Was Jose right? The case(s) for and against the players

He was right but he didn't win anything on his own. They played for him didn't they.
 
Jose was right. However his approach to the potential replacements to those players doesnt really suit a team long term. Those players would have been likely to have been functional at worst but Jose is here to win today and not 2 years down the line.

He was the king of harnassing talent that was ready to win things, and not so much nurturing new talent.

I will maintain that he would have been the best choice to take over from Sir Alex in 2013. Our play style under Sir Alex in the final years wasn’t too far from what Jose did back then.
 
Greck said:
Nice thought exercise. Here's another. Seeing how Jose's career has gone since leaving were those players also right about him? I don't know guys, Woodward and Pogba might have had a point.
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Precisely. He’s a fecking rodent who did nothing but take this club backwards. It’s bizarre how he still has “fans” on here.
 
Jose's football was outdated - everything else was noise. Ditto all our managers since 2010
 
Rolaholic said:
feck me another Mourinho thread...
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Well disregarding Jose then, would you agree that the players have an attitude problem given that yet again we have press leaks, player unrest and seemingly a lot of fragile egos? That's really the core of what i wanted to discuss, something Jose brought up and what other managers have faced.
 
Judas said:
Another thread to slag off the players with the added twist of wanting to give Jose credit. Marvellous.
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FFS disregard the Jose aspect of it then and focus on the players and offer a perspective, for or against, if you're so inclined. Jesus- i can't believe how ridiculously sensitive some of these responses are when I specifically asked if people wanted to offer different perspectives on player attitudes, for or against. Jose was merely a point of reference/framing narrative for a wider problem of player power, also backed up with references to LVG and Ralf.

I even said in the OP that I thought Jose was an idiot at times and wasn't right for the club.
 
For players like Pogba, Mou made it worse. At the end of the day, anyone wants to be respected at the place where they are working. Mou's comments about people like Pogba and Martial especially meant that a seed was planted in the players' minds and they were always fighting a losing battle.

Pogba was loved in initial few days of Ole, and then when results turned sour, Pogba was confronted by the fans on the last day of the season.

Similarly, Martial having a terrible attitude - the second his form turned to shit, this thing was brought up, ditto for Shaw and now Rashford as well.

Let's not forget Pogba's best football in a United shirt came under Ole (now the fact that it was for 4 odd months -1st 2 months of Ole, December'20-Jan'21) - and while he should be released once his contract ends, there was no way back for Pog after the confrontation with the fans 2 years ago, unless he produced some WC football over 2 years.
Shaw was POTS in the season Mou got sacked, was arguably our best (or at worst 2nd best player) last season, and even in 19-20, he was more than decent. Martial's best season in Utd came right after Mou was sacked, and Rashford produced 2 20+ goal seasons right after Mou.

So, sure, he may have been right that eventually Pog will be an issue, Martial will be an issue, etc. let's not forget Mou made the situation worse in all the 4 cases
 
We set a bad precedent siding with the players. We must never undermine the manager no matter how bad he managed over player.

Short term pain long term example that no one is bigger than the manager.

Maybe he wasnt the right man for us. But this allowed the rot to set in for the next manager

Until we fix that rot that players must respect their manager so long as they hold the post we wont be getting anywhere.

Rashford shaw maguire and who knows how many players sided with them will just i fluenced the new 2-3 players we bought and the rots continue.

We need a clean slate. Find a good manager and for better or worse support his decision. As a matter of fact if im glazer id hire keane even if its only for 2 years to kick them all out. And the rebuild can start after

No manager can ever implement their tactics without the support of every player. Not when half of them are playing their own game of football

We could have employed pep today and rashford would still not playing for him.
 
Irwin99 said:
Well disregarding Jose then, would you agree that the players have an attitude problem given that yet again we have press leaks, player unrest and seemingly a lot of fragile egos? That's really the core of what i wanted to discuss, something Jose brought up and what other managers have faced.
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I mean this doesn’t mean anything really. Saying something but not applying it to yourself (see Jose). Our managers have also said United need to play great football, compete for the biggest trophies, etc. So they were all right, correct?
Pogba was Jose’s signing. And how about Lukaku? Proving to be great with an incredible mentality at Chelsea, no? Then Sanchez who after his 1st or 2nd training session with Jose’s United wanted to tear down his contract. Great signing and mentality.
So what exactly was Jose right about? Some lines he said? Then bloody Moyes was probably also right with a couple of things. People who spout crap endlessly tend to be right eventually with a couple of points.
Also all this mentality talk, why are so many of our players mentally poor or have a poor attitude? And is it not part of a manager’s and club’s job to work on players’ mentality as well? I mean while some players like Cantona and Keane probably always had a great mentality (still Cantona was a problem player before joining United) not every player who played under Fergie was a born mentality champion or something. The entire club since Fergie left has had a weird mentality so it’s no shock that this also applies to the players.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
Yeah, he was crow-barred in. Mourinho never had any issue with Rashford. Random.
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Actually I intended the Jose angle as a reference to discuss the player's attitudes and regarding Rashford, as I said in the OP, I think Jose had doubts as to his aptitude to be the central striker, which is not an attitudinal issue. So yeah, that probably was a mistake, although the inclusion was made because of his recent (alleged) behaviour which contributes to the wider discussion brought about by the likes of Pogba, Shaw and Martial about the supposed lack of happiness at playing for United.

