Who's to blame for the current crisis?

Little bit of everything. Don't think there's any part of the visible organization that's living up to expectations.
 
Roboc7 said:
We’re not a proper club and never will be under this ownership. It’s not even a difficult concept to put a structure and plan in place but club has no desire to and just went for Woodward 2.0 even when a chance to change was forced upon them.

When you appoint someone like ETH you are not only asking him to make step up to the league but also you expand his job description far beyond what it was at Ajax. He simply isn’t qualified to lead the recruitment and it would be hard to find any manager that is now.

Same would apply for someone like De Zerbi you would be asking him to replicate his success and expecting him to take on responsibilities he doesn’t have at Brighton.
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marktan said:
Maguire



And this. ETH has been either 1) Hung out to dry by the club not scouting proper players for him or 2) Has been too stubborn and overruled the club when they had better targets. Either way not great by the higher ups.
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Agree with both of you
 
steffyr2 said:
Shouldn't Ten Hag be able to stand up like a big boy and say he doesn't know how to pick players?

Maybe the fans are the problem....
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The fans opinions have no impact on whether the club succeeds or not.
 
Despite the injuries, our starting elevens have been far more talented than the sides that have been beating us (a side from Arsenal and Bayern). So it's down to application. People will tend to take sides on either it being the manager's fault for not motivating them to apply themselves, or the players just not applying themselves or being unable to cope with the pressure.
 
gaffs said:
Ten Hag right now.

There are obvious issues with some of his man management, signings, tactics, decisions and in 18 months he has still not developed a coherent and consistent style of play. We are all over the place at times last season and it is even worse this year. We still rely on individual moments of brilliance for goals, like the Bruno goal V Burnley.

He talks about control, but we very rarely control a game. Outside of convincingly beating Crystal Palaces B team, we have not controled a game this season. We look like the worst drilled team in the Premier League. Even the teams at the bottom of the table can pull together and defend as a unit. Shit, even Burnley were stroking it around and dominated possession.

It doesn't feel from what we are hearing in interviews that he knows how to fix it. Beating the players with the proverbial stick isn't working.
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Ten Hag didn't hire himself and sacking him now will only make things worse.
 
Ten Hag.

The squad is his. He’s picked the players weve signed, and we’ve spent a fortune.

We have a lot of talent in the squad, and he isn’t getting anywhere near the best out of it.

I don’t want to hear the injuries excuse, Newcastle just pumped PSG with Lascelles and Dan Burn as part of their back 4 ffs.
 
I don't understand why most of the blame is on the Glazers. They obtained a majority of ownership in 2005 and we certainly had some great years from 2005 until SAF retired. I'm not saying they are great owners, but we shouldn't forget we had some great teams under them.

I don't know who is to blame for the current crisis. I thought we had momentum from last year and now we just suck.
 
Owners.

Can get rid of Ten Hag next week and bring in Zidane or Nagelsmann and after a bit of a new manager bounce will probably in 12 or so months time find ourselves back to square one asking the same question again. Many mid tier clubs in the Premier league are better run/organised than United which isn't going to change until new owners with required competence on running the club from top to bottom are brought in.
 
Waynne said:
Ten Hag didn't hire himself and sacking him now will only make things worse.
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So you're blaming the person who hired Ten Hag?

If that is the case, you are saying Ten Hag is not up for it.

Im not saying sack him. We have to stick with it - we are so invested in him and his players to turn back now. It is just so baffling how it is turned to shit in such a short space of time.

Give him time to sort it out.
 
The manager has his share of fault but its mostly the Glazer's fault. Good luck persuading players that we're a big club and that they are expected to perform at the highest standards when they train and play in a training ground/stadium that are crumbling. That gruesome preseason training was always going to bring back a tired and heavily injured squad. Then of course there was the mess up at the transfer window were loads of players were put on the transfer list and are still here. Good luck persuading those players to give their 100 percent to a manager who wanted them out. Finally there's an inadequate system that can't be arsed to check whether a player has the character to succeed at United, who limits itself in acting as the manager's lapdog, who can't sell players for decent fees let alone profit and who overpay in terms of fees and salary. This club deserve best in class. We've got the likes of Murtough instead.
 
