Should United be expected to compete with City in Pep era.

The goal should be to create a team that will be in the mix for the title almost every season. We're currently miles away from that target. After doing that, Liverpool fans can attest to how difficult it is to compete with a team that can win 15, 16 or 18 games on the trot. Likewise, Arsenal and Chelsea fans can tell you a thing or two about the amount of effort required to beat Ferguson and snatch a title every two or three years. I don't think it's preposterous to say that we have entered the third era of complete dominance in English football, after Liverpool in the 70s/80s and United in the 90s/00s.
 
It's no excuse to not be challenging at all for the title or the champions league in the last 4 or even winning the europa league (when we are in it) and fa cup.

All we have won since mourinho first year is a league Cup...., that's is pathetic
 
Trex said:
Pep I think have won the league 11 out of 14 times in his career. Aside the first year at City when he was still putting his side together only Mourinho 100pts Madrid and Covid season Liverpool have beaten him to league titles.
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I didn't know that, jeez, that is a spectacular record.

And the two teams in Real and Liverpool who beat him played some of the best football I've ever seen.
 
Trex said:
We still bettered most teams last season and won a trophy. We failed to make top four once in the last four season.
This season it's just way to early to talk about top 4.
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Since when was a League Cup considered a success to Man Utd?
 
Can't stand the modern way of looking at trophies. You can win four fecking trophies a season so yeah winning one of them is decent. is it perfection? No. But it's still success.

To answer op we will not compete with them ubtil the glazers are gone no matter how much money we spend or who we have in charge. They are incredibly well run, whether they are cheating or not. They have a great manager, buy well, and seemingly have a structure that is all pointing in the right direction and aimed at winning trophies playing attractive football. We are utterly rudderless by comparison.
 
FujiVice said:
Its funny that people think arguably the biggest club in the world (the one club who makes a boat load of money with or without trophies, 10 years without a league title or even CL football) should lower their standards because of a really good team. Our ownership has destroyed this club. We are so big, the worms have been eating our giant corpse for 15 years now. Woodward, the Glazers, Arnold, the over paid players who just see this as a cash cow, the managers. We are fecked until we are sold. If we dont get sold, it'll get worse and worse. Its depressing. Shit players on massive wages, a stadium falling to pieces. If this football club was in the right hands, every player in the world would be knocking on our door. This club is like the 3rd movie, but without Scorsese directing and instead of Al Pachino, we have Bobby Davro doing a funny voice.
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Do you mean Coppola?
As far as I know, Scorsese didn't direct Pacino until The Irishman.
 
FujiVice said:
Its funny that people think arguably the biggest club in the world (the one club who makes a boat load of money with or without trophies, 10 years without a league title or even CL football) should lower their standards because of a really good team. Our ownership has destroyed this club. We are so big, the worms have been eating our giant corpse for 15 years now. Woodward, the Glazers, Arnold, the over paid players who just see this as a cash cow, the managers. We are fecked until we are sold. If we dont get sold, it'll get worse and worse. Its depressing. Shit players on massive wages, a stadium falling to pieces. If this football club was in the right hands, every player in the world would be knocking on our door. This club is like the 3rd movie, but without Scorsese directing and instead of Al Pachino, we have Bobby Davro doing a funny voice.
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That's an unrealistic expectation simply because it has never been the case for us or anyone else except Real and to a lesser degree, Barcelona. Those two are the only clubs that have the romance and prestige that a lot of the best players look at as the ultimate destination. We, like the rest have to attract the best with more money which we have been doing in the past 10 years when we signed bigger profiles and names in the global context than we have ever done. That's the last thing we've been missing to compete with City or anyone else.
 
It is certainty possible to compete with them, as shown by Liverpool and more recently, Arsenal. It is difficult to sustain that challenge though as City's financial resources and Pep's skills as a manager tend to come good over the long haul. They will continue to win 80%+ of league titles while he is there, with one of the challengers picking up the rest.

Whether United are capable of being one of those challengers is a different question, though. With the current structure at the club, I'd say we're unlikely to lay a glove on them, sadly, at least while Guardiola is there.
 
