The "Manchester United are a bit rubbish now" thread

[barmyarmy]

He thought SAF would choose him. There's rarely smoke without fire on these stories.

 

[khaleel]

Makes me wonder if last year's Champions League match would have anything to do with that. Also, how would it have been had Mou been at United? He would have downright flushed out a chunk of the under-performers. Well, one can only imagine, but we hope for a better future. As the Scousers would say for years on end, maybe next year is our year.

 

[barmyarmy]

Under Mourinho Utd would be top or very close to the top.

 

[thedon5]

May as well lock the CL and EPL threads now, those won't be touched.

 

[barmyarmy]

The CL won't be touched by Utd fans for a while at any rate...

 

[Dutch]

Everyone is missing the point here: it is all KP's fault.

 

[SpitfiresKent]

The real question seems to be how did Fergie extract so much from what is increasingly looking like a mediocre squad.

It appears to me that under Moyes the players aren't giving their all, under Sir Alex they were because he was a highly respected manager.

 

[P Squared]

This amazing post by a United fan on another forum just sums up whats wrong pretty well

It's only in the last few weeks that the alarm bells started ringing, for me at least. The season started almost as the last had finished with largely everything staying the same but with us pressing and defending higher up the pitch. But since December it's been one downer after another and we can't build any momentum. It's not unlike AVB's last few weeks at Spurs in that respect. I'm sure he wasn't asking them to play as they did but they had lost all confidence by then, both in themselves and with the manager. What we're seeing at the moment isn't what Moyes wants this team to do. We saw against Palace how he'd ideadly like to setup, that was on par with everything else we've seen of this United team in the last few years. As Marcotti wrote about on Wednesday this isn't the Moyes that was advertised. This is nothing like he used to do at Everton and the squad have overwhelmed him somewhat to say the least.

I didn't have any fears about the professionalism of the players in the summer because they still knew how to win, but that's evidently proved not to be the case either. Vidic is already on his way and it shows. Rio is the football equivalent of a Pirelli F1 tyre which has spectacularly 'fallen off the cliff', his performance last night just illustrated that for all to see. He'll be given his marching orders shortly and he knows it. Evra isn't even trying anymore, nevermind just not being good enough anymore, and he knows the writings on the wall too. I'm sure Moyes isn't going up to Van Persie before each game saying "Now make sure you never pass to Rooney, and make sure you only jog around, don't make too much of an effort." Hernandez' performance in the semi-final vs Sunderland was embarrassing. It was like he'd never played a professional game of football before, and nearly missed the goal he did eventually score. Nani knows he's off and Valencia is just going through the motions. I said back in May I would've been tempted to start everything from scratch then and sell players like Vidic and Evra. After watching this season so far we would've lost nothing if we had tried to do that. Some players are still trying, like Rooney and Carrick (though he's suffered from injuries and a loss of form after being ran into the ground over the last two years), most of the lesser established names are still trying but it's not enough when the leaders of the team aren't competing. Even Young is still putting in a shift. No one has a better excuse to down tools and sulk after all of his diving earlier in the season but he's one of the few who is trying to make a point.

However bad it gets this season and notwithstanding his errors and mistakes, I'm still reticent to ditch Moyes because he's been given a short shrift by some of the players, mostly the ones who know they won't be around in the summer come what may. If Moyes makes it to season three he can take the club back to the top four and the top, but he needs to get to that point first and he's only got the summer now to get that goodwill back. If nothing else it seems we're going after the right sort of players and everyone at the club has woken up to the fact we may need more than one or two players. We're going to have to cram-in three summers worth of transfers in one window in a few months time just to compensate for what should've been done previously. But you don't appoint a manager like Moyes and then sack him a few months later because you're not playing like Barcelona. He's a manager who managers the whole football club, not just what we all see at the weekend. By all accounts he's trying to do with the right things behind the scenes; trying to improve the academy and the scouting system, giving roles for the likes of Butt, Scholes, Phil Neville and Giggs.

I personally still want to give Moyes another season but if he doesn't come up with some results in the next few weeks it's going to get very messy. One thing's for sure I'd sooner see the back of Van Persie and Ferdinand before Moyes'. Regardless how it ends I'm glad we tried Moyes, even if the timing ended up being wrong to make that move. A manager like him is still the best fit for United in my opinion, if not the man himself at this moment in time and I still prefer having British manager. The trouble is there's very few others around like him today who stay committed to one club for so long. And the next on the list of British manager will be Lambert, Pardew or McClaren... We'll have to look abroad for our next move by the looks of it, I wouldn't trust Giggs or Neville with the job yet. The only thing I'm concerned about now is how we improve the squad in the summer. Then even if it's confirmed that Moyes isn't the man for the job, his successor will have a better squad to work with than this now.

