…Seems to be the common theme of our club for these past few seasons gone by.
As a club, we are huge in prestige, huge in recognition, huge in tradition and huge in past success.
We don’t need reminding about who we are and what we are because of what this great club has achieved in the past.
But there becomes a time when the club seriously needs to adapt itself to the current and the future to preserve the amazing legacy of this great iconic club.
When you look all around at your rival competitors (both domestic and continental), you can see or at least sense that they have (and continue) to progress their respected clubs forward in the best manner that they possibly can.
City - Wealthy owners who are willing to dig deep into their pockets and invest in the infrastructure of the club. And adding to the quality on the field that already had quality.
Liverpool - Understanding owners who have had an effective plan with a capable manager who knows how to get the best out of his team. Been successful in reaching latter important rounds of the CL and battling it out for the PL.
Spurs - Shrewd budget financing with a progressive long term planning for the future. Coupled with a capable manager who can get his team to play great attacking football on a smaller budget. Oh and an impressive new shiny stadium.
Barcelona/Real Madrid - Both these clubs always show up on the big stage. They may not always be successful once there but they are ever present. And they certainly would never allow their respective clubs to drop to our standards.
Juventus - Kings of Serie A, but always seems to fall short on the CL stage latter rounds. But hey at least they make it there.
PSG - Another filthy rich hollow club. Been very successful in their domestic campaigns and have hoovered up some pretty good signings over the years. Again, like Juve seem to fall short in the most important stage in club football in the world. But again, they make it there every season regardless.
Bayern Munich - a great traditional club who also does not take failure lightly. They may have only won the CL once in recent seasons gone by, but they remain ever so competitive in their league.
Now for some of these clubs, you can argue that the competition that they face are less fierce than say the PL. But the bottom line is that most of these clubs would never accept sub par standards - especially on the field success - whether that be in European competition or their respective domestic competitions. And if they do, they regroup and go again the following season.
And this is what we have to try to re emulate to some degree. We won’t ever have another period of long term sustained back to back title defences, but i still feel we could be capable of winning the odd the back to back title defence providing we plan effectively, and our rivals fall short.
Money is everything in this modern game, and we are certainly no strangers to this part of the game. In fact it has been very clear from the sale of this club to the Glazers back then that we would be bought as a major cash cow supplement for the owners. Money is, what money does. No other club can match or compete with the global ATM that is Manchester United. There is no shame in admitting to defeat of that as a rival, as United have cleverly gotten this section cornered as their own - Kings of the cash. But this has only been possible with all the hard work and dedication that the previous generations have helped put into this club to elevate this club to where it stands today. These leeches seriously need to understand that they need better abled people to run this club proactively that will benefit this club for its better future.
But this is where the buck stops (literally!) While we as a business have become too focused on making as much money as possible, we are getting left behind further and further behind from pretty much all of our rivals (again both domestically and continentally).
The problems stretch from on the field performances/quality of players, through the management (still too early to discount Ole and his staff), the board at the club and all the way across the Atlantic back to the owners.
Not one single member of that staff (excluding the manager/coaching staff) have any real idea about this club other than it can make lots of money. All the talk about how the board will look to restructure this club seems to have quietened down post Ole’s arrival as caretaker...
(Continue reading on my next post)
2 Steps Forwards, 4 Steps Backwards...PT1
posted on 18/4/19
If United win noting in the next 20 years we will still be the Daddy of English football certainly and for many millions of people throughout the World in Word football too. It has happened before and it will continue to happen.
posted on 18/4/19
It is still frustrating when the leaders of this club hide behind the prestige of the club badge.
posted on 18/4/19
In a nutshell the club needed to bring in about 3/4 of a quality starting 11 about 8 seasons ago. And they should have bought them in from other epl clubs
They didn't, choosing instead to bring in usually 1 (or at most 2) quality player a season - which wasn't even playing catch up with those that were in need of phasing out, or were just crap from the academy. And they came from iffy (over-hyped) league systems where they were 'stars', but weak of character. The epl will always, ruthlessly expose them.
