Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2016 - Mod Warning link in OP 20/3

Julez

bucketybuck wrote: »

Say Lewis Hamilton released a critically acclaimed rap album, but then started crashing in every second race. The two things might have no connection whatsoever but its naive to think people won't start saying that perhaps he should stop ****ing about with music and concentrate on his driving.

This is a bad analogy, making rap albums is not part of Lewis Hamiltons job. Making commercial deals is part of Woodwards job.

keeponhurling

bucketybuck wrote: »

He should have sacked Louis Van Gaal six months ago at the latest, and I don't believe there is a top club or CEO in the world that wouldn't have made that decision long ago.

6 months ago, Man United were top of the table. That would have been a harsh sacking.

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/league-table.html?season=2015-2016&month=SEPTEMBER&timelineView=date&toDate=1443394800000&tableView=CURRENT_STANDINGS

FutureGuy

bangkok wrote: »

Interesting stat...

Anderson......

Premier League (4):[69] 2007–08, 2008–09, 2010–11, 2012–13
Football League Cup (2):[69] 2008–09, 2009–10
FA Community Shield (2):[69] 2011, 2013
UEFA Champions League (1): 2007–08[69]
FIFA Club World Cup (1): 2008[69]

Fellaini.....







Mmmmmmm

Absolutely farcical post.

Martypants1

Ed Woodward has been appalling on the football side of things.

Summer 2013 he takes up his new job. Murmerings that Ed wants a marquee signing to kickstart the new regime, Cavani is mentioned.

We splunk 27m on Fellaini and fail to secure deals for Coentrao or Herrera.

Summer 2014 rolls along and we sign Di Maria and Falcao. Were they LVG signings or Ed marquee signings? The fact LVG played 3-5-2 to fit them all in would suggest to me they were Ed signings. Did they fit the profile of the players LVG has signed since?

Summer 2015 comes along and we sign Schmidfield. All is great, Woodward is GOAT. Noise coming out that summer 2013 was all Moyes fault, he took too long to make a decision on a player. Everyone agrees Woodward wasn't the problem in summer 2013 as he clearly is a genius after signing Schmidfield. Woody then spends his time chasing Muller, Neymar and Ramos. We finish summer 2015 without a right winger we needed and a proper CB.

I think it's more likely Woodward was the failure in summer 2013.

keeponhurling

Martypants1 wrote: »

Summer 2014 rolls along and we sign Di Maria and Falcao. Were they LVG signings or Ed marquee signings? The fact LVG played 3-5-2 to fit them all in would suggest to me they were Ed signings. .

LVG likes that system

Adamocovic

Personally Woodward falls way down the pecking order in terms of criticism for poor football.

Adamocovic

bangkok wrote: »

Interesting stat...

Anderson......

Premier League (4):[69] 2007–08, 2008–09, 2010–11, 2012–13
Football League Cup (2):[69] 2008–09, 2009–10
FA Community Shield (2):[69] 2011, 2013
UEFA Champions League (1): 2007–08[69]
FIFA Club World Cup (1): 2008[69]

Fellaini.....







Mmmmmmm

Luke Chadwick.....

Premier League Title (1): 2000-2001

Adamocovic

keeponhurling wrote: »

LVG likes that system

Yeah wasn't that his bread and butter in the World Cup before he signed.

keeponhurling

glory glory Man United...

bucketybuck

keeponhurling wrote: »

6 months ago, Man United were top of the table. That would have been a harsh sacking.

Absolutely meaningless. The problems with Van Gaals management have been apparent for a very long time now, any individual result or league position doesn't change the fact that we have performed horribly throughout his time at the club.

Martypants1

Adamocovic wrote: »

Yeah wasn't that his bread and butter in the World Cup before he signed.

Clearly not his favoured system seeing as he scrapped it after a number of weeks.

Adamocovic

Martypants1 wrote: »

Clearly not his favoured system seeing as he scrapped it after a number of weeks.

How does that mean it clearly wasn't his favored system? I imagine he scraped it because it wasn't working. You know the whole idea of adapting to your environment.

Think it's daft to suggest he didn't like the system (considering he used it quite a bit before and at the beginning) and was forced into playing it because of Woodward.

bucketybuck

Julez wrote: »

This is a bad analogy, making rap albums is not part of Lewis Hamiltons job. Making commercial deals is part of Woodwards job.