Trex said:
I was reflecting on united place in football at the moment especially post SAF. My thought process was why do united fans expect united to better every team in England. Fact is we're one of a couple of teams with the resources to get the best people from playing and coaching staff so we're rightly suppose to be one of the top side, and already we're actually one of the very best. We finished third in the league last season won the league cup, and got to the cup final.
In the last four seasons we've been 3rd, 2nd, 6th and 3rd. We have failed to win the league and make a mark in the UCL. But how high is the ceiling of United really. The team who have dominated the league in recent years City have done so largely due to their "all time best contender" manager Pep Guardiola raising their ceiling. When we dominated it was because of our "all time best contender" manager as well. Should we expect ETH to match the heights of Pep. A manager like Pep and SAF are so rare that even with all the resources in the world you don't get one. Pep I think have won the league 11 out of 14 times in his career. Aside the first year at City when he was still putting his side together only Mourinho 100pts Madrid and Covid season Liverpool have beaten him to league titles.
Should we come to the realization that due to Pep presence we can only hope but not expect or feel entitled to united reaching the height City play at.
A more realistic aim would be to better the likes of Arsenal, remain ahead of Liverpool, Newcastle and Chelsea and improve our showing in the UCL hopefully till Pep F*cks off or have a uncharacteristic poor season. I think judging United by City standard is maybe a bit reaching unless you have a Pep clone.
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I agree with your wider point that it's unrealistic to expect us or anyone to match someone who is going through their best ever spell and one of the best spells in the history of the competition. The stars are aligning for them, different but not too dissimilar to Barcelona 15 years ago or us 30 years ago. A one off generation of top players coming through the academy, resources, arguably best player of all time, one of the all times greatest manager, ... When several of these conditions apply at the same time, it's really difficult not to dominate for a given period which is happening with City now.

As @Infra-red points out though, matching them and callenging them are two different things. Real could still challenge that Barcelona side. Arsenal challenged us back in the day and Liverpool did well to push City so close recently. We have every right to expect to be there or thereabout and pounce on the chance of winning a league title when City are not at their best. The fact that we haven't had a title challenge or come close to one can only be seen as a huge of failure of our management considering it has certainly not been for lack of resources or being beaten for players in the transfer market.
 
We're talking about the best team the league has ever seen, I don't think on paper anyone is supposed to be able to compete, but it's far from impossible. They are ahead, but still need to execute their part.
 
I think the OP question could be reworded as 'Can we be expecting to compete with City while the Glazer leeches are stinking the place out'.

Under a normal situation of course we should be competing with City, Madrid et al, even with all the mayhem at the club we are still a much larger entity. Until the filth are gone i have major doubts if we will though.

The Pep thing is overhyped though. Pep is a good manager but would he win a league with Aberdeen? i don't think so.
 
Yes we should compete with Pep but only when we have owners that will fully back the manager. It'll take ETH several seasons though to rid the club of bad decisions from the past. Chopping and changing managers has got us into this mess of a hodge podge of players that don't fit the system.
 
Yagami said:
Of course.

Liverpool did it. Arsenal would have had Saliba not got injured. With the right transfers, we could have competed with ten Hag but we've butchered this season already.

Sort out our terrible transfer approach, and there's no reason we can't do what Liverpool did and Arsenal almost did.
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That is a massive stretch to say Arsenal would have won the league if Saliba didn't get injured. He was still part of the teams that conceded 2 goals against United, Bournemouth, Villa and Sporting as well as getting beaten by City, United and Everton.

They simply had harder games in the second half of the season. Not just both of the City games, but teams near the relegation zone are always tougher to play in the second half of the season when the stakes are higher.

United need to be perfect in the transfer market, be patient with Ten Hag and also hope that he knows what he's doing to get anywhere near City. Even then City can just outspend us and already have a far superior squad, so there are no guarantees we'll get there even if we do everything right. We'll never have a season like Pool's that's for sure, the luck/referee decisions they had/have going for them was/is something else.
 
FujiVice said:
Its funny that people think arguably the biggest club in the world (the one club who makes a boat load of money with or without trophies, 10 years without a league title or even CL football) should lower their standards because of a really good team. Our ownership has destroyed this club. We are so big, the worms have been eating our giant corpse for 15 years now. Woodward, the Glazers, Arnold, the over paid players who just see this as a cash cow, the managers. We are fecked until we are sold. If we dont get sold, it'll get worse and worse. Its depressing. Shit players on massive wages, a stadium falling to pieces. If this football club was in the right hands, every player in the world would be knocking on our door. This club is like the 3rd movie, but without Scorsese directing and instead of Al Pachino, we have Bobby Davro doing a funny voice.
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Could you explain what you mean by having higher standards? Is it just firing the manager when we don't win the title?
 