We’re in a mess right now but I’m pretty sure ETH is still the man and I’m sure we’ll see massive improvements once we get a fully fit 11 back. Yes we should still be winning with the teams we’ve put out but it’s hard for some kind of consistency when the 11 keeps changing. I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it… Arteta finished 8th twice and 5th but he was given time and now there getting the rewards from it as there more consistent and are in a position to start challenging for titles. ETH should have at least this season and he should be starting the next season with us. Once he gets rid of bad egos and bad players from the dressing room and replaces them then we should be in a better place.
 
It has to be the ownership, i cant look at it any other way. We've sacked managers, sold players, and we're still in the same position. It starts at the top of the tree, without the right ownership in place its never going to end and things this season will get worse, i expect a few more humiliations along the way.

I expect EtH to get sacked early in the new year - which i think would be the wrong decision - we'll have a new manager bounce and be back in this situation in another 12-18 months time and again it wont be down to the manager, but the ownership and the people at the top.

This season is a write off and hopefully the outcome of the season is that we see a change in ownership, that would be a far better outcome than a higher up league position.

As above, things will get worse this season, and without new owners and the way the league is becoming stronger and stronger, we're on a downward spiral where our league positioning will just get lower and lower each season.
 
Blaming the Glazers is like coming to Manchester and blaming the Atlantic winds because it rains a lot. I mean, you can do that, but it's meaningless. It's a part of Manchester, and it won't change. You accept it or you move on. In the same way the Glazers are part of Manchester United. Constantly blaming them is futile and whiny. It's the immutable truth. Just like talking about the weather.

The manager is responsible. He accepted working with the Glazers when he came into the job, just as he accepted the rain. He accepted the power and the responsibility granted to him. Besides, the performances on the pitch have more to do with him than anyone else. And it's up to him to fix it. Or take the fall for it.
 
I am not sure this can be described as a crisis, it is the new normal.

United post Ferguson have been alternatinf between implosion and top four (with no title push). I think the only back to back set of CL qualifications came under Mourinho, and this was due to winning the EL.

So no crisis, just the natural cycle of this club.

Who is to blame ? Glazers.

A new culture + pretty much an entire new squad is needed after they are gone
 
This is just part of the log term slow decline since the Glazers took over - they are wholly to blame and we will only turn the corner when they are replaced by suitable owners.
 
The actual answer is the fans. We keep going to games which leaves no incentive for the Glazers to leave. Barring the Liverpool game, we haven't managed to cause any real disruption. Plus we still put our support behind players who have shown 10 times over they aren't worthy of it.

No club has a god given right to be successful for ever. But when you are going through lean years, either you can squash any meaningful resentment amongst the fans by calling them entitled, or you can actually stand up and ensure a change comes through by any means necessary. We as a fan base, have unfortunately chosen the former so here we are.
 
Sparky Rhiwabon said:
This is just part of the log term slow decline since the Glazers took over - they are wholly to blame and we will only turn the corner when they are replaced by suitable owners.
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Exactly. Why is this even a thread. They are absentee landlords allowing things to go to ruin, with neglect and disinterest. They are really not that bright as they have wasted a billion pounds through their refusal to appoint experienced professionals to run the club. Nothing really changes until they are gone. We need to get them out.
 
Hound Dog said:
There isnt a single club in Europe of United's size that hasnt posted a title challenge in 10 years.

And lets not talk about the 80s, different era. Money talks.
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Did you miss the rest of the post?
 
Roboc7 said:
We’re not a proper club and never will be under this ownership. It’s not even a difficult concept to put a structure and plan in place but club has no desire to and just went for Woodward 2.0 even when a chance to change was forced upon them.
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I don't agree with the 'Woodward 2.0' argument personally.

I think that lets Woodward off the hook too lightly, in the sense that it downplays how unbelievably terrible he was.

If we look at some of Woodward's worst traits and/or mistakes...I think it's clear we've improved our operation under Murtough/Arnold fairly significantly - although that's not a popular opinion because its an easy get-out for fans to blame them.

1. Woodward was an accountant. He treated players like assets on a balance sheet. This led to the ludicrously misguided renewal of contracts simply to 'protect the value' of players, without considering the fact that if they're not playing and no clubs wants to buy them, then they have no value.

Under the current regime, some big names have been allowed to leave on free transfers, including DDG, Pogba and Cristiano Ronaldo. This simply didn't happen under Woodward and caused huge problems.

2. Woodward handed out salaries to players that were so insanely out of proportion with the rest of the market that we were lumbered with players simply because we'd priced potential suitors out of every being able to afford their wages. For example, think Sanchez on £500K, DDG on £350K and Varane and Sancho on £350K.