What of the Rooney analogy then, making tackles instead of scoring goals? Nobody would claim its a bad thing that he was making tackles and it would be part of his job on the pitch to make tackles, but if he isn't scoring goals then winning awards for tackles would give rise to criticism rather than praise. We know this, because in dry spells Rooney often received criticism about doing too much tracking back instead of staying in the box to be on the end of things.

It is part of Ed's job to make commercial deals, and we do want him to be good at commercial deals, but his main priority should be the football side of the club so if thats in bad shape then I don't really want to hear about commercial deals.

Adamocovic

bucketybuck wrote: »

What of the Rooney analogy then, making tackles instead of scoring goals? Nobody would claim its a bad thing that he was making tackles and it would be part of his job on the pitch to make tackles, but if he isn't scoring goals then winning awards for tackles would give rise to criticism rather than praise.

Did Rooney win the monthly Premier League Tackling Award?

Leroy42

With what is left in the FA cup this really is a great opportunity to win it. We are the last 'big' team (I mean that is the historical rather than the form sense) and we should be going all out to win it.

If we fail to win the cup with how the opposition has left itself it is akin to Arsenal failing to win the league this year with the open goal they were given.

Martypants1

Adamocovic wrote: »

How does that mean it clearly wasn't his favored system? I imagine he scraped it because it wasn't working. You know the whole idea of adapting to your environment.

Think it's daft to suggest he didn't like the system (considering he used it quite a bit before and at the beginning) and was forced into playing it because of Woodward.

Considering LVGs tenure at Utd, are Di Maria and Falcao LVG type players?

Considering De Bruyne, Sanchez, Fabregas, Pedro were all passed up by LVG....

Woody is infatuated with us being seen as the biggest club in the world, it's not mad imo to think he wanted to sign big names to prove to the world we didn't need CL to attract the biggest names.

Adamocovic

Martypants1 wrote: »

Considering LVGs tenure at Utd, are Di Maria and Falcao LVG type players?

Considering De Bruyne, Sanchez, Fabregas, Pedro were all passed up by LVG....

Woody is infatuated with us being seen as the biggest club in the world, it's not mad imo to think he wanted to sign big names to prove to the world we didn't need CL to attract the biggest names.

I never said it was mad to think Woodward wanted to bring in big players. Of course he wants big players in, so does LVG, but you do realise they work together it's not like Ed just throws players unbeknownst to LVG into the team.

What I did say was I think it is completely mad to suggest that Woodward is dictating LVGs tactics/formations.

If you honestly think LVG is picking formations and tactics to suit Woodward that is bonkers in my view. He has shown he likes the 3-5-2 formation many times before I don't see anything whatsoever at all that would suggest he only used it in his first season to keep Woodward happy.

When did Ed Woodward win this award??? That he is going around telling everyone about..

Edit: Just found the footage


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE_DF2-H_T0

Martypants1

Adamocovic wrote: »

I never said it was mad to think Woodward wanted to bring in big players. Of course he wants big players in, so does LVG, but you do realise they work together it's not like Ed just throws players unbeknownst to LVG into the team.

What I did say was I think it is completely mad to suggest that Woodward is dictating LVGs tactics/formations.

If you honestly think LVG is picking formations and tactics to suit Woodward that is bonkers in my view. He has shown he likes the 3-5-2 formation many times before I don't see anything whatsoever at all that would suggest he only used it in his first season to keep Woodward happy.

I'm not saying he's picking formations. 2014 was very iffy considering LVG wasn't there the whole summer.

Herrera and Shaw were Moyes signings given the green light by LVG.

Blind was his signing.

Rojo was his signing.

ADM and Falcao were not imo. Just not the type of players LVG goes for.

Hard to believe LVG sold 25 league goals in Di Maria and RVP and replaced them with Memphis & Martial.

Adamocovic

Martypants1 wrote: »

I'm not saying he's picking formations. 2014 was very iffy considering LVG wasn't there the whole summer.

Herrera and Shaw were Moyes signings given the green light by LVG.

Blind was his signing.

Rojo was his signing.

ADM and Falcao were not imo. Just not the type of players LVG goes for.

Well the original comment we were discussing was

The fact LVG played 3-5-2 to fit them all in would suggest to me they were Ed signings.

