successful in Europe. Besides winning it twice, we regularly made the finals and the semi-finals of the tournament. You need to take a deeper look at the record.

He didn't find it hard to disassociate with his loyal players; besides Giggs, none of so called "loyal players" were part of the squad in his final season. And Giggs, in his limited appearances performed better than any other creative midfielder has performed for us since. We have bought 4 midfielders since his retirement; how is our midfield doing these days?

Fletcher had a debilitating stomach condition in the last few years of Fergie's regin. What did you want? For the club to cancel his contract?

We didn't end up with Zaha because we didn't want to pay for Moura. In fact, we were ready to pay more than 30m+ for an unproven 19 year old from Brazil but he decided to join PSG because of Leonardo. Is he pulling any trees at PSG? Check the Hazard thread, it's become a "let's laugh at Eden Hazard" thread. (Not that I think he is bad player).

You are just twisting facts to pour more vitriol to your already crazy agenda. I can't fathom why someone who hates English players and British managers so much claims to support an English club. But hey, everyone is free to make their choices. All the power to you, bud.

Jeez had you read my post? Let me highlight bits and parts of it

"SAF was still one of the best manager around. His man management skills were still the best and his tactics worked, mainly due to his vast knowledge of the EPL"

Does that translate to hate for you?

What does 'mainly due to his vast knowledge of EPL' mean? ie 13 EPL titles, 5 FA cups, 4 league cups and 10 charity shields. That's exactly what it means. There's no one in the EPL whose got SAF's experience. That's why I am so keen in having him as interim manager to sort the mess we're currently into. Oh wait, I almost forget my hate to him.

Now if you want to nitpick about CM be my guest. However everyone in the world apart from SAF knew that that midfield needed sorting including Scholes himself, who said that there was something incredibly wrong in a team were the 2 best CMs were at the wrong end of their 30s. In a CM so shit we couldn't even give space to Pogba who went on becoming a great player at Juve despite them having the likes of Pirlo, Vidal and Marchisio there and not Ando, Cleverley and two near 40 year olds.

Ultimately the value strategy costed us in bringing the quality players we needed, something we're suffering about it till this very day. If you think we are better of with Zaha and Young instead of Hazard and Moura than you need your head tested

 

[devilish]

Not sure about the "big player" aversion. Why did he sign RVP then?

As said even a club like ours needed a number of world class players. However SAF kept that number to the bare minimum.

Let face it RVP and Kagawa were meant to replace Rooney

 

[Insanity]

Devlish goes overboard a lot of times with regards to United, but he has a point with regards to transfers and agent fees. SAF has himself admitted to turning down the chance to sign Sergio Aguero because he didn't meet our valuation of 35 million pounds, as well as David Silva. Our willingness to go with mediocrity like Zaha, Young, Bebe (7 million pound ffs) etc. was down-right strange. It is possible to get stuck into your comfort zone sometimes. Would we have refused to sign Silva and Aguero if they were British? Would we have chosen Moyes if he was Spanish? Noone can say for sure, but they're points worth raising, even if I disagree with what Devlish says most of the time.

The guys abhorrence for anything English, the constant vilification of the Class of '92 (when only Giggs and Butt are part of the club), and O'Shit jokes get annoying to read after some time.

Regarding Moyes, being British may have been be a part of it but he was mainly chosen for his potential after a long and fairly successful period managing Everton, after we failed to appoint any of our top choices as manager. Fergie also recently mentioned that Moyes was way down the pecking order when it came to appointing his successor.

I won't deny that mistakes were made, or that he loathed paying huge agent fees, though I wouldn't say that he dithered paying huge fees because the players weren't British. Some of the biggest transfer fees we have paid were for non-British players: Veron, Berbatov, De Gea & Van Persie.

 

[acrebo]

With Gill, SAF, Phelen, McClair and Rene (and a few others) all gone within a few weeks of each other, we lost over 100 years of collective footballing knowledge, team work and know how.

Just let that sink in for a few seconds ... It's nuts.

That's it for me. We've lost all the football (certainly English league) knowledge from our senior structure and replaced it with people who needed to learn on the job, and an accountant.

