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07 Nov 2019 23:23:58
I am delighted to see tonight's result, and I didn't see the game. But as I scanned the other Europe League results, I felt a sense of sadness. This is where we are now. With FK Qarabag and F91 Dudelange. Competing across a continent with teams I have never heard of. The glorious nights of excitement against the best Italian or Spanish sides feels a long way off, and that feels wrong, but the tables don't lie.
1.) 08 Nov 2019 00:00:48
We've qualified, which is great. We are where we are. It will take time. We played well tonight, a couple of mistakes here and there, but it was a good 3-0 win and could have been more.
We appear to be getting our confidence back. No doubt there will be more ups and downs as the season goes on.
2.) 08 Nov 2019 03:33:56
Jesus it was only last year we played juventus, barcelona and psg home and away lol. Hardly that long gone are those days.
3.) 08 Nov 2019 07:11:09
Too right DSG. Dodgy season that’s all. One correct managerial appointment and 3/ 4 good signings and we’d be comfortably top 4.
4.) 08 Nov 2019 09:19:38
It's the early rounds, we often had to play at least one game against a lesser known team in the UCL group stages.
If we make the quarterfinals or the semifinals then we will likely be playing more recognisable European teams. Don't look at the smallest or least known teams of a competition, look at the winners, those are the teams we will have to beat if we are to win the competition.
Spurs beat the might FK Crvena Zvezda while Liverpool played the European power house Genk, so famous that several Scousers turned up in the wrong city of Gent for the game only to realise their mistake all too late.
So yeah, it sucks being in the Europa League, but it's better than not being in Europe at all. Plus it's a real opportunity to get into the UCL by winning it like we did a few years ago.
5.) 08 Nov 2019 10:21:41
Just go with positivity bro.
6.) 08 Nov 2019 16:15:42
Why is the Europa League treated with such contempt?
The old UEFA Cup and Cup Winners Cups were treated as important trophies, just below the European Cup but still well worth winning.
Remember the winners of the Europa not only get a place in the Champions League but they will be in pot 1 so should get a, relatively, friendly draw.
30 Jun 2019 09:26:04
I see Antonio Valencia has headed home to join LDU Quito. I enjoyed watching him especially in his earlier years at United. Honest, hard-working player, led by example. Stopped beating his man and crossing the ball in his later years, but never shirked a tackle.
1.) 30 Jun 2019 11:11:35
His bad injury shook his confidence and he was never the same after that. He seemed wary to take on a player and his crossing completely changed.
Can’t knock hit effort and loyalty but we should have moved him on years ago.
Good luck to him.
2.) 01 Jul 2019 13:24:30
Solid if not spectacular player well exploited by SAF. His arrival to play on the right side seemed to correspond with the deterioration in Nani, who never seemed as happy on the left. Many a left back will miss being rapped on the legs and torso by his ill-timed crosses.
richardw37's banter posts with other poster's replies to richardw37's banter posts
24 May 2025 22:47:31
Arguably the worst thing you can do after many years of questionable recruitment is hire a coach who follows a system dogmatically when you do not have players to staff it.
Although I like Amorim as a human, it would have been far more rational to hire a pragmatist coach who plays 4-3-3. Some might argue the club did that with ETH but his role in some of the worst recruitment decisions ever seen at the club aside from his mediocre results made his exit inevitable.
I foresee Amorim leaving half-way through his rebuild when it fails to turn things around quickly enough. Which will be another terrible outcome because no-one else plays 3-4-3 so his successor will already have his excuses ready.
1.) 25 May 2025 01:33:56
Another fixated with a system, the system is not the problem, system change ain’t going to make Onana become Alison, Rasmus become Haaland, Deligt, be come vandjke Ugarte become prime Casermiro, the list goes on….
OK system change Pep comes in…. who scores for him? Who goes in goal for him, you think Pep will play with CBs that carry fridges on there back, play with midfielder who can’t pass a ball 10 yards….
Time people took the red tints off the players are not the required level and those that say they are they must live in cuckoo land, trying to defend anyone of them….
2.) 25 May 2025 08:06:16
The issue with the system is that it added more defenders when we couldn’t score for toffee.
Cunha for Garnacho seems a decent change, any striker for Hojlund will definitely improve us, Gyökeres would be a nice addition if the rumours are true, but I cannot see it happening. Bruno might go which is a worry as he is our only creative player apart from Amad and Mount will take another year before Amorim finds out that it just isn’t clicking for him at United.
Mainoo, will probably get another year, over achieved his first year, second year riddled by injury and supposed demands for £200k a week, which isn’t happening any time soon.
Maybe the only good thing about SJR cuts, is that we can rid ourselves of the Manchester United tax and players realise if they demand stupid wages, we probably won’t pay it.
