Time + blind faith = Sir Alex Ferguson.
- Thread starter Fortitude
- Start date
Our fanbase is just sooo weird about managers in general. This and the "we've tried sacking managers before and it didn't work" is pretty much only ever used by United fans. I've seen other fanbases arguing over sacking or not sacking the manager but never this idea that one shouldn't be doing that at all because it has been tried.
Disagree, I don't think they were mentally weak under Ole. You don't come back from being a goal down so many times if you are mentally weak. It seemed like every single game we'd start slow, we'd concede and suddenly the spirit would kick in and we'd start dominating, pull back a goal and eventually end up winning. You also don't go on long streaks of unbeaten form if you're mentally weak. We were pretty good actually bar the occasional freak result.
The problem with Ole wasn't the mentality in my opinion. The issue was that in the tight games when tactical decisions really mattered he and the staff were simply not up to it. That then became a mental block for the team that when crunch time arrived, they didn't believe in the Manager and staff to pull them through. The Euro final loss resulted in the players finally losing confidence in him and that was that. Throw in a troublesome Ronaldo signing that destroyed the fine team balance and that's when it all began to unravel.
I also think during covid the players had to play way too often and our squad was not big enough to cope. That meant that our star players got over played as we couldn't really rotate much and the academy kids weren't up to scratch. I blame Woodward and Ole, Woodward should have ditched his mental 3 signing embargo and Ole should have pushed to get more signings through the door. The Glazers using the covid loss of income as an excuse not to spend. This all meant that our squad overhaul took far, far too long. When really every man and his dog could see that there were a lot of players that needed shifting.
I do have some sympathy for ETH for what it's worth. But his football is so fecking poor, I won't miss it.
Another strawman.
Some people feel he's shown more than enough to be sacked. Some feel he needs more time to demonstrate results, and if those results aren't demonstrated, he should be sacked.
It's one thing to feel he should be sacked. It's another thing to denigrate other fans who may be more patient/passive about the situation. Especially match going fans.
Don't see how is it a strawman. Like I said, I've only ever seen this idea by United fans, never anywhere else. People literally questioning whether we should be sacking a manager at all because it's been done before and it didn't work so it means it's pointless. It's not a new thing with Ten Hag either, we've been this weird with every manager post SAF. The average Premier league manager tenure is what, 2 years at most? And people are acting like sacking a manager is something out of ordinary. I suspect it's partly that people still can't get over the fact there won't be another Sir Alex and partly the "United way" nonsense.
It depends.
If you hire a young manager with a clear plan to transform the side over several years by completely rebuilding it and implementing a new style of play, establishing a change of culture and mentality, developing young players, then of course you give them time, and judge predominantly on indicators other than inmediate results.
If you hire an experienced manager, give them funds to sign experienced players, retain your current experienced, then you need results if not immediately, then pretty damn soon, and the manager needs to be judged on whether they're getting the best out of the current team and getting results more than being judged on long term evolution.
Its subjective where ETH fits, probably half way between these two categories. I've got an element of sympathy/defensiveness for him because there are structural and systemic failings at board/director level which can't help. But still, this season is not good enough at all, it feels like it's just a matter of time until hes sacked at this point.
If you hire a young manager with a clear plan to transform the side over several years by completely rebuilding it and implementing a new style of play, establishing a change of culture and mentality, developing young players, then of course you give them time, and judge predominantly on indicators other than inmediate results.
If you hire an experienced manager, give them funds to sign experienced players, retain your current experienced, then you need results if not immediately, then pretty damn soon, and the manager needs to be judged on whether they're getting the best out of the current team and getting results more than being judged on long term evolution.
Its subjective where ETH fits, probably half way between these two categories. I've got an element of sympathy/defensiveness for him because there are structural and systemic failings at board/director level which can't help. But still, this season is not good enough at all, it feels like it's just a matter of time until hes sacked at this point.
Can't disagree with any of that.
Ten Hag for me fits into the mould of a good potentially great coach but we all know the structure of the club is deeply flawed. We give our managers far too much control over things because that's what Ferguson had. We should have all the structures in place to allow Ten Hag to just focus on coaching. Club affairs, recruitment, strategy etc should all be somebody else's job.
See, that's the strawman. I highlighted it. Most people in the Ten Hag camp aren't saying this. It's not a blank check to think he needs more time to prove beyond doubt his chances at success here.
