The John Murtough Era

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Hansi Fick said:
Why would they need to admit anything when everything you guys are moaning about is invented, speculative, or fictionalized?

The amount of needless, unjustified, and unwarranted moaning is just amazing.
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I think we United fans know a thing or two more about our team then we do.
 
devilish said:
I think we United fans know a thing or two more about our team then we do.
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No. Too many of you are hopelessly glued to narratives induced by media and/or self-amplification that make it possible for you to run over any kind of actual occurrences or contradictory information with your narrative trains without breaking a sweat. It's kind of horrifying to watch actually.
 
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Hansi Fick said:
No. Too many of you are hopelessly glued to narratives induced by media and/or self-amplication that make it possible for you to run over any kind of actual occurrences or information with your narrative trains.
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OK then you know more about Manchester united then a United supporters. Tbf its not surprising considering that you spend time on a Manchester United forum instead of a Bayern one
 
No one here has mentioned the manager he is complicit in this for me, we agreed a fee for a player a month ago now if that player doesn't want in or we struggling to get it over the line we could have moved on but I am sure as anything the manager is driving this waiting game and its nothing to do with Murtough or the board they did their bit, if they can't convince the manager to change his mind what should they do buy a player to spite him.

Transfers are never as easy as you lot make them out to be, someone will buy our rubbish players on 6 figure wages sure and just as easy we can just get any player we want also just because we are Man United.
 
I think a big part of the lack of transfers is that they don't want to be taken for a ride.
In that secretly recorded fan meeting Arnold mentioned how United has wasted a huge amount of money. I can see that being part of his and Murtough's pitch to the Glazers, how they want to be more careful with money which would sound great to any owner. So instead of overpaying but getting players in, we look stuck and the season is just about to start..
 
I’m not one to moan usually, but there shouldn’t be any more excuses at this point. The club is still not being managed correctly. Manchester United, one of the biggest clubs in world football, is going into the new season without a fit striker available, after one of their worst ever premier league seasons, with a weaker squad (on paper) than they ended that season with.

There is just no justification for that in my opinion. You can reference the new manager, structural changes etc, but these are known factors that the hierarchy have been aware of for some time now. You have to wonder what they’ve been up to all summer.
 
If we start with no new midfielder and still miss out on De Jong, this guy needs to go.
 
I never really understood the optimism surrounding Murtough TBH. First of all his CV prior Manchester United was laughable. That's not really a do or die situation at a normal club were football is at the centre of everything and were they is a proven structure in place. United on the other hand is a business juggernaut were money come first and were the structure left by SAF was still stuck in the 70s. Secondly Murtough was not some new recruit at the club whose got no blame of what happened to United whatsoever. He's been here since Moyes came and had been promoted time and time again. Its evident that Woodward listened to him and valued his feedback.

Some might say that transfers is a small part of club management. I beg to differ on that. First of all he's DOF (not CEO or some financial person). Transfers play a huge role in his work and often these sort of investment would cost 20m-80m a pop. A mid sized business like United would see such investment as a vital part of their operation and will want to make sure we get it right. That's something United had failed to do. Secondly transfers aren't just the ins but the outs. Murtough might have struggled very badly in the former but he had completely tanked on the latter.

Regarding the rest, well, its not as if he passed the exam in flying colours. Last year United took ages to sack Ole even allowing him to go for a holiday in the middle of a crisis. They went on to hire Rangnick during mid season. The German had never managed a top club, he was more of a sporting director than a manager, his style demanded that our weaknesses to be our strengths and he wasn't allowed to bring all the coaching staff he wanted let alone sign new players. Then we sacked the man even though we promised him a consultant role and we also sacked our two chief scouts just days before the transfer window opened. That meant that there were barely any one at the club to provide ETH with viable alternatives to his targets. Finally we waited till the transfer window opened to bring in his deputy (whose got a similar career to Jon Murtough which means he barely added anything new to the mix) and to bring Tom Keane to help with transfers.

Its not all doom and gloom though. I was quite encouraged with Arnold's ruthlessness and his 'pub talk' felt genuine. Hopefully he sees the writing on the wall and he'd act with Murtough in the same way he did with Judge and co who weren't making the grade.
 
The White Pele said:
I think in a lot of high-performing organisations Jon Murtough would be sacked for this kind of failure.

