"There’s nothing I like about this United team at all"

My favorite people with the team right now:

The manager... and he’s unproven

Pogba(please be civil about my opinion)... and he’s leaving

Mata... and he isn’t getting any younger or faster/stronger

Young talent.. like mctominay, greenwood, etc

New signings... and not enough have been made so far.
 
Shakesey said:
Then maybe you should see Manchester United as a football club and not a business? Just sayin'.
We still play football you know. It's not all about merchandise, sponsors, owners and transfers. Friendlies are due to start soon as a friendly reminder.
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I've supported the club since 1963 like the last poster so your juvenile sarcasm isn't really necessary.
 
Rooney and Valencia were the last of what I consider to be a true Utd players. I feel no allegiance for any of the current squad.

All I want now is to see our players give 100% on the pitch win or lose, instead of this lot who seem more interested in comparing wage slips and how they’re doing on social media.
 
Moriarty said:
I've supported the club since 1963 like the last poster so your juvenile sarcasm isn't really necessary.
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What I don't understand is that you wrote you're not interested in supporting a "business". I support a football club. So, my "juvenile sarcasm" wasn't entirely pointless. Change your perception of the club and leave business related stuff to the board. You clearly don't need that in your life.

As an afterthought - what is the difference between a football club and a business anyway? Wasn't our club a business in 1963?
 
Shakesey said:
What I don't understand is that you wrote you're not interested in supporting a "business". I support a football club. So, my "juvenile sarcasm" wasn't entirely pointless. Change your perception of the club and leave business related stuff to the board. You clearly don't need that in your life.

As an afterthought - what is the difference between a football club and a business anyway? Wasn't our club a business in 1963?
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Yes it was, but it was run by a very paternalistic Louis Edwards who was a huge United fan. He had been angling for a seat on the board since before Munich. He ran the club, as David Conn wrote, "for fun and fame" and supporters weren't gouged and paid very low prices to watch one of the greatest United sides in history. It wasn't until the late 70s when Louis Edwards started making money thanks to Roland Smith's scheme that was vehemently opposed at the time by Matt Busby. At the time of the flotation, a lot of United fans were opposed to it and Martin Edwards became a figure of hate for many who saw the shares scheme as solely a vehicle for enriching the shareholders.

For what it's worth, I have always supported the team, not the board, not the PLC, not the Glazers or the myriad sponsors. But the lines are blurred nowadays. Talk to opposition fans and their first comments are usually along the lines of 'United is only interested in making money, not the football'. Van Gaal alluded to this, and, if he ever speaks publicly, I bet Jose would too.
 
Don't think its about players 'not caring', but its quite possible they don't give every match their best efforts, or as they say "bring their A game".

Last season once it became clear we were out of the CL and unlikely to make the top four, very few of our players, even the stalwarts like De Gea were bringing their B (in some cases C) game!
The performances against Huddersfield and Cardiff were devoid of any real effort, from individuals and the team as a whole; why I am not sure, money, training, playing out of position, lack of team ethos, I don't know, but one things for sure if we start the new season like we finished the last, our main concern will be staying in the Premier League!
 
yumtum said:
I think James will become a fan favourite for this reason.
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Me too. He's clearly excited to be playing for United and seems the kind of guy who leaves everything on the pitch. Add that to the fact he's fast and daring and you have the recipe for a fanbase darling, specially in a time when the fans are finding it hard to relate to any player at all.
 
dbs235 said:
Players like Young certainly care and yet are also the reason why we finished 6th. It's complete nonsense spouted by everyone in football - if their team has a bad season then "they didn't care enough".
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If you think our players put the same amount of effort as Liverpool and co you should see your eye doctor.
 
