So Jose Was Right?

8 out of the 11 players starting yesterday have been at the club for five years or more and have never been league champions, or really even contenders. 5 of them played for Jose. The other 3 were signings from Ole’s first season.
But. . . But. . . If we’d have just signed Harry Kane this squad was only a goalscorer away :rolleyes:

Been saying it for ages. Until there are wholesale changes nothing will change. We’re meant to have people working on this squad 12 months of the year no just 1 month in the Winter & 3 in the Summer. There is absolutely no excuse to have the squad we do, none.
 
How exactly could we implement wholesale changes to the squad? If we’re being completely honest, only Martinez and Shaw are completely untouchable amidst a wholesale squad change. The only way to erase the squad and start over is over a minimum four transfer window span and probably more like six or eight.

We’ve screwed ourselves with idiotic buys over the last decade, the latest being Antony, Mount and Onana. Most of us like Hojlund for the long run but he simply wasn’t ready to step in immediately and be a 5-10 goal PL scorer for us this season.

We’re a badly run club. Sir Jim has made huge promises and we’ll see if he can deliver on them.
 
How exactly could we implement wholesale changes to the squad? If we’re being completely honest, only Martinez and Shaw are completely untouchable amidst a wholesale squad change. The only way to erase the squad and start over is over a minimum four transfer window span and probably more like six or eight.

We’ve screwed ourselves with idiotic buys over the last decade, the latest being Antony, Mount and Onana. Most of us like Hojlund for the long run but he simply wasn’t ready to step in immediately and be a 5-10 goal PL scorer for us this season.

We’re a badly run club. Sir Jim has made huge promises and we’ll see if he can deliver on them.
Yup. Tactics is not the issue, player quality is. The ETH era is going in the wrong direction with some terrible signings. Rangnick was correct and we still need 8 new players after spending 400m. Only Martinez has worked out, Casemiro just for one season.
 
Jose didn't say Rashford, Pogba and Martial were lazy afaik. He complained and fans assumed he meant certain players. We can't say he was right when he wasn't clear which players he was talking about.

His heritage rant was and is BS.

The fans didn’t believe that Pogba, Martial and Rashford were too talented. The ones who disliked Jose just believed he was part of the problem as was proven when he did the same thing at Spurs to the same result.

And he wasn't trying to "maintain standards", he was trying to turn other people into scapegoats. You mention that some of our players are past it and in it for a cheque, doesn't that also apply to Jose?

Tl;dr: The current team isn't good. That doesn't mean that Jose wasnt part of the problem and deserved to be sacked, that he was able to fix anything or that his specific complaints were even right.
No where in my post do I state that that's not true. Reread the last sentence that you've quoted.(i.e. the second bolded part)

As for the first bolded part: I disagree. I remember the uproar on here when Martial was benched for Sanchez. Sure in hindsight that looked like a disaster signing, but at the time it literraly was a masterstroke of genius. Sanchez was supposed to be everything Martial was plus workrate.

I also remember how our fans were annoyed that players like Rashford didn't get the chance to shine and that Mourinho played him out of position/not consistent enough.

I also remember said fans feeling vindicated when Rashford went on a run of good form once Ole showed up. Same thing with Pogba who was finally unlocked during that purple patch Ole had.

This idea that nobody thought our players were world class is revisionism. Just look up the famous: Is Rashford better than Mbape thread.:lol:

Mourinho might have been a toxic cnut, but the hierarchy messed up by firing just him. The message the likes of Rashford, Martial, Pogba and co got is that they are more important than the manager.

And if they don't like anything, all they have to do is down tools and the manager will be shown the door. They did that to Mourinho, Ole, Ragnick and now ETH.

It's one thing when the tactics aren't working, but it's completely different when the players just stop running all together.

You are employed by Manchester United and you are expected to do your job. This whole "the manager has to motivate his players to do the absolute basics" nonsense has got to go.

At no other job anyone is going to fire a manager if the employees are literally not doing what their told and being open about it.
 
At no other job anyone is going to fire a manager if the employees are literally not doing what their told and being open about it.

Tell that to every other football club that does the exact same thing.
 
