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Did RVP not basically win you the title that year? It was hardly the 'incredible squad' you are making out.

Also, Sir Alex didn't have any of that experience you mentioned, he was pretty much unknown, and it took him several years before you saw his team, he nearly got sacked as well, basically Sir Alex would have been sacked had had he been employed in 13/14, that tells you a lot about the current climate.

Been away from the forum for a while.

Taking over Man Utd in 1986 was a totally different job to the one in 2013. Ferguson was a big name in 1986 in context of football and Scottish football at the time. Ferguson and also notably Jim McLean at Dundee United had broken the Old Firm stranglehold on trophies and done well in Europe and were much sought after when Scottish football had decent credibility. Ferguson was offered the Man Utd job while McLean came within an inch of taking over at Rangers before deciding to remain at Dundee United where he followed up his European Cup semi final in 84 with a UEFA Cup final appearance in 87. These were different times. Today you wouldn't get a manager at either of those clubs doing what they did then or being offered a top job.

Ferguson kept his job at United because it could be seen what he was doing behind the scenes to the club as a whole. He overhauled the youth system and got rid of problem elements within the squad. Had he been taking over the league champions rather than a club that hadn't won the title for almost 20 years then I suspect he wouldn't have lasted more than a couple of seasons even allowing for it being a clearly different era.

I didn't say Ferguson left an incredible squad, but he left a squad good enough to be champions, and just in case we dismiss that as some sort of Leicester-esque achievement they were runners up twice and champions again in the 3 seasons before it. That isn't a bad squad, and it is a capable squad and that squad coupled with a big chequebook should be enough resources for a top manager to come in and keep the club around the top 4. Unfortunately it wasn't a top manager that came in and that isn't what happened.

 

[FrankJH]

Ferguson kept his job at United because it could be seen what he was doing behind the scenes to the club as a whole. He overhauled the youth system and got rid of problem elements within the squad. Had he been taking over the league champions rather than a club that hadn't won the title for almost 20 years then I suspect he wouldn't have lasted more than a couple of seasons even allowing for it being a clearly different era.

I didn't say Ferguson left an incredible squad, but he left a squad good enough to be champions, and just in case we dismiss that as some sort of Leicester-esque achievement they were runners up twice and champions again in the 3 seasons before it. That isn't a bad squad, and it is a capable squad and that squad coupled with a big chequebook should be enough resources for a top manager to come in and keep the club around the top 4. Unfortunately it wasn't a top manager that came in and that isn't what happened.

That's a very limited way of looking at it imo

I agree that in the 80's managers were given time to make the club their own, today you can be fired within the span of a few matches which is clearly ludicrous even after considering the vast wealth in the EPL now.

What I disagree with is that Fergie left a squad good enough to be champions. Im sorry but that's just not true by any stretch of the imagination.

Fergie and Utd were VERY lucky indeed to fluke that one year out of RvP where he was moderately fit majority of the time, look at the other 2 - 3 years after this before we got rid of him where he barely played and wasn't "that" effective when he did play. Remember this is the player that a lot of people give credit for winning Fergie's last title.

Then consider the defence that was clearly on its last legs, was NEVER going to put the same effort into winning games etc for another manager - and really had been begging to hand over to younger players for a good 2 seasons already (I am a huge Evra / Vidic / Rio fan but they were seriously past it by this point and should have been the subs being brought on to rest 1st teamers by this time)

Full squad from that last year
Jonny Evans, Bebe , Robin van Persie, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Kiko Macheda, Shinji Kagawa, Angelo Henriquez, Danny Welbeck, Darren Fletcher, Anders Lindegaard, David De Gea, Alex Buttner, Rafael Da Silva, Javier Hernandez , Anderson, Paul Scholes Tom Cleverley , Patrice Evra Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Ashley Young, Antonio Valencia

I think that's everyone

Rooney was already on his last legs, but I guess because of the club situation Rooney HAD to stay for right or wrong - excluding those still at the club majority of the others either where never a success to start with (unfortunately including Kagawa who is a great player but at the wrong club/ wrong league) or totally past it. Personally had a soft spot for both Da Silva twins even though they never really blossomed into the players they should have become.

Don't get me wrong in their prime there are a 1/2 dozen or so TOP names (if not world class) - but by the time SAF retired they were all clinging on by their fingernails and it was only SAF's reluctance to put together another top quality squad which meant they were still here. Admittedly there are 1/2 a dozen academy grads who didn't quite make it also but it wasn't a great squad at all by this point

 

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That's a very limited way of looking at it imo

I agree that in the 80's managers were given time to make the club their own, today you can be fired within the span of a few matches which is clearly ludicrous even after considering the vast wealth in the EPL now.

What I disagree with is that Fergie left a squad good enough to be champions. Im sorry but that's just not true by any stretch of the imagination.

