Indeed. Try launching diagonal long balls into the area against Spurs at the weekend and see how it pans out. Or when you play against us at the Bridge #johnterryaerialmaster This is a weird Man United we are seeing now....am almost missing their cavalier play style. Would much rather be competing with you guys for the title than ****ty.
Like I said when Fergie was ousted, it may take three or four goes for United to get the right coach and dominate again, despite their advantage financially and their once excellent infrastructure. My guess is that cos Fergie had been there so long, United took their eye off the ball footballing wise throughout the club top to bottom; Fergie's management skills covered up a poor transfer policy, team building, chief exec, directors etc. All those elements are all exposed now
I think Fergie has to shoulder some of the blame. He was poor in the transfer market in the final few years of his reign, spending a lot of money on the likes of Jones and Smalling to be the future for United and it just hasn't worked out. He spent relatively a lot of money on RVP with the short term goal of helping him but was not a good long term signing as is showing now. Fergie got the last great 18 months out of him and has left the subsequent managers with a striker in decline with a massive history of injuries. He continuously failed to address the Centre Mid issue. The young guys brought through by Fergie like Cleverly and Evans were just not up to scratch and he let their best prospect in a decade leave for nothing in Pogba (and to a lesser extent Morrison). But Fergie won the title in his final year, looks even more of a legend given how others have struggled since. He's cemented his legacy but actually left the club in a little bit of a mess. It was genius getting out at the right time before the massive rebuild was needed.
Probably why he retired. He has rebuilt that squad into winners time and time again. Probably looked at the state of it, figured rebuilding was going to take a season or two at least and thought "You know what? At my age? I haven't got another rebuild in me, **** this!" Can't say I blame him too much. But the rest of the clubs hierarchy do seem like headless chickens without him. Moyes sacking half the established coaching staff upon arrival couldn't have helped either.
Exactly, not Fergie's job to rebuild again, but I think he made the rebuild harder by leaving an ageing Defence with inadequate players bought as the long term replacements and having not addressed the midfield issue. Seems mental now that Cleverly was being pushed and Pogba let go for nothing. Biggest Fergie error of his United career??
Partly this, and also because SAF built the club so solidly in his own image that it was always going to take a lot of time for a new manager to change that. No other manager manages to set their teams up to play the same style of attacking football as SAF with any sort of success, so there was always going to be a massive change in philosophy, which would be harder to overcome than any issues with the transfer policy and directors imo. You could see it at the weekend for Arsenal's second goal. Jones and Valencia got the ball at the back and both of them immediately looked for the RW as an attacking out ball. But LVG has instructed them to keep possession so they were caught in two minds, which led to a poor back pass and a goal. It will take more than one season for them to switch from a pure attacking mindset to one focused on ball retention, and likewise for the other SAF signings at the club. Until then mistakes will happen and the team will under perform, just like Chelsea did in the years after Mourinho left, as a succession of managers failed to change the organised defensive mentality he had instilled in the team. Don't really buy that argument tbh, as it could have been made at a number of times during the last ten years, with a lot more weight behind it. 04/05 we were behind Arsenal and Chelsea, with Chelsea having a massive financial advantage. Keane was in decline, Beckham was gone, RVN was crocked, Ronaldo didn't look up to the task and we had Silvestre as a CB 09/10 we were up against the best Chelsea team of the last decade, Ronaldo and Tevez gone and not replaced, Berbatov under performing and a CM that didn't turn up for the whole year. Oh, and Michael ****ing Owen! 11/12 we were facing City and Chelsea throwing money around, Vidic terminally crocked, VDS gone and De Gea struggling, and still no real CM In contrast, when SAF retired we were comfortably the best side in England, De Gea sorted the GK position out, RVP had been almost three years injury free with almost 30 goals on average across those seasons and Jones and Evans actually looked like they were starting to kick on and come good. If anything SAF probably figures he had largely overcome the challenges of Chelsea and City, and that with FFP in place he could retire and leave us nice and stable in the top three or four whilst his successor got to grips with the club. Then along came Moyes....
There's a difference though, for a start, 10 years ago, SAF was 10 years younger. Secondly, when he left United, they were the best TEAM in England (Evidenced by the fact that they won the league), but if he seriously thought that team was going to go on to great things after he left........ De Gea is awesome, we know this. RvP was 30 and had peaked (his last Arsenal season and first United season were his 2 year peak) Ferdinand, Evra, Vidic etc all WAAAAY past their primes. Midfield was a joke. The youth players Cleverley, Smalling, Evans etc, were, and still are, no where near the standard of youth players required to play in a first team of a title contender. To sum it up, SAF always had the awesome ability to make the whole much better than the sum of its parts, that was his magic. Maybe a tad naive to think that someone else could just come along and replicate that. Though with that in mind, it isn't hard to see why he picked Moyes to take over.....as he had been doing a similar thing (on a smaller scale) at Everton, keeping them competitive on a shoe string and building decent sides out of otherwise unknown players.