Now, there's strong evidence to suggest that Murtough and Arnold are working to reset the wage structure at a more reasonable level. Ronaldo has gone. Pogba was allowed to leave. DDG was allowed to leave. Sancho will soon be gone and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the club weren't starting to think about potential Saudi options for Varane and Casemiro.

So, if you take Casemiro, who, let's face is, was a desperate signing but saved our season last year, out of the equation, I believe the biggest salary we have handed out post-Woodward is £200K per week for Antony.

Now, the usual whingebags, who are specialists in missing the point, will come along and say "a ha, that's too much, nothing has changed!"...but it's all about context. £200K for Anthony has, in hindsight, turned out to be too much (although I still like him as a player). However, its probably about £30-50K too much. Its not £150K too much, like Sancho, DDG and Sanchez. For that reason, its not so prohibitive if we ever want to sell him (again, I wouldn't be thinking about this). Lots of '2nd tier' clubs can pay £150-180K for a Brazilian international winger, and so we're not too far away from his market value.

The rest of the salaries are all far more in-line with what you'd expect, especially seeing as salaries generally go up each year and wage bills increase. So again, in that respect, I think Arnold and Murtough are doing much better than Woodward.

3. Woodward consistently failed to deliver players that the manager wanted, and in fact, it very much sounds like some of our targets were hand-selected by him for their marketing appeal.

If rumours are true, he was hoodwinked into signing Fred against Mourinho's wishes, because of rumours of interest from City, the oldest trick in the book. Again, similar rumours abound about DvdB and an agent calling to let Woodward know he was available but he'd have to move fast as Madrid had made an offer! We all remember the "teams will tremble when they see Schweinsteiger on the team sheet" line. It really did seem like Woodwards #1 priority was to sign big names who could shift shirts. Schweinsteiger, Ronaldo, Sanchez, AdM, Ibrahimovic, Falcao, Cavani, Pogba...with no actual regard for whether they were any good.

Now, this has absolutely NOT been the case under ETH. Again, if we take out the last-minute signing of Casemiro, we've not seen any star names come into the club under the current regime. The players all appear to be Ten Hag approved and they all seem to be being bought because the clubs believes in their footballing ability, as opposed to their ability to sell shirts or sponsorships. We can question the quality of the signings (I personally think most of them are fine) but we can't say any of them were bought for marketing reasons.

4. Woodward routinely took forever to do any business. His tenure was characterised by long-running sagas of us chasing players, usually players we had no chance of signing. We'd routinely get to August and still have made no major transfers, and we usually be scrambling around on deadline day for signings.

This season, all of the major transfer business was done in July. Onana, Mount and Hojlund were all wrapped up nice and early, comparative to the Woodward era. Sure, there were a few deadline day squad signings, but this was down a long injury list and our issues with FFP - again, issues that can be firmly placed at the door of Woodwards office.

So overall, and it's going to be an unpopular opinion, Arnold and Murtough have been a big improvement on Woodward and ETH has had it SO much easier than Moyes, LvG, Jose and OGS.

That's why I hate to say it (I really do) but I've lost faith in him, because he's NOT had the same problems previous managers had with poor planning, bad squad management, ludicrous transfer sagas, players bought for marketing reasons, contracts renewed to 'protect assets', £350K salaries handed out like sweets, interference from the Board and a lack of support in making big decisions.

Simply put, Murtough and Arnold might not be best in class operators but I really don't think they're anywhere near as bad as being made out - I think that's an easy get out for posters who don't want to face the reality...which is that ETH has caused his own problems and is really struggling to coach his ideas into this team.
 
gaffs said:
So you're blaming the person who hired Ten Hag?

If that is the case, you are saying Ten Hag is not up for it.

Im not saying sack him. We have to stick with it - we are so invested in him and his players to turn back now. It is just so baffling how it is turned to shit in such a short space of time.

Give him time to sort it out.
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Yes the person to blame is the one who employed him. The heap of shite we've been waddling around in the past decade is due to owners who just don't give a feck. That don't give a feck attitude is all cascading down to the manager, the staff and the players. Owners who will stop at nothing to win on the pitch, to get the best in class personell to steer the ship will get my respect but in the here and now we're stuck with Ten Hag because getting rid of him now will only worsen the situation we're currently in.