Fergie and Utd were VERY lucky indeed to fluke that one year out of RvP where he was moderately fit majority of the time, look at the other 2 - 3 years after this before we got rid of him where he barely played and wasn't "that" effective when he did play. Remember this is the player that a lot of people give credit for winning Fergie's last title.

Then consider the defence that was clearly on its last legs, was NEVER going to put the same effort into winning games etc for another manager - and really had been begging to hand over to younger players for a good 2 seasons already (I am a huge Evra / Vidic / Rio fan but they were seriously past it by this point and should have been the subs being brought on to rest 1st teamers by this time)

Full squad from that last year
Jonny Evans, Bebe , Robin van Persie, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Kiko Macheda, Shinji Kagawa, Angelo Henriquez, Danny Welbeck, Darren Fletcher, Anders Lindegaard, David De Gea, Alex Buttner, Rafael Da Silva, Javier Hernandez , Anderson, Paul Scholes Tom Cleverley , Patrice Evra Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Ashley Young, Antonio Valencia

I think that's everyone

Rooney was already on his last legs, but I guess because of the club situation Rooney HAD to stay for right or wrong - excluding those still at the club majority of the others either where never a success to start with (unfortunately including Kagawa who is a great player but at the wrong club/ wrong league) or totally past it. Personally had a soft spot for both Da Silva twins even though they never really blossomed into the players they should have become.

Don't get me wrong in their prime there are a 1/2 dozen or so TOP names (if not world class) - but by the time SAF retired they were all clinging on by their fingernails and it was only SAF's reluctance to put together another top quality squad which meant they were still here. Admittedly there are 1/2 a dozen academy grads who didn't quite make it also but it wasn't a great squad at all by this point

Fergie left a squad that WERE the Champions. That's an absolute fact. The squad plus money to spend should be fine enough for someone to keep in and around the race for top 4 which was all Moyes was required to do as Ive said over and over again. These players didn't go from good enough to be Champions in May to horrific sub par cloggers by the August. A team that won the title by a number of points with relative ease was not "clinging on by its fingernails". Fergie was great but he wasn't running about on the pitch nor was he getting the team to play in some magical mythical formation that no one else could replicate. These players won because they were good enough to win.

The squad wasn't "incredible" or perfect or any other superlatives I didn't use and there may have been a natural drop off in time certainly but not enough to just what Moyes did to them in the space of 8 months and indeed almost from his 2nd or 3rd full game in charge..

I keep seeing people saying what a poor side it apparently was despite the league table suggesting otherwise.

I keep seeing people say it was Fergies fault that a poor squad was left behind. It beggars belief that Fergie is in the firing line for being able to bring success with a squad that Moyes couldn't rather than Moyes being blamed for not being able to win with a squad that Fergie lifted the title with. It makes NO sense that Fergie is getting grief here.

 

[FrankJH]

Well done for completely missing the point

Just because they were champions has absolutely no baring at all on whether that same squad was capable of being champions again under a completely different manager

The respect everyone had for Fergie probably kept them going for a couple of seasons at the end even though he was basically just bringing in kids and the odd player here and there to rejuvenate the squad which needed a complete overhaul for at least one if not two seasons before he left

Given that majority of teams buy three or four players a season to allow the squads to mature and improve etc, and Fergie didn't do that for his last two or three seasons - so yes SAF does deserve a bit of grief for how he left the squad.

Ive never suggested it was ONLY his fault for how things ended up the season after he left, but yes I think he should shoulder some of the blame

I can also understand how the squad felt by seeing only Fellaini arrive that summer - that must have been a huge let down


FYI - you said in the original quote - Fergie left a squad capable of being champions - that implies that they were good enough to be champs the season Moyes took over (future tense) - not that they were good enough to be champions the last season SAF was there (which is blindingly obvious)

They were not and never would be capable of being champions the 1st season after he left with RvP's injuries apart from everything else as mentioned above

 

[Shamikebab]

The squad didn't need a complete overhaul at all. It was a little weak in central midfield but Moyes had the whole summer to address that and bought...Fellaini.

 

[fez]

You simply can't argue that Moyes didn't make a complete mess of things.

We played horrible football - Moyes controls how we play
We didn't sign top players - Moyes identifies targets, backup targets, backup backup targets and we end up with Fellaini for more than we should have paid
We didn't do well in the league - His **** football didn't even get results. We didn't expect the title but we expected to be better than 7th
He didn't have the respect of the players
He didn't have the respect of the fans
He didn't give any signs that he was up to the task.

The fans stood behind him for most of the season but you cannot expect the fans to back you when every single sign suggests your damaging the club and never going to do a good job.

 

[FrankJH]

The squad didn't need a complete overhaul at all. It was a little weak in central midfield but Moyes had the whole summer to address that and bought...Fellaini.

