Where do you begin with Man Utd’s rebuilding job?

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com…

RIP Man Utd
Raheem Sterling beat Paul Pogba to a header. I rolled my eyes, threw my head back and saw the corrugated iron that serves as Old Trafford’s roof. At that moment I knew. I knew for a while really but didn’t want to believe it. My heart kept trying to shout over my brain but no. It really is over.

It’s a different club now, they just own the image rights to the monster Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson created. For as long as the Glazers own it, United will not be coming back. Europa League with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as manager. What half decent player will look at that mess and think the club will allow him the chance to play enjoyable football and win things?

I watched Luke Shaw make a 5 yard pass to Bernardo Silva and recalled Ole’s recent words about how glad he was that one of the team’s better players was back for the game. That’s Luke Shaw. The manager reckons a bang average left back is one of United’s best players. Remember him talking about how easy management is when you have great players? And now he’s saying loads of them need dumping. His “I’m going to be successful here” line was very Brendan Rodgers as well. The chap hasn’t a clue. But they’re still going to give him loads of money to buy Madrid rejects and Scandinavian teenagers.

Poch didn’t want the United job after Ferguson because he thought there’d be too much pressure. Well Mauricio, expectations have never been lower. Get your agent to give Ed a call…although Ed will probably keep Ole anyway.

Also, Sterling’s arse is huge, holy sh*t.
Eamonn, Dublin

 

…There is something rotten to the core of this United club (and team) and it stems back from a lack of vision from the whole club in general. Greeted last night to pictures of a stand within Old Trafford pissing down a leak on top of a row of seats (Old Trafford formally biggest/best stadium the country!) Ironically displaying the exact situation the club is in now.

A starting line-up containing players from Ferguson’s, van Gaals and Mourinhos reign. Players sitting on the bench signed for an insane amount of money, players in the squad that are not in any way either talented and/or motivated enough to ever push on and win a title. It goes back to board level and the word that sums it up is complacency.

Complacency of the club that had the presumption that as long as Ferguson was winning things, this club would be fine. No vision of any end goal, no plan, hiring quick fixes in managers that thought would at least bring a top four finish (not win titles) in Moyes and van Gaal along with a manager who needs the whole bank balance to build a squad (and known to leave it in a state, players obviously not fit enough) in Mourinho and then not giving him the resources he’s asking for (not saying Mourinho was the answer but he called the squad weaknesses early preseason).

Complacency in the what reeks of corporate/marketing thinking in bringing in a player like Pogba and putting all eggs in that basket when there is no idea of his loyalty and motivation to the club. If you big up a player the way the club has, treat him like your main man without even touching a ball or proving anything to the club how do you think it’s going to end up? United have put all their belief into an player who has already left the club under controversial circumstances and expect home to be the leader going forward? As Keane and Neville stated before the game there is no leaders there. Pogba has been allowed to do what he wants and carry on like a spoilt child without ever justifying his price tag. Players look to him. And he wants to leave after 3 years at the club. The consistent players to look to are gone. Even in past days there was Neville, Giggs Scholes and Ferdinand etc. all there to put someone in their place, put forward the belief and methodology of the club. The squad now is rotten, full of primadonnas, full of squad players that’s should not be playing more than 15 games a season.

If they want to move forward, certain players need to be moved on. You can see the mentality of over half this squad is nowhere near where you want them to be. you hear rumours of United getting pissed off at Pogba and wanting to make a decision on his future, rumours of Madrid agreeing a contract with already, this needs to be nipped in the bud. He has been coasting last few games, tonight he did try to get on the ball, tried to make things happen but is the reason why the players around weren’t because of how he’s acting in other games, when they looked to him? Is he who Ole should build the team around? If not who is there to replace him? Take Pogba out and what do they have??

You have two serial winners with United passing comments in the pundit box knowing what’s going wrong in the club and who do you have on a board level? The fact GNev and Woodward are at odds with each other shows how behind the club is. Compare this to Bayern, who always kept their ex-players involved, do you ever hear of any tolerance of second best from that club??