In some respects I really regret even mentioning Jose because posters evidently can't separate their negative feelings for him with his possibly correct analysis of some of our players. It's almost like 'I have to pick a side and Jose is a c**t so i'll side with our players'.I even said in the OP that i thought Jose was an idiot at times and that i never truly thought he was right for the club and i've been baffled by some of the responses that i'm defending him.

The discussion was meant to be, did he have a point (regardless of whether you think he's toxic) and is there a problem with some of the players considering the reports of unhappiness, or does anybody want to offer an alternative take- the club itself is bad/not a good place be?
 
Did not want Jose here but I believe he is doing a brilliant job at Roma. I've been watching them most weeks and the growth in the team is quite visible in their performances. It can be argued Roma is his kinda club with a fan base that will take any sort of success. He seem to be making them relevant and the players are playing some good football as well.
 
Irwin99 said:
FFS disregard the Jose aspect of it then and focus on the players and offer a perspective, for or against, if you're so inclined. Jesus- i can't believe how ridiculously sensitive some of these responses are when I specifically asked if people wanted to offer different perspectives on player attitudes, for or against. Jose was merely a point of reference/framing narrative for a wider problem of player power, also backed up with references to LVG and Ralf.

I even said in the OP that I thought Jose was an idiot at times and wasn't right for the club.
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The children here can't discuss any focused topic if the word Jose or Moyes are mentioned. It's the same in every thread that pops up.
 
RedDevil@84 said:
You are not going to get any "Jose is right" on this forum. People hate Jose more than anything. Doesn't matter if he was half right about stuff.
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I truly regret framing the conversation around and referencing Mourihho because people can't separate their feelings for him from a reasoned discussion on whether he may have been right about one or two things regardless of his own massive flaws as a person/manager. If you mention Ole or Jose it's tantamount to declaring world war III among our fan base.
 
I've seen him being right on those things posts keep popping out on numerous football sites on Facebook so I'm not surprised I'm seeing this here.

He was right but he also threw players under the bus, made a toxic atmosphere and played awful kind of football. His career has been on a downhill for a while now too.
 
Irwin99 said:
Actually I intended the Jose angle as a reference to discuss the player's attitudes and regarding Rashford, as I said in the OP, I think Jose had doubts as to his aptitude to be the central striker, which is not an attitudinal issue. So yeah, that probably was a mistake, although the inclusion was made because of his recent (alleged) behaviour which contributes to the wider discussion brought about by the likes of Pogba, Shaw and Martial about the supposed lack of happiness at playing for United.

In some respects I really regret even mentioning Jose because posters evidently can't separate their negative feelings for him with his possibly correct analysis of some of our players. It's almost like 'I have to pick a side and Jose is a c**t so i'll side with our players'.I even said in the OP that i thought Jose was an idiot at times and that i never truly thought he was right for the club and i've been baffled by some of the responses that i'm defending him.

The discussion was meant to be, did he have a point (regardless of whether you think he's toxic) and is there a problem with some of the players considering the reports of unhappiness, or does anybody want to offer an alternative take- the club itself is bad/not a good place be?
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I think you make a fair point. Mourinho was/is an annoying prat but he knew a thing or two about the mentality required to win league titles and the United players he fell out with all lack that mentality. Although the counter-argument would be is there anyone in the squad before, during or since Mourinho that doesn’t have the shitty mentality he took issue with. Fred maybe? Bruno? McTominay, at a stretch?
 
Mourinho know what kind of effort and mentality needed. He was and is right about that. No matter how you put it, our players dont have that mentality.

That doesnt mean Mou was great or anything, but he most definitely had a point
 
Zen86 said:
All Mourinho has ever done is blame the players, wherever he goes.
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It’s something he’s done, it’s not ALL he’s done though is it.

He’s a manager who’s won an obscene amount of trophies playing quite dull footy and is now past his best.