He’s been in role long enough to have identified some transfer targets to strengthen the squad this summer and should have had some of these deals lined up in advance. Instead it appears he has completely deferred responsibility for selecting targets to Ten Hag.

Whilst I can understand going after the likes of De Jong if he is ETH’s top target, there are glaring holes across the squad that have not been addressed: right-back, central midfield, right wing, striker, back-up goalkeeper

It is frankly a shambles. These positions should have been bolstered by now. There is good value to be had in the market if you move early and intelligently. Now we find ourselves in a position where we will be quoted ridiculous fees for targets due to it being so late in the window.

Right-back: we were never going to spend £40m-£50m this summer on a world class right-back. But we could have found someone more suited to Ten Hag’s style, whilst selling AWB and probably breaking even

Central midfield: we could have picked up someone like Boubacar Kamara on a free to at least give us a player of that profile in the squad without eating into the transfer budget.

Right wing: I think we could have secured Antony for a lot less than we are being quoted if we had moved decisively in June before Ajax sold the likes of Haller. Someone like Ziyech could have served as a stop-gap to give us more depth if Antony proved too expensive

Striker: We were always going to need at least one striker this summer if not two. Martial has had two disappointing seasons on the bounce and his United career looked to be over and Ronaldo is going to be 38 this season. Again, we may not have been able to spend big on a long-term first choice this summer but we should have by now picked up either a future prospect or an experienced option for a reasonable fee. ETH worked with Haller at Ajax who was hardly a world beater in the PL so surely there was a satisfactory option out there. I’m sure we would have known a bit about Sesko before now due to Rangnick’s links. Scamacca moved for £38m. Barcelona have some cast-offs now that they have Lewandowski. Anyone with the right attitude is better than having nobody.

Back-up goalkeeper: we should have picked someone up on a free transfer. I don’t know if Onana on a free was ever a possibility but would have been ideal to challenge DDG. Sam Johnstone and other options with PL experience were out there.

In addition to the above, Henderson, AWB, Bailly, Jones, Williams, Tuanzebe and Chong could all have been sold by now to raise more funds.

I would have expected a lot of the above activity to be done by now, given that we finished 6th last season, given that we had so many outgoings and so many holes to fill and given that we had effectively written off last season by Christmas.

The fact that we are 2 days away from our first match and most of these issues are not resolved goes to show that we are still a million miles away from being slick football operators. The buck has to stop with Murtough. In the new structure he has to assume responsibility for this. He may have been heavily involved with recruiting Ten Hag but he has dealt him a crap hand and possibly set him up to fail.

I think it would show a real change in culture at United if Richard Arnold were to sack Murtough for the failings of this summer and install someone with better credentials.
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Great post.
 
Don't worry lads, Murda Murtough with his 16 hour a day work ethic is going to strap United to his back and carry us up the league table, all the way to the moon.
 
Champ said:
Who is Chelseas footballing director and did they have any footballing qualifications when they took the role?

Who is Arsenal's technical director? What qualifications did he have before taking the reigns at Corinthians at 34 years old? He also took the role at Arsenal with little experience post football.
What about Liverpool? How much experience has their Sporting Director got in that role?

That you can't see how much has changed at United already is probably testament to you peering through a red mist of anger.
-Changes of the scouting system and who deals with reports
-A new Data Science Director hired for the first Time
-improvements to Carrington
-Changes to the way the academy is run
-upheaval of the woman's team including a separate football director being touted for them

Thats to name a few, so slightly more than just a 'few people leaving '.

My reference to Sir Alex was merely to highlight that he wanted United to be like Bayern, in that continuity in personnel is key to keeping a culture alive at a club, something we lost as soon as Moyes gutted the backroom staff.
No exactly desperate, more just Referencing a valid point as he is now playing more of a hands on role at the club again.
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Great examples, how many trophies have arsenal won in recent memory or how many times have they even qualified for the champions league. Is that really what you aspire to?

Chelsea had to change ownership ust before summer due to the war in ukraine so its hardly a reasonable comparison. They will likely appoint a dof next season

You reference changes to the scouting system as being an improvement but that doesn't tally with what we are seeing, when most targets are people our manager has previously worked with.