It has been classed as a corporation for a long time and this sums it up, the ability to alienate players who could have been beneficial to judging and coordinating the future of the club. Vidic tweeted a photo of Woodward in a Trump hat yesterday. That says it all in regards to the what the last successful team in United think of the board in United.

Rashford already had his backpack on in the post-game interview. I hope Ole will tell half of them to pack their bags and f**k of out of that stadium, because there is not many left worthy of playing there.
Jon, MUFC

 

…United are done, as a club, team and legacy. It’s good that United named the stand after SAF because the memories of his all conquering competitive teams are long gone.

United won’t qualify for the champions league this year and Solskjaer can have all the money in the world in the summer but with them not being at the top he will struggle to attract the best for what’s needed.

He’ll end up with players not good enough (Fred, Dalot, Martial) or mercenaries only in the big bucks (Sanchez), either way those types of players can’t or won’t be able to play the type of football needed. His only two world class players in DeGea and Pogba haven’t been world class in a long time and the now emotional decision to name Solskjaer manager has back fired as his tactical inexperience and motivation have led them to 7 loses out of 9.

They will always be good enough for the top six and on their day probably take some points of the rest of the big boys but are they the long term team (Liverpool and City) that the best players in the world are going to want to play for? No way.
Robbie DFC (Sterling beating Pogba in the air was hilarious)

 

…It probably hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice, by now – now that the demob-happy joy of ‘not being with Mourinho’ has faded – that Solskjaer has the kind of managerial record that, if he was trying to take over at Wigan, he’d be told they were going to have a proper look at all of the options before they rushed to a decision. More than United could manage, evidently. He has the job, honestly, on the strength of his toe, which he stuck out and made Fergie go leaping around the touchline saying football . . Bloody hell.

People would say he knows the club, what’s it about, which is precisely the problem. He knows what the club was about; what it was about is so divorced from what it is about, the panting desperation of a guy at the top to strap every last commercial opportunity to the good ship United and make every judgment on the basis of buying a few extra minutes of flotation time – that getting what united was before it became this, could actually be a hindrance not a help. They’re so stuck, right this minute. To itemise: the best goalkeeper in the world regressing by the day. The most expensive player in premier league history ably demonstrating that the reason he ‘earnt’ that price tag was he was surrounded by people – pirlo, marchisio, chiellini, buffon – who could do the man-work he can’t, allowing him to be the talented kid-upstart to his heart’s content. Dreaming that, for the foreseeable future anyway, he’ll able to take control of any prem midfield without serious weight behind him is pretty silly. And they dont buy serious weight, if such a thing can even be bought, they buy Fred for 50million. Attacking players – lukaku, martial, sanchez – signed for eyewatering prices who have been allowed or even encouraged to become the ultimate confidence players – something when the wind blows their way, nothing when it doesn’t. Martial, in his facial expressions when he arrived on the pitch, looked so separate from all of it he might as well have been watching it through glass. No midfield presence to speak of, the honourable attempts of McTominay notwithstanding.

And once again, when the image-of-the-week – Solskjaer doing well – appealed to the branding-doyens at the top, they shot their bolt all over it, signed off another period of time to the man from Cardiff and Molde and the goal-line lat the Nou Camp. And the gross thing is, they’ll know they’ll have to give him a wad of cash in the summer, otherwise judgments will be made on how he wasn’t backed, and it’s hard to imagine that incoming business being anything but like a guy with two black eyes and a bullet wound to the cheek going in for a very expensive collagen lip-filler. To repeat – if you’ve spent, in a short period of time, a number that isn’t that far away from half a billion pounds on new players, and have a team that not for more than about ten minutes look in genuine contention with the best of the league, you may have a cultural problem.
Most of me just feel, this is precisely what they mean by everything having its price. Fergie giveth, Fergie taketh away. The moment when united actually take their first step in a new direction is when everyone – the fans, Gary Neville, etc – recognises that there is no ‘United way’, it’s not written on some magic stone – you just liked how Fergie got teams playing football, and that’s pretty understandable. But if everyone could do it, everyone would have their name glaring down on new pretenders from the biggest stand at Old Trafford.
Best, Toby Sprigings

