The Manchester United Club Thread **Sponsored by Comedy Central**

My view on the problems, nothing new really:

  • The Glazers

    This is the biggest issue and the root cause of the problems. No football structure, no investment in the stadium/facilities. Just a scattergun approach to buying players for various managers - spending the clubs self-generated revenue.

    First job is to get this Ratcliffe deal sorted, and sort out the club hierarchy. Looks like it would be Jim Ratcliffe/Dave Brailsford/Joel Glazer, supported by an experienced football executive like Jean Claude Blanc who works for INEOS currently. Whether this will work remains to be seen, but it's our only hope at this point.

  • The Media/Fans - Pressure

    I think this can be overlooked in these discussions. Everything at Man Utd is blown wildly out of proportion, players are dragged through the mud at every opportunity, and every word/action is heavily scrutinised. The pressure is on another level and makes things very difficult.

  • The Manager

    ETH is still a relatively untested manager compared to the very best. He did well at Ajax historically but that's the limit of his experience. Last season was acceptable and quite good at times, but you can't suddenly fall off a cliff like this, even if there are injuries.

    Tactically there are plenty of question marks - there's no observable style of play, and he may be losing the dressing room, at which point there's no hope for him...

    He's also been allowed to sign most of the players he wanted - which is questionable in itself - the club shouldn't really allow it to that extent. We've spent around £400m on players in the past 2 seasons, most of them have failed.

  • The Players

    Let's be completely honest - most of these players are not good enough to compete at the very highest level. Even if they were all fit and playing well, we're still well short of quality. They also seem to have a generally poor attitude.

TLDR - Sort out the club sale situation. Get the new directors in place. Sit down with ETH and assess what to do, and what he thinks is going wrong, and go from there...
 
There's a lot in the media about Ten Hag this morning. General consensus is that there are concerns but he's not in immediate danger and the ownership situation further complicates things. All as you'd expect.

However, we can discuss it all we like, but if this form continues he'll be gone at the next international break - I think that will be the crucial moment.

Next fixtures -

Fulham (Away) - tomorrow at 12:30
Copenhagen (Away) - Wed 8th
Luton (Home) - Sat 11th
 
Edit - posted in the other thread.

Joel, Jim & Jassim - Utd Ownership

As Utd's ownership, both complaints about the Glazers and potential sale, has become and will continue to be a major talking point it needs it's own thread. Please remember that all the usual rules apply in here too, that means no spoilers! Any rants about the owners in the immediate aftermath...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
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I can't see ETH's comments about Rashford helping matters - regardless of right/wrong.

Doesn't really matter though, if the players already dislike him, nothing will change that.

CliffyG said:
Should have listened to Ralf.
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He was subject to a lot of mockery, but Rangnick is one of the most experienced football directors around. People just didn't want to listen to him.

Here we are £500m~ later and results/performances are just as bad.
 
JamesH85 said:
Unless he's injured, he's dropped him from the squad today?
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They are saying he picked up a dead leg in training yesterday and failed a late fitness test this morning, but he had travelled down with the squad.

Who knows, seems a real coincidence...
 
sigma said:
Very underwhelming news and sums up the state of this sesspool of a club.

I'm really trying to distance myself from it.
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It's a good thing, anything that triggers change in relation to the Glazers can only be viewed as a positive.

Yes, it's not the full sale people wanted, but the alternative is no change, and that would be terrible.

It appears he will have control of football operations, and surely the Glazers will know they are bad at this, so should leave him to it.
 
Converge said:
Unless he turns out as bad as they are.

Also, I worry you have faith in the Glazers being aware of, or believing they are bad at something. ;)
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The same would apply to any new owner, we just have to wait and see.

I am fairly confident he's a much smarter guy than the Glazers, that's for sure.
 
fez said:
If the glazers had that level of self awareness they wouldn't have run the club so badly for so long. Its not like they couldn't implement a far better structure if they wanted to. Thats quite literally why you hire people to do certain jobs.
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Indeed, but the penny may have dropped now...
 
Rangnick was absolutely spot on, yet people just mocked him. He may not have been a great manager, but he was clearly disturbed by what he saw within the club - and he knows his stuff.

All that aside though, I grow less and less convinced by ETH, he looks completely out of his depth. It's such a pity as I thought he would be a great appointment, finally we got a manager who was on an upward trajectory, but it's been largely quite poor and is only getting worse.

I am just hoping that Ratcliffe will tear up everything and try to start from scratch. New sporting people, get rid of the dodgy players, invest in the right areas. The Glazers could still mess everything up, but hopefully not.
 
Quite a few stories have started now about dressing room unrest - given the dire performances there must be some truth to it, but yes, no way they can know it's 50% :p

Given the nature of the club and the bad players we have, I think ETH's days are numbered.

I suspect it's Sancho (obvious), Varane, Martial, Rashford, primarily... we know Maguire wasn't happy losing the captaincy but I doubt he'd actively try and cause problems, he's one of the few players making an effort.
 
ArcticHeron said:
All well and good wanting ANOTHER fresh start, but who's available? More to the point, who on earth would want it? The jobs becoming an ever more toxic poison chalice.
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I don't think it matters right now. The season is almost certainly a write-off and things are likely to get worse.

We're just going to have to wait for Ratcliffe to come in and see what he wants to do.

ETH is not going to suddenly get these lazy players on side, so results will continue as they are... in my view he should stick these dissenting players in the reserves and just use the youth team. If they are giving 100% then the likes of Bruno can carry them to some wins, for sure.

If we have to sit through another game of Rashford and Martial wandering around aimlessly, making no effort, then I despair.
 
Injuries are no longer an excuse, other teams have equally bad injury problems and are still playing well.

I wish it was as simple as injuries, but it's really not.
 
adam cool dude said:
Spurs lost a load of games on the bounce because of theirs and arguably they are 4 points up that they shouldn't have. Newcastle are only 2 points above us and their injury crisis has only just begun. We have had one since August.

A lot of clickbait lazy journalism because anything negative towards United gets a click. You only have to look at AFTV. Now they are doing well the channel is basically dead!
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Look at the performances though, Newcastle have half the squad out injured and played us off the park. They should have won away at PSG too. Every team has form issues, even Man City look off the boil.

... but we are something else. One utterly terrible performance after another. This has been going on for months now.

A few weeks ago you said things would improve when the full backs return, Shaw and AWB are back - and we're as bad as ever.

Injuries at this point are nothing more than an excuse.
 
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