There should have been, and still should be, a senior restructure which brings in a few top football brains and moves the businessmen away from sporting decisions.

 

[Insanity]

Well, it's not. Finding that opinion so extreme is preposterous. It's fine if you don't believe any of it is on him, to each his own opinion, but it's easy to see why many think it is. Firstly, he did in fact appoint David fecking Moyes as our manager. Secondly, Gill was allowed to leave at the same time SAF did. And thirdly, the quality of our football was average when he left. Combine the three, and it isn't surprising that we crashed and burnt the way we did. And SAF played a big part in all three.

I don't believe that he hand-picked Moyes and everyone just agreed. Like I said in my previous post, he mentioned only recently that Moyes was way down the pecking order.

David Gill leaving at the same time is not his fault.

The quality of football wasn't vintage, but I didn't find a team that scored 89 goals and won the league by 11 points boring.

 

[MoskvaRed]

Of course we didn't need an overhaul. We needed to make additions in key areas. We have spent 300m and are worse than we were under Moyes. Blaming Fergie for this monumental cock-up is preposterous.

I disagree about the need for an overhaul - our back 4 needed a lot of work post-2013, our midfield was way below par and our wide players were not good enough. And Fergie cannot escape some culpability for his erratic transfer record after 2007 which led to the need for the overhaul. But, ultimately, Moyes and Van Gaal (in differing ways) have made a challenging situation much harder than it needed to be.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

I don't believe that he hand-picked Moyes and everyone just agreed. Like I said in my previous post, he mentioned only recently that Moyes was way down the pecking order.

David Gill leaving at the same time is not his fault.

The quality of football wasn't vintage, but I didn't find a team that scored 89 goals and won the league by 11 points boring.

He used his powerful position to choose Moyes. He's back-tracking now to save face.

I didn't find out goals and wins boring, but the quality of football was low.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

The guys abhorrence for anything English, the constant vilification of the Class of '92 (when only Giggs and Butt are part of the club), and O'Shit jokes get annoying to read after some time.

Regarding Moyes, being British may have been be a part of it but he was mainly chosen for his potential after a long and fairly successful period managing Everton, after we failed to appoint any of our top choices as manager. Fergie also recently mentioned that Moyes was way down the pecking order when it came to appointing his successor.

I won't deny that mistakes were made, or that he loathed paying huge agent fees, though I wouldn't say that he dithered paying huge fees because the players weren't British. Some of the biggest transfer fees we have paid were for non-British players: Veron, Berbatov, De Gea & Van Persie.

Leaving aside all the bias' you feel has, and it does get over the top, he has a point at least worth discussing rather than ridiculing, this time. What logical reasons is there to turn down Aguero and Silva? The reasons he's given are silly as well. I think we even turned Hazard down over 5 odd million of agent fees. Pure madness. RVP and Berbatov were PL-proven to be fair. Veron was centuries back, and only De Gea was recent.

 

[Balu]

It's quite telling that the two best players in the team, De Gea and Smalling, were brought in by Ferguson and the club spent a lot of money on every other position and hasn't gotten it right once. There are maybe two exceptions, Shaw and Martial, but both are still so young and have been convincing at United for a rather short period of time that you can't make a final judgement on them yet. There's not a single position that looks solved otherwise and quite a few look worse than before.

It's a monumental cock-up and it's just sad if anyone blames Fergie for it because he gave an uplifting speach at the end of his time as manager. The squad he left behind wasn't perfect of course, but it was still strong enough to build on it without dropping out of the top 4. Great managers would have continued to challenge for titles with it.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

That's it for me. We've lost all the football (certainly English league) knowledge from our senior structure and replaced it with people who needed to learn on the job, and an accountant.

There should have been, and still should be, a senior restructure which brings in a few top football brains and moves the businessmen away from sporting decisions.

Yep. Gill was a life-long United fan, SAF was SAF, and our Assistant Managers and coaching staff were at least experienced at the top level despite the grief they often got from the caf. It was replaced by a bunch of newbies.

 

[Insanity]

Jeez had you read my post? Let me highlight bits and parts of it

"SAF was still one of the best manager around. His man management skills were still the best and his tactics worked, mainly due to his vast knowledge of the EPL"

Does that translate to hate for you?

