Assessing our squad

[JoelfuckingGlazer]

Does anyone have a piece of chalk?

Maybe you should do a fully immersive VR demonstration and dozer can stick his occulus on his bonce. Might be difficult, given we're talking about United, but try to steer clear of horror.

[fat maradona]

What he says in the last couple of minutes is exactly how I feel. My life is super stressful as it is and you want things you do in your spare time to help alleviate that but supporting United just adds more stress to my life!

[Felwin]

Watching Nev go from pro Glazer to feeling as we do; detached from our own club is quite a thing. He admits he doesn't want to cover the games anymore.



He makes a good point about Gaal too, that he is the only manager post Fergie that has managed to implement a style on the team. The 6 other managers haven't been able to. That was nearly 10 years ago ffs. Why did it work for him and not the others?

Still maintain Gaal is my favourite manager post Fergie. Didn't take shit, eccentric as hell, had his team playing how he wanted. It was dull but we weren't getting shafted every week and players weren't downing tools every 6 months, Easier to say in hindsight I know, because in 2015-16 we still thought we should be challenging for titles. Don't know what you've got 'til it's gone I suppose.

[JoelfuckingGlazer]

Yeah, Gaal's reign was the one to build on. A couple of quality forward players to open teams, and a more modern coach with similar principles (such as a De Zerbi type) is what we should have gone with. But as ever, there was no plan so we went to Jose.

[swampash]

Character trumps talent every time. That we still have no discernible character as a team is ultimately down to the management. I had high hopes of Ten Hag but am increasingly worried about whether he really has what it takes to build an effective team culture?

[dozer]

Yeah, Gaal's reign was the one to build on. A couple of quality forward players to open teams, and a more modern coach with similar principles (such as a De Zerbi type) is what we should have gone with. But as ever, there was no plan so we went to Jose.

Why should we cherry pick the nice things about a manager? Gaal immediately transformed our team and style of play, yes, but he played ineffective football and bought players like how Benitez bought players for Liverpool. In fact it was worse, he spent a lot more money. At least Benitez was hamstrung by his budget.

Gaal bought the likes of Rojo because he was left footed.
He was also responsible for di Maria, Falcao, herrera, Depay, schneiderlin, martial and schweinsteiger.
His football was boring and ineffective. It's easy to control possession if the team refuses to even try creating chances. Keep passing sideways and backwards.

[Felwin]

Yeah, Gaal's reign was the one to build on. A couple of quality forward players to open teams, and a more modern coach with similar principles (such as a De Zerbi type) is what we should have gone with. But as ever, there was no plan so we went to Jose.

Why should we cherry pick the nice things about a manager? Gaal immediately transformed our team and style of play, yes, but he played ineffective football and bought players like how Benitez bought players for Liverpool. In fact it was worse, he spent a lot more money. At least Benitez was hamstrung by his budget.

Gaal bought the likes of Rojo because he was left footed.
He was also responsible for di Maria, Falcao, herrera, Depay, schneiderlin, martial and schweinsteiger.
His football was boring and ineffective. It's easy to control possession if the team refuses to even try creating chances. Keep passing sideways and backwards.

Don't chuck Herrera in with those other weird signings. Easily more committed than most of our current crop. In his 2014-17 guise, he'd walk into our current midfield. Another example of buying a single quality player and hanging their hat on him, when they should've bought 2-3. Could have had him a season earlier too if it wasn't for Woodward being strung along by those fake agents.

I also think there's another reality where Martial stays hungry and becomes a quality player. Depay too.

AdM, Falcao and Schweini were just Woodward buying names instead of doing any homework.

Schneiderlin and Rojo were true duds in every sense of the word, I'll give you that.

And you're doing your normal thing again where you're making the manager 100% responsible for the signings when we all know that our managers either a) regularly get their 2nd or 3rd picks, b) just name players they're familiar with - presumably because they don't have time to be the scouting department as well as the manager. Says a lot that both LvG and EtH have suffered in a similar way, in Holland it would be mental for them to do that work as well as coaching.

[dozer]

Yeah, Gaal's reign was the one to build on. A couple of quality forward players to open teams, and a more modern coach with similar principles (such as a De Zerbi type) is what we should have gone with. But as ever, there was no plan so we went to Jose.