Except I never claimed most people in the Ten Hag camp are saying this. It wasn't even about Ten Hag but about our fanbase being weird about managers in general.
The thing that I think is unique with United is that we give our managers so much input/control over transfers. As a result, every time we change managers there is a huge cost to the club in terms of transfer spending waste because the new manager doesn't know what to do with the old managers favourites. That doesn't occur to the same extent at other clubs. For this reason, I think it makes sense for United to give their managers more time that is normal at other clubs.
For instance, after Van Gaal was let go Rojo, Blind, Depay, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger and Darmian were all stranded and the money we had spent on them was completely wasted. Maybe Van Gaal could have found a way to use them successfully if given more time. Jose certainly didn't.
After Mourinho left Dalot, Lindelof, Bailly, Matic (used under Ole but in a much reduced role) and Sanchez were stranded. Pogba and Fred too although Ole made every effort to use them.
After Ole left Maguire, Wan Bissaka (at first although ETH has admirably changed his mind about him), the back-up left back whose name I've forgotten and Sancho were stranded.
If we sack ETH now then the money spent on Antony, Mount, Malacia, will certainly have been wasted. Some at least of the money spent on Casemiro, Martinez, Onana and Hojlund will possibly as well. It makes more sense to give ETH a longer leash than he would get at other clubs because he might get these players to work together eventually whereas it is almost certain another manager will not. And the club will have to borrow another 400 million to please the next manager.
Other clubs buy players with the idea that any manager can get a tune out of them so it is more sensible to sack the managers quickly if they aren't having more immediate success.
For instance, after Van Gaal was let go Rojo, Blind, Depay, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger and Darmian were all stranded and the money we had spent on them was completely wasted. Maybe Van Gaal could have found a way to use them successfully if given more time. Jose certainly didn't.
After Mourinho left Dalot, Lindelof, Bailly, Matic (used under Ole but in a much reduced role) and Sanchez were stranded. Pogba and Fred too although Ole made every effort to use them.
After Ole left Maguire, Wan Bissaka (at first although ETH has admirably changed his mind about him), the back-up left back whose name I've forgotten and Sancho were stranded.
If we sack ETH now then the money spent on Antony, Mount, Malacia, will certainly have been wasted. Some at least of the money spent on Casemiro, Martinez, Onana and Hojlund will possibly as well. It makes more sense to give ETH a longer leash than he would get at other clubs because he might get these players to work together eventually whereas it is almost certain another manager will not. And the club will have to borrow another 400 million to please the next manager.
Other clubs buy players with the idea that any manager can get a tune out of them so it is more sensible to sack the managers quickly if they aren't having more immediate success.
Context.
Do you think the people on here who - right now - do not vote "sack" in the other thread, go with that option simply because "it has been tried"?
"Oh, yes - we sacked a few managers before, but we're still shite, so clearly the answer is to never sack another manager again."
Do you actually believe that anyone reasons along those lines?
Back then top 4 was the minimum requirement to keep the job. Let's see what happen if ETH doesn't make top 4. But I agree it was harsh.
I don't know what is right. I do know that us football fans are irrational dramaroyals
It comes down to something people here wouldn't admit.
The British media full of failed managers and ex-players who couldn't understand tactical terms always made it look as if Sir Alex wasn't a good tactician.
They always promoted him to be pure man management, when in actuality, watching his teams consistently play good football should have told people he was actually a top tier tactician. He just didn't go around using terminologies all the time.
Watch our different teams and you can see clear patterns, specific spaces being exploited, different moves from game to game, different formations in different phases of play. It was all there, yet the media pushed it to fans that Wenger and Mourinho were more refined managers. It always dumbfounded me. We always played better football than Arsenal, but the press always reported it differently.
Fans don't realize how special tactically Fergie was because he was always modest about that side of the game. They see any manager with patterns with terminologies and think of him as talented. Again, Fergie's modesty and manager advocacy didn't help. The club actually took him at his word, when they should have been smart enough to know he was simply being modest.
People have used very similar reasoning here on Redcafe.
But that doesn't make any sense, because, as you said, these managers were still sacked soon after anyway so the writing was always on the wall. The only thing that we've achieved by doing this is that:
a. we've prolonged their misery
b. we've waisted even more time and possibly money
c. we've waisted even more games than we should have and sanked even lower when it was perhaps, still salvageable
The only conlcusion we can make out of this is that there is a clear lack of competent structure to support any manager in this club and until that changes we aren't getting any consistent progress. Just short-term improvement, good runs of form and the occasional win against a City or a Liverpool that will delude the fanbase that we're bridging the gap when, in fact, it's widening by the day.