The changes are superficial and as yet there are zero signs of improvement
 
devilish said:
I never really understood the optimism surrounding Murtough TBH. First of all his CV prior Manchester United was laughable. That's not really a do or die situation at a normal club were football is at the centre of everything and were they is a proven structure in place. United on the other hand is a business juggernaut were money come first and were the structure left by SAF was still stuck in the 70s. Secondly Murtough was not some new recruit at the club whose got no blame of what happened to United whatsoever. He's been here since Moyes came and had been promoted time and time again. Its evident that Woodward listened to him and valued his feedback.

Some might say that transfers is a small part of club management. I beg to differ on that. First of all he's DOF (not CEO or some financial person). Transfers play a huge role in his work and often these sort of investment would cost 20m-80m a pop. A mid sized business like United would see such investment as a vital part of their operation and will want to make sure we get it right. That's something United had failed to do. Secondly transfers aren't just the ins but the outs. Murtough might have struggled very badly in the former but he had completely tanked on the latter.

Regarding the rest, well, its not as if he passed the exam in flying colours. Last year United took ages to sack Ole even allowing him to go for a holiday in the middle of a crisis. They went on to hire Rangnick during mid season. The German had never managed a top club, he was more of a sporting director than a manager, his style demanded that our weaknesses to be our strengths and he wasn't allowed to bring all the coaching staff he wanted let alone sign new players. Then we sacked the man even though we promised him a consultant role and we also sacked our two chief scouts just days before the transfer window opened. That meant that there were barely any one at the club to provide ETH with viable alternatives to his targets. Finally we waited till the transfer window opened to bring in his deputy (whose got a similar career to Jon Murtough which means he barely added anything new to the mix) and to bring Tom Keane to help with transfers.

Its not all doom and gloom though. I was quite encouraged with Arnold's ruthlessness and his 'pub talk' felt genuine. Hopefully he sees the writing on the wall and he'd act with Murtough in the same way he did with Judge and co who weren't making the grade.
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Well said. In a world where money spent on transfers and wages largely are the determining factor of how well a club will do, it feels criminal that we always seem to hire lackluster personal who makes decisions on where to spend our money. There is a reason why we are almost always the team that underperforms the most in regard to money spent and final table position. It seems at every professional club having some of the best staff around is really important just not for us, we just hire someone, that someone at the club knows, because we are a nice little friend's and family style club?
 
Hansi Fick said:
No. Too many of you are hopelessly glued to narratives induced by media and/or self-amplification that make it possible for you to run over any kind of actual occurrences or contradictory information with your narrative trains without breaking a sweat. It's kind of horrifying to watch actually.
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you don't need narratives, if you just look at the squad.
 
devilish said:
I never really understood the optimism surrounding Murtough TBH. First of all his CV prior Manchester United was laughable. That's not really a do or die situation at a normal club were football is at the centre of everything and were they is a proven structure in place. United on the other hand is a business juggernaut were money come first and were the structure left by SAF was still stuck in the 70s. Secondly Murtough was not some new recruit at the club whose got no blame of what happened to United whatsoever. He's been here since Moyes came and had been promoted time and time again. Its evident that Woodward listened to him and valued his feedback.

Some might say that transfers is a small part of club management. I beg to differ on that. First of all he's DOF (not CEO or some financial person). Transfers play a huge role in his work and often these sort of investment would cost 20m-80m a pop. A mid sized business like United would see such investment as a vital part of their operation and will want to make sure we get it right. That's something United had failed to do. Secondly transfers aren't just the ins but the outs. Murtough might have struggled very badly in the former but he had completely tanked on the latter.

Regarding the rest, well, its not as if he passed the exam in flying colours. Last year United took ages to sack Ole even allowing him to go for a holiday in the middle of a crisis. They went on to hire Rangnick during mid season. The German had never managed a top club, he was more of a sporting director than a manager, his style demanded that our weaknesses to be our strengths and he wasn't allowed to bring all the coaching staff he wanted let alone sign new players. Then we sacked the man even though we promised him a consultant role and we also sacked our two chief scouts just days before the transfer window opened. That meant that there were barely any one at the club to provide ETH with viable alternatives to his targets. Finally we waited till the transfer window opened to bring in his deputy (whose got a similar career to Jon Murtough which means he barely added anything new to the mix) and to bring Tom Keane to help with transfers.

