04 Nov 2016 01:12:32
I get fed up watching us not perform but I firmly believe we have more than the nucleus of a winning team. De Gea Shaw Bailey Herrera Pogba Martial Miki Mata Rashford and Zlatan are all really top players. To me the obvious things lacking is confidence. The post Fergie downward spiral under Moyes and LVG and the way the team was ordered to play has really dragged the players down. We have got worse and this has been made to look worse as other teams have improved. People started on Rooney and with some justification. Now he is not starting its time to focus on Zlatan. Yet this guy was scoring 40 plus goals last year. He didn't suddenly become crap. I just want the team to forget about the papers headlines. Just go out and play with freedom and pace and their talent will shine through. We don't have a divine right to success. It has to be earned. Let's back not barrack the players and help them to get back on track.
04 Nov 2016 04:34:51
May be Zlata did suddenly become crap, I can think of a few players whose form suddenly fell of a cliff. The nucleas you have listed is a strong group of players but of them, how many are playing well right now?
Jose is supposed to have an immediate impact and improve players. It's early in his tenure but I've not seen anything to make me think he is making a difference yet. One of his strengths is building a strong bond but he is regularly publicly berating the players. His start is worse than Moyes's.
04 Nov 2016 06:51:52
Zlatan is 34 and pinning all hopes on the vetran in the most physical league was a gamble which ain't paying off. You should have looked at someone like Lewandowski.
04 Nov 2016 07:07:59
AJH
This is not so much about Jose but about the softening over the last 5 years of the players. The last two seasons of SAF saw a decline in standards of players bought, particularly in key areas. I know we won the league yet our standard was poor and the worlds greatest motivator retired. We appointed two coaches who it seems were not seen as good enough by the players and they, the players, have coasted. It feels like the club set a standard with the last two managers/ coaches that was less than it should have been. The players have become, for the want of a better word, soft.
If the club do anything other than support Jose, the players win again and in my opinion there would then be no manager that could sort it out. The players need to go before the manager as they did in SAF days.
I may be wrong but Jose looks like he is taking a longer term building approach rather than the short termism he did previously. The manager, with the right credentials, must be supported by the club right now and ship non performers out.
I warned on here that we faced a major challenge, failed to learn from post Busby issues and we blundered along over the last three years to the extent it will take a while to turn around. Like Scholes said last night it will take another 18 months to 2 years if we get it right. Brace for turbulence.
04 Nov 2016 08:12:04
Well said red man.
04 Nov 2016 10:11:15
Zlatan needs a couple of games out imo. He still has class but I think the recovery time in between games is taking its toll as he needs more. The first thing JM has to do is undo the playing style engrained by LVG coupled with gelling the team due to new faces and more to come, it was never going to be an instant fix. He will get there given time, only hope he gets it given the want for instant results etc in the modern game.
04 Nov 2016 10:12:58
have to agree redman the under performing players should be sent packing, you can lead a horse to water and all that.
i still feel jose could do an amazing job at our club but i feel there is a core of bad seeds in our dressing room.
have you ever worked with somebody who is forever miserable and complaining, it's contagious.
di maria, zlatan, depay etc etc all started their first few games brightly until dragged down in my eyes.
04 Nov 2016 10:14:58
Red Man, hats off. That's one of the most logical and the best posts I have seen for quite some time here. The team needs and the manager needs our support at this time. Its easy to jump on his back and criticize him, but it takes a strong man to support the club when its down like we are right now.
04 Nov 2016 12:24:07
Spot on redman, we seem to be in the cycle of when haunt moved upstairs we went through manager after manager and united couldn't do a thing right, the spectre of Fergie watching on and the manger coming and goings it has a similar ring too it, I totally agree with all of your post, we must stick by Jose and Scholes is spot on it's going to take time, could name 11 players who should not be near tho club now, that's a big job, I don't like this money ball aspect of spending tbh but it's the day and age I guess, we've become used to mediocrity, throwing money at it hoping it'll get better, we've always had youth supplementing good buys just now we're restructuring youth and spending bad money.
04 Nov 2016 14:56:50
Not sure I see the long term plan, in fact I don;t think anybody has because Jose still hasn't given us a positive identity. I think we are straw clutching again. All of us will have expected a better start than this, both results and performances. The fact it has been a major let down leads to one of two positions:
1 - Jose has lost his mojo and is struggling to find it. The job is bigger than he expected and he like others have been caught by surprise (realistic)
2 - Jose is taking a long term approach (wishful LVG thinking that gets us nowhere and relies on wasting time simply hoping) .
I'd like Jose to manage the situation, it needed a short term change to what was happening under LVG. Taking another LVG long term approach is the opposite of what was needed, surely he must know that the majority of fans patience is wearing thin now with the old "in 3 years time we will be a different animal", hmm? I know some of us would be happy waiting until the next Millenium for things to change, but the world doesn't work like that, and to be given time you need to show you deserve it first.
For me he hasn't managed any situation well, during games or post game we seem a mess still. If Giggs had taken over we would be disappointed with what we have seen so far, so one of the so-called best managers in the world delivering this dross, tells me he is not doing well.
Jose would give his left nut for a run of wins imo, so that isn't a long term approach.
What exactly makes you think he is taking a long term approach? If it is simpy that we have been awful and you go to that position to hedge your bets without evidence, then I'm afraid it's just wishful thinking. Playing old players, no knew youngsters, keeping the same captain, keeping the same horrible formation and strategy every week - not really a good long term plan if you ask me. It's all very LVG'ish, have we not learnt anything?
04 nov 2016 18:30:49
as i said on a post yesterday i am not a man u fan but a fan of football. good exciting entertaining football, the type that spells going out to dominate and win games, which unfortunately is not your team right now.
unfortunately my team in league 1 is not afforded the richness of talent your team has and i somewhat agree with what herefordred is saying.
all this nonsense i read on this site about "we need a new player here, we need a new player there" is utter craziness!
you spent a fortune pre-season and you have a richness of talent that is arguably the best in the league! the squad would definitely at least be valued in the transfer market as somewhat higher than most!
getting new players in is not the cure, getting the abundance of talent to play is. that requires motivation. man management rather than tactical management has to come first. get it into their heads that they are the force to be reckoned with as a team not as individuals! personally i look back and wonder if jose is the manager to do that? you do have exciting talent and young parts of that that really wan to be unleashed. does an egotistical defensively minded manager have the man management skills to motivate those. do the other egos sitting within the squad - and there are some big ones - feel inclined to help him and really truly become part of a team?
i don't see that right now and so if i were yet another proposed transfer target for unite don't i'd think twice about whether i want to be ruined in a squad that has all the makings and ability but none of the strategy and approach to be the best!
04 Nov 2016 19:15:15
redman i wonder if chelsea think that?
they backed the players not the manager.
05 Nov 2016 08:50:53
Jred
Backing the players undermines the managers position, if you want a successful manager then they should back him, support him. If they don't the players will just play until the manager does something they don't like and get stroppy again. Right now they are playing for Conte but if they get a strop on, where will that leave him. Allowing moaning players to go above the managers head is going to destroy his authority.