I do also feel that a toxic relationship works both ways, and the Utd fanbase, in its collective attempt to move on from Fergie has a slightly toxic element also - ironically not in the ‘demand winning’ Real Madrid way, but rather in this daft, ‘Utd way’ nonsense and ‘club culture’ gibberish which is made (a lot) worse by the huge amounts of Utd old boys in the media who hypnotise fans into much of this backward gazing idiocy.

From a neutral POV, I really do believe that it’s Woodward who’s damaged Utd the most. His decisions have been almost surreally bad.

If LvG was replaced straight away with a younger possession manager, and Utd stuck with that philosophy, you’d now be challenging for the PL and CL with such financial clout.

As it stands Utd are closer to a mid table level team.

Also, it was Mourinho who brought Utd it’s last silverware, multiple pieces of silverware at that. Yet, he’s the villain… like I said, toxicity from both sides really.
 
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Rhyme Animal said:
It’s something he’s done, it’s not ALL he’s done though is it.

He’s a manager who’s won an obscene amount of trophies playing quite dull footy and is now past his best.

I do also feel that a toxic relationship works both ways, and the Utd fanbase, in its collective attempt to move on from Fergie has a slightly toxic element also - ironically not in the ‘demand winning’ Real Madrid way, but rather in this daft, ‘Utd way’ nonsense and ‘club culture’ gibberish which is made (a lot) worse by the huge amounts of Utd old boys in the media who hypnotise fans into much of this backward gazing idiocy.

From a neutral POV, I really do believe that it’s Woodward who’s damaged Utd the most. His decisions have been almost surreally bad.

If LvG was replaced straight away with a younger possession manager, and Utd stuck with that philosophy, you’d now be challenging for the PL and CL with such financial clout.

As it stands Utd are closer to a mid table level team.

Also, it was Mourinho who brought Utd it’s last silverware, multiple pieces of silverware at that. Yet, he’s the villain… like I said, toxicity from both sides really.
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He was a terrible manager for us. And yes, all he does is blame the players. Blame the players and demand the cheque book when it’s not going well, make it the Jose show when he’s winning.

To have won a couple of trophies and still be detested by most of the fanbase says it all about the man.
 
Irwin99 said:
I truly regret framing the conversation around and referencing Mourihho because people can't separate their feelings for him from a reasoned discussion on whether he may have been right about one or two things regardless of his own massive flaws as a person/manager. If you mention Ole or Jose it's tantamount to declaring world war III among our fan base.
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Without the Jose reference, this thread just boils down to "look at our players, they are not close to being world's best in their position". That's really not that amazing of an insight.
 
Mourinho has clearly fossilized in terms of his methods and tactics. But he will always be able to drawn on the reference points of players he's managed in his career who were actually winners: players like Lampard, Terry, Drogba, Ronaldo, Zanetti, list goes on. So if he was still able to diagnose players who lack that winning mindset, it wouldn't be a surprise at all.
 
Jose likes certain types of players that thrive under his style. Some players do some players don't. There are players who struggled under him and have gone on to better things, there are players that thrived under him (di maria a good example) who have shown themselves to be mentally weak at other clubs.

Think people view these things as black and white too much. Some players like Ronaldo are 90% of the time mentality monsters no matter where they go, the majority of players though have periods of strong mentality and periods of not having it. Just like the majority of people, put the right person in the right place at the right time surrounded by the right things and 99% of the time they will thrive.
 
Lemoor said:
Without the Jose reference, this thread just boils down to "look at our players, they are not close to being world's best in their position". That's really not that amazing of an insight.
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I can not believe that, what with the constant media leaks, the recorded and proven media remarks, constant unrest among different managers resulting in sackings and reports of disharmony, that people would actually dispute that something is very wrong with the player culture here. As I said, if you or anyone else want to offer a defence of the players, or are in agreement then i'm interested in getting people's perspectives (there are some good ones above). The Jose reference was meant to frame the argument and I also mentioned Ralf and LVG.

And yes, when Luke Shaw is being payed an obscene amount of money for what ranges between a good/expected level of performance and absolute dogsh*t, then yeah i have to wonder how some of these players get away with it year after year.
 
flameinthesun said:
Jose likes certain types of players that thrive under his style. Some players do some players don't. There are players who struggled under him and have gone on to better things, there are players that thrived under him (di maria a good example) who have shown themselves to be mentally weak at other clubs.

Think people view these things as black and white too much. Some players like Ronaldo are 90% of the time mentality monsters no matter where they go, the majority of players though have periods of strong mentality and periods of not having it. Just like the majority of people, put the right person in the right place at the right time surrounded by the right things and 99% of the time they will thrive.
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Yes agree, but it is annoying that noone seems to thrive at us. Which players past SAF has really been a huge hit here? Possibly only De Gea have performed better for us than national side.