 

…It really is agonising to watch United these days. That die-hard sense of optimism before, and during, every game feels like the darkest stages of withdrawal as it’s leaving the body until you’re left cold and alone in a pool of sweat with a headache and no real sense of what just happened. Someone made the point that United’s players are just knackered due to the change in tempo between managerial styles and there definitely looks like there’s an element of that. First 25-30 minutes, you could be forgiven for thinking that United were “in” the game as Rashford, Lingard & Pereira occasionally pressed City’s back 4 into making a mistake before ultimately fading away. Playing the way United do must be as exhausting to take part in as it is to watch because the demoralising effects of soaking up pressure before trying to release two players and intending them to run 70+ yards and score is really life-draining.

People hated Mourihno for his negativity and belligerence and that’s not unwarranted but he saw the limited capabilities of this squad and built his miserable game-plan around that, not some misguided idea that a sleeping giant could be awoken merely by reminding it of where it came from and tickling it’s feet.

I wrote in recently saying that the players who do not make the grade at United were too numerous and tedious to recount but perhaps not.

Not good enough/past it: Smalling, Jones, Darmian, Sanchez, Lingard, Matic, Fred, Rojo, Young, Mata, de Gea (that’s right, fight me)

The rest are either just benefitting from reduced expectations or unable to play to their full potential due to the deadweight of the abovementioned and the ineptitude of the coaching staff.

Until the gaping inadequacies of the squad are somehow remedied, including United in the conversation about success and challenging is just cruel and unnecessary. The weight of unfair expectation is a noose around these players’ necks. They are simply not good enough to compete at this level and asking them to do so gives rise to scenes like we saw at Barcelona, at City, and even at Wolves and Everton where they couldn’t even compete in terms of desire.

OGS is looking at these players through the lens of the club, evaluating them purely by the location in which they find themselves. The players are to blame for A LOT but Ashley Young should not be captaining United age 33. Chris Smalling should not be first-choice centre-back for United under any circumstances. These are the failings of the club, not the players.
Stephen (who is that Stephen?) Synnott

 

…I remember hearing that, as kids playing in Brazil the worst players with the ball at their feet usually ended up in goal; obviously, Edison and Fred aren’t from the same town.
Rob, Oakland

 

Dodgy Dave
There’s a bit in Superman 2 when Superman goes into this chamber that removes all his powers.

He is left with a crappy haircut but otherwise looking much the same – minus the glasses.

Has the same thing happened with David De Gea?

The mailbox pointed to his terrible form ages before Neville alerted everyone to it last night – what the hell has happened to him?

As for Arsenal – we’re showing our true colours. While Chelsea and United are both guilty of having players that don’t seem that bothered – we’re just not very good.

If we can fluke a Europa League title, Emery may well manage a squad rebuild – fail to do that and I can see Unai walking away after an argument about funds.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

 

 

Liverpool views on the Manchester derby
Kompany on a yellow card can seemingly put in as many reckless body slams as he wants without getting a yellow. It is astounding he didn’t see red; both tonight and earlier in the season against us. Very much doubt David Silva will get suspended for his little horror show on Lingard too. But of course Liverpool are the lucky ones in this title race!

This Man Utd team is pretty dire. Weirdly I think Ashley Young was amongst the best performers tonight, which is a very sad indictment of the rest of them. Watching tonight it felt like Pogba takes too many touches because he doesn’t know what to do with the ball. I think in Italy he was very good because perhaps he just had more time and space in which to operate. Perhaps this league is simply not suited to his skills (no shame in that, same was true for Forlan, Aspas). Lukaku has an awful first touch. Multiple times his first touch killed attacks or led to him being dispossessed. I’m sure he’s short on confidence because if that was his norm then it would be literally impossible to understand his goal scoring record.

De Gea might have hung his gloves up but at this rate he won’t be able to move to a better placed club than Man Utd. He’s got a proper case of the Mignolets and has turned into a full scale liability.