Which reads like you are saying LVG picked that formation to accommodate for players you feel Woodward brought in, despite the fact that LVG has a history of using that formation and is hardly going to be forced to change his style to suit Woodward.

Moving away from that particular comment it seems most people like to blame the majority of the situation on Woodward. Yes people have their criticisms about him on the "football side" of things, I have read these so much over the course of the last 2 years or so I'm a bit sick of them.

Look people can complain about Woodward all they want but when you have a manager who's been at Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Ajax, and Holland come in with an expensive team full of players who play at the top level for club and country you should be expected to perform and compete, Woodward doesn't need to be dragged out for criticism over this when it appears to be the coaches and players fault.

I'll be honest I was a fan of LVG as a manager, however the tactics he want's to employ are not working in the league, couple that with poor performances from players and here is where we find ourselves.

Julez

bucketybuck wrote: »

What of the Rooney analogy then, making tackles instead of scoring goals? Nobody would claim its a bad thing that he was making tackles and it would be part of his job on the pitch to make tackles, but if he isn't scoring goals then winning awards for tackles would give rise to criticism rather than praise. We know this, because in dry spells Rooney often received criticism about doing too much tracking back instead of staying in the box to be on the end of things.

It is part of Ed's job to make commercial deals, and we do want him to be good at commercial deals, but his main priority should be the football side of the club so if thats in bad shape then I don't really want to hear about commercial deals.

OK, you're getting closer, Rooney should definitely be able to tackle, but its not a key responsibility. A key, huge part of Woodwards job is to make money for the club through commercial revenue. He's doing this and doing it well. Yes, we still have a manger we probably shouldn't, and yes, that may be his fault, but we don't have any real evidence that him making commercial deals is at fault for his poor footballing decisions.

bucketybuck

Adamocovic wrote: »

when it appears to be the coaches and players fault.

The issue is what you do once you have accepted that point. Its the coaches fault that they cannot get a team of footballers playing cohesively, but what do you do when the coaches cannot do their jobs? Van Gaal takes the blame for the former, Woodward the latter.

Adamocovic

bucketybuck wrote: »

The issue is what you do once you have accepted that point. Its the coaches fault that they cannot get a team of footballers playing cohesively, but what do you do when the coaches cannot do their jobs? Van Gaal takes the blame for the former, Woodward the latter.

While Woodward is the figure head he clearly cannot sack LVG unless he has the backing of the board. I'm not saying Woodward has no part to play in our current state but I do believe in a footballing sense it is blown out of proportion.

I imagine the board of directors are hesitant about the image for the club and also possible replacements, but if you are going to blame Woodward for not sacking LVG by now you would want to also look at the rest of the board of directors not just Woodward.

Martypants1

Adamocovic wrote: »

While Woodward is the figure head he clearly cannot sack LVG unless he has the backing of the board. I'm not saying Woodward has no part to play in our current state but I do believe in a footballing sense it is blown out of proportion.

I imagine the board of directors are hesitant about the image for the club and also possible replacements, but if you are going to blame Woodward for not sacking LVG by now you would want to also look at the rest of the board of directors not just Woodward.

We could sack LVG on New Years day and if we won the league no one would even care about our image. Our image is being ripped to shreds right now. Norwich, Bournemouth, West Brom, Stoke, Sunderland. These are the types of teams consistently beating us.

bucketybuck

Julez wrote: »

but we don't have any real evidence that him making commercial deals is at fault for his poor footballing decisions.

No we don't but this was really my original point, being good at one of your secondary responsibilities will quite rightly be cold comfort when your primary responsibility is performing so badly.

Perhaps one has no connection to the other but after a certain point it no longer matters, until you start getting your house in order then nobody wants to hear about the other stuff.

And I am aware that this is a fans perspective, that the money men may see things differently. The money men are free to consider Woodward a good CEO if they wish, but when the football side of a football club is performing so badly I think I'll have to disagree.

bucketybuck

Adamocovic wrote: »

While Woodward is the figure head he clearly cannot sack LVG unless he has the backing of the board. I'm not saying Woodward has no part to play in our current state but I do believe in a footballing sense it is blown out of proportion.

I imagine the board of directors are hesitant about the image for the club and also possible replacements, but if you are going to blame Woodward for not sacking LVG by now you would want to also look at the rest of the board of directors not just Woodward.

