but we should have signed maguire and alderweireld, obviously we have no money compared to city so that is why we suck so much and play such insipid football. I saw mou saying during the wc that he wouldn't mind coaching a NT in the future, i really don't see how he would manage to do it judging by the strop he has thrown from the summer right upto now which has cast a cloud over our entire season where we went in with the least optimism that i can remember of any United team in 2 decades. When Pool can make functional players out of the likes of Henderson, Wijnaldum, Robertson and Milner we still play shit on a stick football and complain about under investment. Just wow.
The Mourinho Thread: Should he stay or go? | Sacked
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There are always low moments in sport but optimism comes from having faith and I have none. This is no longer Jose gig cause the club needs positivity and he even in winning courts controversy in his actions.
Whilst the club continues to employ a manager who is known to need to require major transfer funds to win the league to win the title.
You Brought Poch into the equation, not me. I countered with the fact that he’s never won anything at spurs or indeed ever.
The blame game is all over the place in here. But like I’ll continue to say, the club know Jose very well and he’s staying in his post for at least this season as far as I can see. So if that’s the case then the club need to give him the funds he requires. What he’s spent is irrelevant, if the club can afford it.
Or they need to find a magician of a manager who can turn this squad into a fluid winning machine. I’m really struggling to think which manager could do that.
Are we just judging teams on where they are in the table after 12 gaames? I've watched a fair bit of Spurs and Arsenal and in my opinion neither have been anything special and been getting points they could easily have lost with a bit less luck. Where are Burnley this season after finishing 7th, why don't they look like maintaining it? Where did Leicester go after winning the league?
City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs all have a better first XI than us in my opinion so I expect to finish behind them. You might see it differently that's fine.
Do we know how much of the coaching Mourinho does? SAF didn't used to coach much he left it to the likes of Meulensteen, Queiroz and Phelan. I agree we need to be more cohesive in attack but we've looked like this for years under multiple managers and coaches now.
They might be nothing special but we’re doing nothing to say we are any better. We won’t improve throughout the season. This is us until the season is over.
We’ve looked like this under multiple negative coaches and Fergie’s last years a team just designed to get 3 points.
This shouldn't be the case given that Jose has had 2 years to change things and has signed 10 players for nearly 400m. Most of those players seem not good enough despite being very expensive and earn mind-boggling wages. Jose didn't start against City players he signed for 200m (excluding Pogba who was injured). One cannot afford to waste 200m and complain that Spurs and Liverpool have better players.
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None of the managers above us are magicians and most haven't had $400m worth of investment either, it does not take magic to play better football than Watford after spending $400m .Magician ffs, guess Jose is already performing magic with us at 8th, we should be 13th with all the shit players we haveLet's go over this point by point, so that you can see where I'm coming from:
1. No, I am not judging after 12 games - I'm judging after 38 + 38 + 12 = 88 PL games plus the assorted Cup matches. Not once have we managed to string together a full 90 minutes of good and slick football. It's not even like we have to integrate a bucket-load of players; Jose is struggling to get a tune out of players that've been here all through! They still look like strangers playing together the first time; flashes here and there, but no cohesion. Each new signing just fails. This isn't about Ed; it's Jose.
2. Leicester, Burnley - irrelevant. They're far, far smaller clubs. Leicester lost their best player immediately and the team came off an incredible high so loss of motivation was expected. Equally, others tightened up and upped their games massively. Oh and yes, this is the classic definition of "the exception". Are these our benchmarks now? Leicester and Burnley? How much do they spend and what's the calibre of players they have?
3. City, Liverpool, Chelsea - better than us because of how they play. We dominated Chelsea in H2 - so why are you so confident we're poorer? If you go piecemeal, you should assume that this game (away, at that) proved that we're actually better than Chelsea, surely? But you can't, as it would dismantle your argument... So here, you'll go by where they are in the table and claim they're better. Logic?
4. It's not about coaching alone. The manager decides the tactics and how the team will approach the game. Read up on how Moyes tried to "retrain" Rio and Vidic to become "proper" defenders. Was a joke. Same for Mourinho. He's selecting the players and setting the teams up to play a mid-block with physicality. He's clearly not instructing players to play 1-2 touch football and the attacking third is devoid of movement. If he's unhappy with coaches, ummm, that's on him too! The manager is the one that selects and appoints his staff. Hence the entire staff generally leaves when a manager goes.
All in all, this is about the way we play. Far poorer teams with far poorer players and lower transfer expenditure look better on the ball than us. They may be lower in the table, but that's because we still possess players with enough individual quality to conjure up special moments that win us points. But that's not sustainable any more at the top end of football these days. Fitness level and player insights are increasing by the day, leading to smarter and more adaptable managers getting more and more out of even the same players. Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea and City are getting more out of their players than we are. Which of our signings seemed underwhelming (barring Grant) when we announced them? Yet, which is delivering?