Only eclipsed by "Who cares it's not my money".
Sorry no. LVG was the worst out of all our managers. He more than any other manager we've had is an example of why you shouldn't give some managers endless time. He wasn't imposing anything good. He spent a half season experimenting with a poor tactic he hadn't seen succeed attackingly. He had 103 games with us, we had a good 4 games in between March and April 2015 (followed by 4 losses), a good game against Hull earlier that season and a good away game against Everton in the 15/16 season. Every other game was a struggle. Slow, brain numbing with no idea where chances were going to come from. In his second season, we scored 49 goals. There was no progression and the squad he was building got worse every passing year.
Why can't our managers taking accountability for transfers. He wanted the players he got, they may not have all been first choice, but those were the profile of players he wanted. Acting like he should have been able to secure Muller, Kroos etc is wild. He blocked us from getting Thiago. Additionally, he signed Di Maria and didn't know how to use him. My biggest gripe is how he managed to convince our player loathing fans that playing kids like Blackett was the way to move forward. We sold players like Nani, Zaha, Evans, Rafael, Hernandez, Welbeck and Kagawa and replaced them with much worse players. He signed Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Blind, Darmian, Rojo and Memphis. I'm not saying that the other group was exceptional, but the quality depth we had was ransacked and replaced with absolute trash. The squad Mourinho inherited is the worst team United have had, that was due to Van Gaal, not the board, and people need to start being honest about that.
Keeping Ten Hag is no guarantee of success, I agree. Time + patience is not equal to success.
But neither is sacking managers after a year a guarantee of success either. Look at the vast majority of managerial sackings in football.
There's no need to try and house your desire for Ten Hag being sacked under a quasi-logical argument. If you have a fetish for manager sacks like @Skills then just say so.
We've hired and fired 4 managers since SAF. Zero major trophies, and no period of dominance in football like City and Liverpool. Maybe managers aren't magicians and if so many of them fail then the problem isn't with them but with the structure they operate in? It doesn't mean they couldn't do better but at this point so many are obsessed with rearranging the chairs on the Titanic deck.
I'm ok with giving him until the end of the season to see what he can do with this squad. I don't think there is any benefit to just placing a caretaker in the position right now. And the season is lost. We aren't winning the CL. We aren't winning the league. If we're moving on from Ten Hag I'd rather it be part of a sensible transition, not an impulsive reaction (which is what it is on here right now).
Also, why do pro-sack fans have an issue with the wait and see crowd. Do they think once we are all on the same page on the Caf, then that accelerates the sacking process? I remember some idiots back in the Moyes days complaining about the sack poll not being lopsided enough
I don't agree with this. Chelsea shouldn't have hired Mourinho in 2004 then, they should have kept Ranieri. Every successful team has a manager that was sacked before the success. We need to grow up about this. It's not charity. Can't keep doing nothing and expect to get a result out of it. You sack managers when they don't meet standards that they should be expected to meet. That's football. Us hiring only 4 managers since Fergie left despite a club of our size failing over those years should be an indictment. Why only 4. We gave 2 years or more to managers who were failing, whilst other clubs were succeeding and are still yet to find success. That shows us not being urgent enough. Expecting every manager to succeed at this stage doesn't make sense, so evaluating the manager and using the evaluation to make a quick, prompt judgement is how you find the right manager. The manager knows its a big job when they take it. It's not a failure, it should be part of the process. Ajax have had 4 managers since Ten Haag left. It shows that Ten Haag understood the pressure that comes from taking on a big job, but has faced less pressure to succeed at United than he did at Ajax. That should not be the case. You keep managers long term when they prove to be successful. You don't keep them because they didn't completely fail. That's our problem, we wait for them to completely destroy the team before heading for a rebuild. Sack them early, replace them and keep it moving till the right person comes. Acting like every player is poor, chastising the board and blaming everyone but the manager for the teams failure every two years just doesn't make sense. It's the manager's job to get good performances and results for the team. If he's not doing that, he's not doing his job effectively.
It's not harsh. The playing field was getting raised back then with Klopp and soon Pep arrival, whereas LVG method evidently stagnated in 2 weaker seasons. One more season of him wouldn't get us anywhere especially if the risk is losing CL for the second season running, with him quitting anyways by the end of his third season. During this period, La Liga was still the top league in the world. Even Wenger got sacked after failing to get top 4 twice. No chance LVG should have been allowed his third season here.