Its not all doom and gloom though. I was quite encouraged with Arnold's ruthlessness and his 'pub talk' felt genuine. Hopefully he sees the writing on the wall and he'd act with Murtough in the same way he did with Judge and co who weren't making the grade.
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Good post
 
Seems to be more of the same really as things stand.

free transfer we should have signed years ago: check
young prospect who might* come good in a few seasons: check
Centre back: check
pandering to over the hill players and players who’ve repeatedly let us down or can’t stay fit to save us: check
summer long transfer saga: check
We just need yet another back up GK for the clean sweep.


Player sales has been as disappointing as ever. Major glaring holes in the squad remain.

I have faith it’ll get better but I was expecting more. if we get knocked back by sesko and FDJ it’ll be yet another bad window if we are being honest.
 
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Hansi Fick said:
Why would they need to admit anything when everything you guys are moaning about is invented, speculative, or fictionalized?

The amount of needless, unjustified, and unwarranted moaning is just amazing.
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Needless, unjustified and unwarranted moaning? Is this some kind of troll account or what? There is a large group of posters on here, who another poster described as sheep, regarding the way they swallow most of what the club serves them through their media mouth pieces. They paddled this bullshit about "unjustified moaning" and "invented issues". I just don't understand a Bayern fan who would probably see things with a cooler head can describe the active situation and our fans sentiment as fictionalized?
 
devilish said:
I never really understood the optimism surrounding Murtough TBH. First of all his CV prior Manchester United was laughable. That's not really a do or die situation at a normal club were football is at the centre of everything and were they is a proven structure in place. United on the other hand is a business juggernaut were money come first and were the structure left by SAF was still stuck in the 70s. Secondly Murtough was not some new recruit at the club whose got no blame of what happened to United whatsoever. He's been here since Moyes came and had been promoted time and time again. Its evident that Woodward listened to him and valued his feedback.

Some might say that transfers is a small part of club management. I beg to differ on that. First of all he's DOF (not CEO or some financial person). Transfers play a huge role in his work and often these sort of investment would cost 20m-80m a pop. A mid sized business like United would see such investment as a vital part of their operation and will want to make sure we get it right. That's something United had failed to do. Secondly transfers aren't just the ins but the outs. Murtough might have struggled very badly in the former but he had completely tanked on the latter.

Regarding the rest, well, its not as if he passed the exam in flying colours. Last year United took ages to sack Ole even allowing him to go for a holiday in the middle of a crisis. They went on to hire Rangnick during mid season. The German had never managed a top club, he was more of a sporting director than a manager, his style demanded that our weaknesses to be our strengths and he wasn't allowed to bring all the coaching staff he wanted let alone sign new players. Then we sacked the man even though we promised him a consultant role and we also sacked our two chief scouts just days before the transfer window opened. That meant that there were barely any one at the club to provide ETH with viable alternatives to his targets. Finally we waited till the transfer window opened to bring in his deputy (whose got a similar career to Jon Murtough which means he barely added anything new to the mix) and to bring Tom Keane to help with transfers.

Its not all doom and gloom though. I was quite encouraged with Arnold's ruthlessness and his 'pub talk' felt genuine. Hopefully he sees the writing on the wall and he'd act with Murtough in the same way he did with Judge and co who weren't making the grade.
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Spot on.
 
devilish said:
I never really understood the optimism surrounding Murtough TBH. First of all his CV prior Manchester United was laughable. That's not really a do or die situation at a normal club were football is at the centre of everything and were they is a proven structure in place. United on the other hand is a business juggernaut were money come first and were the structure left by SAF was still stuck in the 70s. Secondly Murtough was not some new recruit at the club whose got no blame of what happened to United whatsoever. He's been here since Moyes came and had been promoted time and time again. Its evident that Woodward listened to him and valued his feedback.

Some might say that transfers is a small part of club management. I beg to differ on that. First of all he's DOF (not CEO or some financial person). Transfers play a huge role in his work and often these sort of investment would cost 20m-80m a pop. A mid sized business like United would see such investment as a vital part of their operation and will want to make sure we get it right. That's something United had failed to do. Secondly transfers aren't just the ins but the outs. Murtough might have struggled very badly in the former but he had completely tanked on the latter.

Regarding the rest, well, its not as if he passed the exam in flying colours. Last year United took ages to sack Ole even allowing him to go for a holiday in the middle of a crisis. They went on to hire Rangnick during mid season. The German had never managed a top club, he was more of a sporting director than a manager, his style demanded that our weaknesses to be our strengths and he wasn't allowed to bring all the coaching staff he wanted let alone sign new players. Then we sacked the man even though we promised him a consultant role and we also sacked our two chief scouts just days before the transfer window opened. That meant that there were barely any one at the club to provide ETH with viable alternatives to his targets. Finally we waited till the transfer window opened to bring in his deputy (whose got a similar career to Jon Murtough which means he barely added anything new to the mix) and to bring Tom Keane to help with transfers.