Why should we cherry pick the nice things about a manager? Gaal immediately transformed our team and style of play, yes, but he played ineffective football and bought players like how Benitez bought players for Liverpool. In fact it was worse, he spent a lot more money. At least Benitez was hamstrung by his budget.

Gaal bought the likes of Rojo because he was left footed.
He was also responsible for di Maria, Falcao, herrera, Depay, schneiderlin, martial and schweinsteiger.
His football was boring and ineffective. It's easy to control possession if the team refuses to even try creating chances. Keep passing sideways and backwards.

Don't chuck Herrera in with those other weird signings. Easily more committed than most of our current crop. In his 2014-17 guise, he'd walk into our current midfield. Another example of buying a single quality player and hanging their hat on him, when they should've bought 2-3. Could have had him a season earlier too if it wasn't for Woodward being strung along by those fake agents.

I also think there's another reality where Martial stays hungry and becomes a quality player. Depay too.

AdM, Falcao and Schweini were just Woodward buying names instead of doing any homework.

Schneiderlin and Rojo were true duds in every sense of the word, I'll give you that.

And you're doing your normal thing again where you're making the manager 100% responsible for the signings when we all know that our managers either a) regularly get their 2nd or 3rd picks, b) just name players they're familiar with - presumably because they don't have time to be the scouting department as well as the manager. Says a lot that both LvG and EtH have suffered in a similar way, in Holland it would be mental for them to do that work as well as coaching.

I don't rate Herrera one bit. I never did. Only at united could a player like herrera and Mata get away by being mediocre at everything with no specific ability they excel at. Nice guys though. They apologise a lot and thank the fans after every game.

Your alternate realities are just fiction. The players are crap.

The manager is responsible ffs. United are probably the only club that do not have a real recruitment team and just buy whoever the manager recommends. And we're talking about van gaal here. He'd even get rid of Nesta and buy someone like Rojo because he's a left footed centre back. He's so choosy, you think he'll accept a Woodward imposition?

He was very critical of Woodward, and frequently so, after he got fired. He never said the club made their own signings. Neither did the other managers who spoke out about the club management. They may have denied them some players because of budget or whatever but they didn't sign anyone the manager didn't approve of.

No manager always gets their first choice signing. That's life.
They have to submit a list of players to pursue and hope for the best. 2nd or 3rd choice isn't an excuse. Thats a common problem for all managers.

[Felwin]

I don't rate Herrera one bit. I never did. Only at united could a player like herrera and Mata get away by being mediocre at everything with no specific ability they excel at. Nice guys though. They apologise a lot and thank the fans after every game.

Your alternate realities are just fiction. The players are crap.

The manager is responsible ffs. United are probably the only club that do not have a real recruitment team and just buy whoever the manager recommends. And we're talking about van gaal here. He'd even get rid of Nesta and buy someone like Rojo because he's a left footed centre back. He's so choosy, you think he'll accept a Woodward imposition?

He was very critical of Woodward, and frequently so, after he got fired. He never said the club made their own signings. Neither did the other managers who spoke out about the club management. They may have denied them some players because of budget or whatever but they didn't sign anyone the manager didn't approve of.

No manager always gets their first choice signing. That's life.
They have to submit a list of players to pursue and hope for the best. 2nd or 3rd choice isn't an excuse. Thats a common problem for all managers.

Agree to disagree about Herrera.

Fair cop with my alternate realities, I'm aware it's a flight of fancy but these things are much more chaos theory than cut and dry. I genuinely believe there are great players in a lot of these signings but that our fuckwittery has messed up the opportunity as much as the players themselves.

We're circling the drain on this whole manager power over transfers things so I'm signing off with one last sentence. If you think it's problematic that United still ask managers for signings, rather than using their own lists and asking for the manager's approval like all the best run clubs, then you can't also 100% blame them for signings that don't work out.

[Fuck the Glazers]

Erik ten Hag says Manchester United are discussing contract extensions for Victor Lindelof, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Anthony Martial & Hannibal Mejbiri.

#MUFC have the option to extend all four players' contracts by another year.

Full story on @TheAthleticFC

Fucks sake