No. Jose was not right. He was toxic and had a problem with most of the players by the end. The fact that some of the players have turned out to be unworthy of the shirt doesn't make him clairvoyant.

Please name one player that accoring to you has shown his worth? And please don't say Bruno or Rashford, both have crumbled and choked under pressure, under different managers and have downed tools. I'm really curious who of our team would make it at any other top team? I can confidentaly say no one. Top 10 team sure, top 3 team 100% not
 
How exactly could we implement wholesale changes to the squad? If we’re being completely honest, only Martinez and Shaw are completely untouchable amidst a wholesale squad change. The only way to erase the squad and start over is over a minimum four transfer window span and probably more like six or eight.

We’ve screwed ourselves with idiotic buys over the last decade, the latest being Antony, Mount and Onana. Most of us like Hojlund for the long run but he simply wasn’t ready to step in immediately and be a 5-10 goal PL scorer for us this season.

We’re a badly run club. Sir Jim has made huge promises and we’ll see if he can deliver on them.
I think we could have shifted more players and made more funds. Only two of the old guard went in De Gea and Fred and they were probably the best ones in terms of attitude.

As decent as Maguire has been lately and …well, as many goals as McTominay has got recently, they both had to go in the summer. The Martial thing is pathetic but we just have to pay the consequences of our mistake and let his deal run out, Dalot could have gone years ago, lindelof too. Rashford could be another expensive mistake in terms of wages, another problem we might have to suffer. The club is just useless at getting rid of and assessing players. And buying players. Next manager will probably find that out too.
 
Looking today(and for the last 6 months) at Rashford and if reports are true ETH had a bust up with Martial for not putting in the necessary effort.

I remember when Mourinho was highlighting the same and most of the Caf(myself included) thought he was crazy and lost the plot. But after all these years, was he wrong though?

His famous "City have herritage rant" was viewed as blasphemous at the time. How many of you would disagree with his words right now?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jU53sZSs_68
Sadly Caf won't let me embed a youtube short

Now the thing I want to stop at is his foresight into the rise of players power at the expense of professionalism. He clearly saw that the standards at United were slipping and he started ringing the alarm bells. While we might debate if he was right/wrong about Shaw, it's clear as day that he was right about Pogba, Martial and Rashford.

The man clearly knew that unless your name is Ronaldo or Messi, any top player has to have to workrate. So he clearly never rated the above trio for that reason. Most of the fans were on his back because they thought that Pogba, Martial or Rashford are too talented to be let go/ waste on the bench.

Now let's think about something different: what message did the players get when the manager who was trying to maintain the standards got the boot? Imagine if you had a group of slackers in a company that got the boss fired? Do you think they are going to pull their weight when the next boss comes in? Or do you think they are going to do the same thing knowing as to what happened to the last boss?

Now picture this:

What do you think happens to all the new comers in this environement? Are they upheld to hire standars, or pretty quick they learn to read the room and "assimilate" into the environement?

Add to the fact that a good portion of our team was composed of past it players who've already won everything and have nothing prove. They are here to collect a paycheck and move on when the time comes.

To be clear, I'm not advocating that Mourinho should be rehired or that he somehow is an amazing manager. I'm just highlighting that the man had the foresight and he tried to warn us of the disaster that was about to unfold.

I didn't followed United that close when you were under Mourinho, so I don't really remember if he signaled specific players or just complained in general about the whole squad. Then what I remember is that I thought it was a mistake for the club to side with the players when they started to fall out with Mourinho as that would undermine his authority and would set a bad precedent for upcoming managers.

This should be no surprise to anyone in Real Madrid it has happened a lot and it is something to be expected when you have so many superstar players in one team. However with United the players haven't won a thing, are paid a lot and have a poor attitude. So yeah at the time it seemed like a terrible move to undermine the manager as at that time he had more credit than any of the players. Even if his sacking was inevitable the management should had gotten rid of the problematic players, specially the ones with poor work ethic.

Something similar happened when Ronaldo rejoined you as there was a cultural shock for him so it's something every manager and player that joins you is going to struggle with unless something is done about it.
 
