Manchester United Superthread 2014 mod warning #8081

tallaghtmick

bucketybuck wrote: »

I don't like hearing things like that though, the great players maintain their performance, we don't need players who play poorly when they have things on their mind. Having great mental strength is just as important for playing at Old Trafford as speed or skill.

He's only human though, its the same as any job if you're not in the right frame of mind you will under perform, I've been there myself.

glued

Ed Woodward takes power from Sir Alex Ferguson with appointment of Louis van Gaal at Manchester United

When Ed Woodward takes his seat in the Old Trafford directors’ box, it is usually two or three rows behind Sir Alex Ferguson, therefore denying the former Manchester United manager the opportunity to keep an eye on the club’s new powerbroker.

There are those who would suggest it is a tactical move by Woodward, one designed to keep Ferguson guessing as to what he will do next.

But while there is a danger of paranoia running away with itself among the rival camps within United, it is an inescapable reality that the control Ferguson once held at Old Trafford now lies in the hands of an Essex boy with a degree in physics.

Woodward’s appointment of Louis van Gaalas United’s manager is as symbolic for the 42-year-old as Neil Armstrong planting the Stars and Stripes on the surface of the Moon.

While Ferguson held the steering wheel in both hands when United’s owners, the Glazer family, handed David Moyes the opportunity to manage the club last summer, the recruitment of Van Gaal has been driven by Woodward and, from this point on, it is his club, with no ghost of the past in place to carry the can if this appointment turns out to be as disastrous as the last one.

Ferguson may be a club director at United, but despite initial indications that he would play a central role in identifying Moyes’s successor, the 72-year-old ultimately proved to be a peripheral figure as Woodward whittled down a shortlist to the point that Van Gaal was the chosen candidate.

Van Gaal has dealt with enough internal politics during two decades as one of Europe’s leading coaches to understand there will be issues to address at Old Trafford.

His ability to manage those above him will be just as crucial as his work with United’s players, but the Dutchman would be foolish to focus his sights on Ferguson with the real power lying in Woodward’s hands.

Appointed as successor to David Gill last summer, Woodward has endured a difficult first 12 months in charge, with his inexperience in the role exacerbated by Moyes’s inability to grasp the magnitude of the job he had inherited from Ferguson.

Woodward was never afforded the opportunity to bed into the job with Moyes’s innate caution and indecision leading to last summer’s shambolic transfer window, which resulted in the 11th-hour panic purchase of Marouane Fellaini.

Moyes and Woodward rarely appeared a good fit, despite Woodward’s consistent support of the Scot.

In terms of personality, Woodward is the guy who would walk into a Las Vegas casino and plunge £1 million on red, while Moyes would shake his head and reluctantly put a fiver on black.

Woodward’s frustration with Moyes was tactfully hidden, but always just beneath the surface, and the relationship was never going to work, yet the Glazers were also only ever going to get rid of one of them and Moyes had no chance.

This is the reality that Van Gaal must understand.

Whereas Ferguson and Gill built up a relationship and trust and respect, Gill’s communication with Joel Glazer, the United co-chairman, was weekly at best.

Woodward, however, has always spoken daily to Joel, having impressed the family by driving through their 2005 takeover of the club as an investment banker with JP Morgan.

Once the deal was done, Woodward was handed a job at United and he has now climbed the ladder to claim the top job and the power and control that comes with it.

It has enabled him to appoint his own manager in Van Gaal, one who possesses the ambition and self-confidence Woodward sees in himself, and the ball is now firmly in his hands.

But so is the accountability and those within United who deride Woodward as being ‘power mad’ are now waiting to discover if he can be as successful running the football side of the club as he was in transforming their commercial arm.

He will be expected to move quickly and successfully to sign the players United desperately need and to avoid the embarrassing drawn out sagas of last summer when the club pursued Cesc Fabregas, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale but ended up with none of them.

But in one sense Woodward has already displayed a ruthless streak by turning to Van Gaal and ignoring the claims of Ryan Giggs, who had the support of Ferguson and a large section of the club’s supporters.

Woodward has taken the emotion out of the appointment by looking to the future rather than the past, despite angering some of those within the Class of ’92 by failing to offer clarity on their positions during the negotiations with Van Gaal.

But when he takes his seat in the directors’ box for the first home game of next season, he will not have to choose his seat carefully to emphasise his power.

Whether he can sit comfortably without Ferguson having chosen the manager remains to be seen, though.