What does 'mainly due to his vast knowledge of EPL' mean? ie 13 EPL titles, 5 FA cups, 4 league cups and 10 charity shields. That's exactly what it means. There's no one in the EPL whose got SAF's experience. That's why I am so keen in having him as interim manager to sort the mess we're currently into. Oh wait, I almost forget my hate to him.

Now if you want to nitpick about CM be my guest. However everyone in the world apart from SAF knew that that midfield needed sorting including Scholes himself, who said that there was something incredibly wrong in a team were the 2 best CMs were at the wrong end of their 30s. In a CM so shit we couldn't even give space to Pogba who went on becoming a great player at Juve despite them having the likes of Pirlo, Vidal and Marchisio there and not Ando, Cleverley and two near 40 year olds.

Ultimately the value strategy costed us in bringing the quality players we needed, something we're suffering about it till this very day. If you think we are better of with Zaha and Young instead of Hazard and Moura than you need your head tested

"X and Y was great but only because he had vast experience and knowledge of the league but he was really not very good at everything else because he was blinded by sentiments. "

I read that fine, devilish.

No one said we didn't midfielders, but we had Carrick, who some thought was one of the best midfielders in the league. Scholes could today come out of retirement and be better than everyone we have at the moment. He did neglect the midfield, but he still won. No one stopped his successor from signing anyone other than a tall, elbowing and chesting idiot.

I am not having the boring Pogba discussion. Also, he has ways to go before he becomes a "great midfielder".

We are suffering because we didn't buy the quality players post Fergie, or if we did, we have failed to get the best out of them. If you can't see that, you need to get your tested, well you need........

 

[Ixion]

Sir Alex spoke numerous times over the years about leaving a strong squad behind. i think one of his biggest goals was not repeating what happened after Sir Matt left and what is happening to Liverpool. I think he believed he was leaving a strong squad with the club in a great position to build on it. The problem as I see it was appointing Moyes did two things 1) We wasted that important first transfer window and 2) it deflated the entire squad and they didn't care to play for him which set us back a season and Champions League football. It also resulted in a bunch of experienced players leaving the club and Rooney sitting on a huge contract.

What is happening right now I think is more down to style of play and letting so many attacking players leave without bringing in replacements.

 

[Insanity]

It's quite telling that the two best players in the team, De Gea and Smalling, were brought in by Ferguson and the club spent a lot of money on every other position and hasn't gotten it right once. There are maybe two exceptions, Shaw and Martial, but both are still so young and have been convincing at United for a rather short period of time that you can't make a final judgement on them yet. There's not a single position that looks solved otherwise and quite a few look worse than before.

It's a monumental cock-up and it's just sad if anyone blames Fergie for it because he gave an uplifting speach at the end of his time as manager. The squad he left behind wasn't perfect of course, but it was still strong enough to build on it without dropping out of the top 4. Great managers would have continued to challenge for titles with it.

Exactly. We finished 7th but it wasn't a 7th placed squad.

 

[Insanity]

He used his powerful position to choose Moyes. He's back-tracking now to save face.

I didn't find out goals and wins boring, but the quality of football was low.

Save face? The greatest manager of all time didn't need to save face.

Even if we assume for a moment that he hand-picked Moyes and was responsible for that feck-up. We are here 19 months and 250m away from the Moyes disaster, this is certainly not on Fergie.

It was him and him only that got us to a position where we could waste a lot of money in three years since retirement and still afford to spend another 200m to improve the squad next summer.

Leaving aside all the bias' you feel has, and it does get over the top, he has a point at least worth discussing rather than ridiculing, this time. What logical reasons is there to turn down Aguero and Silva? The reasons he's given are silly as well. I think we even turned Hazard down over 5 odd million of agent fees. Pure madness. RVP and Berbatov were PL-proven to be fair. Veron was centuries back, and only De Gea was recent.

I am not stopping him for discussing anything, I am simply pointing out his strange bias against Fergie and some of the most successful players in our history. It's flabbergasting.