It felt as though OGS had no idea what to do to positively influence the game. His side lost all control in midfield but all he did was bring on a striker once they were losing. He could’ve taken more risk and tried to play a midfield diamond to give extra bite (Matic) at the base with Pogba and Fred ahead and then asked Rashford to play 10 with Martial or Lukaku ahead of him. I’m not sure what purpose the extra defender served once they were losing and I don’t think there was much point putting on Lukaku and hoofing it up at him hoping he’d then hold it up and bring others into the game. Mourinho did that enough to prove to all it wasn’t Lukaku’s game.

Come on Burnley!
Minty, LFC

 

…After another depressing evening, today I’m Mr Brightside:

1. United definitely won’t now qualify for the Champions’ League this year, and have therefore cemented their downward spiral. With an unproven manager at the helm, who on Earth will want to sign for them?

2. Burnley will put up more of a fight against City.

3. Tickets booked for Barcelona on Wednesday.

It’s not all bad.
Rob (living with the paradox that Burnley beat the Champions every season).

 

…City coasted to victory again. They really are that good and if they keep it up they will be deserved Prem winners. Never expected such a toothless and inept side as Man Utd to put City on the back foot and true to form they never did. Despite what GNev may think this was a cake walk yet again. Flimsy gloved prima donnas who lack skill, mettle, tactical acumen and accuracy yet who chase exorbitant earnings were never going to offer a meaningful challenge. The bemusement on the managerial bench said it all as Solksjaer and co. raised eyebrows and curled lips in a symphony of impotent posturing.

Whilst City still have to face the anti-football maestros of Dyche and Hughton : ‘clutch yer face feigning injury’ and ‘4 minutes for every goal kick and throw-in’ from minute one. Playing football should always triumph over that most cynical and joyless approach. At least Leicester may have a go. So unless City fail in the home straight it is theirs for the taking. We have been exceptional but they have been better. That has so far been the reality.

At least this year footballing excellence will triumph. Thanks to City, Liverpool and Spurs for a great season.
David lfc

 

…Today, for the first time that I can recall, I found myself rooting for Manchester United. It was purely a function of circumstance, it felt wrong, and I’m glad it’s over. Unfortunately, their non-performance has almost certainly ensured that City will take the title given their form, consistency, and the relative ease of their remaining fixtures. A few thoughts on the game and the fallout from the result:

· In the build-up there seemed to be a lot of Man U fans saying they’d be happy to lose the derby to keep the title from Liverpool. Are they happy to have gotten the loss they craved? I’m sure this was a vocal minority of fans posturing in the face of likely defeat, but it’s an incredible perspective and a sign of how far their team has fallen.

· The lack of quality in the United squad is shocking. The only players in their starting lineup who would even make bench at City are De Gea and, debatably, Pogba. At their best, I’m not sure any United players but those two would start for any other Top 6 side; on current form, none of them would.

· Whoscored.com rates Fred as United’s 3rd best performer today which seems like a great illustration of the failure of stats to reflect on-pitch performances. He completed less than 75% of his passes, despite most of them being two-yarders to his center-backs as he faced his own goal. He consistently turned the ball over in dangerous areas, including the giveaway that led to Sane’s goal, and often looked like a spectator as play passed him by. I can’t decide if he was a defensive midfielder who couldn’t defend or a deep-lying playmaker who couldn’t make plays.

· De Gea’s awful form continued. Silva’s goal could have been a simple save with better anticipation and positioning, but Sane’s is a shot he should be saving every time. It’s hard to chalk his poor performances up to anything other than lack of motivation. He’s shown for years that he can carry a mediocre team on his back; perhaps he’s just gotten tired of bearing that burden.

· Solskjaer’s honeymoon is fully over, and it’s hard to see him still being manager by December barring an incredible upturn in results. United have lost 7 of 9 games and haven’t scored from openly play in more than 540 minutes. He seems a likable guy and if anyone is going to succeed at United, I’d like it to be him. That said, he failed to inspire a response to the Everton loss, his tactical naivete is being badly exposed, and the United board have backed themselves into a corner by giving him the permanent job mid-season. Either they fire him in the summer and make the club look even more dysfunctional, or they pass up their best opportunity to bring in a top manager and risk the team continuing to flounder next season.

