The John Murtough Era

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Rightnr said:
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
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Why the fixation with last season?

What about the 2 season before when we comfortable finished 3rd and 2nd. If anything last season was an outlier which was compounded by an incompetent interim.

Why does nobody mention the Mou Chelsea that was flirting with the relegation zone, that won the title a year later. Not saying we will do the same, but the notion that we are somehow going to finish lower than last season should be ban worthy at this point.

We've signed a billion worth of players since SAF retired with nothing to show for. And CAF's solution? Sign even more players, that will do the trick this time...

The definition of insanity is doing the same yet expecting a different outcome.... or something like that
 
Caesar2290 said:
Why the fixation with last season?

What about the 2 season before when we comfortable finished 3rd and 2nd. If anything last season was an outlier which was compounded by an incompetent interim.

Why does nobody mention the Mou Chelsea that was flirting with the relegation zone, that won the title a year later. Not saying we will do the same, but the notion that we are somehow going to finish lower than last season should be ban worthy at this point.

We've signed a billion worth of players since SAF retired with nothing to show for. And CAF's solution? Sign even more players, that will do the trick this time...

The definition of insanity is doing the same yet expecting a different outcome.... or something like that
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A team that won a title>a team that finished in an unimpressive 3rd place and lucky 2nd place.
Ole was an issue but the true weaknesses and quality of the squad was exposed. We've also lost almost 10 players and counting including 2CMs our weakest position and done nothing about it.
That's without looking at the fact that we only have one good RB(AWB is horseshit), an archaic GK, zero depth on the wings outside Sancho/Rashford and questionable CF options with a 37yr old man child that's trying to leave and being toxic in the process
Ten Hag is a talented manager but he's already being set up to fail IN HIS FIRST YEAR
 
RkkMan said:
A team that won a title>a team that finished in an unimpressive 3rd place and lucky 2nd place.
Ole was an issue but the true weaknesses and quality of the squad was exposed. We've also lost almost 10 players and counting including 2CMs our weakest position and done nothing about it.
That's without looking at the fact that we only have one good RB(AWB is horseshit), an archaic GK, zero depth on the wings outside Sancho/Rashford and questionable CF options with a 37yr old man child that's trying to leave and being toxic in the process
Ten Hag is a talented manager but he's already being set up to fail IN HIS FIRST YEAR
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There is no luck in the league, especially when you finish consecutive seasons in the same place.

As for the players we lost: only Greenwood is an actual loss. Pogba was injury prone and inconsistent, so was Cavani. Mata and Matic barrelly played. Lingard should've been sold 2 years ago.

Aside from that our first XI is still here. I will agree that our GK and ST are our biggest issue, but even so Ronaldo is still a goal machine. Questions remain if ETH can integrate him in his system, but looking at every single interview and quote he said about Ronaldo, he seems keen to work with him. And we both know that while Ronaldo is a belend, his professionalism is never in doubt.

The reason for our catastrophic failure last season was a complete loss of form/morale from a lot of our key players: Rashford, Bruno, Harry, etc and the internal conflicts because of Ole's hoarding syndrome. As a result we had too many disgruntled players.

Now we've trimmed the squad a bit, and we're only trully short in 1 area: CFs. Every other are has a good depth, only CM has a quality issue, but we are actively working on De Jong and that Slovenian fella.

As such our first priority is to get the best out of our existing core group of players. There is a reason that in EtH's first press conference he was saying that we have a treasure trove of talent that needs to be tapped. And instead of taking this as good news, everyone lapped it up as EtH being a yes man for the Glazers.

The manager knows what he is doing. And knowing EtH, by Christmas we will be punching above our weight. I expect a lot of people to be surprised once the tactics kick in.
 
Caesar2290 said:
Why the fixation with last season?

What about the 2 season before when we comfortable finished 3rd and 2nd. If anything last season was an outlier which was compounded by an incompetent interim.

Why does nobody mention the Mou Chelsea that was flirting with the relegation zone, that won the title a year later. Not saying we will do the same, but the notion that we are somehow going to finish lower than last season should be ban worthy at this point.

