The Manchester United Thread: That's It. That's the Joke (Part 1)

Mourinho saddled the club with Pogba, the hundred million euro French albatross. Today was another example of him abandoning the ship when it’s taking on water. So the ghost of Mou lives on in him and to a lesser extent in Fred.

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Was

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Yep absolutely loved that

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…and witnessing at first hand LFC being on back their perch and and raining sh*t down on his beloved ManUre. :upside_down_face: :rofl:

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Did he really say this?! Incredible, just incredible. He’s either monumentally deluded or really doing his best to help his mate stay in the job. Prime Mourinho might have something on Tuchel (who will likely surpass his achievements) but he doesn’t get close to Klopp and Guardiola.

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Gary Neville has an ego the size of the Hindenberg. I don’t think he believes what he says. But he has to live up to the hype of being a Manc who hates Scousers.

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They talk about how they have but I don’t think they have got rock bottom yet. Not until they break the bonds of the past. SAF for one needs to stop having an influence. I’m not saying the way Liverpool overcame it is the only way but you need a good manager with his own club philosophy and playing style.

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Just saw that discussion between Neville and Carragher too.

Neville is 100% sure they won’t sack Ole during the season ‘because of what happened with van Gaal and Mourinho’

Gary also said that Conte is available but he wouldn’t bring him in because his style doesn’t suit the club - I actually agree with him here.

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:man_shrugging:

O wells.

Seriously there are no good managers available.

IMO they should go with Wenger (with two strong assistants) for a few years.

Amazing if they are sure in October that Ole is there to stay 100% until the end of the season. They must have Alex’s 7 first years in mind, that’s toying with them.

I agree that Conte is more rated among fans than among clubs, there are some reasons why some are avoiding him or picking other people.

But… what is the stye of United?

The thing is, they’re so scared of another change because Ole should’ve been this man for the patient project they’re trying to sell to the world.

Carra replied brilliantly that past changes are not a reason for giving Ole eternity.

United are confused between acting like this holy special place where Ole gets time and wanting to change but not knowing what to change.

Plus, like we saw in last years, it’s not only the manager over there. They actually need more changes.

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Really bad day for him

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I think this is the clip you’re looking for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kHawXs9510

For me the problem is clearly both.
If you want to play your best buddy Ronaldo then you need to set up your team to cover the stuff that he isn’t going to do at 36 years old (or at 28 to be honest). You also need to develop a style of play that puts him with the ball in the right places.

Ole has done neither, but Ronaldo still plays and thinks that if he turns up it will be fine. I honestly dont think I’ve ever seen a performance so devoid of any shape or plan in my whole life. Can anyone honestly say what their plan was?

What I saw was a team that basically conceded the midfield before the game had even started. Just suicide, against a side that plays high up the pitch. They basically gave up both territory and any real opportunity to win the ball. Players clearly didn’t know what they were supposed to be doing, where to be, what shape to adopt in a defensive situation. That’s pretty basic stuff.

All of this before you even look at the performances of individuals. Shaw and Maguire both had nightmares. While not helped by those in front of them they didn’t even know what each other was doing.

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Ronaldo never really played as a focal point in 4-2-3-1, which is what they’re doing.

But that ‘2’ should be helped out by the wide players; in this case Rashford and Greenwood, who are much more your forwards out wide than wingers/wide midfielders who will make it a solid midfield ‘4’ without the ball. Exactly why Salah never plays on the right when we play 4-2-3-1, he did it maybe once or twice in smaller games and when we had Bobby at #10 and Mane on the left.

Ronaldo was either very high with freedom in a 4-3-3 like Salah, or played in a forward two system (4-4-4-2, 4-diamond-2 or 3 at the back, though the last was rare). Juve’s balance also struggled, although that was not solely because of Ronaldo, they simply lost their in last years.

He certainly won’t do it as well as he’s older and older and let’s be realistic, in a tougher league than the recent stuff he played in Italy.

They don’t have a single pivot holding midfielder to play a 4-3-3 and there’s also a question could Bruno play as one of the offensive (or the most offensive) #8’s.

Still absolutely no real stylistical fit on the right side to play in front of Wan-Bissaka. I have no idea who would play RWB if they switched to a back 3. Maybe Dalot would get a few more games.

Square pegs, round holes.

You can at the max carry one passenger per team purely for their end product… Cue real carrying ronaldo , barca carrying messi…

Their end product means that the rest of the team needs to work extra hard to cover when those likes are missing

With man utd now , its bruno pogba and ronaldo who dont put in a defensive shift… Impossible for the others to expect to cope with that

Yeah, they already struggled to get the best out of Pogba when Bruno wasn’t there. Bruno comes in and does brilliant. They go and get vdBeek, I don’t know why they felt they needed him just after Bruno proved that position is his own. Then go and get Ronaldo and just stuck him up front because “he will get on the end of things”. This is a little bit more complex than a FIFA game or something. Exactly how Mourinho never really managed to incorporate Pogba, Sanchez and Lukaku (his 3 main signings) to work successfully in the starting XI that should compete for/win leagues.

I honestly couldn’t believe that they didn’t have players dropping in when they were in a defensive situation. Not surprised given what happened against Atlanta but I’d have thought they would have tried to correct that. Nope, clearly not.

There were times when their defensive line up was 4 in defense and 2 midfielders, 4-2 basically. There was zero effort to cover TAA and Salah in particular. You have to honestly ask what were they thinking?

I’ve been thinking the same. There’s something really wrong for them there. He had so much power and influence. Not just on Man U but on the entire Premier League set up. It doesn’t feel like he’s ever really left.

I don’t think they will turn it around while he remains as I feel like any manager with different ideas from him will not succeed there. Fortunately for us football has moved on and they have been left behind.

Feels to me like he is the reason Ole has stayed so long. Ole is his “yes” boy. When they talk about Ole turning around the toxic atmosphere there… Is that only because he agrees with Fergie and is not trying to fight him?

Anyway, I think what I’m trying to say is it’s not just Ole that is the problem for them and the fix is not as simple as swapping him for a decent manager. I think they need to find a decent modern manager that can unofficially work under Fergie and is happy with that set up.

Don’t think that’s gonna happen any time soon.

Happy days :grin:

Yeah, that’s a team that plays nowhere near together at the moment. Neville keeps going back to this moment at HT at Leicester when something drastic changed, he’s just lost in these tiny details and clutching at straws. It’s like watching 2-3 corpuses far from each other. Playing out from the back in that shape against us, arguably the best pressing side in Europe? Good luck, yeah, we’ll have a bit of that.

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