I'm shocked you guys are still watching. I deleted this year's match list off my Google Calendar and moved on with my life.
It would be really nice at some point if the in field results actually impacted their money making ability. Seems like that's the only way they will ever truly care about making real changes. If the money never slows, their philosophy never changes.
When I look at Manchester United, I see chaos, a team lacking any kind of discernible identity and an institution bereft of strategy, whose last three managers, if you include Michael Carrick, have been temporary appointments. They have become an interim football club — a club of caretakers, where authority has become diluted and players inhabit a world of excuses — who have spent an absolute fortune to become truly unexceptional. On the pitch, they are frayed and ragged, edgy and bad-tempered, casting around for someone else to blame, unsure of who and what they are. Manchester City are pressers, who yearn to pass and dominate possession. Liverpool have their high line and push to win the ball back early, who press from the front. Both are slick and machine-like. When one player goes out, another comes in and very little changes. They are in a different stratosphere. Manchester United? How damning is it to hear Ralph Hasenhuttl, the Southampton manager, say after his side’s 1-1 draw at Old Trafford on Saturday: “It’s not a big secret that when they lose the ball the reverse gears are not the best from everyone?” This is a theatre where they dream of competence first and trophies a distant second. They are fifth in the Premier League, a position many clubs would gladly accept, but which, by their own standards, is a wasteland. What a leaky, noisy, messy club they have become. In recent days, reports have emerged that players don’t like training or Ralf Rangnick’s methods, that they want Mauricio Pochettino in the dugout next season. Victories, when they come, are not being celebrated. They are dissected. Instead, it’s Cristiano’s Ronaldo’s body language and a cycle of moaning, which seems to have hung around them for years. There’s no doubt that Manchester United’s players have got to look at themselves. Are they doing as well as they could or should? The obvious answer is no, but I also recognise the lack of shape and purpose, the heaviness in their legs. With the disarray around and above them, they have an excuse. Players constantly look for excuses. It’s the way football is and it’s also partially human nature, that defence mechanism where it’s always someone else’s fault. If you give a player an inch, he will take a mile. Sir Bobby Robson said that a lot: “If I give you my hand, you’ll take the arm off.” Managers talk about creating a culture of no excuses because if you give players the best facilities and resources, if they all know what they’re doing or is being asked of them, then they have nowhere else to go. They have to grasp responsibility for themselves, which drives up standards. You don’t hear as many whispers or gossip from Liverpool or Manchester City. They are winning. Managers have buy-in and can prove to players that their methods bring reward. If you’re in the team, you have to play well to stay there. If you’re on the outside, you have to double down to get back in. It feels like alchemy sometimes and it can be a delicate balance, but Manchester United have none of it. They are a giant excuse. It’s astonishing when you think about it. Manchester United, arguably the biggest club in the world, have an interim manager in place, one who has spent only two of the last 11 years in a coaching role. So they have a technical director as an interim, who is being assisted on the touchline by Darren Fletcher, who is a first-time technical director. Before that, it was Carrick for a couple of games. Before him, it was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who originally took over as caretaker. Interim technical caretakers. This is no way to run an organisation that has serious designs on success. This is not a criticism of Rangnick, but for him to arrive at the club as a stand-in until the end of the season, when he may or may not recommend he stays on longer, or then take on a consultancy role, is an absolute nonsense. It’s carnage! Where is the joined-up thinking? What is the decision-making structure? And how do players respond to this shifting authority? Players need certainty. As with any other walk of life, they want to know what’s required of them, what their jobs are. They want to look around the changing room and feel like everybody knows their roles. The more managers come and go, the more systems and tactics change, the less fertile the ground is for certainty. It doesn’t stop you being professional or doing your utmost, but it infiltrates the limbs. I have experience of this myself and, yes, it’s a well-told story. When Ruud Gullit became Newcastle’s manager, he wanted to sweep out the old guard, including me. That was his prerogative, even if I didn’t agree with it, and in the short term he still needed some of us. The dressing-room was fractured. My confidence waned. The things that had been second nature to me now felt alien. I wasn’t trying any less, but I had become a lesser player. It took Sir Bobby to arrive, to strip things back to basics, to remind me of who I was and what I should be doing, for that fog to lift. This is what I see at Manchester United. When managers go and someone else comes in, there’s often talk of upping fitness levels and it sounds damning, except that defeat makes your legs leaden. Tension crowds into your brain. You feel those little niggles. Standards slip a percentage point or two. Rangnick, an interim, replaces Solskjaer and says he wants to play 4-2-2-2. He soon realised he couldn’t. What direction do they want to go in? Everybody is juggling and, in the process, it has become a very unbalanced squad. The signing of Ronaldo has added to it. It was a lovely story and I can understand if the club’s hierarchy felt they could not allow him to join their nearest rivals, but decisions like that have huge consequences. As things stand, Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard, who both featured against Southampton, are due to leave for nothing this summer which means — what? — £130 million of talent flushed down the toilet? Free transfers happen, but here it feels like a form of negligence or self-harm. Ronaldo must be thinking, “what have I walked into…” He is an unbelievable player — one of the greatest to have ever strode the planet — but he is also 37. He rails against being left out or being taken off because the very essence of his make-up is an unparalleled will to win and a determination never to be beaten. He wants to play every single minute of every match. Once that attitude goes, Ronaldo goes. But, of course, it also puts pressure on the manager. Rangnick is the latest interim to try to make the squad gel (Photo: OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images) I don’t blame Ronaldo for anything that’s going on there. He has every right to believe that if it wasn’t for him then they’d be far worse off than they are. He would be correct. Again, I have some experience of his situation. Towards the end of my career I was left out a couple of times or taken off and I can’t explain how much I hated it. Hated every second. I found it embarrassing, a humiliation. That was me. It still is. Should he be more graceful at the end of matches, encouraging his team-mates? Having Ronaldo at the club should be a dream for younger players and if they’re not asking him advice and soaking it all up, then they bloody well should be. For me, it’s a false narrative. The hard questions should be asked of Manchester United’s pathetic defending, or the lack of it. Ronaldo isn’t making excuses, he’s fuming at the chaos and demanding better. But who can he demand it of? Who will deliver it? How will it happen and when? Can you see it getting better before it gets worse? I can’t.
I want to say Paul Tierney is an absolute twat and as par for the course for PL ref’s tried his damnedest to lose control of the match
If Marcus isn't careful, this is exactly how Ralf will see it too. If needs to sit out the rest of the season to get 100% healthy, physically and mentally, so be it.
Eventually United can't keep taking the easy way out. They will have to answer clearly at some point.
Bebe plays for Rayo Vallecano, who are playing Betis in the Copa Del Rey He was subbed on in ~77', down 1-0...and scored in 80' to level on aggregate, for a chance to play in the finals. Well in 90+2', his man beats him to set up an assist to give Betis the win. Poor Bebe
Add Shaw I believe…..our pet heads are falling off….Cavani can fuck himself and some rumors Rangnick made a call on Ronaldo
I hate these time change games with the slightly later start. Such an embarrassment this squad is with their Jekyll and Hyde approach game to game.
SMH, RR talking about the team believing they can win the CL after the Spurs game. What a let down. Fortunately, I saw it coming.
Weird as a United fan to root for Pool. With Arsenal's loss - our odds of top 4 finish go from 10% to.... 11%