Only a few seasons after LVG tenure, where PL truly became the top league in the world, where top 4 alone is not enough to indicate strength of teams narrowly miss out on top 4 finishing high mid table, that's where "trust the process" thinking become prominent.
Mourinho tenure may be seen as failure, but given this club is still aimless in upper management till this very day, Mourinho time at least helped us not to fail far behind aftermath of LVG two seasons. LVG third season likely would be another mediocre season, worse than Mourinho first two seasons with us. After LVG 3 year foundation building process if the plan was to allow Giggs to take over, that foundation likely went the same fate as LVG to Mourinho change. 3 years wouldn't be enough for Giggs to learn the Dutch total football where his whole playing career was under SAF. Highly unlikely Woodward would be able to appoint a proper manager to continue on LVG's work. Mourinho's playing style at least transitioned to Ole's United way more easier because their version are based closer in core philosophy.
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While everything you say can be somewhat accurate, don't forget that the structure above Ten Hag allowed for all of this nonsense. The nonsensical transfer and recruitment process is their doing. Someone has determined that keeping players to "protect their value" is more important than refreshing the squad. They are the ones agreeing to pay idiotic fees for players who aren't ready for the big leagues. While also refusing to cut our losses while the player still has some of their value.
In terms of manager recruitment, the club has created a system where we seemingly employ managers based on their social media standing, and not their suitability to the club, playing style or long term vision.
No one should want the current decision makers to be responsible for picking the next manager if there is any truth to the extent of control Ratcliffe will reportedly get.
Which world class coach? Van Gaal who was already washed up? Mourinho who failed at Spurs and isn't doing anything at Roma? Ole?
Now, what are the managers not being supported with. It's easy to blame faceless people, but let's be honest about this.
Every single one of these managers got top transfers in. Compared to every other team, they've been blessed with many transfers. The fact those transfers failed isn't the fault of the board, but rather the manager who requested for those players. Acting like the players were forced on the manager without any indication being proven otherwise is ludicrous. The 4 managers haven't come out to say the club forced them to sign any of these players, just that they weren't always first choice. Noone always get first choice, so the managers need to take accountability for their failures and stop blaming the club.
Moyes was given Mata and chose to sign Fellaini
Van Gaal had a total of 11 first team transfers. He also signed Di Maria who was a star. Memphis, Herrera, Rojo, Martial, Schweinsteiger, Darmian, Blind etc were signed. All players he wanted. But the club didn't support him because we didn't get Muller? Van Gaal even rejected Thiago Alcantara. So how can anyone say he didn't have a say in things
Mourinho signed Pogba, Sanchez and Lukaku for huge sums of money. Also wasted money on players like Bailly and Lindelof, yet complained that we didn't sign an aging Perisic, after we'd already signed an aging Matic for him.
Ole is the only one that can say this. Yet even he got Varane, Ronaldo, Cavani, Fernandes etc.
ETH signed Antony for 85m and Mount for 60m.
So I have to ask, how can anyone talk about structures. What do you want the board to do, come on the pitch and play too? It's such a poor excuse. If you fail, you fail. But don't spend large amounts of money then absolve yourself of responsibility.
For me, that's what the last 10 years have taught me in terms of managers. Their not responsible. Yes Woodward was poor for image purposes, but the fact remains that he gave these managers so much autonomy. Only Ole seemed to appreciate that. The others used any tactic they could to sour the name of the club for their own protection. Does the club lock the players out of the training ground? Do they stop the players from sleeping? The club have gone to great lengths to ensure success. They've overpaid wages, overkept managers and taken all of the blame for everyone elses failures. I don't like the Glazers. I don't like them forcing the club into debt or how they've managed it since. But my issue with them isn't that they haven't supported managers, it's that their passive behaviour has given manager's way too much freedom and not enough expectation. I'd argue that if they knew more about the sport and were involved more directly, the club would never have been in this state. And that state has been brought about by opportunistic managers; not the players, fans or executives.
It's worse- he rejected, or at least dithered about signing (when Moyes had the transfer more or less locked up before he was sacked, both player and price - see interview with the player for conformation) Toni Kroos when he arrived, allowing Madrid to swoop in. Even with Van Gaal managing him we would have created a few more chances those next two seasons, to say the least.
