The Media Against United Agenda

Garnacho Libre

Full Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2024
Messages
308
Location
Ireland
Many fans will say the media is against their football club. After a really good think about it and some research, I've come to the conclusion that by far, it's much worse against United. For one, United news/rumours create a media buzz and frenzy's are made out of pretty much nothing a lot of the time. I understand that they generate public interest.

The reason for the thread is, how much of an impact do you think this has on players, the manager and the ownership? More importantly, how much does it influence you - the fan? By far the most negativity spread about a football club is United. We are frequently exposed to negativity. I really think this makes us, at times - basically go insane in our viewpoints when the reality of something isn't half as bad.

Sky Sports and BBC have consistently reported higher fees for cost of transfers. They report what the transfer fee can go up to when things are achieved like winning the title or scoring 20 goals in the season etc.. and the best one, Martial winning the Ballon D'or. They don't do this with City or Liverpool or Arsenal etc.. Inflated fees reported for United. Sure United have spent a lot of money, but so have other clubs. Where is the talk of the other clubs spending so much amount of money with little trophies to show for it? The media CONSTANTLY compares the United team of now to United teams of the past. It is not a fair comparison. They don't do this with other clubs.

Rashford, a United player, missed out on the Euro's squad, that became a bigger headline than players that were picked. The entire week of the FA Cup final that's all that was in the headlines along with..... an ENORMOUS amount of pressure put on Ten Hag over his future. They scrutinized him all week in the media and in pressers before and AFTER he won the final. Disgusting! Always finding a negative after WINNING a cup final against City. When Grealish who hasn't lit the league on fire since signing for City, where is the media's circus on him? If he was at United it would be a different story. They are unforgiving when it's a United player with their headlines. Headlines can have more space in the papers and TV time anything else being reported.

Souness during the euros constantly bashed Mainoo over how he positioned himself, what other youth academy player do pundits heavily criticise a kid like that? Can you name any? Just because he's a United player.

What do you all think?


GOX-MckXcAE5l9K.jpg
 
"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea."
 
Garnacho Libre said:
Many fans will say the media is against their football club. After a really good think about it and some research, I've come to the conclusion that by far, it's much worse against United. For one, United news/rumours create a media buzz and frenzy's are made out of pretty much nothing a lot of the time. I understand that they generate public interest.

The reason for the thread is, how much of an impact do you think this has on players, the manager and the ownership? More importantly, how much does it influence you - the fan? By far the most negativity spread about a football club is United. We are frequently exposed to negativity. I really think this makes us, at times - basically go insane in our viewpoints when the reality of something isn't half as bad.

Sky Sports and BBC have consistently reported higher fees for cost of transfers. They report what the transfer fee can go up to when things are achieved like winning the title or scoring 20 goals in the season etc.. and the best one, Martial winning the Ballon D'or. They don't do this with City or Liverpool or Arsenal etc.. Inflated fees reported for United. Sure United have spent a lot of money, but so have other clubs. Where is the talk of the other clubs spending so much amount of money with little trophies to show for it? The media CONSTANTLY compares the United team of now to United teams of the past. It is not a fair comparison. They don't do this with other clubs.

Rashford, a United player, missed out on the Euro's squad, that became a bigger headline than players that were picked. The entire week of the FA Cup final that's all that was in the headlines along with..... an ENORMOUS amount of pressure put on Ten Hag over his future. They scrutinized him all week in the media and in pressers before and AFTER he won the final. Disgusting! Always finding a negative after WINNING a cup final against City. When Grealish who hasn't lit the league on fire since signing for City, where is the media's circus on him? If he was at United it would be a different story. They are unforgiving when it's a United player with their headlines. Headlines can have more space in the papers and TV time anything else being reported.

Souness during the euros constantly bashed Mainoo over how he positioned himself, what other youth academy player do pundits heavily criticise a kid like that? Can you name any? Just because he's a United player.

What do you all think?


GOX-MckXcAE5l9K.jpg
Click to expand...

I’ve long maintained this is a big part of our malaise. We’re no longer a top tier club in terms of performance, yet we are treated as if we are in terms of expectation, pressure, media focus. Even under Fergie there were quality players that never found their stride under us, and now that they come into a club with the same pressure but with far less of a winning culture, far fewer leaders, and far less confidence, I can’t imagine that it’s easy.

And we’re still a bit scalp for a lot of other teams, and so we meet sides that are revves up and eager to show their worth against us.

Worst of both worlds atm.
 
We simply get clicks and sell papers. A hangover from the 90s/00s when we won everything, it's basic stuff.

Personally I don't give a feck. The day they start pitying and ignoring us, then I'll worry.
 
What amuses me is how much copy we sell, but embittered rival supporters think we should be forgotten!

'Why is the headline about United? They're not relevant, anymore'. It gets about five hundred likes and they still don't get it.

Mind, they have a point. It can become tedious. Funny to see them still in our shade, mind.
 
Writing negative stories about United gets views, so they'll continue to do it now matter the circumstances. Sadly we've been giving them far too many easy opportunities to write such pieces.

Also the Sun is a piece of shit.
 
I just came back from holiday, I met many nationalities, Mexican, American, Turkish. When I mentioned I was from Manchester the first think they said was, oh, that's where Manchester United are.

The club is known around the world moreso than any other in the country. This is why the media do this. They want clicks and engagement.
 
I don't think its particularly deliberate other than the fact they know United generate clicks, and negative stories generate more clicks

the trick as a manager is to use that to galvanise the group and use it to your advantage, like Fergie did
 
Our ‘fans’ do not help.