Bruno as well I guess, but he has moaned and been annoying this season. His best football was after he just signed and second season.

For some reason most of our players are doing worse for us than other clubs. Also lots of our players are doing much better for national sides.
 
Zen86 said:
To have won a couple of trophies and still be detested by most of the fanbase says it all about the man.
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And also the fanbase - since you, if we’re honest, are the one with the irrational hatred etc.

It’s a two way thing. If Jose had won 2 trophies at Spurs and then it’d gone sour, Spurs fans would still be grateful for those 2 trophies.

Without Jose, Utd have won absolutely nothing since Fergie retired but an FA cup.

He’s a negative manager who’s past his best, but to suggest he brought nothing Utd is just silly, overly emotional nonsense.
 
The other issue is a lot of us were right about Jose.

I’d have snapped your hand off the summer Ferguson went, but when he eventually got here it was always going to end in tears.
 
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Paul_Scholes18 said:
For some reason most of our players are doing worse for us than other clubs. Also lots of our players are doing much better for national sides.
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It’s because Utd are an incredibly poorly run club from a football POV and there’s a toxic culture of daft contracts, players downing tools and strong elements of weird, delusional romanticism within the fanbase.
 
Irwin99 said:
I can not believe that, what with the constant media leaks, the recorded and proven media remarks, constant unrest among different managers resulting in sackings and reports of disharmony, that people would actually dispute that something is very wrong with the player culture here. As I said, if you or anyone else want to offer a defence of the players, or are in agreement then i'm interested in getting people's perspectives (there are some good ones above). The Jose reference was meant to frame the argument and I also mentioned Ralf and LVG.

And yes, when Luke Shaw is being payed an obscene amount of money for what ranges between a good/expected level of performance and absolute dogsh*t, then yeah i have to wonder how some of these players get away with it year after year.
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Oh, I'm not contesting that player culture seems ridiculous here. My personal favorites were reports years apart about how players didn't like the video analysis because it was too focused on their negatives.
My "defence" (if you can even call it that) is that Jose's upgrade process consisted mostly of overpaying for >27 year olds, putting them on long, massive contracts, getting at best a year of decent performances and being surprised that after that we were in worse shape than before the upgrade. I just believe that if he was given the opportunity to replace Martial, Shaw and/or Pogba, we would be in even worse situation now.

In my opinion the last sentence says way more about how the board has been utterly incompetent at their jobs for the last 10 years than about Shaw and how amazing it is that Woodward somehow survived for almost a decade with so much power in the club despite failing at almost every possible step.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
And also the fanbase - since you, if we’re honest, are the one with the irrational hatred etc.

It’s a two way thing. If Jose had won 2 trophies at Spurs and then it’d gone sour, Spurs fans would still be grateful for those 2 trophies.

Without Jose, Utd have won absolutely nothing since Fergie retired but an FA cup.

He’s a negative manager who’s past his best, but to suggest he brought nothing Utd is just silly, overly emotional nonsense.
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No irrational hatred, I couldn’t really care less about the man now. And Spurs aren’t United I’m afraid.

An FA Cup and an EL weren’t enough to compensate for the torrid state of his tenure, just like an FA Cup wasn’t enough to save LVG.
 
Lemoor said:
Oh, I'm not contesting that player culture seems ridiculous here. My personal favorites were reports years apart about how players didn't like the video analysis because it was too focused on their negatives.
My "defence" (if you can even call it that) is that Jose's upgrade process consisted mostly of overpaying for >27 year olds, putting them on long, massive contracts, getting at best a year of decent performances and being surprised that after that we were in worse shape than before the upgrade. I just believe that if he was given the opportunity to replace Martial, Shaw and/or Pogba, we would be in even worse situation now.

In my opinion the last sentence says way more about how the board has been utterly incompetent at their jobs for the last 10 years than about Shaw and how amazing it is that Woodward somehow survived for almost a decade with so much power in the club despite failing at almost every possible step.
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yeah I can understand this. I think we all knew what we were getting with Jose and that it was a bit of a devil's bargain. The potential Perisic transfer probably sums it up: i've never understood the dislike or the underrating of that guy as he always seemed a terrific worker and a tricky player (not world class but pretty damn good-see the world cup 2018) but it was a clear signal of what Jose's thought process was- 50 million and no resale value for a hardworking 27 year old in place of younger players with greater potential. I wasn't happy with that idea back then either.

The other side to the argument though is that those players have hardly covered themselves in glory either since they 'won' against Jose.
 
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