The thing is with spurs, their hands are tied most of the time. Even £40m is a lot money for them and hence they take punt on players such as Alli and if it works out great else its not a major loss. When they sold Bale and had £100m in bank i think they blew it up on absolute garbages. So having less money to spend is both boon and bane for Tottenham and combined with the Expectations of the club has made Potch's job much easier. Here he would be having 150M to spend each season and hence the pressure to get it right in transfers. I agree with you that he would bring some sense of shape to our players and coach them well. It's a risky punt but maybe worth it.
The Mourinho Thread: Should he stay or go? | Sacked
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The thing is with spurs, their hands are tied most of the time. Even £40m is a lot money for them and hence they take punt on players such as Alli and if it works out great else its not a major loss. When they sold Bale and had £100m in bank i think they blew it up on absolute garbages. So having less money to spend is both boon and bane for Tottenham and combined with the Expectations of the club has made Potch's job much easier. Here he would be having 150M to spend each season and hence the pressure to get it right in transfers. I agree with you that he would bring some sense of shape to our players and coach them well. It's a risky punt but maybe worth it.
Pochettino is a very good manager. I have my doubts because he's never won a trophy and always seems to mess up big games especially whenever Spurs come close to touching silverware but he's a promising coach and I would like to see what he can do with a club that spends big.
Mourinho only needs to calm down when he has to he can't go to war with the media he has to be more deplomatic. And only focus on the players we have and how he can improve their mentality first. Last game against Spurs I can't blame the manager, but players looked a bit nervous in front of goal and maybe that because of his attitude? Dont know.
It is Zidane so he can have any nickname he wants. One of the greatest midfielders of all time and hasn’t done too shabby in his managerial career so far. He can be called Uncle Festa’s love child and it would be fine.
What about Roberto Di Matteo tho, proven Champions league winner with Chelsea. Not even Avram or Jose can say that.
Disagree. Read this.
As to the claim that "the game has changed and has passed him by"...many have said it prior to me...Jose won the PL with Chelsea only a few years ago. Football hasn't changed that much since then. In addition, the style of play of other teams you may have a love fest with are not created only in recent times. Those styles of play have been around a long time, even existed and at large when Jose was winning plenty of trophies around Europe. It may be newer here in the PL but not new...
100% agree. He brought the heat to the kitchen and now he wants to get out. I can't believe the things he said during pre-season. If you compare his approach to Poch with regards to their summer activity and it's like night and day, which showed on the pitch. Mourinho should take some pride in his coaching and focus on that rather than demoralising his players and the fans with negativity.
Tell you what, might be the best possible position to have a serial and obsessive winner like Jose. Everyone written him off, says he’s past it, shit players etc. That’s his team talk sorted every week!
Once these players get their match fitness some people may be surprised cos there is some quality in this United side, albeit not very much. Interesting season ahead.
Once these players get their match fitness some people may be surprised cos there is some quality in this United side, albeit not very much. Interesting season ahead.
If you want to use net spend, then you need to also take into consideration of total value of squad going into every season taken into consideration. Net spend only shows a skewed perspective. If you don't have good valuable players to begin with, you're on the losing side when it comes to net spending. If we had a coutinho, we may not have to spend as much or we may have a lower net spend if we sold him.
The one true way to understand incremental squad investment is to only view all players being brought in regardless of who goes out.
Mourinho is currently at the Europa League fixture between Burnley and Olympiakos. Does he usually scout opponents himself?
Just replying with this quote to make sure thread gets bumped so that people can read this post again.
Ugly as it can be, he'd be well advised to stick to what he knows, rather than try and play open, attacking football, that is if he still knows how to do it.
Excellent post. People...read this!
Excellent post again. Another thread and post bump.
How is losing 3-1 and getting dominated throughout the match a challenge? I don't see any difference than us losing the title theoretically by December than Liverpool getting smacked by Madrid in the final.
Uhh, not really. I never compared our finish to Fergie, I compared our "title challenge" to Liverpool's "CL challenge". For some reason you think Klopp failing to win the CL is more of an accomplishment than Jose failing to win the PL.