It was a "little weak" everywhere, and VERY weak in central midfield

edit for instance our defence conceded more than a goal a game for the whole season (43 in total)

it was only RvP's 24 or so goals that season that got us the title (and he never had anywhere as good a season with us again, in appearances let alone goals)


DDG may have got even better in the intervening years but he was already pretty good if not excellent at that point - so yeah the defence was on its last legs even before SAF left and with the very weak midfield the whole squad did need a major shakeup / full overhaul

 

[Shamikebab]

Well out of our current first choice defence three out of four were there then...

so yes, it needed that major, one signing overhaul.

 

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Well done for completely missing the point

Just because they were champions has absolutely no baring at all on whether that same squad was capable of being champions again under a completely different manager

The respect everyone had for Fergie probably kept them going for a couple of seasons at the end even though he was basically just bringing in kids and the odd player here and there to rejuvenate the squad which needed a complete overhaul for at least one if not two seasons before he left

Given that majority of teams buy three or four players a season to allow the squads to mature and improve etc, and Fergie didn't do that for his last two or three seasons - so yes SAF does deserve a bit of grief for how he left the squad.

Ive never suggested it was ONLY his fault for how things ended up the season after he left, but yes I think he should shoulder some of the blame

I can also understand how the squad felt by seeing only Fellaini arrive that summer - that must have been a huge let down


FYI - you said in the original quote - Fergie left a squad capable of being champions - that implies that they were good enough to be champs the season Moyes took over (future tense) - not that they were good enough to be champions the last season SAF was there (which is blindingly obvious)

They were not and never would be capable of being champions the 1st season after he left with RvP's injuries apart from everything else as mentioned above

How can he shoulder the blame when he left a winning side? This makes no sense! You can only assess the squad on what Fergie did with it and he won with it. Its is absolutely not his fault that the man brought in after could neither win with it nor change it to his liking (other than Fergies role in appointing him, but that's a different argument).

I'm sure the squad felt disappointed to see only Fellaini come in that summer but whose fault is that? Do you think they felt more disappointed to see Fallaini come in or to see Moyes and the Everton backroom staff come in in order to explain to them how they needed to forget about defending in a way that won titles and instead defend more like Phil Jagielka? I also buy into the idea that the squad may have switched off a bit after Fergie left but again if I know that and you know that then its not unreasonable that Moyes should have known it too and acted accordingly? Chasing Fabregas who was never going to sign for us while promising huge names that he had no basis for mentioning in the media did him no favours even if we want to attribute blame to Woodward being new in his job too.

The man following Fergie was always going to have to have a certain personality to come into the club and take it by the balls. Mourinho would have done it, Guardiola would have done it, I suspect Klopp would have been engaging enough to have a go. It needed someone coming in, acknowledging what Fergie achieved, wave him goodbye and then saying "here is what I have achieved, follow me and we will win" instead we had Moyes saying in his first press conference that he had already been on to Fergie for advice.

I will also repeat, had the club still lost its games to the like of City, Chelsea and Liverpool and indeed a number of others but had beaten the teams that even a squad on the cusp of decline had still been expected to beat (Sunderland, Cardiff, WBA, Newcastle and Everton at home etc) 4th place was relatively easily attainable. You will always have the odd bad result against teams you should probably beat every now and again but Moyes had us playing such dire stuff that we were dropping points to teams in relegation trouble or had to later change managers. That isn't something that can be put down to any of the many excuses offered up for Moyes and was a bridge too far for most people.

 

[FrankJH]

Well out of our current first choice defence three out of four were there then...

so yes, it needed that major, one signing overhaul.

And how long has Jones for one been out injured in that time frame - 2 whole seasons if not more?

Valencia still cant cross (as you have mentioned on numerous occasions) - so pretty pointless right back...and he wasn't playing at RB then so not exactly a straight forward comparison
We don't have an outright 1st choice left back so that's factually incorrect and even now he needs to be replaced anyway

Certainly isn't Shaw, Blind got brought in by LvG, Darmian also - so its heavily debatable whether even 1/4 of the current 1st choice was even in the defence of 1st choice in fergie's last season

So yet again yes it did need a complete overhaul especially given Jones STILL looks likely to get injured in every match he plays

How can he shoulder the blame when he left a winning side? This makes no sense! You can only assess the squad on what Fergie did with it and he won with it. Its is absolutely not his fault that the man brought in after could neither win with it nor change it to his liking (other than Fergies role in appointing him, but that's a different argument).
.

and Fergie left a squad on its last legs + players that were never going to be up to it

He basically hadn't done a proper clear out for years (talk about desperation asking one of our best ever players to come out of retirement)

Without lowering the quality of the squad Fergie left, you could get rid of 10 - 12 players very easily....that's says enough when typically the top clubs rejuvenate 3 or so players a season

 

[Shamikebab]

Of our current first choice back 4, 3 of them were at the club when Moyes took over. This is an example of how an incompetent manager can't use the tools at his disposal. Moyes had ample depth and experience but didn't know how to use it. The squad wasn't in any need of a complete overhaul that summer at all. We desperately needed a quality midfielder (which Moyes utterly failed to provide) and then over the next 3/4 seasons we needed to replace a few players who were getting on.