Its not all doom and gloom though. I was quite encouraged with Arnold's ruthlessness and his 'pub talk' felt genuine. Hopefully he sees the writing on the wall and he'd act with Murtough in the same way he did with Judge and co who weren't making the grade.
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Yeah I was surprised with the amount of blind faith people have in this guy. Like I understand wanting to believe finally we get things right, but seeing folks jumping at the throats of others who suggested that maybe Murtough is not that competent, was surprising and funny.
 
We could have proven to the world that we're doing business differently buy moving on from FdJ and buy another great midfielder. Same for the striker, Ronaldo misbehaves, boom, we sign a new striker....
 
How is his position different from Richard Arnold .. did we have Two people before ..I only heard of david gilll or woodward before
 
Matt851 said:
Great examples, how many trophies have arsenal won in recent memory or how many times have they even qualified for the champions league. Is that really what you aspire to?

Chelsea had to change ownership ust before summer due to the war in ukraine so its hardly a reasonable comparison. They will likely appoint a dof next season

You reference changes to the scouting system as being an improvement but that doesn't tally with what we are seeing, when most targets are people our manager has previously worked with.

The changes are superficial and as yet there are zero signs of improvement
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Arsenal have won the FA cup recently and are closer to the top four than us after years of mismanagement.
Chelsea have been super successful under their footballing) technical director who has already stated she will be leaving after the transfer window, so unfortunately for you it is a great comparison.

So not really seeing your point here?

These changes won't reap benefits straight away but are part of a longer plan. But 'fans' these days are so impatient that they can't seem to play the long game, I guess you are one of them?
 
So we've spent about 75m, and it's to be seen if we've actually improved any one starting position.
Whilst utterly not addressing the centre of the pitch, having seen 4 leave and only bringing Eriksen in.

Who plays in centre mid if McFred get injured?! Kids is who.
 
Starting off on an even worse note than Woodward.

Hopefully we learn the lessons and make this a very very short era.
 
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Walking on thin ice, but there's strong chance he'll win at the end and bring up to three interesting players before window shut.

I knew it's gonna drag right to the deadline anyway...
 
The White Pele said:
I think in a lot of high-performing organisations Jon Murtough would be sacked for this kind of failure.

He’s been in role long enough to have identified some transfer targets to strengthen the squad this summer and should have had some of these deals lined up in advance. Instead it appears he has completely deferred responsibility for selecting targets to Ten Hag.

Whilst I can understand going after the likes of De Jong if he is ETH’s top target, there are glaring holes across the squad that have not been addressed: right-back, central midfield, right wing, striker, back-up goalkeeper

It is frankly a shambles. These positions should have been bolstered by now. There is good value to be had in the market if you move early and intelligently. Now we find ourselves in a position where we will be quoted ridiculous fees for targets due to it being so late in the window.

Right-back: we were never going to spend £40m-£50m this summer on a world class right-back. But we could have found someone more suited to Ten Hag’s style, whilst selling AWB and probably breaking even

Central midfield: we could have picked up someone like Boubacar Kamara on a free to at least give us a player of that profile in the squad without eating into the transfer budget.

Right wing: I think we could have secured Antony for a lot less than we are being quoted if we had moved decisively in June before Ajax sold the likes of Haller. Someone like Ziyech could have served as a stop-gap to give us more depth if Antony proved too expensive

Striker: We were always going to need at least one striker this summer if not two. Martial has had two disappointing seasons on the bounce and his United career looked to be over and Ronaldo is going to be 38 this season. Again, we may not have been able to spend big on a long-term first choice this summer but we should have by now picked up either a future prospect or an experienced option for a reasonable fee. ETH worked with Haller at Ajax who was hardly a world beater in the PL so surely there was a satisfactory option out there. I’m sure we would have known a bit about Sesko before now due to Rangnick’s links. Scamacca moved for £38m. Barcelona have some cast-offs now that they have Lewandowski. Anyone with the right attitude is better than having nobody.