Pathetic attempts to deflect. No, we did not challenge for the CL in 2011, we got completely dominated and never stood a chance. Difference is though, as great of a manager Fergie was, and I consider him the best ever, that Barcelona team we faced back then was possibly the greatest team ever. And I'm sorry to say, but back then our team was crap relatively wise to the rest of the big clubs, more than likely due to the chronic underinvestment we have been suffering under the Glazers. Even Fergie can't win with those odds
I agree. But he seems to have convinced fans the players we have aren't good enough hence why he said finishing 2nd was the biggest achievement of his career or something like that. He didn't waste any time blaming the heritage of the club for our embarrassing exit to Sevilla and tried to save face by claiming several of their players would walk into our team despite us comfortably being favorites before a ball was kicked. When we win it's because of him but when we lose the players are rubbish.
LVG and Jose both signed on a 3 year contract. I'm obviously going to judge by their latest seasons with the club, hence the 2nd place vs 5th place comparison.
And of course its impressive, I'm quite glad you eluded to the "amount he's spent line" because Mourinho spent less than Conte and Pep despite having a weaker starting point. And he managed 2nd with a degree of comfort. So yeah, he did just fine last season.
He needs to get players in for now and the failure to provide Wilian and Alderwierald points to a failure in Ed more than it does Jose. Its like you have some sort of better idea of an alternative future when Pep joined City - let's entertain that.
Pep joined City and over 2 years spends 200m EUR more than United even though he walks into a spine of Kun, KDB, Silva Fernandinho etc. Whilst United need a manager capable of turfing out the entire midfield and 2/3rds of the attack whilst keeping themselves relevant.
Let me say this - I struggle to think of a manager would have been able to get the job done from a results standpoint quite like Mourinho. People forget how far we had fallen under LVG. Having a piss easy FA Cup doesn't paper cracks. (look at our route including Palace final, its a fecking joke to rest on that).
Mourinho walked in and within 2 seasons dragged us to 2nd place, whilst bringing in some proper players with big character and yes an odd mistake in defence. He had a strong injury crisis in midfield (its akin to City losing KDB and Silva for 2 months) and fell out with a lazy diva in the side but still maintained respectable consistency.
You talk about him not being able to recover from a bad situation - hes only fecking imploded once in his career with Chelsea. And going by how Conte did in his final year I favour the school of thought pointing to player power rather than 2 World Class managers fecking up with the same group of players the season after winning the league. That's no coincidence.
If you don't give a feck about his achievements or what he did in the last decade then don't give a feck about this 3rd season curse bullshit either. Don't cherry pick when you want to look at history.
I don't have time to address the rest of your post so il leave it there.
The most ridiculous thing is the "football passed him by" claim.
Real Madrid won 3 Champions leagues playing pragmatic, Atletico Madrid is winning everything playing uber pragmatic, Jose is a little baby for Simeone, Juventus is dominating with the same style of play, last EUROs Portugal won with, what a surprise, mourinhoesq performances and this World Cup France won playing pragmatic counter attacking.
So, apart Guardiola, who spend shitloads of money on very best players, Klopp, Poch, some German coaches, where is this "new age to hard to understand" football? And if you exclude Pep, everyone else won shit on a stick.
Real Madrid won 3 Champions leagues playing pragmatic, Atletico Madrid is winning everything playing uber pragmatic, Jose is a little baby for Simeone, Juventus is dominating with the same style of play, last EUROs Portugal won with, what a surprise, mourinhoesq performances and this World Cup France won playing pragmatic counter attacking.
So, apart Guardiola, who spend shitloads of money on very best players, Klopp, Poch, some German coaches, where is this "new age to hard to understand" football? And if you exclude Pep, everyone else won shit on a stick.
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Yeah well, you are just forgetting that the man has won everything with different teams and players so maybe maybe the players that have never won anything, maybe they are the one to be rubbish indeed
This poster deserves an applause! Couldn't have said it better.
What Mourinho inherited was worse.
This. Its amazing so many football writers get away with spouting the nonsense about the new attacking style when, even in England, only City has won anything playing that way. Ranieri's Leicester and Conte's Chelsea were not exactly tiki taka teams.