I think we could have shifted more players and made more funds. Only two of the old guard went in De Gea and Fred and they were probably the best ones in terms of attitude.

As decent as Maguire has been lately and …well, as many goals as McTominay has got recently, they both had to go in the summer. The Martial thing is pathetic but we just have to pay the consequences of our mistake and let his deal run out, Dalot could have gone years ago, lindelof too. Rashford could be another expensive mistake in terms of wages, another problem we might have to suffer. The club is just useless at getting rid of and assessing players. And buying players. Next manager will probably find that out too.

Agreed, but what I’m suggesting is that it’s not possible to replace 20 or more players in one or even two transfer windows. More like 6 or 8. We offer insane contracts for decent but more than decent players and then we get rid of players who actually contribute to the squad and replace them with inferior players. ABUers have been enjoying every minute of it…over the last decade.
 
Yup. Tactics is not the issue, player quality is. The ETH era is going in the wrong direction with some terrible signings. Rangnick was correct and we still need 8 new players after spending 400m. Only Martinez has worked out, Casemiro just for one season.

United management should have kept Ralf in the role envisioned to enable him to rebuild the squad. But Erik was having none of that. So here we are now, witnessing on a regular basis a swirling turd of squad.
 
Was Jose right?

Let me get this straight he was sacked 5 years ago after the most toxic period in years.The guy who signed Pogba then called him a trouble maker jose is and always has been trouble.

Even if he was right, who the feck cares.
 
I mean, he probably said some things that were right, but he chose to do it in the most toxic manner, and burn the place to the ground to hammer home his point.
 
I mean, he probably said some things that were right, but he chose to do it in the most toxic manner, and burn the place to the ground to hammer home his point.

Bang on. Although I doubt he was only right about "some things". He probably was right in most but the way he communicated them was purely toxic.

It also isn't rocket science to spot the huge issues we have. Rangnick saw them too and probably most working at the club but most decided not to go public with it.

Many things have to change though that's for sure.
 
LVG, José both said same thing. The club then made a meal out of the transfer committee and revamping scouting and Ole gave that interview about a new style of recruiting and singing young younger players to build a high press/high energy team. The future was bright.

We then kept signing old fecks.
 
I mean, he probably said some things that were right, but he chose to do it in the most toxic manner, and burn the place to the ground to hammer home his point.
Yes Jose was self serving but was he wrong? He was past his best but the club is/was a joke. I actually think his reputation did his sentiments a disservice because it wasn’t actually said in the interest of the club but himself, although he wasn’t wrong in some cases.
 
But. . . But. . . If we’d have just signed Harry Kane this squad was only a goalscorer away :rolleyes:

Been saying it for ages. Until there are wholesale changes nothing will change. We’re meant to have people working on this squad 12 months of the year no just 1 month in the Winter & 3 in the Summer. There is absolutely no excuse to have the squad we do, none.
We go for quick fixes every time when we need a real big change.
 
Van Gaal already said many things that turned out to be right, like us being a commercial club. The result? Woody told him to feck off, and became even more commercial by signing Pogba and hiring Jose. Ironically the lack of direction and DoF at the club resulted in his career's biggest payday.
 
Was Jose right?

Let me get this straight he was sacked 5 years ago after the most toxic period in years.The guy who signed Pogba then called him a trouble maker jose is and always has been trouble.

Even if he was right, who the feck cares.

What's Pogba up to these days?
 
Looking today(and for the last 6 months) at Rashford and if reports are true ETH had a bust up with Martial for not putting in the necessary effort.

I remember when Mourinho was highlighting the same and most of the Caf(myself included) thought he was crazy and lost the plot. But after all these years, was he wrong though?

His famous "City have herritage rant" was viewed as blasphemous at the time. How many of you would disagree with his words right now?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jU53sZSs_68
Sadly Caf won't let me embed a youtube short

Now the thing I want to stop at is his foresight into the rise of players power at the expense of professionalism. He clearly saw that the standards at United were slipping and he started ringing the alarm bells. While we might debate if he was right/wrong about Shaw, it's clear as day that he was right about Pogba, Martial and Rashford.

