Thread: Manchester Utd

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Despite reaching yet another final, can you imagine the press reaction if Manchester United don't lift the UEFA Cup on the 21st and we go ONE season without a trophy?

Of course I can Hal.

Amorim admits he may have to leave if poor form continues

17th?
Roy evans wasnt going to be that bad

Fun Fact #1:

PSR limits clubs to losses of £105m over three years

Fun Fact #2:

United reported a net loss of £113m in their latest accounts and they have lost more than £300m over the past three years.

Ooops

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Fun Fact #1:



Fun Fact #2:



Ooops

Fucking hell, hazza is desperate today.

Originally Posted by reinvented

17th?
Roy evans wasnt going to be that bad

And you've showed up too!

My favourite Roy Evans moment.

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Fucking hell, hazza is desperate today.

Not me Hal. But I can tell you who is.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Not me Hal. But I can tell you who is.

Hazza's best comeback to his club being serial failures while we are in yet another final:

But look at your chairman!



We are not the same, mate.

But you have to admit he must be desperate Hal.

When Ten Hag went, United were seven points off the top four. Now, after just six wins from 25 league games under Amorim, they are 26 points off the top four, two places above the relegation zone.

And you are still winning nada.

While we are competing for pots and playing in finals - as usual.

You'll never be a big club, h.

But at least you've got Spurs to banter with.

Spurs.

Originally Posted by hallelujah

Spurs.

You mean your rivals?

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

You mean your rivals?

At least they're 'in the mix.'



The level of Hazza's expectations at the ultimate fannies:

'in the mix'

Well they are battling it out with you for 17th place.

So out of the players sold last season McTommy is already a Napoli legend with keys to the city, and AWB has been voted West Ham's player of the year.

Still, they bargained hard and got 15 mill for a player in their 20s that they paid 50 mill for.

Made me chuckle this morning on the radio how they are touting tomorrow night's Europa Final...

The Stoppable Force vs the Movable Object

Was there a game last night?

What an absolute shambles.

What fun!

Manchester United face urgent dilemma: ditch Amorim or revamp the squad | Manchester United | The Guardian

Everything always seems clearer in the morning, and in the cold day light of Thursday the prognosis for Manchester United is bleak. While Tottenham face an awkward calculation – weighing up whether the delirium of a first European trophy in 41 years offsets their worst league season in terms of proportion of games lost – for Manchester United the equation is far starker.

Ruben Amorim will only play in one way. He is committed absolutely, uncompromisingly, irrevocably to the 3-4-2-1. Liverpool considered him, looked at their squad, realised the two things did not go together, appointed Arne Slot and won the league. Manchester United looked at their squad, flinched at the horror, and seem to have reasoned it was such a mess that it was impossible to find a manager whose philosophy would fit. There was a dissenting voice, Dan Ashworth, but at the court of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, reasoned doubts are as unwelcome as a free lunch.

This is where Ratcliffe deserves credit. Where nobody else could see a pattern, he found one. It turns out this squad does have a unifying theme, and the appointment of Amorim uncovered it: what linked this disparate group of players, cobbled together under five permanent managers over 11 years, is that none of them can play 3-4-2-1.

The Europa League final was a mesmerisingly dreadful game of football. An average of 52 seconds elapsed between every pass Tottenham completed, and yet they still won with relative ease. Almost every one of the handful of chances United made – notably the Rasmus Højlund effort cleared off the line by Micky van de Ven and the second-half header Bruno Fernandes put wide – was the result of a Spurs error.

Amad Diallo offered some invention in the first half but faded in the second. There was one little burst from Alejandro Garnacho. And that was it. With 72% possession, United were left to rely on individual inspiration from young forwards and Tottenham mistakes.

It turned out Europa League form – United were unbeaten in European competition until Wednesday – was deceptive. Casemiro and Harry Maguire may thrive when there is a little more time on the ball, but up against Premier League opposition again, they struggled as they have all season.

The mind inevitably goes back to a comment Fernandes made after United had narrowly beaten Ipswich in February: Amorim, he said, had been shocked by how good a newly promoted side threatened by relegation could be. There are no Estrela Amadoras or Gil Vicentes in English football; the Premier League is relentlessly demanding in a way no other competition in the world is. The league may have clear financial stratifications but its wealth means the level even at the bottom end is, by global standards, extremely high. Which is, if course, how United and Spurs ended up in the Europa League final in the first place.