· The marriage of Pep’s tactical acumen and City’s resources feels like the makings of a dynasty. Liverpool is the only team anywhere close to them, but Man City can spend $300M each summer to reinforce their squad; Liverpool, despite their huge outlay in 2018, cannot. Man City can survive critical injuries, such as losing KDB; for all of their improvement, Liverpool don’t have the depth to cope with a long-term injury to, say, a Salah or Van Dijk. It’s hard to see past City for the title this year, or indeed any year as long as coaching and financial circumstances remain consistent.
Andrew English (LFC in LA)

 

FA, United and Sanchez
Firstly, I’m a bit disappointed with the FA. West Ham reasonably asked to move their Premier League game so it didn’t clash with fans wanting to go to the Women’s FA Cup Final. Common sense request, let’s promote the women’s game. FA said no.

Let’s contrast that with the France FA, As part of referee preparation for the Women’s World Cup, FA’s have been asked to give the referees high pressure games. So France will have it’s first men’s top flight game officiated by a woman. Well done France.

Germany did this in 2017. So England of the top five leagues is now grouped with those two nations famous for women’s rights, Italy and Spain. I can’t really see either of those two countries doing anytime soon unless it’s accompanied by a photo shoot but come on England, what’s going on? We’ve had a female lino in the top flight for so many years that we don’t even notice. This really shouldn’t be a thing in 2019.

While I’m here I suppose I should comment on the United performance. The first half hour was OK, high press and energy even if they didn’t have the possession. But then it collapsed. They’ve been a few rumours about coaches having concerns about the fitness of the players and the success or lack of it of the mini pre season in Dubai. Well after thirty minutes they were knackered and it showed. Pogba was chasing down doing what we’d all love to see at the beginning but then after 30 minutes he was blowing hard. That should not be happening to a professional athlete. Although it took the players at Liverpool, Tottenham and City time to adjust to the manager’s ideas.

This excerpt from Phil McNulty on the BBC was spot on (for once).
He [De Gea] and others are living off reputation and these are thorny problems for Solskjaer to solve. Romelu Lukaku struggled with basic control when he appeared as a substitute, while what can laughingly be described as Alexis Sanchez’s “touch map” showed he had one in a 12-minute substitute appearance.

With my family’s Chilean links we were screaming at the screen to pass to Sanchez but no one seemed to want to. His positioning was often poor but even when he was open, his teammates looked the other way. Man Utd have paid around half a million quid to Lukaku and Sanchez this week. That’s what I call value for money.

Finally I just want to praise the way Klopp and Pep are conducting themselves in the title run in. Both complimenting each others teams and saying whoever wins the title will deserve it but the runners up won’t be losers by any stretch. You can have good competition without being antagonistic.
Rob, Gravesend

 

Hungry like the Wolves?
If Wolves can play against the bottom six like they do against the top six, they could seriously fight for the top four next season.
Mikey, CFC (Top four in our hands, nice feeling)

 

Tactical fouls
I liked this article backing Olé’s claims about City… I know I’m not the only person seeing these tactics from multiple Pep teams so it’s good to see the stats bear it out.

It’s smart, but it’s cynical: commit your fouls higher up the park, spread them between 6 attacking players instead of 4 defenders, etc etc. Couple this with brilliance at keeping possession (as with all Pep teams) and you make your team super-frustrating to play against.

As a United fan – and indeed any football fan, or anyone who’s ever played football, ever – I know NO team is immune to employing tactical fouls of one kind or another. And that’s the laughable bit from Pep… I guess he HAS to deny it, but when there’s (Netflix) documentary evidence to the contrary he just looks a bit silly.

My question: what does City’s yellow cards per minute without the ball look like in comparison to the rest of the league? i.e. are they getting punished appropriately? If they’re the highest foulers-per-min, the cards should match, no?

The reason I ask is because this is where spreading it round more players bit comes in. City do this in 2 ways; 6 attacking players fouling instead of 4 defenders… and over the course of the season they have the biggest squad sop spread it further still.