For some reason you're trying to make it out to be far more dire than it was to make Moyes sound better. The squad was in no way on it's last legs and to suggest so shows your lack of understanding.

 

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And how long has Jones for one been out injured in that time frame - 2 whole seasons if not more?

Valencia still cant cross (as you have mentioned on numerous occasions) - so pretty pointless right back...and he wasn't playing at RB then so not exactly a straight forward comparison
We don't have an outright 1st choice left back so that's factually incorrect and even now he needs to be replaced anyway

Certainly isn't Shaw, Blind got brought in by LvG, Darmian also - so its heavily debatable whether even 1/4 of the current 1st choice was even in the defence of 1st choice in fergie's last season

So yet again yes it did need a complete overhaul especially given Jones STILL looks likely to get injured in every match he plays



and Fergie left a squad on its last legs + players that were never going to be up to it

He basically hadn't done a proper clear out for years (talk about desperation asking one of our best ever players to come out of retirement)

Without lowering the quality of the squad Fergie left, you could get rid of 10 - 12 players very easily....that's says enough when typically the top clubs rejuvenate 3 or so players a season

He did not leave a squad on "its last legs". He left a squad that won the title by eleven points in May. They didn't suddenly all fall off a cliff and become pensioners by the following August, 3 months later. Players that "were never going to be up to it" demonstrably WERE up to it having just lifted the title.

He hadn't done a "clear out" for years because in four seasons he had won two titles and come second twice by a goal and a point. Why would you clear out what was consistently winning?

Im not saying the squad was perfect or that I wouldn't have improved it with a player or two. Of course I would and Id have signed a midfielder or two as we probably all said at the time but that's adjustments we would make to a winning squad - that's completely different from the idea that a squad capable of winning the league was apparently actually terrible.

 

[Trusty]

Bailly, Blind, Matic, Pogba, Mkhitaryan, Rashford, Martial, Lukaku. 8 main 1st team players that were not there 4 years ago.

Vidic, Rio, Evra, Carrick, Giggs, Rooney, RVP. Main players replaced.

I think you gotta be trolling, how you can say the squad hasn't be overhauled is beyond me, your logic is going out the window.

 

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Bailly, Blind, Matic, Pogba, Mkhitaryan, Rashford, Martial, Lukaku. 8 main 1st team players that were not there 4 years ago.

Vidic, Rio, Evra, Carrick, Giggs, Rooney, RVP. Main players replaced.

I think you gotta be trolling, how you can say the squad hasn't be overhauled is beyond me, your logic is going out the window.

It didn't need to be overhauled between winning the league in May 2013 and starting the season the following August.

 

[Trusty]

That's irrelevant, the players I've just listed shows exactly what people are talking about.
Only now is that squad in a proper shape to do well, the squad in 12/13 was coming to an end, how can you not see it? Squads are overhauled over many years, you can't buy & sell all the players in one transfer window.

 

[Shamikebab]

Precisely, as I said, this needed to happen over 3/4 seasons. Some seem to be suggesting the squad suddenly became crap in the 3 months after Moyes took over, which is utter nonsense.

 

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That's irrelevant, the players I've just listed shows exactly what people are talking about.
Only now is that squad in a proper shape to do well, the squad in 12/13 was coming to an end, how can you not see it? Squads are overhauled over many years, you can't buy & sell all the players in one transfer window.

What the squad needed by 2017 doesn't explain why it went from 11 points clear in 2013 to 7th place in 2014. The fact that three mnagers have changed a team around by 2017 is completely irrelevant to the drop off of the same set of players between May and August 2013 that is being blamed on anything except the one obvious problem, the person managing them.

 

[Trusty]

Quite easily explained. RVP.
Scored a shed load of goals for Fergie, won you the title basically, you wouldn't have won it without him. Or do you think you would?
RVP was injured the following year, he was unavailable for Moyes.

You take Lukaku out of your side now, where would you be?

 

[Shamikebab]

We'd be doing just fine with Martial or Rashford up front. RvP played 28 times for Moyes, he was hardly out the whole season. Moyes had Rooney, Welbeck and Hernandez as backup so it's not like he had no backup.

 

[Trusty]

go check out the injury record of RVP for that season, and check out how many games he started, if I can remember correctly, he started like 20 games across all competitions. He played a bit part compared to when he won the title the previous year.