Manchester United Thread 2024/25 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 26.09.24

If City, Liverpool, Villa, Arsenal and Chelsea win this weekend, and given they're playing Newcastle, Wolves, Ipswich, Leicester and Brighton respectively that's highly possible, even likely, and United lose to Spurs which is as likely as winning, then after just six games we'd have City on 16 points, Liverpool on 15, Villa on 15, Arsenal on 14 and Chelsea on 13 and United on 7.

Would it be fair to say, if that pans out this weekend, that not only is any title challenge out of the question, but so is top four?

I just don't see City, Liverpool, Arsenal or Chelsea dropping less points than United for the rest of the season, while Villa have made a very strong start for them and look fairly consistent without being brilliant.

Is it possible our attempt at getting to the Champions League via the Premier League might be done after six games?

And if it is, would we be better off focusing our efforts primarily on the Europa League to get to the Champions League, which looks to arguably easier to win than getting 4th spot?

Whatever way we look at it, we need the Champions League, not only for the cash but for the type of player we can attract, and arguably more importantly, the type of quality squad player Champions League football could attract, if we're to challenge for the big trophies in the next 2/3 years.

Should a poor and possibly fatal start to the Premier League shift our focus onto the European campaign a bit more?

Obviously that's only in the even of the worst case scenario results-wise this weekend.

Point taken. I'd be worried though already, while we've being creating chances and not taking them, equally we've been giving up a lot of chances and they're not being taken. It's balancing out so far.

Even early into the season, there just appears to be too many problems still to be solved to be confident of a top four finish. Midfield being the big one, though you'd be hoping an improving Mainoo and fit Ugarte might form a solid centre.

I would also still be very sceptical about Ten Hag. I just don't think he has the tactical awareness, team set up, squad rotation, or in-game reading, to improve things. And his substitutions rarely work out.

So maybe our best bet of making Champions League, and the money/players you can gain form that prestige, is best achieved by concentrating on winning the Europa League, especially if we start to fall 6/8/10 points behind fourth spot.

Playing in the Champions League if we’re still finishing 7th or 8th in the league is just more of the same rubbish and will be a waste of time. No manager is going to get away with concentrating solely on the Europa League anyway.

Southgate wouldn't take a 9 month contract.

Loads of coaches do that. Ole does it. No way it stops someone from taking a job.

Coaches who cant get work. I like OGS, but reality is he is unemployed. You think Southgate is waiting on the Man City job given the rumours of Pep leaving?

I know you're a staunch critic of ETH because its unforgivable he cant organise a team of Onana, AWB, Evans, Casemiro, Dalot, Eriksen, Mainoo, Garnacho, Mount, Antony and Hojlund to play effective, pleasing football. I get that. I disagree, I think there was mitigating circumstances, but I see the logic. But Southgate couldn't organise a team of Pickford, Walker, Stones, Guehi, Shaw, Mainoo, Rice, Bellingham, Saka, Foden and Kane. If ETH is subpar for not making wine from water, Southgate is even less. Lads were crying out for Kane to be signed for 100 million plus last summer as a sure thing to deliver success. Southgate had him, Bellingham, Foden, Rice, Mainoo in the same team and it was awful. And unlike ETH, there was no trophy at the end of it.

Southgate is a Championship level manager at best. His being linked to the United job is just trolling by the UK media looking for clicks from irritated United fans. If he goes on to replace Pep Guardiola and lead Man City to 25 consecutive PL titles, I'll accept I'm wrong. But I think he wont even be mentioned in connection to the Man City job.

I don't want Southgate. Never said I do. Don't rate him at all.

I'm simply saying him doing tech analysis for uefa is in no way a blocker on him taking a job.

Wheatley with a hat-trick tonight.

I think Southgate done a good job with England. Especially when you consider the mess they were in after Hodgson. He's favoured by the press, politically popular and is very good at PR.

He's also one of England's most successful managers, he's proofing he can work with big ego's. He doesn't stand for bullshit, he was the first to highlight Sancho's bad attitude yet we still paid a fortune for him. Underperforming players get dropped.

There's an honestly about him thats badly needed at the club and I think he would improve standards off the field and set a culture at the club that has been sorely lacking.

I'm not sure people realise how bad we are at the moment. We've just come off a season finishing 8th and were lucky to do so. We've been really poor already this season. We've spent more than most clubs in the world.

Would I be happy to see Southgate take over right now until the end of the season? 100%. Would I be happy to see him take over ahead of Ruud? Probably. We're going nowhere right now and arguably getting worse. Even if we can somehow beat Spurs, we'll surely drop point's against Villa or Brentford.

Times Up.

seems he's alright.

“He’s up and about and fine,” Edwards said after the match. ‘So we’ll see the extent of it concussion wise. He was a bit sore but he’s fine.”

Anyone got young kids that support United? Jesus some of the stick, borderline bullying in some cases, they get in school is unreal.

Southgate name will be attached to any possible job coming up tbf.

U18s are 8-0 up, Scanlon got 3 and Bianchieri has 2, hopefully time for another.

My 7 year old does. Of his peer group it's pretty much 50/50 between United and LFC. Couple of outliers like 1 villa and 1 spurs supporter but that's it. As for stick, it's very light at the moment anyway but it's split evenly between the 2 groups.

The job is cursed! Let him enjoy himself.

We are not crap, even me as a Ten Hag out guy from last season wouldn't say we are crap we are just short of goals and it's a real shame this wasn't addressed over the summer to help him out. Not excusing him either obviously but we have become better defensively, we look it and we also progress the ball better so far this season but haven't taken the chances created.

Far far far from convincing performances but definitely improved I would have said. We aren't beating the teams we should be beating though and his in game management is still generally head wrecking. It's just a long slow match to the chop at this point, game tomorrow could be anything.

If we start scoring a bit more draws turn to wins defeats turn to draws and the world is a better place. He still has a few weeks/months to save his job and I genuinely do hope he turns it around, whether or not he should have even been there at the start of this season is a moot point now.

At that age I'd presume the parents alliegence plays a massive part in who they support, and there really isn't that many older City fans in Ireland

With Bruno, he is the team captain. That implies he has a lot of respect from other players in the squad, they might think he's not playing well but he is proven quality and he'll play his way back into form. ETH might have to take account of the impact on the squad morale from dropping the captain and putting in Mount, Eriksen or Zirkzee in his stead. I can only guess that was why ETH stuck with Rashford so much last season.

I've seen arguments made that Bruno might be effective further back as an #8. I don't know, but a change of role and responsibility might be as good as a rest and without the potential drama. Bruno has been really poor at #10. Hojlund at #9, Zirkzee at #10 with Bruno and one other further back could be worth a try. God knows, with Hojlund coming back in we need to do something to get him more than 38 shots across an entire PL season. His finishing is elite (26% conversion last season, better than Halaand) but 26% of not enough chances is not enough goals. Zirkzee isn't an elite finisher, but he might set up our best finisher a bit more often than the team did last season.

Because that's what they were asked to do.

How do you know what they were asked to do? Even so, it doesn’t mean that putting Bruno in a two makes any sense. You can ask him to stay there. Will he stay there? Probably not. How effective will he be at stopping the opposition if he does? Probably not effective at all. Against Twente there were times that the opposition were passing Ugarte by at ease, imagine himself and Bruno there against Spurs.

Bruno doesn’t need a position change or to be dropped to rediscover his form. He hasn’t needed it in the past so why would he need it now?

Man united fan too. How and why we missed out on him as a young player is something I'd love to know.