3.) 25 May 2025 08:52:06
I think its a good point about the system when its coming in mid season, its so difficult bordering on impossible to implement a new style/ system just because there is not enough time on the training pitch.
The club should really have a designated interim manager option, like chelsea used to have Guus Hiddinck on speed dial whenever they sacked a manager mid season.
Maybe Ole lol.
4.) 25 May 2025 09:29:35
Just been reading about Amorim when he went to Lisbon. He immediately changed there 4-2-3-1 system to his favoured 3-4-3 system. First game in. He finished the season playing that. That summer Lisbon got rid of 17 players. Telling Garnacho he can go, for me is very telling and hopefully a sign that this squad is going to finally have a major overhaul.
5.) 25 May 2025 10:10:42
As a football fan and someone who played football in a school playground, in school teams, sunday league i must have had 30 different mangagers from teachers to Tonys dad to Pete the taxi driver - and yet being able to pass a ball to a teammate either 10 foot or 100 ft was still seen as a basic skill, how to put a cross in, how to run and tackle, how to mark a player or defend from a corner . we have so many players that can't do the basics week in week out it just defies logic no matter who is doing the coaching -thats never seems to change now for the last decade -nothing to do with formation.
6.) 25 May 2025 10:46:29
Richard, I fundamentally disagree.
When you have a terrible squad with absolutely no identity then the first and most important thing for any new manager to do is to set that identity very clearly and to not move away from that.
You can't mould bad players who are all suited to playing different styles into a cohesive unit. We've seen manager after manager fail trying to do that.
The pragmatic managers have maybe done a touch better in the short term, but we have always ended up being a worse team in the end.
We need a clear style and way of playing, if you can't play that way then there is the door. While once we have a very clear and consistent way of playing it makes it far easier to recruit players that suit that way of playing, meaning we are far less likely to make mistakes in the transfer market.
We failed under ETH because he kept tinkering and changing how we played to try and suit the players he had available at the time. That lack of clarity of playing style meant we had a muddled approach to recruitment which has led to some very questionable signings in hindsight.
Look at the two strikers we brought in (Højlund and Zirkzee), two almost polar opposites in terms of playing style and skill set. Yet neither have been able to really be successful. We signed Antony to play RW despite having Amad and Garnacho coming through. Missed out on FdJ for midfield then signed Casemiro instead, a very different style of midfielder. We ended up looking for bargain players with quality rather than players who fit a specific profile, bringing in players like Ugarte, Mount, MdL and Mazraoui. Good players without a doubt, but how exactly were they supposed to fit in the team?
The problem with going for a manager who isn't pragmatic and will stick to his principles is that the team will always get worse before it gets better. You have to rip down everything that isn't working, that includes those players that are just about doing enough but aren't long term solutions.
Maybe Amorim is the man to ultimately bring back success, or maybe he's the man who does a lot of the early work. Dismantling this failed team and laying the foundations for future success for the next manager.
I think fans get overly drawn into the simplistic way of analysing a team style by formation.
A formation is not a style of play. The formation is there to support a playing style.
Amorim's playing style is not 343. He uses a 343/ 3421 shape to support his playing style.
Amorim wants his team to be ball dominant and to play football mostly in the opposition half. He tends to play with a mid block, but will look to get his forwards to try and win the ball back quickly if possible. To support this he uses a 343 type shape with his wide forwards playing inverted meaning the opposition have very little space to progress the ball through the middle and are forced wide to try and get up the pitch. When the ball goes wide that is the pressing trigger for the team to press the player with the ball towards the side line giving them limited options and hopefully winning the ball back before it goes across the halfway line.
He likes to use player rotations rather than long switches of play to try and create space and shooting opportunities. While defensively he needs the wide CB's to be mobile and quick enough to defend the wide channels. Along with them playing a high line to support dominating the ball in the opposition half. His midfield tends to be hard working a mobile, with their job being that of the water carriers for the team. They need to be athletic with high stamina and tactically intelligent. They help manage the press to win the the ball back, they don't tend to be expansive passers and will look to advance play through carrying the ball through a line of pressure before making a short pass to a more creative player. The passing experts in his side need to be his CB's and his inside forwards. He also likes to play with one more traditional winger in the wingback roles to have some creativity out wide. This player tends to play on the opposite side to their strongest foot. They will also readily rotate with the inside forward on their side.
As for concerns about signing players for Amorim's system. That shouldn't be a concern. All the attributes he needs from his players are the same ones most managers need for a top side to be successful. Physically strong and quick, technically gifted, tactically intelligent. While the club wants them to be younger and mouldable. With good resale value incase they don't work out.
The formation doesn't make much of a difference for 90% of the positions on the pitch. Amorim's system needs physically strong and quick CB's who are good on the ball. Which is what you want regardless of whether you play with a back 3 or back 4.