And so United are faced with a dilemma. If they persist with Amorim, the squad will need a complete and total overhaul. Of the team who played in Bilbao, how many could be of use in a 3-4-2-1? Lenny Yoro and Patrick Dorgu, probably. Diallo, perhaps. Mason Mount and Fernandes, maybe, although neither offered much evidence on Wednesday night.

That level of makeover will require hundreds of millions of pounds that United simply do not have. The way Ratcliffe has been speaking, there would not have been vast sums available even if United had been in the Champions League. Without any European football at all, budgets will be tight. And besides, which self-respecting player now would want to join United?

The only reason to go to Old Trafford is for the surge players get when they leave: Scott McTominay will win Serie A if Napoli beat Cagliari on Friday; Marcus Rashford has been rejuvenated at Aston Villa; Antony can’t stop scoring brilliant goals for Real Betis and either he or Jadon Sancho will lift the Conference League next week. The contrast with Kobbie Mainoo, young goalscoring hero of last season’s FA Cup final transformed into peripheral figure, is unavoidable.

In the days before profitability and sustainability rules and financial fair play, United could have spent their way out of trouble. That option is no longer available to them. This will be a long, slow rebuild. Barring astonishing public funding, a new stadium that might increase revenues will itself be a drain on resources.

So the question United now face is clear: do they place their faith in Amorim, slowly build a squad that can play his way, accepting many of their first-choice signings may no longer be available to them, or do they make the switch and turn to a more flexible manager who may be able to elevate this squad.

The problem there is that almost nobody seems to want to stay. Amorim and Fernandes both said that they would be prepared to leave if it is in the best interests of the club, the manager even offering to go without a payoff, which does not seem like the most complicated diplomatic code to crack. Garnacho described the season as “shit” and hinted he would be open to offers and Luke Shaw said every player had to ask themselves whether they really want to be there. Frankly, why would anybody?

For United, the question is how much they believe in Amorim. Because if he is going to fix things, it is not going to be quick.

Jesus how fucking desperate are you Hal?

So Jims been running around trimming costs left and right but the biggest cost is those Mercan cvnts and their aint nothing he can do about his Mercan Masters I'm looking forward to 2025/26

casemiro and slabhead against next season's premier league greyhounds can only be funnier.

Ratcliffe is no business man, he lucked out when ICI got broken up and bought a load of distressed assets which he's been running down ever since, he's had his begging bowl our with the Govt over Grangemouth as he refuses to invest himself, the bloke is cvnt in the same mould as the glazers. The one project the bloke started from scratch, a french made landrover is going down like pork at a bar mitzvah

Comedy fucking gold.

Oh yes, Europe. Now you see it. Now you understand why we’re harvesting your players, hoovering up your football culture, poaching your 27-year-old rollerblading hyper-nerd coaches. This is the spectacle we’re creating over here on our island of trade and innovation. Behold our Europa League final, our Wednesday night field of the cloth of gold. Look on our works and … well, maybe go out for a sandwich instead.

The all-English Europa League final has already taken some stick for not being a spectacle worthy of the occasion. Or at least, for looking like what it was: two muddled teams scrabbling for the last escape ladder. It would be normal at this stage to bring out the phrase about a pair of bald men fighting over a comb. But baldness at least has a pattern.

Baldness is orderly. Baldness is noble. This was more like two men with bad, failing hair transplants fighting over an emergency toupée.

But Wednesday night was also a significant outcome for English football generally. From a neutral perspective the correct bad team won. The good bad guys beat the bad bad guys. The people for whom this was the greatest moment of their supporting lives got to go berserk at the end, rather than a fanbase for whom this would always have been a consolation, a make-do after another lost season, like scraping the burnt top off a frazzled lasagne and grimly serving it up anyway.

The second half was also a properly absorbing spectacle, if only because Manchester United had most of the ball and were forced to just exist out there in all that light, confused by the space, the angles, by the inflated sphere at their feet, a non-team applying itself earnestly to some incomprehensible task, like a labrador trying very hard to drive a steam engine.

Tottenham are at least a well-run club. There is merit in their success. This is basically what Ineos would like to create. Small wage bill. Managed discontent. Big stadium that makes money. A modern football club has been called into being here, in contrast to the Glazer‑sphere, where just walking up to Old Trafford feels like the most grudgingly tolerated consumer experience, a place where some day soon they’re going to start stopping you at the perimeter in order to pour water down your neck, steal your iPhone, laugh at your shoes.

