Tanking the season

Swedish_Plumber

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‘Tanking’ refers to a team deliberately losing to exploit the system and benefit themselves. Used predominantly in franchised American sports.

What are the thoughts on United doing this for the remainder of games?

Benefits include;

- No European football at all next season, allowing a manager more time on the training ground - see arsenal this year.

- More rest between important domestic fixtures.

Negatives;

- Players might not fancy signing for a team not in European competition.

- We don’t get to see United play against top teams.

- We slip even further towards this American model of accepting mediocrity and risk doing it again (maybe even earlier in the season) in the future.

I’m interested to see what fans of other clubs think about the prospect. I know American teams have more reason to do it in terms of drafts etc, but is it something that could/already has been done in football?
 
I don't think the players are deliberately losing
They just aren't good.
 
You're overthinking this.

I don't even think this group of players is capable of losing deliberately.

They would probably fail at that as well.
 
McGrathsipan said:
I don't think the players are deliberately losing
They just aren't good.
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They are alot better than what we are seeing. We have seen that before.

Do not think it deliberate but Ralf quite obviously has not been able to motivate quite a few.
 
This mix of players just can’t make it happen. Individually most of them are class, but that’s not enough in a team sports.

We need to be bloody efficient in the summer. Players will leave since the contracts are out, some we need to sell and some we have to keep. The ones we keep should be the types of players that want to change and adapt to a new style of play.

I even suspect some players will actually thrive with the rebuild and changes.

I hope EtH is a done deal. He and Rangnick can be really good imo.
 
Tanking doesn't make much sense in football. The loss of income due to lack of european games and reputational hit for everyone involved far outweigh the very questionable pros.
 
I honestly don't think it's a big conspiracy theory to suggest that the players are actively trying to avoid Thursday night football next season.
 
They’re so shite they’d probably win if they tried to tank
 
Swedish_Plumber said:
I was alluding to our owners being quite happy with mediocrity. And if we were to actively tank a season, we might be setting ourselves down the slope even more.
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I think that’s a specifically Glazer thing rather than an American thing (American sports leagues are generally more competitive than the Premier League, at least in terms of greater churn among the top teams). The Glazers have shown that they’re content to see standards slide on the pitch as long as they can keep milking the cash cow.
 
frostbite said:
If you think American sports accept mediocrity, or American companies in general, you misunderstood something...
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Well the NBA outright rewarded blatant tanking for years until Silver came down hard on it recently.
 
For those who have no idea how the NBA works: The last team picks the best prospect in the draft. This, coupled with wage limits, keeps competition balanced or else the richest team would dominate forever. So, after a team loses all hope for postseason play it makes sense to finish last, so they give more minutes to fringe players (like playing the youth in football). This is not mediocrity by any means, and it has nothing to do with football since there is no draft lottery in England. This whole discussion is meaningless.
 
Absolutely in favour of this. Save the season by tanking now and get the highest ranked draft pick we can next season.

A power hitting high schooler with an impressive OBPS would be my first pick. Get him in the academy ASAP.

And no fecking around with restricting playtime. Our cheap ass owners need to stop worrying about arbitration eligibility. Minimum should be 300 PA's.
 
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Since we went out of the CL the players have given up. Everyone has to be it at and about half the playing team dont give a shit. Season cannot end quickly enough.
 
We should certainly avoid the Europa League/Europa Conference at all costs. If we do qualify, we should automatically tank that.

It's NEVER a competition United should be competing in, it's just a hindrance.
 
Vidyoyo said:
Absolutely in favour of this. Save the season by tanking now and get the highest ranked draft pick we can next season.

A power hitting high schooler with an impressive OBPS would be my first pick. Get him in the academy ASAP.

And no fecking around with restricting playtime. Our cheap ass owners need to stop worrying about arbitration eligibility. Minimum should be 300 PA's.
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:lol:
 
Considering the massive losses the club made due to covid, I highly doubt there is a willingness or acceptance to miss out on the revenue that comes with European football, in particular UCL.

We've simply been shit due to a number of factors such as player attitude, lack of cohesion and team spirit, manager uncertainty, lack of confidence and emphatic drop in form of a number of players at the same time.

In hindsight, missing out on Europe might end up being a blessing in disguise allowing the new manager to build without microscopic criticism on every UCL performance. But it's certainly not something any club would aim to do by avoiding European competition.
 
You always do your best and try to win. Always. Even at training ground. There is no other way. Once you start cheating with that you are going to have problems. If you don’t do your best you should quit as player and do something else.
 
I'd rather we "miss out" on the Europa League/Europa conference, it'll be nothing but a distraction.

It would give ETH as much time as possible with the players on the training field, rather than having to prepare them for a game against a bunch of part time players/farmers in some far away land.

I'd fancy us to have a better season then expected it we had a week in between games
 
We'd accidently finish 7th and end up in the Conference League.
 
frostbite said:
If you think American sports accept mediocrity, or American companies in general, you misunderstood something...
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We’ve certainly not been run well by our Americans, which was my point. The glazers love taking publicly about Tampa bay and how successful they’re gonna be in the NFL.

Yet they use us as a cash cow and couldn’t give a feck about winning things. They want European money and that’s about it. So tanking would’ve even be “allowed” by them anyways.
 
This isn't American sports. You don't get any draft picks, just a massive loss in revenue and a little bit more rest. There is no reason for United to tank
 
Vidyoyo said:
Absolutely in favour of this. Save the season by tanking now and get the highest ranked draft pick we can next season.

A power hitting high schooler with an impressive OBPS would be my first pick. Get him in the academy ASAP.

And no fecking around with restricting playtime. Our cheap ass owners need to stop worrying about arbitration eligibility. Minimum should be 300 PA's.
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:lol:
 
I'm all for it if we're talking conference league, but Europa league shouldn't be thrown away. Not at our current state at least.
 
We’re not being crap by choice, we’re just average. The way the players look so unbothered, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is our lowest league finish post SAF.
 
Basically this group of players will do the exact opposite of what they are told, so they might start putting performance and winning games if asked to 'Tank' just because.
 
I think you, and most people on this forum just overthink it. The explanation for why United is failing is so so simple: bad structure, average players, unfortunate managerial appointments.
The day the average Man United fan understands that the likes of Rashford, MCT, Elanga, Maguire, and co are just average players, the better. What's sad is that we've been ripped for a few of them. If I'd be Leicester and Palace now I'd laugh my ass off.

But no, the team hasn't tanked shit. It's just where they are at the moment and people should stop dramatizing about it and just get on with their lives.
For how much I love United, I can easily understand that there isn't a rare stone somewhere with "Man United should win every year" written on it.

It's a bad patch, we've been there before, we've gotten through it, relax and stop creating meaningless threads.
 
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