United current resemble a cut and paste club. Not a progressive one
posted on 18/4/19
comment by IAmMe (U18491)
posted 3 minutes ago
In a nutshell the club needed to bring in about 3/4 of a quality starting 11 about 8 seasons ago. And they should have bought them in from other epl clubs
They didn't, choosing instead to bring in usually 1 (or at most 2) quality player a season - which wasn't even playing catch up with those that were in need of phasing out, or were just crap from the academy. And they came from iffy (over-hyped) league systems where they were 'stars', but weak of character. The epl will always, ruthlessly expose them.
United current resemble a cut and paste club. Not a progressive one
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Can't really argue against this.
posted on 18/4/19
The best clubs strengthen well even after a successful season. City didn’t do it enough after they first won the league and stood still for a brief period. Leicester didn’t do it well enough (not suggesting they should be up there still but should be doing better than they have been since the win).
We used to do it under Fergie. Relatively speaking in recent years we had a successful domestic season last year. Second for first time since SAF and an FA cup final which we should’ve won (played terribly in a big game surprise surprise).
And what did we do in the summer? We signed Lee Grant, Fred and Dalot...
None of which were going to improve the first XI, and Fred has turned out far worse than we thought he would.
What do our scouts actually do? Do we just spend all summer chasing unrealistic targets and then panic buy or don’t spend at all? Agree with what you’ve said above, so much needs to change, starting with getting players who actually want to put 100% in every week whether it’s Huddersfield away or Barcelona in the CL knockout rounds.
No more of these money grabbing, lazy basteds who turn up once a month
posted on 18/4/19
comment by JonVeron (U6514)
posted 21 seconds ago
The best clubs strengthen well even after a successful season. City didn’t do it enough after they first won the league and stood still for a brief period. Leicester didn’t do it well enough (not suggesting they should be up there still but should be doing better than they have been since the win).
We used to do it under Fergie. Relatively speaking in recent years we had a successful domestic season last year. Second for first time since SAF and an FA cup final which we should’ve won (played terribly in a big game surprise surprise).
And what did we do in the summer? We signed Lee Grant, Fred and Dalot...
None of which were going to improve the first XI, and Fred has turned out far worse than we thought he would.
What do our scouts actually do? Do we just spend all summer chasing unrealistic targets and then panic buy or don’t spend at all? Agree with what you’ve said above, so much needs to change, starting with getting players who actually want to put 100% in every week whether it’s Huddersfield away or Barcelona in the CL knockout rounds.
No more of these money grabbing, lazy basteds who turn up once a month
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Whether we like it or not, part of the problem with that in regards to us is that this club will always attract a lot of players who want the big money. Even if our wage spending intentions have someday decided to change for what ever reason.
But yes, i would love it if we could sign quality players who would quite happily play for this club irrespective of a big wage (unlikely but not impossible)
But i do agree that we need to sign players that would improve us. But as you know, each season it gets harder to compete for these types of players.
posted on 18/4/19
We’ve found a few gems in the past, need to hope we can do so again. The likes of Vidic, Hernandez, Park, Ronaldo :D and Djemba Djemba
Either that or just give Chong, Greenwood, Gomes etc a season in the first team and see if they can do a Rashford (who still needs to improve a fair bit I must say)
posted on 18/4/19
Djemba x2
I don't want to sound like Liverpool fan, but the past is the past. We were in more dominant successful era then. Players heads could easily be turned more so back then. Nowadays we are competing with several clubs who play much better entertaining football than us. That's not even including recent progress they have all made compared to us.
If we are to give the youngsters a chance, then we have to be patient with them. And we as fans could give them that. But the cycle starts again with the board, because i'm sure they won't.
posted on 18/4/19
Why the fack not put the second part in the first comment? You created a literary mess for fack sake.
posted on 18/4/19
Because it was intended for the post. I didn't realise there was a 5,000 character limit.
Is that okay with you?