This will be no comfort to United’s supporters, who will stage another protest against the ownership before Sunday’s final home league game against Aston Villa. But more widely there is a reassuring sense of logic in Manchester United failing. This is what should happen right now. The people running the club do not deserve success. Failure suggests, at the very least, some sense of order in the universe. It speaks to meritocracy, to social mobility, to non-negotiable sporting standards.

And yes, with all due apologies, it is also fantastically entertaining. This is the brand now: Epic Failure. Even the scroll of score-settling agent-sourced headlines after Wednesday’s defeat were totally moreish. Amorim Curls Into Ball In Laundry Room as Showdown Talks Loom. Revealed: Hidden Message as Wantaway Ace Posts Cryptic Pic of Wheel of Cheese. Arrogant Ratcliffe ‘Ate Entire Packet of Chewing Gum’ in Front of Crying Nurse.

There are just so many layers now. One of the best currently is the way United’s players will improve, unarguably and dramatically, the moment they leave the club. Were the players always better than they looked? Does the act of leaving release its own high-performance endorphins? There must be some way of harnessing this. Perhaps United could hypnotise their players into believing they’ve already gone. No, you’re at Sporting Gijón now. Everyone loves you. The climate is nice. Tell him he’s Antony and send him back out there.

And if playing for United really is the equivalent of running inside an oxygen chamber then the club should seek to monetise this, reposition itself as some kind of rehab or rest cure. Send us your sullen, underperforming stars. They’ll absolutely hate it. They’ll hate it so much they’ll be back in six months playing like maniacs. Although of course strict controls are needed. If United’s malaise really is a performance-enhancing drug, how many times can you leave and come back flaming with hater‑silencing energy before you turn into a fentanyl zombie?

Obviously Ruben Amorim is still fascinating, still locked in a managerial reign marked by highly visual mini-eras. Amorim turned up swaggering about the place like the handsome, successful man in an advert for caffeine-powered shampoo. Within two weeks he was already fumbling through the press conference doors looking haunted and hollow-eyed, a hostage shuffled from safe house to safe house.

Right now he can’t stop talking about how much he very obviously wants to leave, one step away from “I will literally pay money not to manage this team”. The queen had a code where she would place her handbag discreetly on the table as a sign to her handlers she wanted to leave a function. Amorim is basically standing out there on his touchline every game shadowed by his own giant handbag, hauling it out at himself at the start of every half, scanning the stands for the rescue squad. As a wise man once said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the Manchester United.

Amorim is still likely to survive all this. He’ll go on and do well at Milan. He’ll defeat an English team at the Club World Cup five years from now and you’ll catch his eye, sigh a little, and say: “Yeah, we used to have a scene, didn’t we. You look good. You look … happy. You look… less visibly mad.”

For now his role is to highlight the deeply muddled nature of United’s executive, the madness of appointing an evangelical systems coach with an ill-fitting squad and no budget for parts, of crashing the team, Liz Trussing an entire season rather than compromising the one sacred principle, the one red line he can never cross, which is, er, having wingbacks.

There is a great deal more incidental comedy here. The vast payoffs. The hiring of a 67-year-old fitness coach. Asking Joshua Zirkzee to lead a press, a player so slow time seems to catch up with him as he runs (note: Zirkzee will, of course, be second top scorer in the Bundesliga two seasons from now).

Losing in Bilbao speaks to all of this. It fits. It feels right. Nothing should ever be too big to fail, as United were during the ghost-ship years, when it didn’t matter how badly you treated this thing, money still came pouring in through the portholes.

It doesn’t feel like that now. United have £113m annual losses. The newly roided-up Champions League has entirely left them behind. There is a sense for the first time that maybe some things really do get lost, that no mega-brand is an island. And really, this might be good for everyone.

This club has semi-failed for long enough, still pumping out cash even as the Glazers shaved a little more of its mane every year. Maybe it needs to fail properly, to fail in a way that might finally hurt those who actually own it, not just those who will follow it wherever it goes.

It is self-evident that nothing really good can happen here until the Glazers are dislodged. It will take plenty of macro-turmoil before United finally becomes too cold to carry, not to mention a stream of sustained, cleansing failure along the way. If we’re clutching at straws, there does at least seem to be no shortage of that coming down the pipe.

Manchester United’s leap from semi-failure to epic failure just feels right | Manchester United | The Guardian

Yes Hal, a few minor pots more than makes up for that massive fucking hole your club is in right now, of course we believe you.