We've signed a billion worth of players since SAF retired with nothing to show for. And CAF's solution? Sign even more players, that will do the trick this time...

The definition of insanity is doing the same yet expecting a different outcome.... or something like that
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This is where I stopped reading. We got 3rd in the last couple of matchdays after being miles behind LCFC before the Corona resumption.

And anyway, did we ever under Ferguson say what happened 3 seasons ago when assessing results? Because before the season we got 3rd, we imploded and finished 6th (again).

This whole propaganda about what happened years ago when half our first team has gone since is just ridiculous.
 
Rightnr said:
This is where I stopped reading. We got 3rd in the last couple of matchdays after being miles behind LCFC before the Corona resumption.

And anyway, did we ever under Ferguson say what happened 3 seasons ago when assessing results? Because before the season we got 3rd, we imploded and finished 6th (again).

This whole propaganda about what happened years ago when half our first team has gone since is just ridiculous.
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And are going to ignore the fact that we finished comfortably 2nd now? True, we didn't finish comfortably 3rd, but the next season we improved on that.

As for finishing 6th... should I remind you that we didn't implode. We just ran out of steam towards the end of it after a very poor start and Mourinho trying to get himself sacked.

As for the half our first team gone, who are you talking about?

DDG is here
Lindelof is here
Maguire is here
Shaw is here
We've added Varane and Martinez
AWB and Dalot are here
McFred is here
Pogba was replaced with Eriksen
Rashford is here
Sancho is here
Bruno is here
Ronaldo is still here
Martial is still here(though he shouldn't be)

The only major loss is Greenwood. The core of our players is here minus a couple of toxic cnuts
 
We've still done a very, very poor job at selling players.

Henderson, McTominay, Elanga, Jones, Bailly, Wan Bissaka shouldn't be at the club.
 
Caesar2290 said:
There is no luck in the league, especially when you finish consecutive seasons in the same place.

As for the players we lost: only Greenwood is an actual loss. Pogba was injury prone and inconsistent, so was Cavani. Mata and Matic barrelly played. Lingard should've been sold 2 years ago.

Aside from that our first XI is still here. I will agree that our GK and ST are our biggest issue, but even so Ronaldo is still a goal machine. Questions remain if ETH can integrate him in his system, but looking at every single interview and quote he said about Ronaldo, he seems keen to work with him. And we both know that while Ronaldo is a belend, his professionalism is never in doubt.

The reason for our catastrophic failure last season was a complete loss of form/morale from a lot of our key players: Rashford, Bruno, Harry, etc and the internal conflicts because of Ole's hoarding syndrome. As a result we had too many disgruntled players.

Now we've trimmed the squad a bit, and we're only trully short in 1 area: CFs. Every other are has a good depth, only CM has a quality issue, but we are actively working on De Jong and that Slovenian fella.

As such our first priority is to get the best out of our existing core group of players. There is a reason that in EtH's first press conference he was saying that we have a treasure trove of talent that needs to be tapped. And instead of taking this as good news, everyone lapped it up as EtH being a yes man for the Glazers.

The manager knows what he is doing. And knowing EtH, by Christmas we will be punching above our weight. I expect a lot of people to be surprised once the tactics kick in.
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You`re intentionally leaving some important details out. We finished 2nd at a time Liverpool had an injury ravaged season(and still finished a few points behind the best version of Utd BTW)and when Chelsea had Lampard for half a season. Our position in the table flattered us a lot because truth of the matter is Utd at their best when compared to Liverpool/Chelsea/Spurs at their best are NOT the 2nd best team in the PL. They`re barely the 4th/5th best either City and Liverpool are galaxies ahead of us, Chelsea are spending BIG on a team that finished 3rd and Arsenal/Spurs who finished miles ahead of us are a lot more prepared tactics and personnel wise. We could probably finish ahead of the latter two teams if we make 2/3 signings but it would show we were thoroughly unprepared.
You can list the players we lost as invaluable but that`s still a lot of depth lost especially with Pogba and Matic. You`d imagine the club would proactively use those wages lost to bring in fresh blood but bar Eriksen who probably wont start weekly we`ve done diddly squat and as it stands FDJ is unlikely and it also sounds like it`s him or bust. Good luck to Ten Hag or anyone if they think our current CM options get us top 4 when they wouldn`t start for mid table teams
Rashford, Bruno and Maguire(I still think he was an 80m mistake but there`s more of a player in him than the farmer Palace scammed us 50m for) may well improve but if all the other significant weaknesses remain does it improve us ENOUGH? We NEED CL football next season our years of underperformance are starting to catch up to us as we`re such an unnatrractive prospect to the top players. A 2nd year without it damages our brand and finances massively. Relying purely on organic growth within the squad after little/no investment off our worst ever season is far fetched optimism IMO
Forgive me if the post sounds despondent but 9yrs of mediocrity takes a toll. I really want Ten Hag to succeed here but I fear like other managers he wont get the tools needed and the job will be impossible for him
 