Nobody is saying you can't be successful playing quality defensive football or being pragmatic. It's been over 2 years since he was appointed though, and the entire time we have been pretty shit defensively as a team (ignore the random games against Liverpool as Mourinho always seems to have their number at least). Most of the time, when we try to play defensive, pragmatic football, we concede a feck ton of chances and de gea bails us out (or we just lose). If we come up against a side that parks the bus, we struggle to create anything and look void of ideas. If it's an open game, we lose all composure and are all over the place and it turns into a frantic game with no control about our play and that usually doesn't end well for us. We aren't good at controlling play, we aren't good at counter attacking, we aren't good at progressing the ball up the pitch into attacking areas, we aren't good at pressing from the front, and we aren't good at sitting deep. We literally get by on player quality alone for the most part, and just seem really poorly coached.
It's not "only" about attacking, entertaining football. Yes, most fans would love to play an attacking style. I would 100% at this point sacrifice a few years of trophies to play some proper entertaining football. In a heartbeat. I would easily take some classic United style football like we played in the 90's often times for the next few years even if it meant we wouldn't in the premier league title. At least we'd be entertained in games and look forward to our play. But that's not the point. Mourinho's draw is instant success at the cost of attractive football. Whatever, everyone has their preferences. But we aren't even good defensively like Atletico Madrid, who really shut teams out. There's pretty much no evidence of any effective coaching going on in our team. Pretty much all our players are dramatically underperforming.
When you have a team that looks like strangers on the pitch with no discernible style, always changing systems (and never getting it right), and pretty much everyone on the side failing to live up to their potential, that for me points 100% to the manager failing at his job.
And just to add something about falling out with players, his team is not playing for him and that bullshit.
He managed how many players in his career? 200? 250? He fell out with 10, maybe 15. Why he didn't fell out with Drogba? Terry? Lampard? Materazzi? Zanetti? Xabi Alonso?..... The only players he does not tolerate are slackers. If someone is to lazy to track back during a game, which is something that is fecking crucial in football, he won't play in his team. That is something what all his former players said. So if he has problems with some of our players then there's a fecking reason.
I mean, just imagine if our coach is Simeone. Martial and Pogba wouldn't last 10 minutes in the first practice.
He managed how many players in his career? 200? 250? He fell out with 10, maybe 15. Why he didn't fell out with Drogba? Terry? Lampard? Materazzi? Zanetti? Xabi Alonso?..... The only players he does not tolerate are slackers. If someone is to lazy to track back during a game, which is something that is fecking crucial in football, he won't play in his team. That is something what all his former players said. So if he has problems with some of our players then there's a fecking reason.
I mean, just imagine if our coach is Simeone. Martial and Pogba wouldn't last 10 minutes in the first practice.
Appointed in summer 2016. Yep. I see where you get 3 years.
Nail on the fecking head.
I swear some people believe we used to win trophies dicking on teams 5 or 6-0 every game.
Mate, Atletico has Juanfran, Godin, Savić, Jimenez, Hernandez in defence. All of them are miles better than our defensive players, fecking miles. And in the attack they have Griezmann and Diego Costa, and they sure as feck don't miss empty goal from 6 yards.
Quality. Overall quality in our squad is just not good enough and that is something that nobody can coach. No manager on this planet can teach somebody in his 20's how to pass a ball to a teammate correctly or how to tackle. Those are football basics and too many our players are making basic mistakes because they are not good enough.
In regards with strangers on the pitch, we had 4,5 that kind of games in 2 years, Brighton was one. It was terrible, but it is far from being a norm. "And never getting it right" part is just ridiculous, google our scores against TOP 6 last year.