I think the managers at United have a lot of influence over the players we acquire for our first team, even though I don't disagree with most of this. The managers should take responsibility for our recruitment.
Which other team blames the board for failed transfers? The only well-known cases in which fans have done that are Chelsea under Mourinho and Madrid during the first galactico period. How come? Since it was widely known that Perez and Abramovic had purchased these players rather than the managers themselves. It's not what United has done. The managers we've had haven't been forced to accept a player. The Pogba transfer would be the lone possible exception. Yet somehow, it's always the club charged with failures in recruitment. Protecting the value of players did occur and was a poor strategy, but it should not have had any effect on what we produced on the pitch.
What does have an impact on performances on the pitch is when managers are allowed full authority in buying players, but are imposed strict limits on selling them. That limits their ability to fully refresh the squad and get rid of mistakes they make. That was what ended Mourinho's tenure, not being able to sell Paul Pogba, a few of his own signings and Martial, and it has clearly had an effect on Ten Hag's squad as well. Maguire shouldn't be here, not because he isn't a decent player, but because Ten Hag just spent all of last season actively showing how little he wanted to keep him. He should have been paid off. We give the manager wide authority to spend hundreds of millions on whatever tickles their fancy, but we don't let them sell when they need to - unless the deal is "right". That little detail right there is why we always have a dysfunctional squad. It seems Ten Hag's strategy in the face of it is to try to force the club into selling by basically treating the player like crap - it worked with Ronaldo, but not so much Sancho or Maguire yet.
We should hold the manager accountable for his signings, absolutely, but we should also recognise that the structure surrounding him isn't setting him up for a great deal of success. The sort of almost, but not quite, complete authority we give managers is a detriment to every rebuild we've had in the past decade.
I agree with this completely. I don't think it's something measured either, but something that should be consistently evaluated. ETH is a weird one for me.
Unlike Moyes, LVG and Ole, I've seen signs of good football from ETH. I've also seen signs that we can be consistent.
Unlike some fans here, I have seen clear patterns in his time here, just not as much this season.
However, I see a lot of weaknesses that as a club, I don't think we should wait around to see improvement on.
- Fans blamed the players, but for two straight years our preseason preparation has been horrible. We've started the season with unfit players. For me, I saw this same issue with Ole, and in a league full of top managers, amateurish problems like this shouldn't be in play. For me, I see it as a lack of urgency, not fully appreciating how ready you need to be for the intensity of the league.
- The willingness to spend money on an unsure plan also reeked of this lack of urgency. Mount should not have been signed since the formation we had used to relative success the season before didn't have his position readily available. Yet we moved forward with this transfer, the experimented tactic didn't work, Casemiro has aged, and now we're left with a midfield that can't support our team effectively. That's poor decision-making, lack of planning and recklessness. Things we can't afford to have at the squad.
- His in game management has always been a concern. It's glaring at the moment. Again fans solely blame players for this and call it mentality. However, I saw a lot of comebacks under Ole. Ten Haag doesn't react quickly to in game changes or situations. These lack of adjustments put our players in situations where they can crumble. They don't have the line of sight to see the whole pitch. Ten Haag does and he doesn't use it frequently enough in-game to support the team. If plan A fails, we fail. Again, in a league with top managers, you can't afford to be weak on that.
- The largest concern for me is the supposed inflexibility of his systems. The fact that Licha and Shaw being injured could have such an averse effect on our build up and progression play is ridiculous. Last season, we were forced to buy into the notion that Ronaldo's inability to press led us to perform poorly, now its this. Either the system isn't good enough to adapt to changes that will always arise or Ten Haag isn't good enough.
That's actually a really good point. Hopefully on the selling side, with Sir Jim and his team taking over football operations, this improves dramatically
I don't have to believe anything, I'm saying that's what some people are actually saying. I've heard that exact argument presented time and time again. We've tried sacking managers and it got us nowhere therefore it's not the manager. Again, this isn't new to Ten Hag or those voting don't sack.
Moyes shouldn't even come into it. He didn't even get a season, so we did exactly what Chelsea, Madrid, et al would have done with him.
I've seen a multitude of posts where this type of reasoning has been the consensus.
I agree with some points however Arsenal is not a realistic benchmark. A United manager is not surviving consecutive 8th place finishes and 5th. As stated previously Arteta is an exception to the rule, his example would totally discredit the sheer size of United which fundamentally is an underperforming elite club. The infrastructure around Klopp had a hand in Liverpool's development but a structure doesn't guarantee that any manager can be successful. There's also the basis that Jürgen at points was the best manager in world football while maintaing a near 80% win rate in their most competitive season. That cannot be excused as partly due to his merits, most managers in football in his position would not have succeeded.