DutchCruijff said:
We've still done a very, very poor job at selling players.

Henderson, McTominay, Elanga, Jones, Bailly, Wan Bissaka shouldn't be at the club.
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It's very difficult to sell players on wages above their market value. How many times does this need explaining to people on this forum?
 
Caesar2290 said:
And are going to ignore the fact that we finished comfortably 2nd now? True, we didn't finish comfortably 3rd, but the next season we improved on that.
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We improved on that 3rd place and finished 2nd because Liverpool collapsed. Not because we became much better than we were the previous season.

When Liverpool have shown their true potential, like they have in previous seasons and once again last season, the United team of recent years has been miles away from the standards of the top two. Which hints at how much that squad was far away from actually being top class.
 
As a general point we need to stop talking about the last time we finished second, as if it's some kinda benchmark.

You didn't catch people saying to Klopp that he should do more with Joe Allen and Lucas cos Rodgers finished second with them in his team.

The fact is, whatever you think about 2020-21, other teams have improved more than we have since then. So using our performance then as an excuse for not improving the squad is, to me, misguided.

However you slice it, Murtough hasn't delivered for Ten Hag. Nor has he showed much to make us believe he's going to be a big change from Woodward.
 
He might be shit.

Hopefully Arnold doesn't take long to can him if that's the case.
 
Gavinb33 said:
People on here won't hear that just sell everyone to no buyers sounds plausible
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I think the bigger issue is that we are always inevitably selling someone because they have been performing like shit. We might have some form of return on our investment if the reason we were selling these players was we bought a better player, not that the player we are selling is currently useless and at an all time low market value. That requires us to improve the players that we already have though rather than have them stagnate or get worse after the first 6 months at the club.
 
I remember various journos saying his job was under pressure after Woodward resigned. Supposedly one of Woodwards last acts was to promote Murtough and so he lost a lot of support when Ed resigned.

Wouldn't be surprised to see a poor showing this summer gets him the sack.
 
I fully agree with all the comments that Murtough is not up to the required standard as a DOF to build a world class football club.

Lest we forget, Arnold and Glazers are as bad. They are the ones ultimately responsible to put the right people for the jobs. Also, I don't see any different between Arnold and Ed. Reactive, still no proper football structure at the club, putting wrong person for the jobs and repeating the mistakes of the last decade again and again by putting all the trust in manager for signings.
 
If Arnold has the sense to fire Murtough after this shit show of a summer transfer window, and replace him with someone who is actually qualified for the role, then I’ll think that maybe Arnold can work as ceo. Ultimately it has to be the CEO that holds the DOF accountable. If it’s not functioning that way, and its just jobs for the boys, then they both should go.
 
talking robot said:
If Arnold has the sense to fire Murtough after this shit show of a summer transfer window, and replace him with someone who is actually qualified for the role, then I’ll think that maybe Arnold can work as ceo. Ultimately it has to be the CEO that holds the DOF accountable. If it’s not functioning that way, and its just jobs for the boys, then they both should go.
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The reason I think he will sack Murtough at the end of the summer is because, whether or not Arnold is actually competent, he does seem to really care about optics and giving off the appearance of being competent.
 
been saying it since June. It’s looking more and more like the same old shit where he briefs the media to say how everything has changed but the same issues are still happening when actually getting things done.

here we are starting our league campaign with no new attackers and the same starting midfield.:wenger:
 
Why am I readings posters telling others to be patient?

