It’s the exact situation where you want a young team to stay tog., be successful, upset the power balance etc. fun to watch as well. then money is a thing.
That was a great year
However on paper these guys shouldn’t beat Madrid. It was the right mix of everything. And to be honest the year after we lost De Jong and De Ligt, we still performed very well.
I miss Overmars (who I think was a driving force behind the success, pity he had to sent little Marc pics) and of course I miss ETH and VDS as well. They all three worked rather well together
1 Like
What an idiot and hypocrite Ferdinand is.
He must be the only person to actually defend Ashley, possibly the worst club owner the PL has seen.
There are definitely things to criticise the Glazers on but this narrative that they don’t spend money is so ridiculous. They are right up there alongside the top sides in terms of what they are constantly throwing around.
It feels good to be in the well-run bracket while these cunts continue to fumble anything and everything. Long may it continue.
5 Likes
I think you could criticize them on neglecting the infrastructure of the club, the training ground, stuff like that. But they definitely spend a ton on their first team.
1 Like
Arteta took over in late december with the team in 10th place and absolute toxic dressingroom. You cant give him the first 8th place finish.
1 Like
When was this?
19/20 season. The lads ridiculing Unai for his shit english and dat
Which is hilarious, cause their English wasn’t exactly brilliantly either, other than the English lads 
.
ETH did have to deal with Ronaldo sulking every weekend. Ronaldo/Mbappe’s antics is enough to drive anyone mad 
I don’t think they were toxic just because they made fun of Emery’s English. It was mainly beef held by Ozil.
Arteta had to deal with Guendounzi & later Aubameyang. And that’s about it. Rest of the team was pretty much in Arteta’s side.
Guendounzi & Aubameyang were promptly dealt with and had no bearing on Arteta’s performance as a manager.
I don’t think the dressing room was toxic but it just wasn’t a group that was serious about footballing success. There was way too much player power in general, the very best players were big partiers and poor examples in terms of professionalism. And a lot of guys - both top players and squad players - were in the tail end of their careers and happy to be cashing big checks at a big club, without being too bothered that the club had fallen into a shit condition by its own standards.
2 Likes
Yeah it does my head in when people credit the 19/20 8th placed finish on Arteta, the season was a circus when he took over at the halfway point.
In my eyes Arteta has finished
20/21 8th
21/22 5th
22/23 2nd
3 Likes
He survived the first 8th because he won the FA cup the season before that and we could see the vision he had on the pitch even though results were shit in whole 2020.
He was probably pretty close to get the sack had he lost to Chelsea in that famous boxing day win, with Saks in his new RW position.
1 Like
And ESR started that game right? Saved his job and now can’t get a game. Absolutely ruthless from Mikel.
United need a rehaul of their entire footballing structure.
We got rid of Wenger, Raul Sanllehi and Mislintat, we cleaned up the entire fucking squad keeping only the young talent, we hired new people for key roles like Mertesacker, Tim Lewis and have a very involved / engaged Vice-chairman in Josh Kroenke. Tried to make positive changes to the matchday experience, cultivated a thriving younger fanbase and made good commercial decisions (eg switching to Adidas in 2019).
The bottom line though is you have to back the manager and their vision. For that to work out, you need a manager with vision in the first fucking place. They need charisma and ability to go with it. I will always hark back to Arteta’s first presser where he spoke about the energy at the club, that he knew what the deep-rooted underlying problems were, the issues causing the stagnation and decay.
Since then, we’ve had loads and loads go right for us over the past 3 years. It was a toxic shit show before these changes were made. I certainly don’t forget how awful it was, how disenfranchised I was, how it felt like a chore watching the club keep making poor decisions.
The problem with United is that their owners won’t enable the sort of change that is needed. We’re actually lucky the Kroenkes have backed Arteta and this has elevated and changed the whole dynamic at the club. The Glazers fundamentally aren’t making these kind of good decisions. They spend loads of money but there is no real underpinning strategy. They get a manager in, let them spend millions and then sack them because their decision-making infrastructure is piss poor.
We have become the model for how to rebuild a big club. Liverpool did it a few years ago with Klopp / FSG. We are now leading the way. United could hire De Zerbi next week and he will fail too. A manager on his own cannot succeed at a mega club that is in strife. It requires trust, patience and genuine collaboration between manager and the exec. United are a million miles away from that whereas the best run clubs have that as the baseline.
7 Likes
Anyone seen the Ole interview? Came off pretty good tbh.
Never a top manager but he should have never been put in that spot in the first place. He does criticize their recruitment approach, even his own decisions.
Signing Ronaldo and Varane at the time were both stupid moves for them, just like how the Casemiro signing is turning out after a good first 5-6 months.
These are signings you do for short-term success and Man Utd have been nowhere near of truly competing for like a decade now. Should have continued building on their core in 2021 and by now they may have been in a position to make those finishing touches.
2 Likes
I agree with @Sol’s post above entirely.
They really need to break this ‘big club’ mold and start again with a fresh approach. They are massive as a footballing institution and on name alone, they can bring the biggest names in football to them.
The right people aren’t in the right places there though. It’s like a carcass that’s being leeched by many entities, and carries on in that fashion until their owners have a change in mentality (aha!) or simply sell up and maybe the next man (consortium) changes it.
I felt like the Van Gaal era was the right time to go down that route. I remember that period being tilted towards academy graduates and possibly recruiting in that vein? either way, with that kind of vision, I think a good proportion of their fanbase, much like ours, may have eaten that up for a number of years until it came good.
I think their only hope right now is landing on a few sensational players and hoping that they drag them over the line in talent alone. It was mentioned on the Arsecast, but when you see a percentage of that team strolling around, not chasing balls or tracking players, it feels very ambiguous and not a great look on EtH. We’re yet to see the style of football he envisions, it’s not touched anything like his Ajax team, that’s for sure.
Moaning about decisions constantly and isolating players, rightfully or wrongfully without having a clear plan has a very ominous feeling with the team and club right now.
Oh what a shame.
3 Likes
Fact that Ferguson was so involved with the club after he left is the main problem IMO, Arsen was smart enough to distance himself…
2 Likes
Did Wenger really distance himself, he would’ve been all over it if they let him I think. They are the ones who shut him out.
United’s issue stem a lot deeper than Ferguson, they got off to a bad start with Moyes from his recommendation but they just didn’t have the structure to fill his void. The owners aren’t football people and didn’t hire the best out there to drive the club forward either.
Compare it to City’s structure for example, it’s night and day.
Ok, maybe he was not honest recently when he said that.
But IMO the fist thing they could do is to not let Ferguson be involved at all so other bad things could be fixed sooner.