Do we need to start looking at collective team punishments for persistent fouls?
Rob MUFC

 

 

Sterling, City and discrimination
Re Mike: I love Sterling, love him as a player, love him as a role model. But surely you have to be a special kind of one-eyed to not see the problems with the Qatari state and their attitudes to certain sections of society. Also by implying people who criticise Qatar are racist (cleverly done by the way, plausible deniability) you’re as bad as the people who criticise Sterling due to their own underlying issues with successful young black men. Stop seeing the world through the prism of your football club, you might learn something.
John Collins, WWFC, London

 

…Dear Mike (who I assume lives in the Middle East and is therefore defensive about it): Let me put this is clearer terms for you……If a member of the Ku Klux Klan happened to be the owner of Manchester City instead of the deputy prime minister of the UAE, there would be outrage wouldn’t there? You wouldn’t condone any footballer who decides to play for this person. We can all agree on this, yes?

So you tell me why, as country, we are letting a homophobic man run one of our biggest football clubs? I’m genuinely amazed as to how this has been accepted and hardly anyone seems to care. This isn’t a competition between whether racism or homophobia are worse than one another, they are both totally unacceptable. If people like you continue to defend those who hold these beliefs, we will never wipe out discrimination.
Jay

 

…​Mike, Jay’s original point was that Sterling shouldn’t be taking money from people who believe in discriminating people heavily (in this case the imprisonment of gay people) something he is fighting against. I live in a country that has these rules as well (thanks to our former British colonial overlords…..] and disagrees with this stupid harsh rule.

There is nothing wrong with what Sterling is doing in terms of what he advocates, but while has no power to decide what the City owners do with their country, he has the power to decide who he works for and whose money he takes. Plenty of other clubs in the league will be happy to have him.

Also I want to point out that the UAE pretty much bans people from converting from Islam to other religions, so its not just homosexual issue but a freedom of religion. He works for one of the most blatantly racist countries out there by Western standards.

City aren’t the only ones who had a shady moral compass in the EPL but they are one of tne of the few that runs a country directly with such blatant disregard of what is considered basic human rights.

So for this reason I hope Sterling leaves City and joins a club not owned by a ruler who imposes discriminatory basic human rights violations where he can continue his advocacy with a clean conscious – and cite the UAE’s draconian rules for it too as to give them a voice in his advocacy.

Also want to point out that you, Mike, got the country wrong (Jay got it right originally). Man City owners are form the UAE, not Qatar. Both countries are having a big big diplomatic spat at the moment so……….
Yaru, Malaysia

 

 

Brighton’s priority
To those critising Brighton’s display against Spurs, its worth noting this: at this point, we are not here to entertain, we are here to survive another year in the Premier League. If that game ended 0-0, people would have applauded an outstanding defensive display rather than label them negagtive and timewasting tactics.

Would it be nice to play nice, freeflowing football? Sure, but it would be ill advised against a team that is almost at the peak of its powers.
Iain

 

Random allegiances
Great question in the mailbox, mine are as follows:

Rochdale – my random team from the original Championship Manager 2 which I played with my friends (I’ve never been!)
Monaco – Diagonal colour slash – count me in!
AC Milan – George Weah goal and Van Basten
Ajax – Overmars and Bergkamp
Netherlands – Love that orange kit (see also Ajax)
Croatia – That home kit and Davor Suker
Nantes – Another Champ Man 2 relationship – I wanted Makelele in my team
Special mention – River Plate – I don’t watch Argentinian football, but always had a soft spot cause of the diagonal
John Matrix AFC

 

…What a great idea this is turning into. Let’s keep it going for the week.

Juventus – From watching Football Italia on C4, they had a mad lad with silver hair up front (Ravanelli). I thought he was brilliant so I took a shine to Juve. Followed by:
Borussia Dortmund: Because they beat Juve in the final of the Champions League.
And lastly Athletic Bilbao from the challenge in Football manager. They have a transfer system in place to only purchase Basque players. It’s honorable and crazy.
Culk the Younger