It's been a decades worth of shite, supporters displayed patience when we replaced Gill and SAF with Moyes and Woodward - the fact Woodward had almost a decade in the job should prove patience isn't the problem, it's the total lack of accountability and apathetic fans.
 
Caesar2290 said:
And are going to ignore the fact that we finished comfortably 2nd now? True, we didn't finish comfortably 3rd, but the next season we improved on that.

As for finishing 6th... should I remind you that we didn't implode. We just ran out of steam towards the end of it after a very poor start and Mourinho trying to get himself sacked.
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We definitely imploded (or whatever dramatic term you wish you to use) after giving Ole the job full-time. We were utterly appalling at the end of that season.
 
talking robot said:
If Arnold has the sense to fire Murtough after this shit show of a summer transfer window, and replace him with someone who is actually qualified for the role, then I’ll think that maybe Arnold can work as ceo. Ultimately it has to be the CEO that holds the DOF accountable. If it’s not functioning that way, and its just jobs for the boys, then they both should go.
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Sack him? Arnold should be worried that his job might be in jeopardy! What’s our net spend so far, £40 or £50 million? That will get the glazers jizzing in their pants.
 
talking robot said:
If Arnold has the sense to fire Murtough after this shit show of a summer transfer window, and replace him with someone who is actually qualified for the role, then I’ll think that maybe Arnold can work as ceo. Ultimately it has to be the CEO that holds the DOF accountable. If it’s not functioning that way, and its just jobs for the boys, then they both should go.
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:lol:
 
If things start going off the rails the first person Arnold will sack is Murtough, that's a banker. Pardon the pun.

ETH has at least a season's immunity. Murtough was a Woodward appointment and not a particularly popular one with the staff. Easy pickings for the new CEO.
 
hobbers said:
If things start going off the rails the first person Arnold will sack is Murtough, that's a banker. Pardon the pun.

ETH has at least a season's immunity. Murtough was a Woodward appointment and not a particularly popular one with the staff. Easy pickings for the new CEO.
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Why we even talking about sacking anyone at this juncture?

Because people haven’t got all their shiny new toys before opening day?!
 
hobbers said:
If things start going off the rails the first person Arnold will sack is Murtough, that's a banker. Pardon the pun.

ETH has at least a season's immunity. Murtough was a Woodward appointment and not a particularly popular one with the staff. Easy pickings for the new CEO.
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Arnold worked alongside Woodward and they're close friends, I'm not sure why people think they're going to be so different in their views. Plus this is really the first summer with Murtough in charge and he sacked the head scouts just beforehand so it was always going to be difficult this summer, I don't think there will be any evaluation of his or Ten Hag's performance for another 18 months at the very least.

I'm sceptical of Murtough as well and not delighted that he seems to have relied on Ten Hag to identify targets for this summer but he surely deserves a chance to fully restructure things before we start judging him.
 
For some people in here Murtough can sleep with their mum, wife and daughter and shit on their pillow and despite all that he'll still be fully supported by them. It's weird really.
 
TheReligion said:
Why we even talking about sacking anyone at this juncture?

Because people haven’t got all their shiny new toys before opening day?!
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The shiny new toys argument doesnt hold water when you go into a new season with Martial your default first choice number 9 and McTominay first choice in midfield.

Off the back of a hideous season where we finish 6th, yet the squad is now in a weaker state than its ever been, and despite having over half a million/week freed up in wages.
 
hobbers said:
The shiny new toys argument doesnt hold water when you go into a new season with Martial your default first choice number 9 and McTominay first choice in midfield.

Off the back of a hideous season where we finish 6th, yet the squad is now in a weaker state than its ever been, and despite having over half a million/week freed up in wages.
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So are we looking to sack everyone then before the opening day?
 