Linear progression is not typical but that's the trajectory a club of this stature will demand (which creates an exclusivity around the type of manager that will progress at this club). There's this idea that United can just throw any manager into the fold and they will succeed, there's a plethora of factors that a manager needs to have in his favour especially in terms of their own capabilities and capacity. Whoever is able to bring United back to a competitive front will have to be nothing short of exceptional, that much is evident and time is only a pre cursor when there's tangibility to invest that with a manager beyond hope and sentiment.
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Time + blind faith = Relegation
He was given free rein to cull the squad as he liked. No manager under Glazers will be able to do that because we keep extending useless players to stupid contracts which makes them unmovable.
Arteta in a way is benefitting from the 8th place. A lot of people wrote him off after that, and now there is a dramatic overcorrection after their solid performance last season.
But there is a good likelihood that Arsenal don't win a league title or Champions League trophy with him. Just because a team has an ascendant trajectory over a period of time does not mean they will win trophies.
Tottenham under Pochettino finished 5th, 3rd, and 2nd. Did they win a title? No, they finished 3rd and 4th in the next two seasons, then he was sacked.
Liverpool under Rodgers finished 7th, then 2nd. The next season they finished 6th. Then he was sacked.
Arsenal under Wenger went through highs and lows after the 03/04 title win. But they never won it again.
Those clubs would've all sacked him by December and found a way to salvage their season
Yes, but what does "it's not the manager" mean?
There's a difference between:
A) It's pointless to sack the manager because the basic structure is fecked.
and
B) We shouldn't sack the manager because we've done that before and for some reason it hasn't worked, so there's no point in trying it again.
The first points to something specific (beyond the manager) which is the fundamental problem. The second is nonsensical, pure faulty logic.
What I'm saying is that people who don't vote "sack him now" are more likely to be in the first category. The second category are just weird - and I personally haven't seen anyone actually arguing along those lines.
I don't even agree with the first notion. What specific structures have stopped United managers from succeeding. People just say it, but what exactly are they referring that they know for a fact? We buy players and spend a lot of money. We never publicly put pressure on managers. We don't sack them early. We almost always back them when theirs a conflict with a player ( Martial and Pogba under Mourinho are the only times this didn't happen). The only two hinderances I can think of are our inability to sell player effectively and preseason scheduling. For me, those two things should not be enough for a manager to fail.
I know fans don't want to admit this, but isn't there a good chance that the managers we paid well to do their jobs simply didn't do a good job. Moyes hasn't proved he's a great manager for a top club in 10 years. LVG was past his prime and had issues previously at other clubs ( Barcelona in 2003). Mourinho had just sunk Chelsea the previous season and hasn't proven anything since except that he can't adapt to modern football. Ole was a novice. Ten Haag is the only manager that his appointment should not have raised some questions marks. But factors like the size of the job, the pace of the league and the language barrier in communication have to be taken into account. I understand that it's easy to blame rich people who benefit financially from the club for it's failure, but on the pitch, with finances being readily available, I don't see how that translates. Barca and Juventus literally had criminals in senior management and still managed to do well in their leagues despite them tampering and buying the likes of Paulinho. We have maybe the most passive owners in football, yet somehow on pitch failings are their fault? Blame them for the state of old trafford and training facilities, not the football we play on the pitch.
It's blatantly obvious that the structure is fecked.
The fact that we had no one in a position remotely resembling a sporting director until five minutes ago, and even then, the people appointed are new to the role(s) and one has been on record basically admitting that he doesn't even do what practically every other person with his job title does, is clear evidence of that.
It was blatantly obvious that we had no concrete succession plan for Fergie, despite his advancing years and his rolling contract meaning he was fairly likely to announce a sudden retirement.
It's been blatantly obvious that we've had no sporting direction, which is how we've gone from Fergie to Moyes to LvG to Mourinho to Solskjaer to Ten Hag.
Transfers have been a weird mix of manager choice (Fellaini, Matic, etc.) and "god knows who" selections (Sanchez, Van De Beek, etc.), adding further evidence to how fecked the structure is/has been. The amount spent is irrelevant when it's obvious that it's been spent with absolutely no planning and forethought.
Good post.