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I agree 5 months isn't long, but perhaps we don't have the full story. Ratcliffe aside, if you have a CEO and Football Director who completely disagree on how to do things, one of them has to go.

The transfers were OK, the biggest issue is how they mostly all linked to Ten Hag somehow, when he should have been sacked after the FA Cup final. The decision to persevere with him was a terrible one and they seem to have blamed Ashworth for that, even though he tried to distance himself from it.

I can't really see the appeal of Southgate, Berrada seems like he has his own ideas and wants to the reshape the club with Amorim at the helm. I have no issue with that, Amorim seems great but he will need time of course. We can't afford to get many future transfers wrong, they need to work out.

Certainly concerns over Ratcliffe's influence are valid, as I said myself.
 
I have no issue with the reduction of bonuses, if a new owner comes into an ailing business, these are the sort of things you'd expect.

However, football is a bit different, and against the backdrop of mediocre players earning huge sums of money, this penny pinching is going to leave a sour taste around the club.

The bread and butter employees seem to be bearing the brunt of cost saving measures - the optics are just all over the place. It's the same with ticket prices, fans are suffering, while players and executives like Ashworth are being paid millions.

I am not surprised this is happening though. He was framed as a 'local lad' but Ratcliffe is an utterly ruthless business magnate, this isn't really a surprise.

I think Adam Crafton of The Athletic summed it up - "Just struggle to believe the scratching around at the edges on so many of these petty cuts can be worth in savings what they erode in goodwill"
 
I am just fed up with Rashford now, he makes very little effort and doesn't seem to care, and that's the long and short of it. Absolutely ridiculous given the privileged position he's in, but there we go.

Henry Winter has been speaking to him today:


The key point - I ask Rashford if he’s staying or going? “For me, personally, I think I'm ready for a new challenge and the next steps.” All of his words were prefaced with respect for the club which has been his home for almost 20 years.

I wonder if something is in the pipeline, but outside of the Saudi league, who would pay his wages?
 
It's simply outrageous to suggest the fans are to blame for Rashford's poor attitude.

This is a guy who was adored by the fans, given a huge contract, and has built a massive global profile. He looks utterly disinterested and has done for a long time. It's completely inexcusable, amplified by his huge salary.

He certainly hasn't always been "crap" - overrated yes, a huge form player, definitely, but he's had very good spells far beyond the average player.

Perhaps there's a mental health angle we aren't privy to, which is fair enough, but on the face of it he's done just about everything wrong from the outside looking in.

Of course the malaise at the club hasn't helped him, he's not really a leader and never will be, and a lot of pressure was heaped on him from a young age.

--

In other news it's being reported that the Saudi league are keen on him: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...wants-marcus-rashford-stay-manchester-united/

Would suit all parties from a financial angle, although Rashford's image would suffer if he went out there. Seems he's not in the squad for the game tomorrow either, but Garnacho is...

I thought Amorim handled it brilliantly earlier as usual, turning Rashford's own comments against him.
 
Amorim having to speak about Rashford again.

www.skysports.com

Marcus Rashford: Man Utd boss Ruben Amorim questions decision-making from forward's camp after 'new challenge' quotes

Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim has questioned the decision-making from Marcus Rashfords camp following his public comments regarding his future; Rashford admitted he was ready for a new challenge; the player has been left out of the last three match-day squads
www.skysports.com www.skysports.com

The fact he gave that interview as a response to being dropped from the squad is just astonishingly stupid, very few clubs would tolerate that. He's just a complete distraction now and needs to go ASAP. Ratcliffe seems a bit hot-headed and I bet he's furious - he's probably looking for a way to tear up his contract!

As for Amorim, in a way I'm actually glad things aren't going well. Far too often have these players papered over cracks by putting in uncharacteristically good performances for short periods. That isn't going to work now, the league is too strong. He's now seeing what we've all been seeing, utter garbage served up week after week. Ten Hag didn't help matters but this is his squad after all, the players he wanted are massively short on quality, and god knows what he was trying to coach them to do.

Amorim is going to need iron-clad backing from the club, he's now the figurehead and what he says, goes. His work with Sporting is evidence he can build a good team, but the media/fan noise and short term thinking is completely at odds with what he's trying to do. We'll have to suck it up and I think the short term pain will be worth it in the end. I feel for him already, you can see improvements but there are just as many setbacks, poor results, the Ashworth incident, and Rashford being Rashford. I can only assume he will get this backing because if Berrada has gone out and appointed him, a manager who has a very specific, slightly unusual style, with the goal of immediate results, that was never realistic.

Look at Klopp when he took over at Liverpool, and even Pep at City - the two greatest managers around, and it was still a struggle for them. The key thing is though, you can see improvement, and what they were trying to do. Arteta finished 8th two seasons running - and despite Arsenal being good, he's yet to deliver anything significant.

The recruitment is going to be equally important, hopefully the club can deliver on that front too.

Fun times.
 
While I am fully behind Amorim's philosophy and what he wants to do, we do need to find a way to grind out some results in the short term... I wonder if he's considering tweaking the system just for now?

We need to build a new squad to fit the system... but we can't really sign a lot of new players due to the financial rules... not ideal.

In the event Ratcliffe deems Amorim a failure, he'd have to sack the new CEO as well as it was his call to bring him in at great expense - I think this is highly unlikely though and they're almost certainly going to back the manager. And rightly so.

It's going to be rough, but we do need this scorched earth cultural reset at the club. I really don't know how this will all play out.
 
adam cool dude said:
What squad do we need to fit his system? All we need is a left sided wingback. We have the players to do his system.

He just needs to get the players working.

We are in a relegation battle now. Crazy in my lifetime.
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It's tricky as the players look so poor - and did in their favoured roles under ETH, too.