Completely agree with you there. But as you say, SAF was ultimately very old, particularly for a football management job. Tbh I think he'd been thinking about retiring for a few years, probably since Ronaldo left, but waited until he had the club in what he thought was a suitably strong position. No one was going to replicate him, but Moyes had the building blocks needed to keep the club in the top four if he managed it right. It's easy with the benefit of hindsight to say RVP had peaked, but there was no sign of it at the time. For all SAF or anyone knew, his peak could have lasted four or five years, just like Sheringham or Bergkamp. Until Moyes came along and decided the best way to handle a 30 year old striker was to overtrain him. Similarly Rio, Vidic and Evra were past their prime, but could still have been handled correctly and kept going for another few years, like Vidic and Evra are currently doing in Serie A. And whilst you are right about Smalling and Cleverley, Evans and Jones had been of the quality to play in our title winning teams before, and still could have been with the right players alongside them. They've failed to kick on and have regressed quite a bit since SAF left, but back in 2013 they were both playing perfectly well enough to justify places in the squad. Certainly they were doing better than some previous young players had for us in defence.
I think ultimately Fergie had done what he set out to do (knock Liverpool off their perch) and realistically he probably knew the side he had whilst competitive in the P.L was unlikely to win another European Cup without some major overhaul. It was a good time to leave. Very much open to debate how good a state he left it in, probably somewhere between the 2 extreme opinions. I still think Fergie would have struggled with the current squad because that Defence is so average, but he'd probably still be competing for the title.
Agreed, Even in the days of Djemba-Djemba and Kleberson he managed to at least attempt a title challenge, more so than the piss poor attempts LvG and Moyes have made.
No we didnt. We were nowhere near. Infact we are closer now on points than back then. Not just a little closer bit miles.
Try to avoid rewriting history to suit a make believe argument. It will be picked apart with ease. Learn from your mistakes chavs. Still to what happened mot what you dreamt up.
I suppose, now that I have looked at the 18 point gap between you and us in 2005 (honestly didnt think it was that big), but that is diluted by the fact that Chelsea whipped everyones ass that year and got 95 points. You were 6 points off second place though, would be surprised if you finished this season less than 6 points behind 2nd place. Also bear in mind, Arsenals "Invincibles" squad was the second placed team that year.
This is the point. The last two years have seen both United fans and rivals claim how we were apways great and played amazing football. Its bullshit. We had period of brilliance but inbetween we had periods of being dire. The only difference to now is the league is far more competitive so transition periods look worse than ten years ago. We played really pootr football in fergies final years. It worked but it was rubbish in terms of quality except for a few moments. Apparently though we actually played like Barcemadrid Munich....
Difference was though, under Fergie, you always felt United would be back sooner rather than later. I specifically remember people saying in 2005 that United were finished. And honest truth, I always said to them "I will never write off United as long as Fergie is in charge", to do otherwise was just foolish, he had a proven track record of rebuilding teams over and over. Now though, its a big question mark. I have no doubt you will win the league again sometime in the next 5-10 years, I dont see a Liverpool like drought coming. It all conjecture anyway, we just have to wait and see what LvG (or whoever is your manager this summer) does in the transfer market. Even then you never know if players will gel until the season gets under way. Alot of people, this summer, said, "Chelsea pfft, Costa will get found out in this league and Fabregas is a Barca reject".........
United will be back sooner rather than later purely because they are now another club chucking loads of money around to solve the problem. Eventually it'll stick. How many managers down the line they'll be by that point is anyone's guess. Liverpool's drought happened because they got left behind in the 90's and we're not spending the cash to keep up with United and the cash rich like Blackburn and Newcastle. Plus they made some mistakes with managerial appointments.
When Djemba Djemba played for United in 03/4, you got 75 points, won the FA Cup, and played fulltime: you were knocked out by Porto in the last 16 of CL. You would be delighted with an FA Cup and third place this season. Many United fans claim you would have won a weak CL that season if the ref had not disallowed a goal v Porto. At this stage of the season, matchday 28, you were nine points off the top behind the Invincibles, a team stronger in the league than Chelsea 14/15 In 04/5, you again reached the Cup final, outplaying Arsenal (unlike Monday), Carling semis and reached last 16 of CL again. You came third on 77 points (again you would be delighted with 77 points this season). At this stage of the season, after your 28th match, you were just six points behind a much stronger Chelsea side than the 14/15 version.