The midfield still uses a double pivot, like most systems. The role Amorim wants would be more suited to a Roy Keane than a Paul Scholes, but would we really complain if we had two or more Roy Keane type midfielders? Absolutely not.
The only special-ist position under Amorim is the wingback role. Yet he tends to use a former winger in one of those roles and an attacking fullback in the other. Currently he's using Amad at RWB and that might well continue. While we will likely keep Mazraoui and Dalot about so would have other more defensive options. He's signed Dorgu for LWB, a player who was previously playing in a back four. While Shaw is unlikely to be able to be sold. We also have Amass coming through who has played in a back 4 for most of his youth career, and signing Diego Leon who has played at CB, LB and LWB in his short career.
Meaning that even if we changed managers to someone who played with a back four I don't see there being too much of a problem for them to play with fullbacks.
I think if we were to change managers halfway through the rebuild the positions I can see that a new manager might want to bring in a different profile of player for would be GK and CM. Amorim doesn't typically play with a sweeper keeper who is a part of the build up. A back three means the keeper should have many simple passes so doesn't need to be particularly great with their feet while the build up play goes through the CB's. Maybe a different manager would want a different profile of keeper.
Then in midfield Amorim tends to want physically dominant hard working players. A different manager might want a ball playing, tempo setting player in their which isn't likely to be in the squad under Amorim.
Other than those two positions I don't see the profile of players Amorim wants being a problem for any other potential manager. While the reality is that when you change managers you know you will want to bring in a few players for them at least. So if that needs to be a ball playing keeper and a tempo setting midfielder that isn't a big issue.
Ideally though the club should be hiring a manager to suit the clubs ideas, Amorim should have been hired because he does suit the clubs ideas. Therefore any potential replacement is likely to have a lot of overlap in their ideology to Amorim.
7.) 25 May 2025 11:49:40
Shappy
Decent detailed post. I would just add something I said months ago. The club interviewed Amorim, they absolutely must have known his principles, set up, tactics. They must have aligned with what they wanted, so they know the path we are on.
8.) 25 May 2025 11:55:23
I am of the opinion that Amorim so far has been a bad experiment but to be fair it is only half a season. He is going to be here next season and he has my full support. I like the guy but this season has been awful, both results and performance. So whoever he needs to sell or buy I will be behind him. Surely there are better days ahead.
9.) 25 May 2025 17:10:01
Very good post Shappy, RA has to have a realistic period of time to introduce his ways. Currently half time against Aston Villa, excellent first half performance, could easily be 2 or 3 up. This is what is needed for the future.
11 Aug 2022 13:54:37
De Jong may still join the club and that would be fine. An equally good outcome, though could be to leave Barcelona with the financial burden of the player, and the accompanying difficulty of registering other new players while our club moves forward with (say) SMS.
1.) 11 Aug 2022 18:24:28
Another outcome may be that we don’t sign De Jong and end up with an inconsistent, difficult French midfielder on £200,000 a week.
2.) 11 Aug 2022 20:01:20
Well it's cheaper than our last difficult inconsistent French midfielder.
I think that's progress?
08 Aug 2019 09:49:24
Club captains don't cry twice on the pitch unless they know they are leaving the club. I expect to see Bruno Fernandes sign for us today because we need him more than any other club, we can afford him and he wants to come to England.
1.) 08 Aug 2019 10:11:19
It will have to be already 75% done if it is happening today. We do need a midfielder let's hope so 😄😄.
2.) 08 Aug 2019 10:39:38
I don't buy the 'we haven't replaced Herrera and Fellani' line.
Pereira is back from loan, Fred has been bought and we have seen the emergence of McTominay. I agree the quality isn't fantastic yet but the start of this season should tell if we have enough cover or need someone in January.
3.) 08 Aug 2019 10:51:29
You’re thinking of last season when Fred, Perreira and McTom were already in the first team squad alongside Fellaini and Herrera. We are down two experienced central mids on the start of last season, and our midfield was pretty average then. Now it’s paper thin.
02 Aug 2019 10:53:22
At the start of the summer the club's biggest need was to arguably sign a centre back and I'm disappointed that this has not yet been achieved. I'd also prefer to see the club sell Lukaku at a lower fees and they had hoped for and redeploy those funds into a player they really want such as Fernandes rather than participate in an exchange deal for someone like Dybala.
1.) 02 Aug 2019 12:28:30
An Alderweireld signing would not have been the worst option if Maguire isn't happening, a 3 year contract for a short term yet quality CB is not a bad transfer.
13 May 2019 09:59:39
The last time the club signed a player that I feel really 'worked out' for us was DDG. My criteria are that the player stayed at the club for a reasonable time, improved markedly and made a decent contribution to the team's performances. That is a long time ago and since then we have spent approx £870m on transfer fees (gross) . Could better results have been achieved flipping coins?