Clubs miss out on players or pass up on players or make wrong signings all the time - that doesn't mean that they have an hidden agenda behind all those decisions.

From British now we are down to PL proven...hmmm...

 

[Hostekule]

Save face? The greatest manager of all time didn't need to save face.

Even if we assume for a moment that he hand-picked Moyes and was responsible for that feck-up. We are here 19 months and 250m away from the Moyes disaster, this is certainly not on Fergie.

It was him and him only that got us to a position where we could waste a lot of money in three years since retirement and still afford to spend another 200m to improve the squad next summer.



I am not stopping him for discussing anything, I am simply pointing out his strange bias against Fergie and some of the most successful players in our history. It's flabbergasting.

Clubs miss out on players or pass up on players or make wrong signings all the time - that doesn't mean that they have an hidden agenda behind all those decisions.

From British now we are down to PL proven...hmmm...

You seem to have a strange bias for Fergie unable to seperate the nuances of the discussion.

 

[Insanity]

I disagree about the need for an overhaul - our back 4 needed a lot of work post-2013, our midfield was way below par and our wide players were not good enough. And Fergie cannot escape some culpability for his erratic transfer record after 2007 which led to the need for the overhaul. But, ultimately, Moyes and Van Gaal (in differing ways) have made a challenging situation much harder than it needed to be.

I think not making the signings or making the wrong signings has a lot of do with that. Add another CB, CM, Winger and a back LB to the squad and we are golden. And money was available for that, it gets mentioned every time a higher up or manager decides to open their mouth about transfers.

If someone wants to make him culpable for not leaving a Barcelonesque or Bayenesque squad, then you got no arguments from me. Though I don't buy that he left an absolutely terrible squad that 300m couldn't fix in 3 years.

 

[Insanity]

You seem to have a strange bias for Fergie unable to seperate the nuances of the discussion.

I wouldn't argue that. May be I am taking an extreme viewpoint on the other side in counter to an extreme viewpoint.

Though, I never said that Fergie was without faults or mistakes weren't made or that the squad he left was top quality. However, I am unwilling to lay it all on him or blame him for being biased in appointing a British manager or only spending on British players. Some of the best, most expensive and most volatile players under his reign were non-British.

 

[Pexbo]

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.

How many of those 20 players would you have kept?

Cleverley?
Evans?
Vidic?
Ferdinand?
Giggs?
Bebe?
Welbeck?
Bebe?
Fletcher?
Zaha?
Rafael?
Nani?
Van Persie?
Hernandez?
Anderson?
Buttner?
Lindegaard?
Macheda?


I can only see one player there you could make a case for and that's Hernandez who just isn't the right striker for a possession team. So while, we might all like to be a team that suits Hernandez, its still the right move to let a player go who wouldn't get on well here and would loathe being on the bench.


As for £300m spent. It's £245m (-£60m + £45m as Di Maria isn't here). So £230m on 10 players. Averaging £23m per player signed.

Or if we're talking "Net spend" which is actually more relevant here as you're talking about how much we have spent to upgrade the squad. We've spent £130m or on average £13m a player.


When I look at the likes of:

Herrera in for Cleverley

Martial in for Welbeck

20 year old Shaw in to replace 32 year old Evra

A completely demotivated Nani out the door with Memphis having years to prove himself coming in

Schneiderlin replacing Fletcher

Schweinsteiger replacing Giggs' role of senior player

Darmian's probably the only one not doing a great deal better than Rafael but remains a Redcafe darling.


All in all I'd say that's money well spent and all the while we have continued our rich history of bringing through young players despite claims that our soul was sold.


There is fundamental problems with the way we play football right now, confidence is low and the transition needs to be finished with a couple of positions strengthening but let's not pretend the squad hasn't been improved. It was in absolute dire straits and full of very average players and players who had zero fight left in them.

If a new manager took over this squad tomorrow, with no signings, he'd be in a far far better position to succeed than if he took over the squad Van Gaal took over.

 

[devilish]

"X and Y was great but only because he had vast experience and knowledge of the league but he was really not very good at everything else because he was blinded by sentiments. "

I read that fine, devilish.