Can anyone even describe our attacking system / tactics? It's all about lumping the ball and then hoping that some player will conjure up something special. That's not true of any other top club across Europe. Each has an identity and each has a well-established system. These things are on the manager to fix - not the owners or CEOs.
When Emery was appointed and given barely any funds, most said that Arsenal wouldn't change and that this was all cosmetic. They may be a tad lucky here and there, but firstly, you make your own luck and secondly, regardless of all else, they deserve to be ahead of us based on how the two of us have played relatively speaking. They look so much more fluid than us. That's coaching. That's management. I wouldn't even complain about our position and GD if we looked good on the eye and were showing the signs of coming together as a team. That's the issue for me. We just don't look like a team and regardless of investment, that's criminal.
At this point, it doesn't make sense to have any argument with Jose fans. They think we need to spend 1 more billion to improve our play, at least to string couple of passes together and play with intensity.
Correct. They’ve been brainwashed. The problem isn’t money. The solution isn’t money either. Not the primary one anyway. It’s Jose’s inability to imprint proper coaching and a positive team identity on us.
First they argue about money and later they will change it to "well it's not Jose who is spending, it's Woodward".
I find it more than a little concerning how many posters on here have bought the Jose narrative that this is a squad of poor players
It’s all Woody’s fault lads. He buys and sells who he likes, with his unlimited amount of funds and limited footballing know-how. If we had a real football man as a CEO, we’d suddenly learn how to stop conceding, start scoring and play beautiful football. It all comes back to our CEO, he runs the team.
Yeah. Was also shocking to hear Gary Nev trotting out this same lame line. Our players can win World Cups, Copa Americas etc. elsewhere apparently but are actually cack.
I don't think we've a poor squad but I think we're guilty of being complacent. However, that is probably due to these rich owners who have destroyed the market. I think we need to freshen the squad because many of us can pick the first 11 and get about 7 maybe 8/9 right. That's a problem, especially when you realize not all the players are the beat in their position. We can say this players playing well or that player but the quality has gone down and we keep rewarding players who are not really showing enough to challenge.
It's not a squad of poor players but it's not better than our rivals either (in particular for the first 12/13 players that start regularly which is key). When looking at the squad, our star player is the goalkeeper who has no impact on the quality of football we play, the other wasn't available on Sunday.
If we are going to throw the £400m spend figure about, we also need to take account that 6/7 teams outspent us in the summer just gone so should have improved more than we have on that basis.
It's a team of some decent players (Pogba, Martial, De Gea, Sanchez, Lukaku, Shaw) laid over a squad that have failed us for the last 5 years. It's a team overall that should be finishing 2nd-4th.
City went out and splashed the cash replacing Clichy, Zabelta, Sagna, Navas because they knew they weren't good enough. For some reason we didn't do that in the summar and we must do it next year if we want to move forward. A new manager won't push this team to an elite level without investment
People also love to forget that Jose has had Zlatan and Sanchez on a free which would have added to the total amount he's spent.
People love saying that Pep has spent a good 100 millions over Jose but factoring in the free signings of the above 2 mentioned and Mourinho has had roughly the same spending and bringing in opportunities as Pep.
Not that even factoring those 2 signings in money matter because even without that the man has spent almost a good 400 millions and he's done nothing much. His most recent signing who by the way is the club 5th most expensive signing ever, can't even get a game in an important derby match and Jose was quick to lament lack of options on the bench.
Yet people blame the board for being reluctant to give the man more money so he can throw it away with his proven proligafy tendencies. If there is anything the board should be blamed over is the fact they haven't sacked him yet.
People love saying that Pep has spent a good 100 millions over Jose but factoring in the free signings of the above 2 mentioned and Mourinho has had roughly the same spending and bringing in opportunities as Pep.
Not that even factoring those 2 signings in money matter because even without that the man has spent almost a good 400 millions and he's done nothing much. His most recent signing who by the way is the club 5th most expensive signing ever, can't even get a game in an important derby match and Jose was quick to lament lack of options on the bench.
Yet people blame the board for being reluctant to give the man more money so he can throw it away with his proven proligafy tendencies. If there is anything the board should be blamed over is the fact they haven't sacked him yet.
Show me a team other than City that have played 'good and slick' football for 90 minutes this season. Its certainly not Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs or Arsenal when I've seen them. Even SAFs best teams with far better players than we have have now rarely did. By the same token you say we dominated Chelsea, which is it?
Should we be performing better? Yes. If us, City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs were all at their best, do I think we'd finish above them? No. Our inferior defence would let us down. It's not as crazy an opinion as you are making out.