The man clearly knew that unless your name is Ronaldo or Messi, any top player has to have to workrate. So he clearly never rated the above trio for that reason. Most of the fans were on his back because they thought that Pogba, Martial or Rashford are too talented to be let go/ waste on the bench.

Now let's think about something different: what message did the players get when the manager who was trying to maintain the standards got the boot? Imagine if you had a group of slackers in a company that got the boss fired? Do you think they are going to pull their weight when the next boss comes in? Or do you think they are going to do the same thing knowing as to what happened to the last boss?

Now picture this:

What do you think happens to all the new comers in this environement? Are they upheld to hire standars, or pretty quick they learn to read the room and "assimilate" into the environement?

Add to the fact that a good portion of our team was composed of past it players who've already won everything and have nothing prove. They are here to collect a paycheck and move on when the time comes.

To be clear, I'm not advocating that Mourinho should be rehired or that he somehow is an amazing manager. I'm just highlighting that the man had the foresight and he tried to warn us of the disaster that was about to unfold.

Great post. I listened to a podcast with Frank Lampard as guest on it recently and he was highlighting that if you have one or two players that are not putting in the required effort and it’s not dealt with quickly by the club then that attitude rapidly spreads to the whole squad.
Conversely, it takes longer when a player comes in with an elite attitude and work rate for that ethic to become the norm with the existing underperforming squad.
Ergo it’ll take a few seasons of signing the right profiles of committed, quality players to see the impact on the squad but we have to weed out the bad apples as quickly as possible.
 
Problem is Mourinho 100% damaged Martial and Rashford's development as actual strikers by not using them there and signing replacements in that position. So even if he is right, he was partly responsible with his inability to help mdevelop young players

Also McTom. So yeah big wrong
 
Problem is Mourinho 100% damaged Martial and Rashford's development as actual strikers by not using them there and signing replacements in that position. So even if he is right, he was partly responsible with his inability to help mdevelop young players

Also McTom. So yeah big wrong

I don't think either have the presence to play there though (not to mention goal scoring ability). I'm not surprised he didn't fancy them in such an important role when you look at the CFs he's been used to prior. Zlatan was more his type of CF.
 
Sort of, but he contributed to the mess with his signings as well, similar to Ten Hag.
 
I just checked and Martial has played about 60 more games for united than Cantona did. :lol:
His testimonial will be the next time Joel Glazer attends a match. To congratulate his Pele.
 
Most depressing thing I’ve heard all year.

Cantona signed in 92 and left in 97 after 143 games and 64 goals.

Martial signed in 2015, is still f**king here after 208 games and 63 goals.

I checked wikipedia because I read a piece a while ago complaining that Martial has made his 200th appearance for United despite never convincing. It stuck in my head. We pay europa league players champions league wages and get surprised when they get lazy.
 
8 out of the 11 players starting yesterday have been at the club for five years or more and have never been league champions, or really even contenders. 5 of them played for Jose. The other 3 were signings from Ole’s first season.

I mean we really shouldn’t be shocked, right? Some terrible additions have been added to these players but there is a survivor culture. There’s no two ways about it. As I said in other thread it’s pretty ironic that two of the better long term survivors that we did get rid of in the summer -Fred and DDG- were probably the best ones.

Spot on. No point in replacing ETH when mediocre players like Rashford/Martial/ Maguire/AWB keep playing important roles.
 
8 out of the 11 players starting yesterday have been at the club for five years or more and have never been league champions, or really even contenders. 5 of them played for Jose. The other 3 were signings from Ole’s first season.

I mean we really shouldn’t be shocked, right? Some terrible additions have been added to these players but there is a survivor culture. There’s no two ways about it. As I said in other thread it’s pretty ironic that two of the better long term survivors that we did get rid of in the summer -Fred and DDG- were probably the best ones.
Imo ETh should not have been that arrogant to not seek Ragnick's advice.

Every manager who gives a clean slate to these players sets himself up for a mediocre tenure.
 
Looking today(and for the last 6 months) at Rashford and if reports are true ETH had a bust up with Martial for not putting in the necessary effort.