I'm all for giving him the time he needs to sort things out. I'm not against it as its our only option now however the rest of the fanbase may not be so patient.
 
Erik, solely because the mood around the club is not based on the club itself but the performances which limits all responsibility to the manager and staff. These threads weren't apparent last season in popularity, I stated that even during the summer if the team was successful the structure needs changing.

Murtough is the picture of incompetence, Arnold seems to just be drifting but I cannot stipulate blame on structure when the manager tries to implement a new system start of the season in a team that is relatively unestablished. Perceivably poor recruitment which has the managers imprint (not that bad players have been signed but recruitment hasn't addressed the biggest weaknesses), the team has gone backwards with new players signed. The tactical element of the squad is also off against any half decent opposition the players perform the period of a breaks length during half time (15 mins).

There are issues around the club but in terms of liability with the capitulation of the form and bad results that is 70% manager and 30% club.
 
Pretty much everyone.

The management for not having the balls to run the club - decisions like giving Sir Alex the power to pick the next manager, constantly handing over the entire reins to whoever is the manager.

EtH and all other managers - for thinking they are capable enough to demand atrocious sums of money to buy crap players. Especially EtH for deciding not to work with Rangnick.
 
Lentwood said:
I don't agree with the 'Woodward 2.0' argument personally.

I think that lets Woodward off the hook too lightly, in the sense that it downplays how unbelievably terrible he was.

If we look at some of Woodward's worst traits and/or mistakes...I think it's clear we've improved our operation under Murtough/Arnold fairly significantly - although that's not a popular opinion because its an easy get-out for fans to blame them.

1. Woodward was an accountant. He treated players like assets on a balance sheet. This led to the ludicrously misguided renewal of contracts simply to 'protect the value' of players, without considering the fact that if they're not playing and no clubs wants to buy them, then they have no value.

Under the current regime, some big names have been allowed to leave on free transfers, including DDG, Pogba and Cristiano Ronaldo. This simply didn't happen under Woodward and caused huge problems.

2. Woodward handed out salaries to players that were so insanely out of proportion with the rest of the market that we were lumbered with players simply because we'd priced potential suitors out of every being able to afford their wages. For example, think Sanchez on £500K, DDG on £350K and Varane and Sancho on £350K.

Now, there's strong evidence to suggest that Murtough and Arnold are working to reset the wage structure at a more reasonable level. Ronaldo has gone. Pogba was allowed to leave. DDG was allowed to leave. Sancho will soon be gone and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the club weren't starting to think about potential Saudi options for Varane and Casemiro.

So, if you take Casemiro, who, let's face is, was a desperate signing but saved our season last year, out of the equation, I believe the biggest salary we have handed out post-Woodward is £200K per week for Antony.

Now, the usual whingebags, who are specialists in missing the point, will come along and say "a ha, that's too much, nothing has changed!"...but it's all about context. £200K for Anthony has, in hindsight, turned out to be too much (although I still like him as a player). However, its probably about £30-50K too much. Its not £150K too much, like Sancho, DDG and Sanchez. For that reason, its not so prohibitive if we ever want to sell him (again, I wouldn't be thinking about this). Lots of '2nd tier' clubs can pay £150-180K for a Brazilian international winger, and so we're not too far away from his market value.

The rest of the salaries are all far more in-line with what you'd expect, especially seeing as salaries generally go up each year and wage bills increase. So again, in that respect, I think Arnold and Murtough are doing much better than Woodward.

3. Woodward consistently failed to deliver players that the manager wanted, and in fact, it very much sounds like some of our targets were hand-selected by him for their marketing appeal.

If rumours are true, he was hoodwinked into signing Fred against Mourinho's wishes, because of rumours of interest from City, the oldest trick in the book. Again, similar rumours abound about DvdB and an agent calling to let Woodward know he was available but he'd have to move fast as Madrid had made an offer! We all remember the "teams will tremble when they see Schweinsteiger on the team sheet" line. It really did seem like Woodwards #1 priority was to sign big names who could shift shirts. Schweinsteiger, Ronaldo, Sanchez, AdM, Ibrahimovic, Falcao, Cavani, Pogba...with no actual regard for whether they were any good.

Now, this has absolutely NOT been the case under ETH. Again, if we take out the last-minute signing of Casemiro, we've not seen any star names come into the club under the current regime. The players all appear to be Ten Hag approved and they all seem to be being bought because the clubs believes in their footballing ability, as opposed to their ability to sell shirts or sponsorships. We can question the quality of the signings (I personally think most of them are fine) but we can't say any of them were bought for marketing reasons.