1.) 13 May 2019 10:23:49
With the short term nature of recent managerial appointments it will have been hard for any player coming into the club to have a strong balanced team for them to build from.
With managers changing every couple of years and with it playing philosophy and style. DDG has been fortunate enough to be playing in a position where his role will not drastically change. Keep goal, stop shots, pass to a team mate. It makes not difference the playing style or the tactics. So manager changes will affect his performances less than outfield players.
2.) 13 May 2019 10:32:39
That's a good point but you would imagine that somewhere over those 7 seasons, someone might have developed into a player other teams would want to buy, if they could. I'm not sure that's happened. Defenders have not been asked to do radically different work at the club to elsewhere.
3.) 13 May 2019 11:34:21
We did move from a man marking system to a zonal marking system then to something in-between. So I would say their jobs did significantly change. However, that doesn't mean much when you consider most of our defenders are crap to start with.
I think some players have improved, Shaw is better now than when he signed. Lingard and Rashford have improved as players. McTominay is on an upward trajectory. Lindelof has massively improve since his first season. There is hope for Dalot.
Martial I would say has stagnated, but I wonder how much of that is because he doesn't want to improve the areas he needs to as a winger.
Delay and Zaha didn't improve. Neither has Bailly. But beyond them most of our signings have been older players where there is little room for improvement as they have pretty much peaked.
I think the issue is that we haven't seen as much progression as we would have liked or expected.
That could be because we had too high of expectations. Or maybe the climate at the club has been suitable for them to rapidly improve. Or maybe they haven't got the right attitude, arrived at a "big club" and feel they don't need to work anymore.
I think it was Roy Keane who said, the real work starts when you join a top club, not before.
4.) 13 May 2019 13:19:02
I don't think we can say whether Zaha improved or not. He never really played for us to have the chance to improve. Depay won't make it at the highest level though for me as he's very up and down.
5.) 13 May 2019 13:32:46
Damon, whether he played or not, he was a player we signed and he didn't improve while with us. I think the OP original point was that we haven't developed any players while they have been with us. In that respect Zaha has to go down as a player for whatever reason didn't develop with us.
6.) 13 May 2019 13:46:04
You could count on one hand the amount of successful signings in the last 5/ 6 years. It's been poor decision after another! Pretty much a disaster 🤦â€â™‚ï¸.
7.) 13 May 2019 14:05:00
Damon86 I believe their is as much chance for depay who had as much potential as Salah when he left Chelsea to come back to the prem and do the same as salah.
8.) 13 May 2019 22:37:24
I don't believe so cdp. Depay had a good season last year with Lyon but has been pretty average this season! Salah has been at a consistent level for about 4/ 5 years now with 1 outstanding season being last year. I don't think Depay will ever reach the level of Salah. I'd love it if he returned to United and proved me wrong though I'd be over the moon in fact 😂.
16 Aug 2022 21:37:31
Good news unless the club becomes even more desperate as the month ends and they throw the Rabiot money at someone even less desirable like Fellaini in 2013.
22 Jan 2020 21:17:02
I believe some of the information in this thread regarding football balance sheets is incorrect. Players' value IS recorded in the company balance sheet, as an intangible asset. Clubs buying players earn “rights to use†the players to generate revenues. In accounting, “rights†are considered as intangible assets. These asset includes players transfer rights and costs incurred to acquire those rights. These rights are measured at acquisition cost and amortized on a straight-line basis over the term of each player’s contract. The asset is initially recognized at the date the acquisition contract enters into force.
16 Jan 2020 22:11:50
i have heard exactly the same.
05 Aug 2019 08:46:07
Varane.
31 Jul 2019 10:49:45
This may be a negotiation tactic to force Inter to pay up or see their main target go to a rival.
24 May 2022 19:15:12
I imagine there is a significant crossover between the players who fail to apply themselves in training and those who have become disruptive influences in the dressing room. None of the pundits want to name these players but it may be the case that Bailly for example falls into this group. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the "teacher's pet" who trains hard, follows instructions and consequently plays most games. Players like Fletcher are examples of this kind of player under Ferguson, and I wouldn't be surprised if McTominay is his latter day equivalent.
02 Jan 2020 20:54:26
daniel james is a winger.
20 Oct 2019 19:19:01
Agree. Perreira was more effective in an advanced role today rather than sat deep, passing it sideways to Fred. Still not convinced he is quite good enough, but A for effort today.
19 Oct 2019 20:44:05
Can would add very little to our squad. He is not particularly creative and I can't see him providing any leadership. He's better than Fred and Pereira, but so are a multitude of average midfielders.
17 Oct 2019 09:54:45
Not a single player on our first team would start for Liverpool. Pogba and Martial might be talented enough but they wouldn't give enough to the high press.