Transfer Rumours Let's ignore the big ****ing elephant and blame the latest manager, again. Are we nearly there yet?

Mkhitaryan? He is Armenian I think

 

Did you only start watching the team play after CR joined? I mean, I don’t get it with references to CR at all.

Ole was the absolute wrong man, period! Further, the team had been largely underperforming since the turn of the year which led to us throwing a good Christmas lead away. And before that, our performances as a team did not have a method to it. Bruno carried the load. Once we got brought down to poor level, it all fell apart from there. Ole strictly had no innate tools to get anything meaningful out of the players he himself brought in.

 

Must admit the Schweinsteiger thing always baffled me because he was a world class player when he joined us, and had worked with van Gaal beforehand.
Admittedly, was at the wrong end of his career but could have been deployed so much better.

Odd.

 

i don’t get why why people think I’m criticising CR even in the slightest. He’s done his side of the bargain. He’s played well. It’s just that the manager at the time was simply not good enough to accommodate such a player. He was out of his depth and compounded the problems he already had.

 

Everything that Utd touched at the time turned from gold into lead. These were very highly rated players.

 

I said when he signed, play him at centre forward. The end. How does that affect anyone else?

Should never have been an 'issue'.

Ole's problem was he pandered too much. He really should have managed with a harder line, like Ferguson.

God knows he referenced him often enough.

 

I wasn’t actually suggesting that you were criticizing Ronaldo. However, there is still lack of acknowledgement that CR had nothing to do with Ole’s lack as a manager. In the context of analyzing Ole’s tenure, CR should not be the first statement made. It is largely immaterial considering the qualities that Ole needed to be successful were never there to begin with. I also think that had the club fully backed Jose against the players, things wouldn’t have turned out as bad as they did.

Pandering, as Chief puts it, is the cause of our rotten culture today. The biggest sin that I could not accept every time Ole spoke. I believe he was largely appeasing Woodward to help justify keeping the likes of Pogba and justifying paying so much for average players. But every successful team that we see today do not entertain pandering. For us? It became the go-to-tool at every press conference.

We certainly can’t have that going forward.

 

Ah fair enough, I thought you were saying CR caused the dissent and cliques. That's just not him at all... if there were any.

 

Inclusion of Pogba in this side has left out so many good players. I really can’t help to think that Mata in particular would have been far better player in the team in all those months when a spark was needed.

 

Don’t be fooled by tonight’s result. How many times have we seen teams playing well when the pressure is off and there is nothing riding on it? In any case Brentford was poor and gave Utd too much respect,

it’s in tough matches that Utd have to be judged and it’s got to be said that they’ve failed most of these tests. The atmosphere this evening was like a testimonial.

 

Who do you think is being fooled by a home win against Brentford?

 

Forget tonight’s result! It was an irrelevant game. However, the question remains as to why we persisted with players that were out of form for all those months. I don’t understand it! Why did Pogba in particular continue to play - week in, week out? Same with Maguire when he was badly struggling.

We never used the strength of the squad to overcome bad forms. Rangnick has been guilty of that but I remember a few months back that he was to not try out new players, especially U23 players, as we continued to fight for fourth place. Well, suffice to say that we didn’t get much of a fight from the first team.

 

Woodward has gone now and hopefully the "must play the names" attitude has gone with him.

 

I hope to God that Arnold is nothing like him.

 

I see Jessie Lingard's family are crying on Twitter that he didn't get a send off yesterday.

Neither did Pogba, which is good.

Perhaps Lingard warranted being able to wave goodbye on the pitch? Or perhaps that it was reasonable point made that, to be absolutely honest, he's contributed **** all so didn't get the chance to show off his latest dance or handshake.

 

I’m glad we’ve established that I don’t blame CR for any of Utd’s problems. No evidence he is responsible for cliques or dressing room unrest either.

I also agree that Ole was well out of his depth for a while even before CR arrived.

what I find odd though is that Utd got 2nd and 3rd in previous seasons. How? A team cannot get 2nd and 3rd without playing together (yes despite being far off a real title challenge). And this season, he couldn’t get a half decent performance from his players. And there is constant talk of dressing room unrest when in the last 2 seasons it’s not been mentioned at all.

To many including me, this season’s disastrous showing is unexplained. Team spirit has evaporated. May be someone will spill the beans in the future to explain what really happened.

 

We were first over Christmas period of 2020, Christian. Giving that up and coming 2nd is not a cause for celebration with the vast resources in that team. Look at the wage bill of the club at the time. Transfers too. It should come as no surprise that we somehow qualified for Champions League. The first four months of Ole in charge were essentially the best. Thereafter, the team played with no defined method throughout his reign. That was the biggest challenge which eventually led to disjointed performances even in most of the matches that we won. We got a bump with Bruno, but that faded too because of lack of playing principles to bring the best of out each player.

No mystery other than the manager was simply not good enough.

 

19/20 - we won 18 games
20/21 - we won 21 games.
Not exactly earth shattering records. Focusing on league position as point of reference only shows that we were better than teams below us while we vastly underperformed compared to those that finished above us in each of those years.

 

You've got to consider the Greenwood effect, and that it was undoubtably more common knowledge within the squad before it broke externally.

I don't doubt Ronaldo coming in had some effect as well, because you'll have the Pogba's of this world wondering how much money he's on and whether they can now get the same. You just can't blame Ronaldo for that though, the ones complaining need smacking down, not the person on the elevated money.

It's pure guesswork that it is Pogba of course, it could be anybody.

Also, Ronaldo wasn't the only signing. Sancho came in, as did Varane. How did this upset things? Other significant events are Lingard coming back, beign told he'd be in the squad, and then not getting a game. There would no doubt be some grumblings there and badly managed, he should have been allowed to leave.

Dan James was essentially thrown out of the squad as fall guy because someone else wanted his shirt number, that was the wrong thing to do. Keep Dan James, let Lingard leave. Fairly simple when you think about it. One a dancing dickhead, the other a young willing worker with potential.

And you've got Martial sulking in the background as he's not going to be centre forward.

All could be contributing factors, none actually Ronaldo himself's fault.

Should have been managed better though, simple as that. That's what the managers are there to do, hence their job title.

 

I thought about the truth coming out in the future about what happened in the dressing room. But let's be honest, the ones spilling the beans will be the ones with the biggest chip on their shoulders. If it's Pogba, are we honestly going to believe a word that comes out his mouth?

And mark my words, the moment he leaves he's going to be crying like a bitch about how he was wronged. I won't even use the rag that's printed on to wipe my arse, as it would be an insult to my arse!

There's clearly a problem within the squad. Not sure if it's about dissent or cliques. It could simply be one group of players who still have some pride and want to do well, and another set who feel sorry for themselves and think the world owes them a living. It happens.