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A year ago everyone was talking us up as title contenders. We started the season on fire, even though we played against some shite sides. Since that time, we brought in Alexis Sanchez, Fred for 55m and a young promising right back to rotate with Valencia and take over eventually. Yet now the quality is nowhere near good enough? It's not good enough because we aren't coached well and we can't do anything well on a football pitch. We can buy whoever the feck we want, but it's not going to change much. In fact, every player we seem to buy, no matter how highly they're rated at the time, seems to only do worse and get worse as time goes on. A big part of the reason I'm so Mourinho out these days is because of how we collectively look clueless. It's not just the brighton game. The Brighton game was awful, but much of the 2nd half of last season was awful. We grinded out plenty of results, but they were shit performances (not quite as shit as this season though). Opening day of this season against Leicester was in no way acceptable. We got outplayed, out shot, and out possessed at Old Trafford to a mid table side. We got the win so it's ignored, but it was shit. I don't care who you wanted to sign as a Man United manager. That shouldn't be happening. We shouldn't be losing 3-0 to Spurs. We shouldn't be getting outplayed in back to back weeks by Brighton and Leicester. Don't tell me that the squad quality isn't good enough when pretty much every single one of these players would start for both Brighton and Leicester with very, very few exceptions.
What Mourinho is still world class at is managing expectations and convincing everyone around him that it's not his fault and puts the blame on everyone but himself. 2 years ago we were supposed to be title challengers after signing Pogba for a world record fee and getting Ibrahimovic, but finished 6th. Then last year we were supposed to be title challengers after signing Lukaku and Matic, but finished 19 points behind the champions. Now, without losing anyone and after signing Alexis Sanchez, Fred and Dalot, we are nowhere near good enough and we'll do well to finish 4th and it's all because Woodward didn't buy a few center backs? Come off it. Mourinho just makes excuse after excuse because he fails to implement any sort of cohesive football. He can't organize us defensively, he can't get us to control games and he can't get us to create chances. It's purely 11 individuals out there failing and then being told to hoof it up to fellaini when our plan A inevitably fails.
His time is up, if we sack him or not is another matter. There wont be much progress this year, more stagnation and meltdowns are on the horizon. If we fail to get out of the CL group, now that we got a decent group, and make top 4, i hope we still sack him, but i doubt it. The pressure is definitely on and i am excited to see how it ends. Top 4 and CL knockout stages are not a given at this point.
Your first sentence pointed out the fact that we finished 6th. What about the other two cups that you failed to mention? What about the fact that one of those cups got us back into CL. Your second sentence pointed out the fact that we finished 19 points behind the champions but what about the details around it being a record breaking season and we came in 2nd ahead of the rest of the league? Classic case of negative bias where you don't use the other positive parts to provide a balanced perspective/opinion. I guess you can call me a positive bias poster in a way...
I remember us being a rebuilding project 2 years ago. Title challengers 2 years ago is reaching it. Last year started out well but injuries and suspensions disrupted our season. We just don't have the depth of quality to sustain the early season progress. If we are so bad, how did we win those silverware and how did we finish second ahead of all the so called teams who are at a level above us?
To point out a couple things. Spurs beating us this past weekend meant they played at a better level in the moments they scored on us. We lost to them on the day. League position at the end of the season shows who is above who. When a team wins in a cup game or a cup final, they winner played better than the other team who lost on that day. They could play the next day and the results could be the opposite.
Over the course of the entire season, the league position does not lie for where we stand in the league.
Paying the price for poor pre-season preparations. Backing Jose and the team to turn it around. Going out on a limb and predicting top 3 by March.
that's certainly debatable
that season Poch took over we were fairly close together - United finished 4th with 70 points, Spurs 5th with 64.
Since Poch took over our net spend is 440 million, his is 19 million
The access to players is stark - what we pay Sanchez per week would pay for 4 or 5 Spurs players comfortably
despite all this they finished above us 2 of the three seasons after - well ahead in Mourinho's first season and a few points behind last season
Taking into account everything it's clear there is a project at Spurs which is punching well above it's weight compared to money invested and they are certainly happier fans than us
League position definitely can lie. In terms of finish vs performances, we probably shouldve been 4th IMO. But we were clinical and De Gea was godlike pretty often, so we stayed 2nd. Others were nowhere near as clinical as we were, hence finished behind us. Our first season we were wasteful so finished 6th, but shouldve been higher based on our performances IMO. Anyway, if it doesnt lie, why are we suddenly complete trash if we only improved on the side that finished 2nd last year? If you told us last September that we would sign Alexis Sanchez and a 50m midfielder and a young right back, people would be fecking delighted and expect a title challenge with 0 excuses. Now people would be delighted (and surprised) with top 4. Its what Mourinho does these days, manages the expectations to make his failure seem like a success.