No one said we didn't midfielders, but we had Carrick, who some thought was one of the best midfielders in the league. Scholes could today come out of retirement and be better than everyone we have at the moment. He did neglect the midfield, but he still won. No one stopped his successor from signing anyone other than a tall, elbowing and chesting idiot.

I am not having the boring Pogba discussion. Also, he has ways to go before he becomes a "great midfielder".

We are suffering because we didn't buy the quality players post Fergie, or if we did, we have failed to get the best out of them. If you can't see that, you need to get your tested, well you need........

Where the feck did I mentioned europe? In saf last year we won the epl title and that is what I could comment about. And yes we won the league mainly due to saf experience and brilliance in the epl. The epl title can be renamed as saf trophy. Is that insulting according to you?

And my criticism regarding cm is in line to what Scholes said in the past. Maybe he hates saf and the class of 92 too

Regarding Pogba you are probably the only person on earth who don't see him as a great midfielder. Let's say I'd rather have him than clev, ando and two nearly 40 year old giggs and Scholes. Maybe we can set a poll about that

 

[Minimalist]

Ferguson talked plenty of shite. I'm not even referring to the comments made in the OP.

That's irrelevant though. United as a club had all the resources required to move forward successfully.

United have managed to balls up pretty much everything they had to do (key being managerial appointments). It's a shambles. Really does suggest a clearing out of the men upstairs is needed as much as Van Gaal.

 

[sun_tzu]

Ferguson talked plenty of shite. I'm not even referring to the comments made in the OP.

That's irrelevant though. United as a club had all the resources required to move forward successfully.

United have managed to balls up pretty much everything they had to do (key being managerial appointments). It's a shambles. Really does suggest a clearing out of the men upstairs is needed as much as Van Gaal.

Until somebody has a few billion to chuck at the glazers thats not going to happen - and even if it did there is no guarantee that the new people would be any better.
We feel much more like a commercial operation that a club which brings with it financial strength and security but perhaps its time for a director of football to be put into the mix - SAF or even LVG could be good options for this

 

[lysglimt]

First of all - Ferguson was one of a kind. Second of all - I have a feeling several players weren't capable of performing to their max with Ferguson gone. And this wasn't just Moyes or LvG's fault - it was in their heads.

 

[snk123]

Spending all at one go never works. A transition period would be needed to settle the new players out and such drastic change would mean that by the time you sorted one position other positions would need strengthening. It happened to us at this very moment. We sorted CM only for us needing the same sort of investment to sort the flanks and defense.

That is true. But I don't believe that when SAF retired, the squad needed an overhaul... We needed a couple of quality signings in midfield at best and had to replace Rooney. We did neither. Instead we added Juan Mata - who we didn't need at all, and tried to fill the giant hole in midfield with the afro elbow man.

LVG's football and man management is atrocious. But he recognizes where the team lacks - and his signings are usually spot on. Even at this stage, we need a complete change in football style - not personnel.

 

[finneh]

A mixture of the two in all honestly. Fergie wouldn't have wanted to hand down a perfect squad assembled by him, he mentioned several times that a new manager would want to stamp his own authority on the team and I'd say in today's market it's pretty obvious he'd need at least £150-200m to do so.

There was a couple of obvious holes in the team that even Fergie would have known needed filling upon his retirement. Central midfield was the obvious one which required 2 signings, but also probably a new winger, with a new striker, full back and central defender coming in probably a year later. That's 6 signings over a 2 year period, which for any normal team and manager would be par for the course.

The problem was exacerbated hugely by the inept handling of the first transfer window without Ferguson. Moyes had a few months to identify obtainable transfer targets and then had the whole Summer to go out and get them. He spent that Summer dicking around trying to sign Ronaldo, Fabregas, Bale, Fellaini & Baines, all of which were either unobtainable or not good enough. Even if we'd have had an average transfer window we would have looked a much more solid team. If we'd have had the great transfer window we were expecting we go into the season as the reigning Champions who've just strengthened immensely and there is an air of invincibility about us.

Put it this way; if we employed Mourinho as we should have, we'd be in good shape right now. We might not be Champions 3 years running, but we'd certainly have a bit of silverware and have a competitive team. Our selection in managers has been our fatal flaw.