I remember when Mourinho was highlighting the same and most of the Caf(myself included) thought he was crazy and lost the plot. But after all these years, was he wrong though?

His famous "City have herritage rant" was viewed as blasphemous at the time. How many of you would disagree with his words right now?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jU53sZSs_68
Sadly Caf won't let me embed a youtube short

Now the thing I want to stop at is his foresight into the rise of players power at the expense of professionalism. He clearly saw that the standards at United were slipping and he started ringing the alarm bells. While we might debate if he was right/wrong about Shaw, it's clear as day that he was right about Pogba, Martial and Rashford.

The man clearly knew that unless your name is Ronaldo or Messi, any top player has to have to workrate. So he clearly never rated the above trio for that reason. Most of the fans were on his back because they thought that Pogba, Martial or Rashford are too talented to be let go/ waste on the bench.

Now let's think about something different: what message did the players get when the manager who was trying to maintain the standards got the boot? Imagine if you had a group of slackers in a company that got the boss fired? Do you think they are going to pull their weight when the next boss comes in? Or do you think they are going to do the same thing knowing as to what happened to the last boss?

Now picture this:

What do you think happens to all the new comers in this environement? Are they upheld to hire standars, or pretty quick they learn to read the room and "assimilate" into the environement?

Add to the fact that a good portion of our team was composed of past it players who've already won everything and have nothing prove. They are here to collect a paycheck and move on when the time comes.

To be clear, I'm not advocating that Mourinho should be rehired or that he somehow is an amazing manager. I'm just highlighting that the man had the foresight and he tried to warn us of the disaster that was about to unfold.

Excellent post.

This was why I thought the club really missed a trick with Ragnick. He could of been the one to do a purge of the squad but it looks like it’s left to ETH.

Feels like the issues are so deep rooted
 
In the second half of his career Mourinho has basically just had his teams sit back defensively and rely on individual brilliance to score. No real attacking play, no real pressing, just sit back and try to be solid. It seemed to be his response to Pep's Barcelona and the teams who attempted to copy it. It somewhat worked at Real because of just who those individual attackers were, but even then both the fans and the players were vocally unhappy about it.

There are some players who are naturally lazy, and there are some who are naturally workhorses. However the majority of players out there can go either way to some extent, and it depends on what the manager wants, the training and playing system, and also the confidence level of the player (which is largely a reaction to the confidence of the dressing room). The fact that our own workrate fell off a damn cliff under Mourinho, and the same happened at Chelsea and Spurs, tells me that it's on the manager. Either he's deliberately doing it or something he's doing is causing the issue.

I think a lot of people forget that Rashford was quite a hard worker when he first broke into the team. That declined under Mourinho, and then declined even further under Ole until we see the Rashford we now have. Would that decline have happened with better management and a better dressing room mentality around him, or at least the extent of that decline? It's something we'll never know as by this stage it's ingrained into him.

Parking the bus tactic doesn't have anything to do with the players being lazy. That's kinda weird assumption. You will need hard work rate in modern game regardless of the style you are playing. What you are talking about is playing with high intensity, which is true that Mourinho isn't known for it, but putting efforts is the bare minimum expected from any footballer.

Also Rashford was hard worker under Mourinho for the first 1.5 years and Mourinho even praised him for how much efforts he did back then in his first year here, so why would he turn him into a lazy player who doesn't care to track back? Tracking back is Mourinho's biggest obsession in football as the guy basically plays wingers as full backs in any big games, with fullbacks becoming center backs too.

Rashford's arrogance was just starting to grow back then. That was the time when he started to imitate Ronaldo in the way he plays and shoots the ball, and when Ole came and gave him full power it exploded.

I want to note Van Gaal's team wasn't that much of hard workers either and the distance covered will mostly be due to how much the players kept possession for long time in their own half passing aimlessly to each other.
 
Spot on. No point in replacing ETH when mediocre players like Rashford/Martial/ Maguire/AWB keep playing important roles.

Maguire? I don't like the guy but he has been single handedly saving Ten Hag's job for a long time now.
 
You are employed by Manchester United and you are expected to do your job. This whole "the manager has to motivate his players to do the absolute basics" nonsense has got to go.