Back-up goalkeeper: we should have picked someone up on a free transfer. I don’t know if Onana on a free was ever a possibility but would have been ideal to challenge DDG. Sam Johnstone and other options with PL experience were out there.

In addition to the above, Henderson, AWB, Bailly, Jones, Williams, Tuanzebe and Chong could all have been sold by now to raise more funds.

I would have expected a lot of the above activity to be done by now, given that we finished 6th last season, given that we had so many outgoings and so many holes to fill and given that we had effectively written off last season by Christmas.

The fact that we are 2 days away from our first match and most of these issues are not resolved goes to show that we are still a million miles away from being slick football operators. The buck has to stop with Murtough. In the new structure he has to assume responsibility for this. He may have been heavily involved with recruiting Ten Hag but he has dealt him a crap hand and possibly set him up to fail.

I think it would show a real change in culture at United if Richard Arnold were to sack Murtough for the failings of this summer and install someone with better credentials.
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In order to sell players you have to have interest in them first.

Unfortunately for United the only interest that has come in for the likes of AWB has been for loan deals, which the club doesn't want to do.

Sam Johnstone wanted a first team opportunity, which he'll get at Palace, he wouldn't have at United.

You say 'anyone with the right attitude will do' for a striker, we have that in Garnarcho, who by all accounts has been involved in extra training.
The Ronaldo situation has led to a escalation in trying to sign a striker hence the Sesko links and talks.

Kamara is an interesting choice, he's ended up at Villa which is probably his level. He may turn out to be excellent, but the jury's still out and the last thing United need is another mediocre midfielder. It's worth taking the time to get what's needed rather than panic.

Ziyech is never likely to be sold to United, so that's off the table.

The simple fact is no club seems to want to buy the players that are available, which is a problem but not one that's related to who's running the club. Yes it could be the contracts these players are on, but it's more likely the fact that none of the players who were out on loan or available for sale performed particularly well (bar Chong) last season. It took Lingard a fair few months to sign for a club!

The doom and gloom being spouted in here is slightly premature in my opinion. Let's wait to see how the season starts and what players are in before the window shuts, before the doom descends.
 
Its peak right now it really is, in the next 3 and half weeks at minimum there is a NEED for a CM, a right winger, a striker and a RB. Even among the players that have arrived only one is guaranteed to improve us and they were free... won't even have a number 9 on the pitch tomorrow, even McFred is still a possibility.

This window has truly been piss poor after the quality and quantity of players that have left, theres no way ETH isn't regretting this move, he may even be good enough to get through it but if it goes tits up it started right here he just hasn't got the tools.
 
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Gavinb33 said:
You all need to watch the managers press conference, he only wants the right players in and if that's not possible we'll go with what we got the end.
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And whos fault is it that there is no structure at the club that can point ETH towards players? Do you think he had 100% control at Ajax? Did he balls his list of players seems extremely limited no modern club is run like this.
 
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Here we are. First game of the season and he hasn't given our new manager any improvement in attack which is disappointing given how bad we were in in this regard last year. All of our rivals have improved upfront and we have injured Marrial and whining Ronaldo.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Here we are. First game of the season and he hasn't given our new manager any improvement in attack which is disappointing given how bad we were in in this regard last year. All of our rivals have improved upfront and we have injured Marrial and whining Ronaldo.
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Squad overall has barely improved never mind just up front.

It's been a disaster of a window again and its actually so feckin bad folks aren't even annoyed by it at all anymore... its literally what is expected.
 
Gavinb33 said:
You all need to watch the managers press conference, he only wants the right players in and if that's not possible we'll go with what we got the end.
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ETH knows not to denigrate his current players before he's even had one competitive match.

But our squad is fecking wank. And they all know it. We dont just need the right players, we need about 8 players who are better than what we have.
 
Keefy18 said:
Squad overall has barely improved never mind just up front.

It's been a disaster of a window again and its actually so feckin bad folks aren't even annoyed by it at all anymore... its literally what is expected.
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I actually like all our signings. Malacia was one who I was excited about since the first time we were linked. So when our interest resurfaced I was delighted. Erikson could be class. On Martinez, he looks good but need to see him in action.

So I don't find an issue with who we have got. But a CM and a CF are desperately needed. And the fact that we go into the season with no option but wantaway Ronaldo, is disappointing. We can't expect ETH to get us playing his style of football while not fielding suitable players.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
I actually like all our signings. Malacia was one who I was excited about since the first time we were linked. So when our interest resurfaced I was delighted. Erikson could be class. On Martinez, he looks good but need to see him in action.