 

[Massive Spanner]

I don't blame the board for appointing LvG. Pretty much everyone wanted him.

But letting him go on this long after it's been clear for months now that he's not the right man and not up to the task is a constant, monumental feck up on their behalf.

 

[Reapersoul20]

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.

That's that.

He left a class squad and training facilities, as he said. The players just got...relaxed.

 

[littlepeasoup]

I think the precedent that first season without SAF was set during the summer transfer window, and all the bungling that went on. Moyes seemed like he spent most of his time trying to placate Wayne Rooney rather than focus on areas of the squad to improve.

If we had brought some decent additions in early, that would have settled the squad. Instead we panic bought Fellaini on the last day of that window, and it was all downhill from there.

 

[Akshay]

Until somebody has a few billion to chuck at the glazers thats not going to happen - and even if it did there is no guarantee that the new people would be any better.
We feel much more like a commercial operation that a club which brings with it financial strength and security but perhaps its time for a director of football to be put into the mix - SAF or even LVG could be good options for this

I don't think either of those would work. I doubt SAF would even take the role given his personal opposition to the existence of directors. LVG would interfere too much in the workings of whatever (hopefully better) manager we brought in. Honestly, there's just no substitute for an understanding of football at the chairman/board level.

 

[Xaviesta]

I think the squad Ferguson left behind was good enough to still get top four during Moyes's first and only season but his incompetence meant that didn't happen. Van Gaal's tenure hasn't been good enough all told. He had an acceptable first season but this season, you could count how often United have played well on one hand.

 

[Green_Red]

If anyone here has read Leading, Ferguson and Moroitz's book, they will agree that in Fergusons eyes he probably did believe that he had left a squad good enough to go on for a couple of years. And had someone with Fergusons vision taken over, the truth is, they probably would have went on and the success probably would have continued. The only major problem with Ferguson's view though is that there is only one Ferguson and it would have been a serious lightening bolt of luck for us to pick up a manager that was half the manager Ferguson was straight after he left.

 

[JPRouve]

Call me naive but I believe the early reports from Auclair, who rarily engages in transfer talks. Ferguson, Gill and woodward(as an apprentice) targeted Strootman, Thiago and Garay, I'm not saying that with them everything would have been different but if true, and I believe it is, it was a message from SAF that the team needed reinforcement but Moyes decided to scout personally those players and lost all of them.
In my opinion it's a cock up from everyone involved because I believe that SAF should have delivered a team that didn't needed any transfer, I believe that the manager should have been given zero pounds during the summer because SAF and Gill had already made the roster for his first season, particularly if Moyes was supposed to be the manager.
In my opinion the lack of footballing board and I'm talking about people doing it 24/7, not ambassadors. The lack of DOF is the biggest cock up and all that is on the board, we are like a tech company who refuses to hire a technical hierarchy, that's plain daft.

 

[devilish]

That is true. But I don't believe that when SAF retired, the squad needed an overhaul... We needed a couple of quality signings in midfield at best and had to replace Rooney. We did neither. Instead we added Juan Mata - who we didn't need at all, and tried to fill the giant hole in midfield with the afro elbow man.

LVG's football and man management is atrocious. But he recognizes where the team lacks - and his signings are usually spot on. Even at this stage, we need a complete change in football style - not personnel.

It depends of what you mean about rebuilding process, what our ambitions are and at what stage you were referring too. The third part may sound insignificant but in matter of fact its not. After Moyes disastrous campaign, a number of players ended up losing their confidence or getting disillusioned of the place and simply had to leave. LVG man management skills are hardly that great either so it was a double wham in terms of dip of confidence. So after Moyes/LVG I’d say we need/needed more players as we burnt bridges with the likes of Evra and we completely ruined the confidence of players like Hernandez. Having said that if you asked me what the team needed a month after SAF’s retirement, then Id say that we need two quality CMs and a RB to make it at 3rd-4th place and if we added 2 quality wingers and a quality CB than we could have easily won the EPL title.