At no other job anyone is going to fire a manager if the employees are literally not doing what their told and being open about it.
[/QUOTE]
:lol: :lol:
That's precisely what managers are suppose to do. What do you think was Fergie's strength? Wasn't some tactical genius.

That's the case for football or in real life.
 
:lol: :lol:
That's precisely what managers are suppose to do. What do you think was Fergie's strength? Wasn't some tactical genius.

That's the case for football or in real life.

I don’t think it’s asking a lot for players to be able to do the very basics regardless of manager. Pass a ball a few yards and working hard is something every player should be able to do even if you have the dumbest manager in charge.

There are so many basic things United players don’t do at times that has nothing to do with managers in my opinion. The top managers can get more from good players, but the kind of unprofessional sh*t from United players over the years is next level laziness.
 
Please name one player that accoring to you has shown his worth? And please don't say Bruno or Rashford, both have crumbled and choked under pressure, under different managers and have downed tools. I'm really curious who of our team would make it at any other top team? I can confidentaly say no one. Top 10 team sure, top 3 team 100% not


Shaw.
 
Was Jose right?

Let me get this straight he was sacked 5 years ago after the most toxic period in years.The guy who signed Pogba then called him a trouble maker jose is and always has been trouble.

Even if he was right, who the feck cares.
Not saying his signings were perfect, but do you prefer this ETH approach where his signings get different treatment just because he brought them in? I mean Onana and Antony have been border line criminal and he plays them on regular bases?
 
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jU53sZSs_68

Sadly Caf won't let me embed a youtube short

Sorry to go off-topic here, but it might be relevant for others as well. Shorts can also be accessed (and thus embedded) as standard YouTube videos. To extract a short and make it a regular one, do this:

1. In any browser (desktop/tablet/mobile) — use a URL-prefix from any other standard YouTube, such as the following prefixes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= or https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
2. Replace the part after the "watch?v=" with the unique video-id from whichever short you want, in your specific video it is jU53sZSs_68

This method applies to all shorts. Spread the word and help us fight the pesky pests that are shorts, which can not be rewinded (desktop) nor sped up (all devices). Pain in the arse if you just missed a small detail and want to go back only slightly…but instead have to loop the entire fecking video. Annoying, regardless of platform.

Note: above method can not be done from the dedicated YouTube-app (well, not on iPads or iPhones at least) but you can work around that too and launch it in the app. Do step 1 and 2 on your handheld device which has the YouTube app installed on it. When the YouTube page opens just click the "open app" button. However, shorts can at least be rewinded on handheld devices. So the overall tip is mainly for desktop!

Here is your short embedded by the way:
 
I don’t think it’s asking a lot for players to be able to do the very basics regardless of manager. Pass a ball a few yards and working hard is something every player should be able to do even if you have the dumbest manager in charge.

There are so many basic things United players don’t do at times that has nothing to do with managers in my opinion. The top managers can get more from good players, but the kind of unprofessional sh*t from United players over the years is next level laziness.

Clearly ETH has lost the changing room.

You don't realise the level of athleticism & kills required to play at this level. I have played sports against a few high level professionals before.
They are blessed with abilities we can't fathom. It's beyond the imagination for us mere mortals

They aren't applying themselves for a reason.
 
Clearly ETH has lost the changing room.

You don't realise the level of athleticism & kills required to play at this level. I have played sports against a few high level professionals before.
They are blessed with abilities we can't fathom. It's beyond the imagination for us mere mortals

They aren't applying themselves for a reason.
I know people say you have to do whatever it takes to make it as a pro but...
 
I know people say you have to do whatever it takes to make it as a pro but...

Its more than that.

Example: their hand/foot/eye coordination are at a godly level. The fast twitch muscles to boot. Or the spatial intelligence.

Whatever sport you think you are good at, and they may not have played it before -- but within a couple of weeks would most likely be on par with you and within a month be better than you. Trust me on this.

I have played a lot of organised sport in my life -- 8-10 different sports from primary school. But these pro or even ex pro guys are at a level that you just dont see.

Then the level of sacrifice they have had to make it to get to this level only leads to entitlement at some point.