Moriarty said:
Yes it was, but it was run by a very paternalistic Louis Edwards who was a huge United fan. He had been angling for a seat on the board since before Munich. He ran the club, as David Conn wrote, "for fun and fame" and supporters weren't gouged and paid very low prices to watch one of the greatest United sides in history. It wasn't until the late 70s when Louis Edwards started making money thanks to Roland Smith's scheme that was vehemently opposed at the time by Matt Busby. At the time of the flotation, a lot of United fans were opposed to it and Martin Edwards became a figure of hate for many who saw the shares scheme as solely a vehicle for enriching the shareholders.

For what it's worth, I have always supported the team, not the board, not the PLC, not the Glazers or the myriad sponsors. But the lines are blurred nowadays. Talk to opposition fans and their first comments are usually along the lines of 'United is only interested in making money, not the football'. Van Gaal alluded to this, and, if he ever speaks publicly, I bet Jose would too.
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First off, thanks for the context. Interesting read.

Now, on to the bolded bit - the lines are being blurred. Are they? Are they blurry to you or opposition fans? I'm interested in the football. Am I wrong? Right now it sounds as if you're tired of the misguided opinion out there and that you're now also beginning to believe that our club is only about making money. It's almost as if the world has won. Feck them, man!

The only blurring happening here is that we need to be successful on the field to make money. We need to be good at football. Football is at the core!

But you go fight that battle if you want. :)
 
Maticmaker said:
Don't think its about players 'not caring', but its quite possible they don't give every match their best efforts, or as they say "bring their A game".

Last season once it became clear we were out of the CL and unlikely to make the top four, very few of our players, even the stalwarts like De Gea were bringing their B (in some cases C) game!
The performances against Huddersfield and Cardiff were devoid of any real effort, from individuals and the team as a whole; why I am not sure, money, training, playing out of position, lack of team ethos, I don't know, but one things for sure if we start the new season like we finished the last, our main concern will be staying in the Premier League!
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Everton 4-0 away aswell. They threw away CL football several times in that run in, half of those players can do one for all I car after some of those games, truly pathetic. Maybe some thought they wouldn't be here to worry about it anyway
 
We have a selection of footballers who don't try hard enough in games and who we are now told aren't fit enough.

What's to like?

It's easy to say they are dislikable away from the pitch but you can apply that to how 99% of top level footballers are portrayed in the media. Fans like winners or players who try their guts out, and dislike the opposite. how they judge them away from the pitch is then skewed one way or another based on that.

It's also easy to just blame someone like Pogba, but he is only responsible for himself and is far from the only culprit. Even if he is a "big influence" on the dressing room and encourages bad habits (which the is actually no direct evidence to support), that's on the management and the rest of the players for allowing it.

It's fixed by players working hard and concentrating properlu in games and not being out worked by literally every team they cone up against.
 
Do footballers need somebody to win their hearts and minds?

For example, if you take Pep or Klopp away from their teams and put a lesser manager there, would certain players show their true colours? Or, do we just have a bunch of lazy unmotivated so and so's?
 
horsechoker said:
Do footballers need somebody to win their hearts and minds?

For example, if you take Pep or Klopp away from their teams and put a lesser manager there, would certain players show their true colours? Or, do we just have a bunch of lazy unmotivated so and so's?
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You need both a top managers and players to keep the others in line and focused.
 
captain666 said:
Having supported United since 1963 (yes,a 9 year old glory hunter after we won the FA Cup) I dont think I have ever felt so bereft of feelings for any of our current players and more so the Club in general.Ed has had 6 seasons to perfect his transfer talents and would suggest most supporters couldn't do worse.
No vision,foresight,planning or strategy is woeful for a once great Club,maybe I'll go back to my roots and follow Orient next season doing battle with Salford City but I know I'll still tune in every week to watch our continued decline,depressing thought!
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Moriarty said:
Same here. I'm not interested in supporting a business.
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I don’t think we older fans are cognisant of the cultural implications that has come about from what was once a football club with a business to the present day of a business with a football club. I still contend, removing ‘FC’ from our badge was the point when we turned into something else and which is still evolving away from football through different stages of business models. Even when we were poor quality in the 1960s our philosophy remained the European Cup at all costs. Today, the business philosophy is about expenditure on players that sell shirts and generating social media. I suspect this will change again in due course. The younger generations of fans have in my opinion suffered most from the cultural turn and since 2014 have been served with figures of individual reputation rather than a proper squad of successful players. In the past there was always something to aim for and players met the ambitions which were: the determination to turnaround the Munich disaster and win the EC, later it was Fergie’s ambition to knock the Scousers off their perch. Maybe we have no more dragons to slay and players reflect that situation?