 

[puddleduck]

Ferguson knew what he was doing when he stepped down. He knew there was no way he could scrape another title out of this squad.

Although I'm sure War will be in to tell us Rio should be back in the England squad soon.

 

[Lee1981]

Although I'm sure War will be in to tell us Rio should be back in the England squad soon.

And perhaps he will mention about the players needing a winter break.

Don't think I've heard him mention that in about 2 days now

 

[War]

^^

Well would you look at this. While I was away partying in the world famous Trinidad carnival street party, you two gentleman have me in your mind & whispering my name in a very strange manner. Clearly your estrogen levels are quite high - since last i checked grown men don't do such things.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

I actually never understood the signing of Moyes in the first place, because I couldn't understand the basis of the decision.
Moyes hadn't won anything while at Everton, so trophies on the resume wasn't the criteria.
We can argue, he did well with a mediocre team, but in my opinion, the time he was there, he should have been able to strengthen his team to an extent that they should at least have been challenging for Champions league regularly.
I've always felt he was a bit too defensive on the travels, and excellent at home, which I can still feel with the Man Utd game.

this argument doesn't really make sense. He had to sell to buy almost constantly. we simply didn't have a budget that should see us regularly competing with the top four sides. pretty much nobody can bridge that financial gap. You can catch some good fortune and do it like we did with a side that was very very average, and like newcastle almost did. but it's just nonsense to suggest you can consistently challenge, regardless of how long a manager has been there.

The league loosely lines up along who has the largest budgets. Look at this from last year Wage and the Premier League scaled table

it was a similar story pretty much every year. overall he got us to outperform every team who spent around what we did most years. The only reason he had the job for so long is that he consistently and comfortably outperformed teams with slightly larger budgets or similar budgets and we occasionally showed glimpses of competing with the top 4 sides.

When we're spending half of what liverpool and arsenal do on wages, and third of that of united, city and chelsea and about 2/3 of what tottenham spend we're doing pretty well to crack the top 6. we're effectively playing a different sport when it comes to the top 4.

the time we got really close, when we came 5th two years running and took a lead in the fa cup final a city side who finished about 10th bought arguably our best player for 24million and completely messed us up.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

the time we got really close, when we came 5th two years running and took a lead in the fa cup final a city side who finished about 10th bought arguably our best player for 24million and completely messed us up.

100% agree with what you said but on an unrelated note when you were finishing 5th and getting to cup finals was when moyes should have had an offer to manage a bigger team.

I have sometimes wondered if he stagnated a little in the last few years, just going through the motions as more sugar daddies rolled in and made his job ever more unrewarding. in the meantime chelsea, man city and tottenham all changed managers a couple of times in that period and I don't know why, for example, man city will jump at the chance to sign someone with no trophies like pellegrini and chelsea went through loads of washed up big names when a manager like moyes, who had loads of EPL experience to boot, was sitting there in their very own league.

coming after someone had been sacked or disappointed would have provided a much better platform for success than following on from alex ferguson at a championship winning united.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

100% agree with what you said but on an unrelated note when you were finishing 5th and getting to cup finals was when moyes should have had an offer to manage a bigger team.

I have sometimes wondered if he stagnated a little in the last few years, just going through the motions as more sugar daddies rolled in and made his job ever more unrewarding. in the meantime chelsea, man city and tottenham all changed managers a couple of times in that period and I don't know why, for example, man city will jump at the chance to sign someone with no trophies like pellegrini and chelsea went through loads of washed up big names when a manager like moyes, who had loads of EPL experience to boot, was sitting there in their very own league.

coming after someone had been sacked or disappointed would have provided a much better platform for success than following on from alex ferguson at a championship winning united.

I don't think he stagnated as such in the last few years it's just that we generally sold one player for decent money every summer and did our business in late august, it then took him until january with a few additions (donovan loans 2x, jelavic, gibson) catalysing us. With the exception of last season where we were pretty stready since we sold lescott we've been two different sides. 12th best team august-january. top 4-6 january-may.

Sort of similar for him at United I think. things didn't go his way in the summer for many reasons, but i can't help but think it will eventually just click.


but then at everton he had less scrutiny, a less rabid/moronic/impatient fanbase and he could back himself and work towards what he wanted. If he changes his ways and gets desperate for immediate results then I think he's in trouble.

 

[Dipak]

but then at everton he had less scrutiny, a less rabid/moronic/impatient fanbase and he could back himself and work towards what he wanted

This sums it all.