I have criticised the board and I know others have input into the club as well, but Woodward is the Chief Executive Officer, the buck stops with him. If Woodward cannot make such an easy decision as getting rid of a failed manager then then he is less than a figurehead, he is a lame duck.

Adamocovic

Martypants1 wrote: »

We could sack LVG on New Years day and if we won the league no one would even care about our image. Our image is being ripped to shreds right now. Norwich, Bournemouth, West Brom, Stoke, Sunderland. These are the types of teams consistently beating us.

I don't know why you feel the need to explain that me, I'm well aware what is going on and was merely stating things the board take into consideration.

My point on that is as it is, the board must agree to sack LVG, not Woodward solely as some seem to believe. The board would obviously consider every aspect from possible replacement to repercussions. And obviously the image of the club is one of those aspects.

bangkok

Woodward bashing again...

He has by all accounts already secured the services of Jose Mourinho from the start of next season.

Has us in an extremely strong financial position.

Adamocovic

bucketybuck wrote: »

I have criticised the board and I know others have input into the club as well, but Woodward is the Chief Executive Officer, the buck stops with him. If Woodward cannot make such an easy decision as getting rid of a failed manager then then he is less than a figurehead, he is a lame duck.

Well I have no complaints about people unhappy with the board my comments are aimed at people who seem to think it is all up to Woodward.

And yes Woodward is the CEO, but wait who selects the CEO? Why yes the board do. The board have a say on the running of the club and obviously as I said before the decision to sack or keep LVG is a board decision. Not solely an Ed Woodward decision.

This is why I hate this criticism of Woodward. People paint his role at the club as if he has the say on everything from the sponsorship deals to who hits corners. Yes he has a big say in image of the club (being the CEO) and the running of the club but he doesn't have to only say.

If he wants LVG sacked (only if he wants) he would need backing of the board. So I think picking him out over the rest of the board for not sacking LVG isn't right.

bucketybuck

Adamocovic wrote: »

If he wants LVG sacked (only if he wants) he would need backing of the board. So I think picking him out over the rest of the board for not sacking LVG isn't right.

I do understand your point, but to be honest I see nothing wrong with considering the CEO as shorthand for "the board". I'm not going to qualify the remark every time by pointing out that others have input into the decision, just as people don't qualify the remarks when they talk about Daniel Levy and his decisions.

The failure to deal with Van Gaal is a failure at board level, and as such Woodward needs to answer for it. Thats his job.

Flint Fredstone

Say Woodward sacked LVG at Christmas, what was the plan then? Giggs for the rest of the season?

Liam McPoyle

Martypants1 wrote: »

I'm not saying he's picking formations. 2014 was very iffy considering LVG wasn't there the whole summer.

Herrera and Shaw were Moyes signings given the green light by LVG.

Blind was his signing.

Rojo was his signing.

ADM and Falcao were not imo. Just not the type of players LVG goes for.

Hard to believe LVG sold 25 league goals in Di Maria and RVP and replaced them with Memphis & Martial.

Didn't realise RVP and ADM scored 25 league goals for us last season.

That's a sight.

Korat

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

Say Woodward sacked LVG at Christmas, what was the plan then? Giggs for the rest of the season?

LVG should have been replaced as soon as a better alternative became available.



If Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, Bale and Griezman all became available in the next six months should the club decline to sign them because Memphis has only been there a year and deserves a chance to prove himself?

The manager is an employee and if a better one comes along then there should be no hesitation to replace him especially after what was an underwhelming first season.


Guardiola, Ancelotti and Klopp were originally preferred to LVG but were unavailable. As soon as they became available the club should have moved for them. Woodward has proven to be hopeless at recruiting talent so there’s no guarantee we could attract Guardiola or Ancelotti but surely we’d have been in with a shout for Klopp.

If it’s the case that none of these coaches wanted to join Utd then Mourinho really is the best we can hope for and I don’t see any good reason for not confirming him as coach and sacking LVG as soon as a deal was struck… unless Woodward has been sitting on his hands paralysed by indecision for the last 6 months. Which is a highly probable scenario given his track record.

Magico Gonzalez

Is it not likely owners have tied up Mourinho, wrote off this season and decided that they would let lvg run down his contract under instruction that he brings through some young players. Personally I would not be surprised if Mou has not already had some input and LVG is riding it out and picking up his last paycheck.