So I don't find an issue with who we have got. But a CM and a CF are desperately needed. And the fact that we go into the season with no option but wantaway Ronaldo, is disappointing. We can't expect ETH to get us playing his style of football while not fielding suitable players.
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Do they improve us? Feels more like squad options. Eriksen is the only one you could make a case for.

The other 2 are unknown quantities going into a debut season in toughest league in Europe in terms of pace and physicality.

Possibly one or two of the kids gets promoted like Iqbal or Savage and does well, but again... our squad is so far from the top two its light years away and even dropped off considerably for top 4 as far as I'm concerned.

Spurs and Chelsea have done some good business and Arsenal too, we've definitely fallen behind those 3 also.
 
Gavinb33 said:
You all need to watch the managers press conference, he only wants the right players in and if that's not possible we'll go with what we got the end.
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Ten Hag can be Guardiola from Amsterdam, it doesn't change the piss poor squad he's got to work with. Or did you and others forget last season?

It seems our fanbase is trying to give Arsenal a run for delusion and blind optimism
 
The White Pele said:
I think in a lot of high-performing organisations Jon Murtough would be sacked for this kind of failure.

He’s been in role long enough to have identified some transfer targets to strengthen the squad this summer and should have had some of these deals lined up in advance. Instead it appears he has completely deferred responsibility for selecting targets to Ten Hag.

Whilst I can understand going after the likes of De Jong if he is ETH’s top target, there are glaring holes across the squad that have not been addressed: right-back, central midfield, right wing, striker, back-up goalkeeper

It is frankly a shambles. These positions should have been bolstered by now. There is good value to be had in the market if you move early and intelligently. Now we find ourselves in a position where we will be quoted ridiculous fees for targets due to it being so late in the window.

Right-back: we were never going to spend £40m-£50m this summer on a world class right-back. But we could have found someone more suited to Ten Hag’s style, whilst selling AWB and probably breaking even

Central midfield: we could have picked up someone like Boubacar Kamara on a free to at least give us a player of that profile in the squad without eating into the transfer budget.

Right wing: I think we could have secured Antony for a lot less than we are being quoted if we had moved decisively in June before Ajax sold the likes of Haller. Someone like Ziyech could have served as a stop-gap to give us more depth if Antony proved too expensive

Striker: We were always going to need at least one striker this summer if not two. Martial has had two disappointing seasons on the bounce and his United career looked to be over and Ronaldo is going to be 38 this season. Again, we may not have been able to spend big on a long-term first choice this summer but we should have by now picked up either a future prospect or an experienced option for a reasonable fee. ETH worked with Haller at Ajax who was hardly a world beater in the PL so surely there was a satisfactory option out there. I’m sure we would have known a bit about Sesko before now due to Rangnick’s links. Scamacca moved for £38m. Barcelona have some cast-offs now that they have Lewandowski. Anyone with the right attitude is better than having nobody.

Back-up goalkeeper: we should have picked someone up on a free transfer. I don’t know if Onana on a free was ever a possibility but would have been ideal to challenge DDG. Sam Johnstone and other options with PL experience were out there.

In addition to the above, Henderson, AWB, Bailly, Jones, Williams, Tuanzebe and Chong could all have been sold by now to raise more funds.

I would have expected a lot of the above activity to be done by now, given that we finished 6th last season, given that we had so many outgoings and so many holes to fill and given that we had effectively written off last season by Christmas.

The fact that we are 2 days away from our first match and most of these issues are not resolved goes to show that we are still a million miles away from being slick football operators. The buck has to stop with Murtough. In the new structure he has to assume responsibility for this. He may have been heavily involved with recruiting Ten Hag but he has dealt him a crap hand and possibly set him up to fail.

I think it would show a real change in culture at United if Richard Arnold were to sack Murtough for the failings of this summer and install someone with better credentials.
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Couldn't agree more but in football it appears it gets further and further away from real life every day. Murtough will survive based on it being his first window yada yada. But you're so right. Unless ETH has said no to all of the options presented to him and failed to provide alternates himself then Murtough needs to carry the can (out of OT).
 
I think that going into the next season with what’s basically the same XI that disgraced us last season is borderline criminal. I’m actually shocked it’s happening
 
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