We don't have a natural #10 and this system uses two of them, so there's a huge hole in attack. Amad looks better attacking from wingback and Bruno doesn't look great at #10 either.
 
adam cool dude said:
Mason Mount, Eriksen, Bruno, Caemiro and Mainoo can all play that position. Whether or not is perfect is debatable but they shouldn't be losing to Wolves or Bournemouth.

I really hope we can get good money for Rashford and some key players in January otherwise we are in a relegation battle!
Click to expand...

Can play that position is not going to really work here. Casemiro as a 10? No chance.

Rashford's wages are going to prevent us getting a decent fee, I think.
 
We were the better side after Mainoo came on, but the damage had already been done.

In most games we have actually been playing generally ok, but major errors are costing us: poor at defending set pieces, stupid mistakes at critical points like the Bruno red card and Mazraoui penalty.

The immediate issue is that these errors have caused a huge dip in confidence for the entire squad, and our next few games are really difficult. I can’t see it turning around just yet.

My other concern is that Ratcliffe seems a bit erratic in the background, is he going to take the simplistic view and blame the manager (and by extension, Berrada who wanted him)…
 
I think the formation will be fine but you need the right sort of players for it. He has to start Amad at RWB going forward, that’s the only thing that’s really worked so far. We have too many defenders on the pitch and it isn’t helping with defending, so why bother…
 
fez said:
Its a tricky one because we have had this issue for a number of years and Ten Hag had it a lot. Players just not doing the basics right. From what I have seen, defensively we are generally solid but we make shocking mistakes a few times a game and get punished for it. A player not being tracked. A cross that gets a lucky deflection and loops onto an attackers head. When you are struggling it feels like everything that can go against you does. When we had Ruud in charge for a few games we suddenly got a bit of luck in a few games. Magically things do a 180 despite performances being largely the same.

Martinez is currently out of his depth in this setup when asked to actually defend. Too slow, rash and not good enough in the air. Hes a great aggressive defender to get in the attackers space but when the game is fast paced and hes not doing that he really struggles.

We need to bring in a LWB in Jan really. No idea who though. There are some cracking ones in the PL we could look at in the summer but I would be amazed if any of the clubs would sell in Jan.
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I think the big difference between Man Utd and other clubs isn't mentioned enough - and that's pressure. The global pressure on our players is absolutely incredible and ultimately most of them don't have the mentality to handle it. We are still viewed as a defacto #1 club who should be winning every single game and that just isn't reality, and hasn't been for over a decade now.

A bad result means you're plastered all over every sports website/paper/whatever in the world. Even in the days of the class of 92 and onwards, the pressure wasn't even close to this.

Football is so much of a confidence game (see Man City) and we rarely manage to build any confidence. Tactics and everything else comes second to that.
 
The thing is, these player issues aren't a quick fix. They're on long contracts and big salaries. Realistically I think the club will have to subsidise a lot of the wages to get rid of them, and write it off as a loss.

I think we're all pretty squarely behind Amorim, but I do worry about his complete refusal to change system. I initially supported Amorim in this, but has there been a successful manager in the PL era who has refused to change his approach? Pep has kept adapting Man City, Klopp was pragmatic at Liverpool in the early days, and Fergie loved a parked bus with Park Ji-sung man marking someone.

It would be fine if there were signs of progress (things weren't too bad initially), but I don't think the 343 is going to suddenly click with our current players...
 
Calpol said:
Rumour is that he was considered as part of the process in the summer but dismissed as the current squad didn't fit the playstyle of Amorim. Make of that what you will - it's either
1. Gross incompetence to then hire him 4 months later
or
2. A commitment to a long term transformation regardless of short term consequences

Perhaps that's why Ashworth left?
Click to expand...

You can only assume #2 is the case. I get the impression there was some disagreement around ETH between Berrada, Ashworth & co in the summer when they'd only just officially joined. It was quite clearly the wrong decision to stick with ETH and ultimately Ashworth has taken the fall for that, but I doubt we'll ever really know exactly what happened.

Berrada has likely pulled rank and appointed Amorim with a view to really backing him from the summer onwards. I'm sure they would have hoped for an upturn in results but the quality of the squad is quite poor and confidence is in the gutter - it's so difficult to fix that especially with 2 games per week. Hopefully the schedule will settle down a bit after next week. Liverpool and Arsenal are likely to be two tough results we'll have to take on the chin.

Jason Wilcox seems to have an awful lot of influence, is he best in class? I'm really not sure.

The one unknown element is that Ratcliffe might be interfering with the footballing side of things, and he seems perhaps a bit volatile...
 
While there are definite legitimate concerns, it's too early to declare INEOS a failure.

The various cuts at the club do look harsh, but it's currently a failing business losing a lot of money. Sadly the main issue - player wages - can't be addressed in the space of 6 months.

They clearly made a mess of the ETH situation but the one mitigating factor is that the new CEO/DoF/etc hadn't officially started when the decision was made. Ashworth's abrupt end also looks bad, but he was just at odds with the CEO. They hadn't worked together before so it's perhaps just one of those things...

In honesty I don't feel all that hopeful with INEOS, and they can't really afford any more mistakes now. Everything will be meaningless unless they nail the recruitment side of things, not straightforward... they're going to have to look for highly promising players from teams that will accept lower transfer fees. Signing players from the PL will be a non-starter due to the PSR situation.

If they'd appointed Amorim in July and spent £200m on players for his system, that would have been interesting.
 
So yesterday it was being reported we wanted to keep Maguire but were trying to negotiate a lower salary.

And today: Ruben Amorim has revealed Manchester United will trigger the option of an extra year in Harry Maguire's contract.

Hmm. I don't mind Maguire really, he's done OK.
 
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