In terms of talking about those trophies we won. They're 2nd rate trophies. Nobody gives a feck about Carabao cup winners, and big teams would rather not be in the Europa league at all. But it wasn't Mous fault we were, and we won, so fair play there. I said before, the first 18 months werent the problem with him. It wasnt amazing, but was passable, with the key being that in the period after that we had to push on. It was this entire calendar year that is the big problem. After 2 years, we should be far better than what we are. We shouldnt be complaining that we only spent 75m this summer (after Mourinho himself said in January he didnt expect big business and counted Alexis Sanchez as a summer signing). 18 months is a good amount of time to transition it into your own team and the coaching to really start kicking in and progressing. Instead, weve pretty much collapsed the past 8 months, the football getting far worse, constant off field issues, Mourinho blaming everyone but himself and coming up with new excuses, insulting the clubs history to excuse his own defeats. The list goes on.
Anyway, to the Mourinho in people who struggle to understand why people want him out. Why did you start watching or playing football and start following United? What United sides do you always remember when you look back fondly?
No child grows up and dreams of Mourinho style football. People play football because it's fun for them, they watch it for entertainment and fall in love with their clubs because they are either born into it, or grew up loving how they played. That's why football style will always be so important. That's why its imperative to be entertained. If everybody played like Mourinho, the amount of football fans in this world would dramatically decrease and it would not be the top sport in the world, because it would be so fecking boring almost every game.
Everyone here dreams of the day United return to playing great football and are at the top again. That sure as feck is not going to happen with Mourinho. So people want to move on as soon as possible and get someone in who gives them hope and reasons to be optimistic again.
No child grows up and dreams of Mourinho style football. People play football because it's fun for them, they watch it for entertainment and fall in love with their clubs because they are either born into it, or grew up loving how they played. That's why football style will always be so important. That's why its imperative to be entertained. If everybody played like Mourinho, the amount of football fans in this world would dramatically decrease and it would not be the top sport in the world, because it would be so fecking boring almost every game.
Everyone here dreams of the day United return to playing great football and are at the top again. That sure as feck is not going to happen with Mourinho. So people want to move on as soon as possible and get someone in who gives them hope and reasons to be optimistic again.
You'r getting his passion for United mixed up with his ego and self preservation.He knows the noose is around his neck and knows the trap door is about to open - his "passion" is no more than a condemned man delaying the inevidable.
Who will make us play great football and put us on top again, with our current squad? Genuinely interested to know who that is.
They struck gold in the first couple of years of Poch with the likes of Alli, Dier and Alderweireld for peanuts while Kane coming through at the same time saved a fortune in trying to find a striker. This was after making obvious (to me at least) quality signings in the likes of Dembele, Vertonghen and Eriksen.
We had a bigger financial advantage over our rivals then than we do now, £100m went a lot further. Crucially at the same time we had LVG in charge who had no idea how to put together a squad for the PL, wasting millions on duds while selling proven quality or potential. Mourinho would have put together a far stronger squad during that period with the money available compared to our rivals.
Did you enjoy the Spurs game? We attacked plenty, just didn't finish well. Are you telling me you didn't complain about the result? Or are you just saying you prefer style over results to negate the fact we came second last season and use style to as a stick to beat Mourinho? But when we play an attacking style but lose, you're equally up in arms?
And "instant success" is relative. Despite only having 2 seasons, he's won more trophies than Poch and Klopp combined despite both having stayed for longer. In the league, he beat both of them last season. And if you say it's because Mourinho spent more so we should beat them then based on that logic, Pep spent more than Jose so how is it a failure losing to City? That's not even taking into account the difference in the teams Pep and Jose inherited. If you don't deem having the best league position since SAF's departure as progress, don't see second as something worth celebrating and demands our manager to win the league to be regarded as going well, then I am afraid you'll be disappointed with every manager we'll get going forward.
As for us being a team of strangers that seemingly can't attack or defend, then the rest of the EPL managers, apart from Pep, should be sacked. They all lost to this pub team.
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