What exactly changed in Arnold, Murtough and Ten Hag era?

[tomaldinho1]

Not much. We keep overpaying for small slow players such as Antony and Mount and surrender the midfield to our opponents. Martial and Höjlund will make us more balanced up front but CM is a huge concern so far, preseason included.

The midfield isn’t surrendered because of Antony, a RW, who is very good at keeping the ball. The whole team is made to look bad because ETH seems to strongly believe the current setup, which to everyone is looks unbalanced, will work.

Case/Eriksen worked well enough last season and both are relatively slow, they just understand how to play as a CM positionally. Ideally you add more pace in there but, by far and away, the thing you do most of all is not give the ball every bloody attack and let teams counter straight through your non existent midfield.

 

[Giggsy13]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...rets-manchester-uniteds-great-summer-rebuild/

Murtough was only empowered to make genuine changes from January 2022:


There was a major problem with a disconnect between recruitment and other members of staff:


Murtough removed the former heads of recruitment and promoted Mayorga. This happened last summer so that window (2022) we had to rely more heavily on EtH for recruitment.

People moaning that we are not hiring the best in class. Well we are trying to do so, but you cannot just replace 1000 staff all in one go. It doesn't make sense to do that.



Here is an example of hiring people from other teams to complete projects in the club:


The most important point is that there must now be agreement between the DoF (and by extension the recruitment) and EtH before a player signs. This means effectively that every signing we have made this summer has had that approval and staff are working together:


Some of the takes in this thread are also absolutely bizarre. When EtH was hired, we had a long list of problems in the team. Since his arrival these are some of the things he has done to the squad:
- remove de Gea
- remove Maguire from the team and attempt to move him on
- sign a ball playing defender
- sign a defensive midfielder
- remove the McFred monopoly
- sign a RW
- sign a striker

Whether his signings have worked or not, the point is, he has made signings to key areas nearly every United fan felt needed improvement. The main reasons why we haven't done more always comes back to the ownership and not the manager, the DoF or even the CEO.

Whether EtH works or not, the structure in the club is much better, the recruitment is far more targeted and we are signing players now that are, objectively, better on the ball. Over the next few windows we will continue to see this and the overall team will improve as a result.

Oh is that some sense I read, don’t bother with that here.

 

[Giggsy13]

Well, it's only the start of his 2nd season and he's providing the complete opposite of stability at the minute. He's also very clearly physically declined from his prime already.

It’s been two games FFS.

 

[Dominos]

It’s been two games FFS.

If you think this is a man in his physical prime then I'm not sure exactly what I can do to convince you otherwise because we've both seen all his games for us and arrived at widely different conclusions. That's not a 26 year old Casemiro we're seeing. It was there to be seen last season, but very few wanted to acknowledge it.

 

[sparx99]

This sounds nice and all, but if you look at our actual activity and the profiles of the players we've targeted and signed, there's no empirical evidence that any actual change has taken place beyond just lines on an org chart.

Even if they changed everything the plan could fail despite on paper doing everything right. Nobody has meant to buy the wrong players over the last 10 years regardless of our structure. Nobody wanted to waste £1bn.

There is though some evidence that the club have changed strategies. We have just bought our first young striker since Martial in 2015. If that’s not an indication that we are seeking to build a team rather than chasing immediate success then I don’t know what more they can do.

 

[sparx99]

If you think this is a man in his physical prime then I'm not sure exactly what I can do to convince you otherwise because we've both seen all his games for us and arrived at widely different conclusions. That's not a 26 year old Casemiro we're seeing. It was there to be seen last season, but very few wanted to acknowledge it.

He took several games to get going last year and then again after his long ban. Not one player has hit their stride yet which is the bigger concern. If it was just Casemiro then you can say it’s down to him aging but the younger players are also not at it yet.

 

[Tyrion]

Wage structure seems to be addressed in some capacity.
Some of Erik's signings could be turning good as in regular starters at the expected level over many seasons. Martinez, Onana are both promising. Considering how dire MU record with big transfers is, it may be a marginal improvement.
Recruitment seems to target the correct positions, at least.
Some of the deadwood has been moved. Not as much as wanted but long due nonetheless.

