When exactly did our decline begin?

[ManchesterManchester]

The important question is... when will our decline stop? Has it already stopped or will we reach a new low by going to the conference league next season?

That is the most important question. Personally think we will cement ourselves as a top 5-8 team. The problem isn’t so much the teams ahead of us that we know we can’t beat. It’s tbe teams below us who will overtake us (Newcastle, Tottenham, Arsenal, Aston Villa etc).

 

[sparx99]

It's not cast in stone that if we simply remove City then we are Champions in those years. If City don't grow maybe Arsenal keep their key players from early on like Nasri, maybe it's Liverpool that buy Aguero and Yaya Toure or Pep goes to Arsenal. Football people that made City prosper just don't disappear if you remove City.

The fact is that City have nothing to do with us spending a billion on sh*t, they didn't prohibit us from spending millions on dud after dud for over ten years. It's on the Glazers and their flunkeys.

The problem with the cumulative total of spending is that it has no measure for spending that was made as an attempt to fix a mistake. We count buying Lukaku and Pogba and Di Maria. Yet, how does it measure those failures? Are you supposed to spend £80-90m again to try and fix the error? While making a loss on those players etc?

Obviously, the answer is better recruitment but it seems inevitable that teams who aren’t at the top will have spent more poorly.

 

[Woodenlung]

I posted on the previous page about how Ferguson deserves some of the blame for failing to modernise our scouting structure. I firmly hold by that point.

However, it's rather damning on United as a whole that we've utterly failed to recruit adequately in the centre of midfield since he retired. Pogba, Fred, Matic and Herrera have been the only major signings there in 8 years despite the fact we knew it was a major area of weakness. Pogba and Herrera are the only successes there and we couldn't keep Ander longer than one contract.

 

[Hansi Fick]

I posted on the previous page about how Ferguson deserves some of the blame for failing to modernise our scouting structure. I firmly hold by that point.

However, it's rather damning on United as a whole that we've utterly failed to recruit adequately in the centre of midfield since he retired. Pogba, Fred, Matic and Herrera have been the only signings there in 8 years despite the fact we knew it was a major area of weakness. Pogba and Herrera are the only successes there and we couldn't keep Ander longer than one contract.

Fellaini, Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin were not central midfielders? And Van de Beek obviously?

 

[Woodenlung]

Fellaini, Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin were not midfielders?

I'd honestly forgotten about all three of them. The two Sch's had such a negligible affect that I honestly can't remember any standout performances. Fellaini had some uses, but he was best deployed as a plan B option near the opposition kwwowe when we were looking for a goal.

 

[arthurka]

There minute we replaced Moyes with an retired dinosaur. Since then we have made every single mistake there is to make.

 

[croadyman]

When teams got a sense of how vulnerable we are and rightfully started going for our throat

 

[RedCoffee]

Success = Talent + Motivation

Fergie was one of the most driven managers of all time. He pushed this level of mentality and philosophy right through club from the board to the coaches to the players.
Once this was gone attitudes changed, our competitors took the opportunity and we have never recovered. We can
continue to buy the most talented players around but it will never bring success until we instill a philosophy of mental strength, determination and drive right throughout the club from top to bottom.

This could take years to sort and finding the right people, the ceo, the cfo, the manager, the coaches, the scouts. The entire management team need to somehow click for it all to come together and influence the mental strength of the team.

 

[AneRu]

I posted on the previous page about how Ferguson deserves some of the blame for failing to modernise our scouting structure. I firmly hold by that point.

However, it's rather damning on United as a whole that we've utterly failed to recruit adequately in the centre of midfield since he retired. Pogba, Fred, Matic and Herrera have been the only major signings there in 8 years despite the fact we knew it was a major area of weakness. Pogba and Herrera are the only successes there and we couldn't keep Ander longer than one contract.

Agree with that but the problems run deeper than we care to admit, observing from afar I think our problem is philosophical - we are a bit obsessed with the United Way but we forget that it was so only because of a manager we brought from Scotland and our previous successful manager once played for Liverpool so we have to examine why a storied club such as ours has only had two successful managers in the last sixty or so years. Looking at the Ole era, it feels like we wasted time and money trying to recreate an era that is twenty years out of style and we didn't give enough time to the only person we had who could instill the modernity or Eurocentric style we needed to compete - Louis Van Gaal.

I think the Herrera loss has been more damaging than we have realized partly because the player we bought to replace him with has his skillset all over the place, Fred can't consistently bring out all the good aspects of his play over a season or in successive seasons. You then need McTom to bring the muscle aspect but he has his own issues so unless we bite the bullet and bring in proper midfielders we will always have issues.

 

[Gehrman]

Agree with that but the problems run deeper than we care to admit, observing from afar I think our problem is philosophical - we are a bit obsessed with the United Way but we forget that it was so only because of a manager we brought from Scotland and our previous successful manager once played for Liverpool so we have to examine why a storied club such as ours has only had two successful managers in the last sixty or so years. Looking at the Ole era, it feels like we wasted time and money trying to recreate an era that is twenty years out of style and we didn't give enough time to the only person we had who could instill the modernity or Eurocentric style we needed to compete - Louis Van Gaal.

I think the Herrera loss has been more damaging than we have realized partly because the player we bought to replace him with has his skillset all over the place, Fred can't consistently bring out all the good aspects of his play over a season or in successive seasons. You then need McTom to bring the muscle aspect but he has his own issues so unless we bite the bullet and bring in proper midfielders we will always have issues.

Van gaal was terrible. All our managers post fergie have been.

 

[AneRu]

Van gaal was terrible. All our managers post fergie have been.

He was but he had an idea and knew how to implement it. I think the poor recruitment is what derailed him.

 

[Gehrman]

He was but he had an idea and knew how to implement it. I think the poor recruitment is what derailed him.

He made everything way too complicated. And recreuitment is everything. He wasted hundreds of millions and there was barely a hit.

 

[JebelSherif]

I posted on the previous page about how Ferguson deserves some of the blame for failing to modernise our scouting structure. I firmly hold by that point.

However, it's rather damning on United as a whole that we've utterly failed to recruit adequately in the centre of midfield since he retired. Pogba, Fred, Matic and Herrera have been the only major signings there in 8 years despite the fact we knew it was a major area of weakness. Pogba and Herrera are the only successes there and we couldn't keep Ander longer than one contract.

Pogba a success, are you having a laugh?

 

[Fluctuation0161]

It began with Sir Alex’s refusal to replace Ronaldo and Tevez with world class players. Then for equally unexplainable reasons he did not improve the midfield for almost 4,5 seasons. Instead of developing a proper structure of the club, handed over the reins on the basis of nepotism to Moyes.

You honestly think Sir Alex didn't want to replace them with high quality players?

At that time the debt was dangerous and needed clearing to avoid us going the way of Leeds United. I'm sure that played on Fergies decision making.