RORY65 said:
Plus this is really the first summer with Murtough in charge and he sacked the head scouts just beforehand so it was always going to be difficult this summer, I don't think there will be any evaluation of his or Ten Hag's performance for another 18 months at the very least.
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If you fire Solksjaer in October and take 6 months to hire the replacement, then you’d better make sure the structure is set once the next season is starting. If there were issues with the chief scouts, then they should have gone with Solksjaer. Maybe this IS the structure, with Murtough running transfers. It might end up alright at the end of the summer, but I can’t see how Murtough is good enough to be heading up the football side of Manchester United. It looks to me like another example of hiring someone who’s not good enough, sticking with them and trying to “make it work”. Murtough is into his 50’s now and his CV is nothing special at all.
 
TheReligion said:
So are we looking to sack everyone then before the opening day?
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Who said that?

All I've said is that if we go into this season with the squad as it is it'll obviously be a shitshow. And at some point another head will roll, and if/when that happens it will inevitably be Murtough's.
 
hobbers said:
Who said that?

All I've said is that if we go into this season with the squad as it is it'll obviously be a shitshow. And at some point another head will roll, and if/when that happens it will inevitably be Murtough's.
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Well you’re wrong in my opinion

There’s no pressure on this season. Top 4 isn’t expected and would be a great success.
 
Rocksy said:
If you fire Solksjaer in October and take 6 months to hire the replacement, then you’d better make sure the structure is set once the next season is starting. If there were issues with the chief scouts, then they should have gone with Solksjaer. Maybe this IS the structure, with Murtough running transfers. It might end up alright at the end of the summer, but I can’t see how Murtough is good enough to be heading up the football side of Manchester United. It looks to me like another example of hiring someone who’s not good enough, sticking with them and trying to “make it work”. Murtough is into his 50’s now and his CV is nothing special at all.
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In fairness it does seem like Woodward was still in the way until he left and that Arnold doesn't want to be as involved on the football side. Now why it took 2 and a half months after Woodward left, having already been in the role for over a year, to move the scouts on is a fair question but I just don't believe the club will even start assessing the performance of the new structure until after next summer and we can more fairly assess the results then.

If things are still inefficient and too much responsibility is still being put on Ten Hag, who never had this much input at Ajax, then he can definitely be more fairly judged on here but I doubt even at that stage that Arnold would be looking at changing things.
 
devilish said:
For some people in here Murtough can sleep with their mum, wife and daughter and shit on their pillow and despite all that he'll still be fully supported by them. It's weird really.
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Him and Arnold did complete mess with Ralf. But nobody is blaming neither of them.
 
RORY65 said:
Arnold worked alongside Woodward and they're close friends, I'm not sure why people think they're going to be so different in their views. Plus this is really the first summer with Murtough in charge and he sacked the head scouts just beforehand so it was always going to be difficult this summer, I don't think there will be any evaluation of his or Ten Hag's performance for another 18 months at the very least.

I'm sceptical of Murtough as well and not delighted that he seems to have relied on Ten Hag to identify targets for this summer but he surely deserves a chance to fully restructure things before we start judging him.
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This time next season, people will be saying he deserves more time because he finally got his scouts in.

Fact is Murtough had more than enough time to rehaul the scouting system when everybody knows they’re shit for years but he only decided to do it just when the transfer window was beginning and just hid behind the excuse of getting in the players that ETH wanted for his system.

As of today, he hasn’t done anything of note apart from briefing the press to praise how we’ve changed despite no actual evidence of it. We’re still heading into the start of the season with probably the weakest starting midfielders in the league and relying on a 37 year old striker who wants out.
 
TheReligion said:
Well you’re wrong in my opinion

There’s no pressure on this season. Top 4 isn’t expected and would be a great success.
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The only reason you don't expect top four is because we haven't recruited well, while Arsenal and Spurs have.

If we finish outside the top four again it'll be a disaster for the club. Doesn't matter how much slack ETH deserves. He cant do his job well if the people above him are incompetent. And like we've seen this summer, top players have no interest in joining shitshow clubs who revel in failure.
 
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