This is the conversation killer. I see the futility of discussing with anyone that can actually write that.
For the record though - I said we dominated them in H2 (second half).
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A manager who spends 80 mil on Lukaku is just simply not good enough.
Not a player that would get in to teams with a good technically & tactically rounded manager.
Not a player that would get in to teams with a good technically & tactically rounded manager.
We don't look like a team that will be finishing 2nd-4th, and that is the problem here. One would be right to say we need more investments if we were already reaping the rewards of the initial investments, but it being ultimately proving to be insufficient to challenge the top teams. We don't look like a team that have spent £400m and outspent most of the other teams, and right now we don't look like a team that just need more investments. It's been c. £400m wasted so far. Even the decent players that we are supposed to build on are grossly underperforming. Where do we even start spending? Pep had De Bruyne, Silva, Aguero, Otamendi, Fernandinho, Sterling performing very well as the backbone, so City gave him more players. It was the same with Klopp, Mane, Firmino, Wijnaldum etc. One can't say the same for our current team and manager. Even the elite level investment you are talking about is more likely to end up like the investments we've been making so far if we give it to the current manager. No reward.
These squad can and should do better, and that should be the job of a new manager. A manager should at least get the best out of his current crop before wanting more.
I think our squad is better than every other club apart from City. Our rivals are littered with players that would also look very ordinary playing in our setup at this time. Likewise we have a lot of players that would look a lot better playing for them.
Lukaku would score a lot of goals playing in a system that suits him
I think by that logic, we have the most inferior manager among the top ten teams. We are the least slick and one of the worse teams despite the fact we have spent as much as, slightly less and much more than most other clubs.
Same with discussing with anyone that only wants to remember the highlights. Go look back on here for threads like 'zombie passing'. Do you think everything was rosy when the 2007/08 team was grinding out 1-0 wins? Were all the great comebacks games where we were brilliant for 90 minutes?
Good thread. I remember those days
Our manager spent £75m on a proven striker, but have no clue how to use him. Sad really.
Poor games for SAF standards are not same as Jose's. Those poor games will look lot more exciting compared to the shit we watch week in week out.
A good game from us these days equates to an average game from the SAF days.
Even if I accepted this (which I don't), I'd love to even see a comparison of "highlights" given the tripe on show these days... You're genuinely comparing Jose "400 Mn - we have not invested enough" Mourinho to a man that managed to win while:
- Playing 7 FBs in a team against Arsenal
- Playing with Cleverley and O'Shea as CMs
- Playing with Mikel Silvestre as a regular starter
FFS! The levels to while Jose backers will go will never cease to astound me. I await your judgment that Cleverley, Silvestre, O'Shea and co. were far superior to the players we have today. Go on. You know you want to...
Just a reminder: in 2007/08 we finished with 87 points and a goal difference of +58.
Currently, with almost a third of the season gone, we are on course for 63 points and we have a goal difference of -1.
I don't really understand what relevance does 2007/08 have anyway. Why is it an argument that "they played poorly sometimes, too?" - sure they did but not all the time. Or, frankly, most of the time.
You're looking for logic in the argument of a person using "zombie passing" from 2007/08 (Cl-PL double winners) to justify the current position of our team?
Yes bout no one else in that team would
A veyy one dimensional player that suits a one dimensional manager.
I agree but we had better and more exciting players also. People talk like we were as dominant in the past as this City side currently are but we never were.
Yeah but what does that have to do with anything? I still don't get it. The problem isn't that we are not as dominant as City; the problem is we are fecking rubbish!
I don't remember anyone saying that, again which has nothing to do with why this team can't string couple of passes together.
1. We were a better team. Individually, not too many (don't know about you) would say that Sanchez, Martial and Pogba (to name but 3) are not "exciting", but my word, as a team, it was brilliant - and exciting to watch!
That team (07/08 vintage) had a very "exciting" front 3 individually. Nobody would call our midfielders / defenders etc. of that era "exciting".
2. We won a hat-trick of PL titles, won the CL, won the double and obliterated domestic opponents; we made the CL final with regularity too - I'd call that fairly dominant
3. This isn't about being "dominant"; it's about not being dominated like we are. We're rubbish.
I'd advise you to just watch a single Real Betis game. Tell me after that how many of those players you'd have wanted signed for us, how many internationals, WC winners etc. they have. Just watch them. That's what a good coach / manager achieves.
Yes bout no one else in that team would
A veyy one dimensional player that suits a one dimensional manager.
He is a pretty one dimensional player, sure, but Lukaku just needs to have the ball in the box. He doesn't get that here. Spends most of his time 40 yards from goal with no team-mates around him. Its as much playing to his strengths as putting him at full-back would be.
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