Jayop

Magico Gonzalez wrote: »

Is it not likely owners have tied up Mourinho, wrote off this season and decided that they would let lvg run down his contract under instruction that he brings through some young players. Personally I would not be surprised if Mou has not already had some input and LVG is riding it out and picking up his last paycheck.

If that was the case then given how absolutely terribly we're playing and how likely it looks like we'll miss out on the Champions League next year then wouldn't they have been better off getting someone in in the interim to try to see if we managed to get the "new manager bounce" that so many other clubs seem to benefit from.

Giggsy11

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

Say Woodward sacked LVG at Christmas, what was the plan then? Giggs for the rest of the season?

Surely we should be having a decent scouting system to identify someone decent to take care of club for 6 months?

If you are saying there isn't anyone available apart from Giggs then we should really question ManUtd structure.

I believe it's the issue with structure though.

Flint Fredstone

Giggsy11 wrote: »

Surely we should be having a decent scouting system to identify someone decent to take care of club for 6 months?

If you are saying there isn't anyone available apart from Giggs then we should really question ManUtd structure.

I believe it's the issue with structure though.

Everything seems to point to Mourinho on his way in the Summer. If you got rid of Van Gaal at Christmas, who would you have gone to asking them to come in for 5 months?
Assuming that Mourinho won't/can't take the job until then.

Jayop

If it was only for 5 months and we know Mourinho was coming in then I wouldn't give a damn. Give it to someone like Joyce or Giggs. Have Ole come in for a few months, get bloody Arry Rednapp to take the role for the interim.

Giggsy11

Flint Fredstone wrote: »

Everything seems to point to Mourinho on his way in the Summer. If you got rid of Van Gaal at Christmas, who would you have gone to asking them to come in for 5 months?
Assuming that Mourinho won't/can't take the job until then.

I sort of agree and I had the same discussion with bucketybuck few days back. Maybe there is a clause in Jose's contract so we are waiting till end of the season. My point was it's hard to find good manager who will agree for just 6 months but we should be having few decent managers for short term when the things were going so bad.

Looks like it won't happen though.

bucketybuck

Magico Gonzalez wrote: »

Is it not likely owners have tied up Mourinho, wrote off this season and decided that they would let lvg run down his contract under instruction that he brings through some young players. Personally I would not be surprised if Mou has not already had some input and LVG is riding it out and picking up his last paycheck.

If the board had acted at Christmas we could have easily, easily pushed into the top 3/4 and ensured CL football next season. A competent board does not blithely write off a season in situations like that, not with the millions of pounds at stake, this isn't junior B football after all.

Van Gaal is doing a horrible job, I refuse to believe that there wasn't one single person out there interested in the interim job and who could have gotten that squad of players working cohesively. The board should have sacked Van Gaal, they should have appointed somebody, but instead they did nothing and it will hurt the club for seasons to come.

Rayne Wooney

Ancelotti for 6 months would have been nice

I doubt Bayern would have objected we're no threat to them

Korat

Everton in the semi if by some miracle we get past West Ham.

Lord TSC

Korat wrote: »

Everton in the semi if by some miracle we get past West Ham.

So Palace or Watford make the finals? Have to imagine whoever wins between us and West Ham are favourites, though we would do well to get past Everton.

Watch. We will get past West Ham, get past Everton and then lose to one of the drastically weaker teams.....

Maybe Zaha scoring the winner :P

Headshot

Everton will be hoping utd get past West Ham

Easy draw for them

J. Marston

Headshot wrote: »

Everton will be hoping utd get past West Ham

Easy draw for them

Yeah, they destroyed us earlier this season...

Martypants1

Business Cat wrote: »

Didn't realise RVP and ADM scored 25 league goals for us last season.

That's a sight.

Suppose assists don't count?

Martypants1

J. Marston wrote: »

Yeah, they destroyed us earlier this season...

We destroyed Sunderland earlier this season.

Headshot

Pisses me off to see a Leicester top of the table. Past utd would of steam roll this league and destroy Leicester

bangkok

Delighted for Leicester and ranieri. Really hope they do it

adox

Don't know if the free BT offer has been mentioned on here yet. A month free with no obligation, if you have a sky box and viewing card(any viewing card).

https://secure.setantasubs.com/boioffer/
signed up yesterday lunchtime and its in the clear tonight.