They buy into the absolute rubbish that the media spews and lap it up as gospel. False narratives and witch-hunts against our players are par for the course, and rather than getting behind our team - ala the siege mentality of yesteryear - they actively promote and give these baseless wankers air time. You see it on these very forums all the time with Twitter links, links to articles that have zero foundation, etc. Before you know it, the bile has been repeated that many times, the fact that it is a fecking outright lie becomes hazy, and it slowly morphs into the ‘truth’. Or some dickheads account of it, anyway. We saw it with De Ligt; someone spread some garbage about Eric Dier replacing him in the team at Bayern, (when that absolutely wasn’t the case) - next thing you know, that fabrication is fecking everywhere and accepted as common truth.

Media are a bunch of cnuts. And those that regurgitate their shite aren’t much better.
 
If people stop trawling the internet for updates on Ten Hag's the media will stop providing content to that effect.

It's a simple case of supply and demand.
 
Leethal said:
Our ‘fans’ do not help.

They buy into the absolute rubbish that the media spews and lap it up as gospel. False narratives and witch-hunts against our players are par for the course, and rather than getting behind our team - ala the siege mentality of yesteryear - they actively promote and give these baseless wankers air time. You see it on these very forums all the time with Twitter links, links to articles that have zero foundation, etc. Before you know it, the bile has been repeated that many times, the fact that it is a fecking outright lie becomes hazy, and it slowly morphs into the ‘truth’. Or some dickheads account of it, anyway. We saw it with De Ligt; someone spread some garbage about Eric Dier replacing him in the team at Bayern, (when that absolutely wasn’t the case) - next thing you know, that fabrication is fecking everywhere and accepted as common truth.

Media are a bunch of cnuts. And those that regurgitate their shite aren’t much better.
Click to expand...

Agreed with this. The fans are very much to blame too. Like the De Ligt example, Southgate is another one, some of the journalist want to keep linking us with Southgate and now alot of the fan base thinks thats who we want as manager because he also has links to Ashworth.

Our fans call it clickbait but will repost it and talk about it as if its certain.

The funny one was alot of twitter fans I saw were like oh look at Jadon Sancho cook because he got 2 assists early on, talking about playing with confidence etc... going with the media narratives.

Sometimes it feels some of the fans want us to do badly so they can keep being negative.
 
"80% of United's fans have never been to Old Trafford"

A famous observation some years back ......and not all of these live outside the UK!

It's why the club is always on both the front and back pages in the print media, (sometime at one and the same time) and 'click bait' on social media.

The 'world and his wife' cannot get enough of Manchester United, whether we are up or down... I once heard a story that in a private audience with the *Pope, Sir Matt Busby was told, by the Pontif... "When United are challenging for the title, or are fighting relegation, our churches are full."

(*Probably told Bill Shank's the same, and Jock Stein)
 
You can’t pride yourselves on being the biggest club in the country , only to constantly whine about the media attention. This shit goes hand in hand. Get over it.
 
United is still one of the clubs with the most fans in the world. Plastic clubs havent been able to replicate this kind of success worldwide so united still is a cash cow for the media. Easy as that
 
Desert Eagle said:
Exactly. Should have been merged into the other one already.
Click to expand...
Long term observer…new poster but never understood posts like this. There’s multiple posters posting thoughts here on OP. If people don’t want to post why not just skip to another thread.
 
Desert Eagle said:
There's already a thread on this
Click to expand...
Sassy Colin said:
And we don't need another one.
Click to expand...
Desert Eagle said:
Exactly. Should have been merged into the other one already.
Click to expand...
LeonDion said:
Long term observer…new poster but never understood posts like this. There’s multiple posters posting thoughts here on OP. If people don’t want to post why not just skip to another thread.
Click to expand...
As far as I can tell, the other had been dormant for at least a couple of weeks. We don't want everlasting megathreads, so it's fine to start a new thread if the other one has run its course.

So, back to the topic at hand.
 
It's not an agenda against United, We simply still get the most attention. Journalists want clicks, and nothing generates traffic more than United stories.
 
Someone said:
It's not an agenda against United, We simply still get the most attention. Journalists want clicks, and nothing generates traffic more than United stories.
Click to expand...

True. No doubt that Utd are biggest story in absolute terms. The contrast with how the media treat Liverpool is striking - the media are reverential towards Liverpool and almost unwilling to criticise them on any level. Total hypocrisy.
 
Eriku said:
I’ve long maintained this is a big part of our malaise. We’re no longer a top tier club in terms of performance, yet we are treated as if we are in terms of expectation, pressure, media focus. Even under Fergie there were quality players that never found their stride under us, and now that they come into a club with the same pressure but with far less of a winning culture, far fewer leaders, and far less confidence, I can’t imagine that it’s easy.

And we’re still a bit scalp for a lot of other teams, and so we meet sides that are revves up and eager to show their worth against us.

Worst of both worlds atm.
Click to expand...
I think that's a realiy more of us have to accept. For now, the team is not performing and it hasn't been for 11 years now.

I agree. What annoys me most in particular is defenders and GKs seem to up the anti against us. They play a low team the following weak and that team are shite! ha.
 
Garnacho Libre said:
That is an agenda, though, no?
Click to expand...
Don't think it is. An agenda is when you have a bias against the club, which is what you get from some ex Liverpool pundits, or someone like Martin Samuel who has been completely bought by City. For the majority of people working in the media, it's just what gets clicks and views.
 
Just a numbers game. United are both very popular and perhaps the club most opposition supporters love to 'hate'. Negative stories will get both sets of eyeballs (or ears).
 
United sell and also have ruined lives of millions of late twenty to thirty odd year olds. I don’t mind negative press to some extent as it balance out when good times. What I don’t like is lack of press if we don’t get a penalty v if opposition don’t get penalty
 
Reach media which is mainly the daily mirror is considerably pro Liverpool and as a default anti United

Boycott the daily mirror
 
You must log in or register to reply here.