As to the present squad it often feels like watching someone else’s team in our shirts - interesting maybe but never enthralling. We lost the ‘fever pitch’ under Fergie after 2008, we’ve had our moments since but no longer entire season’s of ecstasy. As I come into 40 years with an ST it’s the first time I feel no anticipation for next season and a lot of apprehension for the squad. I didn’t want Pogba back and one of my favourite players was allowed to leave on a free. I don’t get how Lukaku can’t control a ball and still be rated at £75 million. I don’t get why our defenders still make the same mistakes after 200 games - at some point someone has to say change or leave. We have this truly bizarre situation with a player like Jones who literally dies for the club with suicidal energy every game to an utterly useless klux who costs the club a reputed £400k per week mostly for sitting on his arse. Many of the players have fallen into the trap of social media fame forgetting the golden rule they will be judged by the timeless benchmark of performance on the pitch. The outcome in the last six weeks of false press speculation and claims by rogue agents has exposed our players to ridicule. As overpaid divas, our fans are not prepared to stand up for them as once we all did for Eric. The solution lies in the squad. Pogba can rally young fans but his influence on the squad is limited to those exceptional performances - when the team is playing crap he disappears. We have no leader/captain of authority - people say in modern football we don’t need that kind of player role anymore - so why are the clubs higher than us still clinging to strong inspirational players?

The club spent an obscene amount of money to get where we are today. I can understand the reluctance of any board not spending anymore as a ‘business’ but the ‘football club’ has a squad that is quite literally not fit for purpose. The Moyes-LVG-Sacked One Experiment led to short term successes - F.A./Euafa - but is a long term calamity. A sad saga of how to spend loads of cash without much to show in terms of squad integrity or depth. How do we twice end up with two aged former wingers playing full back after spending £700 millions - how can a business make such a glaring mistake without the board’s scrutiny? Just because it’s a business it doesn’t mean it has to abdicate it’s powers of operational integrity - Woodward should be challenged for his stupid business decisions and his poor returns on investment in the football club.

The present squad is an amalgam of mega dosh and cliques. The mad like Jones, the aged like Young, the new/young hopefuls, the super rich like Pogba and the obscene like Sanchez. When they work they beat PSG in Paris but... The tail end games last season were a disaster and we didn’t see much to suggest Ole or the club had a secret to success for the forth coming season as the Doc had in 1974 or Fergie in 1992. Both made exceptional title changing buys - Pancho, Hill and Stevie, and of course Eric. The nearest we came to an inspirational player in recent years was Zlatan, the majority of the new players since 2013 have been overpriced decent but nothing special players. We desperately need an inspirational player for this coming decade - like Bestie in the 60s, Buchan in the 70s, Robbo in the 80s, Eric in the 90s and Ronnie in the 00s. Even after they left they cast a shadow of ambition over later squads. I dearly hope a player of that ilk lies in our youth teams but I seriously doubt it. We are just 4 weeks or so away from the first game and the trepidation is percolating with a very great concern that if the Ole experiment fails the future of the club will once again fall into doubt.
 
I didn't then and I haven't ever since. It's just been a different shade of shit.
 
It’s amazing how every single team looks better than us. Every single team!
 
Mctominah just isnt good enough. Keane has been saying it for about two years now. He cannot control the game. Matic then is too old.

It is not looking bright. Maybe change the formation to a 4-3-3. Cavani isnt a ten either.
 
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