Should United be expected to compete in the Glazer era is a more apt title, and the answer is no.
 
Our squad is nowhere near the level of City's thanks to years of mismanagement. We're as far away as ever after wasting the years where we had a financial advantage over the rest of the league.
 
We’re spending money in all the wrong ways we should be competing but the higher ups are generally clueless

Giving minutes to McTominay and chasing shite like Amrabat is why we are a joke of a club
 
We can't compete whilst we're ran in a piss poor way and recruiting managers who make piss poor footballing decisions. Until that changes, we will not compete.
 
Care_de_Bobo said:
That is a massive stretch to say Arsenal would have won the league if Saliba didn't get injured. He was still part of the teams that conceded 2 goals against United, Bournemouth, Villa and Sporting as well as getting beaten by City, United and Everton.

They simply had harder games in the second half of the season. Not just both of the City games, but teams near the relegation zone are always tougher to play in the second half of the season when the stakes are higher.

United need to be perfect in the transfer market, be patient with Ten Hag and also hope that he knows what he's doing to get anywhere near City. Even then City can just outspend us and already have a far superior squad, so there are no guarantees we'll get there even if we do everything right. We'll never have a season like Pool's that's for sure, the luck/referee decisions they had/have going for them was/is something else.
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That's fair but, still, the fact remains they were a lot better with him than without. Not perfect, no, but he was the glue, in my opinion. Not just the glue to the defence but to the teams general play as well. The composure he brought to playing out from the back and his ability to carry the ball from defence and play line-breaking passes was irreplaceable.

I do believe they win the title last year if he stays fit.
 
Yagami said:
That's fair but, still, the fact remains they were a lot better with him than without. Not perfect, no, but he was the glue, in my opinion. Not just the glue to the defence but to the teams general play as well. The composure he brought to playing out from the back and his ability to carry the ball from defence and play line-breaking passes was irreplaceable.

I do believe they win the title last year if he stays fit.
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I agree that he's a very good player and easily their best defender, but still don't think he would have been able to get them over the line.

City won by 5 points and didn't even try for the last two games where they gave up another 5 points. Saliba wouldn't have been enough to beat City at their place and nor would he have been responsible for the extra 11 points probably needed overall.

Even if he would have made the difference, injuries are part of the game and Arsenal basically had none during the first half of the season so they were due a couple. If a team has to basically avoid injuries for an entire season just to keep up with City, it proves that in reality it's nearly impossible with the limited resources available to the competition.

For all the praise Liverpool have received, they still only have one title* in the last 30 years despite having the likes of Salah, Mane, Firminho, Alison, Van Dijk, Fabinho and Robertson all playing together at their peak and having all the luck in the world.
 
We have resources like few teams have. Yes, we don't have the unlimited budget of City. But the fact that we cannot allocate our funds correctly or we can raise funds when needed because we can't move on players has nothing to do with city.

To be dominant is almost impossible. But to challenge? That's our fault that we can't.
 
Yes. But at worst we should be competing with the 2nd placed team and right now we dont look like we're on Arsenal's tail, so lets at least get that part done.
 
I don't think it's got so much to do with Pep vs our manager or any other manager for that matter. City are run extremely well from a perspective that they buy well and sell well. They've also developed their academy beyond ours which is probably the biggest kick in the teeth. Since Pep has been there our club has been run completely incompetently. Had we been run in a similar manner to City during the Pep era I've every belief we'd be competing with them. Sadly we've thrown huge amounts of money down the drain on both transfer fees and wages and failed to invest in our infrastructure including our academy, that has prevented us being able to produce on the pitch. We're seeing the real impact of that in this transfer window where the gap between us and City is going to grow.

Until the ownership changes, with or without Pep, I don't see us closing the gap.
 
Even freaking Arsenal competed for the league in Pep's era, but United fans are convincing themselves we can't to feel better about the club's situation?
 
This fan base and its lack of ambition is a big reason why we’ve lingered in mediocrity for 10 years now. Standards nowhere near high enough and happy to accept it in order to look morally superior.
 
We should but standards slipped too far under the Glazers and it could take a long time to get back up there.

Liverpool seemed to do everything right after hiring Kopp, and even though they've run them close and challenged City consistently, they only managed to win it once.

That's the reality of how they've managed to entrench their dominance now.
 
When we get new owners, we will be able to compete and surpass baldy. Either Sir Jim or Sheik Jassim will vastly improve when compared to the glazers.
 
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