Woodyer......

Like, winning the FA Cup and getting relegated is a great season?
Come off it, you know it's more complicated than that.
4th beats 6th (and 7th), and shows you've played better overall throughout the season as opposed to having good cup runs.

And we both know that this is exactly the argument you'd be presenting to me if it were the other way around.

 

Don't give a **** about this ****.......our target was top 4 so its mission accomplished

 

I will be clear.

bring style into it is pure sour grapes

Utd won trophies we did not.

We want to win trophies.

We have to just say he did well for 6 months then fell apart then picked it up and we hope that we improve next year.

 

Wigan fans would say their FA Cup winning season was the best in their history, despite the relegation. It's all relative.

The history books will show United won 2 trophies this season, and their fans had 2 Cup finals to savour.

You may have played the more attractive football and done better in the league, but will anyone remember the 4th place finish season in years to come?

You're wrong that I'd arguing the converse if it was Everton, I'd take a cup win over the 4th place trophy all day long, and the fact that one of Uniteds cup wins delivered CL football to boot, made their 'need' for 4th moot anyway.

 

It's a strange one...records will say United: 2 trophies and CL...being fair to United emoticon-0119-puke

Last year when we got to 2 finals in our managers first season we were all saying that would have been bloody brilliant if we'd won the trophies and got CL ..so I can hardly turn around and say otherwise now United has done it.

Style wise? I doubt even United fans would watch a season highlight video that included more than the goals and lifting cups.

I like the way we play but at some point it's got to produce pots or its nothing but weekly entertainment rather than really competitive sport.

 

I didn't mean Everton, I meant if we'd come 6th with cups and Utd had come 4th we'd be getting all the "Mickey Mouse" ****.
This isn't speculation, it's happened a few times. When Utd were competing at the top of the PL and serious in the CL we just got laughed at for the lesser cups, now suddenly it's an achievement.

 

on the style issue I'll ask the United fans directly.

If you could swap Mourinho for Fergies and say add 2 more PL titles and another CL trophy during the Fergie years of dominance would you take it ..the extra trophies for 2 decades of watching that type of football?

I use this example because I think style only matters when you're the dominant team...while you are getting there it's secondary surely?

 

Speak for yourself.
I've maintained for years that the way the game is played is of paramount importance to me.

 

I'm quite saddened that so many seem to think winning is the only thing that matters regardless of how you go about it. It begs the question of why watch football at all? Why not just look for the results each week and live by that?
Surely you watch the game because you like it - so isn't how it's played important?
I really don't get the mercenary argument at all.

 

When was this like?

You've won 1 pot in a decade, the LC.

When you won the FA cup and UEFA Cup in 2001, United won the league. When you won the LC in 2003, United won the League. It's hardly the same comparison that you're trying to make here.

 

Do you distinguish between a team being built and what's supposed to be the finished article Saint?

Look at it from say the bottom of the league.. most of the teams that try to play attractive football with basically a championship squad tend to go straight down again. Others that play negative football stay up. Now I'm not saying you should always play that way but does necessity in a situation sometimes outweigh what would be ideal?

Does our opinion of Mourinho colour this somewhat? If say Conte had taken over with same players at his disposal would we be as harsh?

I'm not a United fan obviously but I'd assume that while they are building a team (disregarding our thoughts on the money at their disposal etc) they'll accept that the football is not perfect but take the wins as progress.

That's why I asked them the question above..would they still be happy with this style in the supposed "finished product"?

 

I'm not saying that at all. But I don't think it's ever either or.

Would I be honestly happy with doing what Arsenal have done in the last decade? Nice football, always there abouts but only the odd domestic cup to show for it?

I'm on record at not being happy with the fact that we've played largely attractive football for the last decade with even less than Arsenal to show for it..but it's not the attractive football that's at fault in general....

It's specific games in a season when playing Mourinho football would have lifted us a league or cup in a season of attractive football...surely it's about the middle ground rather than an extreme choice?

 

Perhaps we should get our semantics clear. I advocate "good" football, which to me is attractive and effective. If you're such a poor team that trying to be expansive gets you nowhere then yes, you might have to think again, but we're (I'm) not talking about that.
In the first half of this season we played better football - it was good to watch and effective. We got 10 points more from the first half of the season than the second, even though the final quarter was not as bad as people think. The point is, the better football won the most points.
In another thread I showed that over the last 8 seasons (I was too lazy to go further), the highest scorers have been champions more often than those with the tightest defence - by a significant margin. I think this shows that the idea that defensive football is best is a myth.

 

yeah but that's listening to wummery....

who gives a flying one.

Utd won two cups... if someone wants to call them mickey mouse or call the fa cup that they are just plastics.

 

CLUB A
Exciting new manager's first full season
16 point improvement in PL even with massive injury record
Back in the CL for first time in 3 years
-£7m net spend so funds could be saved for when CL achieved

CLUB B
Previous manager who won the best domestic trophy sacked
Hire journeyman new manager fired after abusing his medical staff
New manager spends £149m in a window to win second rate trophies
3 points improvement in PL after being awarded the most offside goals ever


CLUB A

 

My argument was about wums. We got a load of **** for being in the lesser cups, whether we won them or not.
I've never disparaged any of those trophies, I think it's great to win things - I was hugely disappointed we didn't get the Europey last year. It is good for Utd to win them, I'm just saying that getting a higher league position is harder overall, and to me - at this stage of Klopp's tenure - that progress is more important.
The question was would you swap seasons, that means taking everything into account, not just cherry-pick the bits you like.

 

Exactly if we swapped our 16 point improvement for their 3 point improvement then we'd be ****ed

And if we did it after spending the amount they have we might as well disband the club

 

Wouldn't swap our league performance.

Would swap our cup performance.

 

yeah but we all know the games. Wums say whatever when ever and will happily contradict themselves 2 days later to get a rise.






I personally don't even put it in terms of Klopp. I put it in terms of FSG and the club as a hole post 2010 when G&H put us into bankruptcy in all but name.

We are 7 years later... its actually a long time and progress is painfully slow on the pitch. Off the pitch some things have occurred but we just don't know how effective the changes have been really

In other words. did FSg do all they could or just manage the asset? Is our financial picture really solid now or could it have been much quicker? I don't know

A main stand got built. it seems to take 5 years to decide to actually do that and another seemingly 2/3 years to decide on phase 2 which seems ridiculously slow on its face

A new training gorund is mooted. It seems to be directly related to klopp telling them to. Seems to be moving quick

I just don't know if the pace of change/progress is now increasing under klopp in some areas or its marginal

What I do know is we are a mile off having a team to actually compete and if we rolled the dice now on 2017/18 with the competitive picture as it stands i would not be at all confident we would get 4th again.

arsenal are unknown.. ok thats them but spurs, city and utd.. and cheslea.. should all be better than us until we see what signings we make. I don't see a club like southampton ,everton or west ham ... or leicester being ahead of us during klopps time but all that says is a period in europa.

 

Looking at it as a whole just backs up my point. Let me put it another way.
If Klopp leaves after another 5 years or whatever and we're still around 8th, would you be happy with that - even if he'd brought a few minor pots in on the way?
Moving up the league and winning more points is progress. Whether or not we can maintain that remains to be seen, but at this stage of our recent history, I think progress going forward is vastly more important than sideways achievement.