That doesn't detract from your general point : Is there progress, structurally ? I don't know.

I'd agree with this. We've improved a little. Whether that's ETH or Murtaugh, I'm not sure.

 

[Lentwood]

We haven't made any positive changes.

We signed Antony for £80m because the manager wanted him. Mount for £50m for the same reason. I'm fairly sure from what I've seen of Hojlund he'll still be fairly. For £70m. Spunking big money on players largely because the manager wants them - just like with Sancho and AWB etc under Ole. No real scouting, just names the manager likes.

@Adnan used to post about the changes we've made in the recruitment at the club, but it's clear that something hasn't worked. Players like Tonali, McAlister, Szobolozsai have on average moved for about what we paid for Mount.. instead we go for the one guy if you watch England or Chelsea is average most of the time.

Until we get a proper modern recruitment team and strategy in place we're going to continue spunk money and then wonder why we never improve.

On Arsenal, they already had good attacking players like Saka, a RW that you just can't buy in the modern day. Martinelli isn't as good as Rashford but offers something similar. They then added Odegaard, a great AM, and Trossard who I've rated highly for a while. Good signings. And of course Jesus but I don't really rate him that much. We've signed what comparitely, Mount Antony and Hojlund? Between them I'd be surprised if they score more than 15 goals this season.

What makes you think Mac Allister and Sozboloszai are going to work out? This is classis RedCafe. Everything we do is automatically rubbish and everything our rivals do is great. You know it was widely reported that Klopp's first choice for his midfield was Mount and he only looked elsewhere when it became clear he wanted United?

I would say that every single player we have signed under ETH is contributing to the first team. That's a good strike rate. Yeah there's still work to do, but it's very early days yet. You don't undo a decade+ of negligence in 18-months

 

[Gordon Godot]

What makes you think Mac Allister and Sozboloszai are going to work out? This is classis RedCafe. Everything we do is automatically rubbish and everything our rivals do is great. You know it was widely reported that Klopp's first choice for his midfield was Mount and he only looked elsewhere when it became clear he wanted United?

I would say that every single player we have signed under ETH is contributing to the first team. That's a good strike rate. Yeah there's still work to do, but it's very early days yet. You don't undo a decade+ of negligence in 18-months

MAcAllister is a WC winner who has show he an cut it in the Premier league. Of course he will cut it, to pretend otherwise is just dumb. I watched quite a bit of England and Chelsea and Mount never stood out, in fact often you forget he's even playing. He is not what we needed, in fact i would liken him to VDB, and the fear is that ETH is trying to recreate that pattern at United but that approach wont work in the Premier league. We havent now signed a top level CM at their peak since Keane. Shambolic

 

[Lentwood]

MAcAllister is a WC winner who has show he an cut it in the Premier league. Of course he will cut it, to pretend otherwise is just dumb. I watched quite a bit of England and Chelsea and Mount never stood out, in fact often you forget he's even playing. He is not what we needed, in fact i would liken him to VDB, and the fear is that ETH is trying to recreate that pattern at United but that approach wont work in the Premier league. We havent now signed a top level CM at their peak since Keane. Shambolic

Mount is a Champions League winning midfielder who has shown he can cut it in the Premier League. Of course he will cut it, to pretend otherwise is just a bit dumb.

 

[Andycoleno9]

MAcAllister is a WC winner who has show he an cut it in the Premier league. Of course he will cut it, to pretend otherwise is just dumb. I watched quite a bit of England and Chelsea and Mount never stood out, in fact often you forget he's even playing. He is not what we needed, in fact i would liken him to VDB, and the fear is that ETH is trying to recreate that pattern at United but that approach wont work in the Premier league. We havent now signed a top level CM at their peak since Keane. Shambolic

Imo, Mount is much better player than Mac. But, fun part is that Mac would be more suited signing for us and Mount would be for Liverpool.