Men's Soccer (Football) Thread Soccer • Page 241

Injuries left us with a mountain to climb all year, but his stubborn unwillingness to adapt the midfield when it was clear we were getting played off the park every game lead to crashing out of the CL group stages and not being able to put in any kind of meaningful top 4 push. I think he’s a good coach but he showed a lot of naivety this year.

This will obviously be a make or break year for him and I suspect he’ll have a fairly short leash. The role of a coach is to make the absolute best with what you have at your disposal and he fell well short of doing it this past year. He should have no excuses next year once the full sporting structure is in place and the window gives us some decent squad reconstruction.

 

He’ll be gone by January and will have been replaced by Tuchel, perhaps. The board simply want to buy themselves time to continue getting set, whilst they can hide behind ETH for any failings.

 

Back at the start of the year I wanted to see him stay under a competent set up, but as time went on his complete and utter stubbornness put me off. I genuinely don’t think he will do any better next year, we have to hope that other teams can falter.

We need to nail the summer window if we’re to have any hope. I had quietly written next season off anyway but I had hoped it would be under a new manager.

 

Yeah I’m cool with that.

 

It might sound like bullshit but with no standout candidates as available replacements I don’t exactly hate sticking with a guy who has been here for two years already while we’re still in such sn obvious transitional period football operations wise. Bringing in someone new right now while the foundations are still fairly unstable might just doom a new guy from the start. It’s a shit situation and not something i’m exactly happy with but it might set up two scenarios.

1) He figures it out and there’s a feel good factor about us sticking with him and him finally putting things together.

2) He’s a confirmed fraud halfway through the year and we get to blame it all on him when he’s sacked and the club can usher in a sense of a new project kicking off once the structure is a bit more secure.

Like I said it’s not ideal no matter how you slice it but i’m trying to take a realistic yet not completely defeatist view on things.

 

thank you for organizing and for including me. This is awesome DESPITE my draw.

 

The one big thing that ETH has going for him is despite the terrible form and playing style, the players still back him and the young players love him.

 

Dude has the talent to be world class. So disappointed how this signing played out.

 

It is ridiculously funny that journos knew absolutely nothing about the process or the club for the last few weeks and now they know every single detail.

 

if it means no leaks during the overall processes, I will take it

 

Yeah, and I’m side eyeing a lot of these details that are suddenly coming out too.

 

In the least shocking news, reports out of Argentina saying Real Madrid are interested in Romero. This feels inevitable at some point. But it seems like Romero is a huge fan of Ange and has said he’s very happy at Spurs. So we’ll have a year, maybe two, before it happens.

 

They don’t even try to make it seem like they have the inside scoop. They’re just so transparently going through a paint by numbers/color inside the lines kind of template to pick out whatever bullet points they think will pick up the most traction.

Manchester United being an inarguable top 3 club in the world coupled with the turmoil they’ve been going through the last decade plus means that it’s never been easier for journos to throw shit at a wall to see if it sticks. Thanks to the inflammatory nature of today’s media discourse it doesn’t even matter if it’s true anymore, people just want big claims to either defend staunchly or vehemently fight back against.

Look at journos like Ornstein that hold a proper reputation and work at places more reputable than the rags. They stay much quieter than your circus clown journos and when they report they don’t over report and will make sure to differentiate between informed speculation and proper news.

 

Dang. I wanted Ito. Would’ve been a perfect backup for VDV.

 

Ramos left and they decided after a few seasons that they really missed was silly red cards.

 

He was much better post-Chelsea fiasco with cards. I think the past season he really developed into a strong leader on the team. And his development on the field was noticeable as well. He is very good. And one of the best ball playing CBs in the PL.

It’s really going to suck when we lose him haha

 

The Times are reporting United only have £35m to spend this summer lol

 

They’ll make some money from selling Casemiro to SA and Sancho/Greenwood to wherever.

But that’s still wild if true haha

 

Sadly it probably isn’t, but I can dream

 

Holy shit I just remembered Messi actually played for PSG.

Same exact article comes out every summer. The Athletic say it’s 50m. Last summer our budget was “only” 50m too and we spent 170m or so.

 

I say sell everyone over the age of 26 except bruno.

 

We’ve spent probably a combined 300m more than the combined “reported budgets” over the last three summers. With the way we’ve tightened our belts FFP wise, additional investment from Ratcliffe, and shedding of major salaries + the profits we’ll make this summer this is arguably the least accurate report of a low summer budget we’ve seen in a while.

 

There’s been a weirdly high number of articles about selling Rashford too. If he goes for 70m or whatever the number was that completely frees us up under FFP and PSR.

 

Been thinking all year now he’d be a great cheaper and experienced back up/competition for Hojlund.