4. Woodward routinely took forever to do any business. His tenure was characterised by long-running sagas of us chasing players, usually players we had no chance of signing. We'd routinely get to August and still have made no major transfers, and we usually be scrambling around on deadline day for signings.

This season, all of the major transfer business was done in July. Onana, Mount and Hojlund were all wrapped up nice and early, comparative to the Woodward era. Sure, there were a few deadline day squad signings, but this was down a long injury list and our issues with FFP - again, issues that can be firmly placed at the door of Woodwards office.

So overall, and it's going to be an unpopular opinion, Arnold and Murtough have been a big improvement on Woodward and ETH has had it SO much easier than Moyes, LvG, Jose and OGS.

That's why I hate to say it (I really do) but I've lost faith in him, because he's NOT had the same problems previous managers had with poor planning, bad squad management, ludicrous transfer sagas, players bought for marketing reasons, contracts renewed to 'protect assets', £350K salaries handed out like sweets, interference from the Board and a lack of support in making big decisions.

Simply put, Murtough and Arnold might not be best in class operators but I really don't think they're anywhere near as bad as being made out - I think that's an easy get out for posters who don't want to face the reality...which is that ETH has caused his own problems and is really struggling to coach his ideas into this team.
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It’s not an easy get out to blame them, they get blamed because they are responsible, it’s their job and they’re not very good. ETH has had same problems of being employed by a club with no plan who haven’t learned the lessons of failure after failure. Even with FFP problems they have massively overspent on players and wages, consequently the wage bill is still out of control despite high earners leaving.

We all know the manager is struggling but he’ll either get better or get the sack, we can all see Arnold and Murtough aren’t up to it and it was inevitable Woodward 2.0 would deliver the same results. They won’t be held accountable unless we get new owners, which tells you everything about what a mess the club is.
 
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Everyone - beginning - with Sir Alex and ending in the Glazers.
 
sugar_kane said:
The Glazers - there's no point even getting into this one in too much detail, we all know they are ultimately the ones to blame for everything happening due to their negligent approach to ownership, and lack of investment and leadership.

Richard Arnold - I actually think Arnold is doing the right thing on one hand by leaving sporting matters to the DoF, but he is to blame for putting an inadequate team together in the first place, which brings me onto...

John Murtough - inexplicably gets no focus whatsoever in the press, even from those who should know better. I suspect partly because he's always happy to provide them with a scoop. I'd say he is hugely at fault for what's happening right now, and the one I'd aportion most blame to. If you think Ten Hag has made bad signings then it raises two scenarios - either Murtough has signed off on them as DoF, which makes him a bad DoF, or he isn't getting involved at all which means he isn't doing his job and he's setting us up for failure now but also further down the line when Ten Hag is no longer our manager.

Ten Hag - I have sympathy with him on the signings front as per the above, he doesn't have a great eye for players always but that shouldn't be his job. Where he is to blame is a lack of leadership when it comes to dealing with the press, heaping all the pressure onto the players who can't handle it. It made sense at first why he might be doing this, but it clearly isn't having the desired impact.

Secondly the Bruno captaincy choice while well supported at the time now looks like a bad choice, and despite not being shy of making big decisions I suspect he feels he is wedded to this one given how bold a move it was to strip Maguire of it.

His in game management also leaves a lot to be desired, and the fact we only seem to either win or lose games and never draw shows how averse to necessary pragmatism he is.

The Coaching Team - honestly, no-one knows enough about what happens on the training pitch but clearly they must take a good portion of the blame for what is happening on the pitch.

The Players - there's a lot to get into here obviously, but senior players like Rashford, Bruno and Casemiro have all let us down massively this season. Onana has been terrible but I do sympathise with his situation and the position he's been thrust into which carries an insane degree of scrutiny.
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Yeah, coming and playing the strict teacher/Bad Cop and laying down the law in your first season is fine and to a large extent it worked out and had a positive effect. But if you're still having to do it in the 2nd season then there's a good chance the players are just sick of listening to it. Is that the players fault, yes. But it's also possible Ten Hag has played Bad Cop card one time too many to get a reaction and lost some of the players. That'll have an effect on morale and confidence.

Having said that I still think/hope he'll get us out of this, I seen real progress last season I don't think that was a fluke.
 
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