As you may know I don’t shy away in criticizing SAF, especially his insistence on relying on the old guard + dead wood and his value strategy. However TBF I also think that he was unlucky. I mean who on earth would have thought that players like Jones, Evans (2 potential top quality CBs) and the twins would have turned to be so injury prone? Not to forget Fletcher’s sickness which robbed us of a decent CM who could well become our midfield version of Gattuso/Gary Neville (ie a somehow limited talent who would reach world class standards mainly due to his attitude). Those players, while not being able to sort our problems by themselves would have left us with a competitive side capable of doing well in the league. Add Pogba to the mix and we would probably have had a title contending squad.

Regarding to LVG, Id say that in many ways he was the anti SAF. While SAF was in my opinion to cautious in bringing the much necessary changes to the squad, LVG just cut and chopped around with little concern of the consequences. He even got rid of his own players such as ADM, who was our main assist man and Valdes. Same thing can be said about LVG’s tactics. While SAF’s tactics took the best out of the limited talent he had and were brutally effective, LVG’s defensive and ball possession hungry tactics only contributed in giving time to our opponents to organize themselves and make it impossible for us to score goals. Ultimately it boils down to the difference between a manager who knew the EPL inside out and someone whose got no clue about it. For example you don't face an EPL campaign with a small squad because there will be plenty of injuries on the way

 

[devilish]

Call me naive but I believe the early reports from Auclair, who rarily engages in transfer talks. Ferguson, Gill and woodward(as an apprentice) targeted Strootman, Thiago and Garay, I'm not saying that with them everything would have been different but if true, and I believe it is, it was a message from SAF that the team needed reinforcement but Moyes decided to scout personally those players and lost all of them.
In my opinion it's a cock up from everyone involved because I believe that SAF should have delivered a team that didn't needed any transfer, I believe that the manager should have been given zero pounds during the summer because SAF and Gill had already made the roster for his first season, particularly if Moyes was supposed to be the manager.
In my opinion the lack of footballing board and I'm talking about people doing it 24/7, not ambassadors. The lack of DOF is the biggest cock up and all that is on the board, we are like a tech company who refuses to hire a technical hierarchy, that's plain daft.

Do we need a DOF when we have SAF? Also do we need SAF if he's not DOF? I mean what exactly does SAF do these days?

 

[JPRouve]

Do we need a DOF when we have SAF? Also do we need SAF if he's not DOF? I mean what exactly does SAF do these days?

SAF does nothing, he is an "advisor", he answers when someone ask him a question.

 

[devilish]

SAF does nothing, he is an "advisor", he answers when someone ask him a question.

Some one which such wealth of knowledge should be utilised better than simply as a glorified customer care agent

 

[JPRouve]

Some one which such wealth of knowledge should be utilised better than simply as a glorified customer care agent

No, he shouldn't. It's an old retired man, he should stay where he is and United should begin to stop being idiots and hire someone younger and with a network in football, and someone outside of CO92.

 

[Drifter]

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

Rio,Vidic were on the decline.Rafael,Fabio were to injury prone.Evans,Cleverly ,Anderson,Kagawa, Zaha did not cut it at OT.So he never really left us with a strong squad.And the academy was also left in a dodgy state as we are seeing now.

 

[#07]

Fergie left us in a great position to go forward. Better than that, Fergie identified buys e.g. Herrera, Thiago etc. that we needed to strengthen the club in key areas. Moyes chose not to buy any of them and Woodward backed him in doing so.

The side Fergie left behind needed a couple of midfield players to help us control games, and more depth at the back. Smalling was maturing and the process of managing out Ferdinand and Vidic could have been managed much better. Instead of that United have had wholesale changes, changes that have caused chaos in the club.

The process of Liverpoolisation is now fully under way. I have said before in other threads that I see us following exactly the same path of Liverpool in the 90s: Selling proven players, bringing in players we either didn't need or aren't a good fit, implementing a playing style that undermines the strengths of your squad. Just look at what happened to the Scousers under Souness and Evans and tell me United aren't making exactly the same mistakes. Its maddening.

 

[Randall Flagg]

He left one of the worlds biggest sporting franchises and a blank cheque book

It drives me crazy when I see people blame him for leaving the club in a mess