The Telegraph

What an awful load of tripe. That article is complete nonsense IMO

bucketybuck

tallaghtmick wrote: »

He's only human though, its the same as any job if you're not in the right frame of mind you will under perform, I've been there myself.

Of course its only human, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned that we would be buying a midfielder who lets off-field pressures affect his on-field performance. As I said, the great players maintain their performance even when things aren't going well for them off the field, thats part of what makes them great.

This may not even apply to Herrera, he could be a massively strong character for all I know, but all else being equal I would be concerned if he did actually let what happened affect him. Our squad is currently lacking in leadership, the last thing we need is another Felliani.

kryogen

bucketybuck wrote: »

I don't like hearing things like that though, the great players maintain their performance, we don't need players who play poorly when they have things on their mind. Having great mental strength is just as important for playing at Old Trafford as speed or skill.

True enough, but players are human beings too, he may have just started the season slowly, I have no idea if it was because of what happened in the summer, all I know is he came on big time over the course of the season. Carrick was always a notoriously slow starter to the league campaign but still a good player

I think most players performance dips when they have things on their mind actually, as I said, they are human.

I am not arguing that mental strength is not important of course, it is hugely important at the biggest clubs particularly

kryogen

glued wrote: »

The Telegraph

What an awful load of tripe. That article is complete nonsense IMO

Was just about to post it

beno619

I dont think any player who can perform to his best when there are personal issues surrounding him.

For all we know Herrera's poor form was just a dip that players like Rooney regularly have, might have had nothing to do with the collapse of the transfer.

EuropeanSon

irishfeen wrote: »

Yaya is not leaving city and absolutely definitely not leaving for an English rival - I just have a feeling about Cesc for some unknown reason, I just don't think Arsenal will spend that type of money on a player they basically don't need and Barca/the player know fully well that we are interested. I wouldn't be surprised one bit if he was lining out for us come August.

I don't think predicting Arsene's transfer decisions on what everyone thinks we need is a very reliable system

Last summer:
Board: So, we've only got one striker, and one spare centre back, who should we sign Arsene?

Arsene: Two midfielders, of course!

Burt Macklin

FutureGuy wrote: »

"He's very strict," De Boer, who played under Van Gaal for club and country, told BBC Radio 5 live.
"When I was young, I was scared of him and feared him a bit."

To paraphrase something from twitter, expect Rooney to be relieved of his quasi director of football role.

user2011

Link to LvG interview yesterday http://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/25zmbf/transcript_of_van_gaal_interview_on_rtl_late/

homerjay2005

glued wrote: »

What an awful load of tripe. That article is complete nonsense IMO

why post it, if its complete tripe?

and what exactly in there do you not agree with or more to the point, what is not true? i though Mark Ogdan was the god of the media when it comes to all things United....

brinty

EuropeanSon wrote: »

I don't think predicting Arsene's transfer decisions on what everyone thinks we need is a very reliable system

Last summer:
Board: So, we've only got one striker, and one spare centre back, who should we sign Arsene?

Arsene: Two midfielders, of course!

Hahahahahaha i'm laughing imagining that conversation in gift grub speak....

kryogen

homerjay2005 wrote: »

why post it, if its complete tripe?

and what exactly in there do you not agree with?

Well, I personally don't think Woodie chooses his seat based on where Fergie is sitting

TheDoc

homerjay2005 wrote: »

why post it, if its complete tripe?

and what exactly in there do you not agree with or more to the point, what is not true? i though Mark Ogdan was the god of the media when it comes to all things United....

He has a tendancy to take a pretty uneventful situation, and twist it into some form of metaphoric toss. In my opinion anyway.

The most irrelevant and basic of things, he tries to twist into a narrative that everything is a meticulous plan, and has a defined purpose.

I check in on Ogdon for because of his links to the club in the hope he can break some news, but following him more closely this year, I find a lot of his writing and articles are conjecture and trying to make articulate assumptions for things that really arn't there.

glued

homerjay2005 wrote: »

why post it, if its complete tripe?

and what exactly in there do you not agree with or more to the point, what is not true? i though Mark Ogdan was the god of the media when it comes to all things United....

The other day I posted suggesting that Ogden was most likely a reliable source this article contradicts that. Obviously I was very wrong about him because that article is complete nonsense.

Also if you can't ascertain that Ogden is being completely sensationalist from the first few lines of the article then there is not much point in discussing this further.

glued

TheDoc wrote: »

He has a tendancy to take a pretty uneventful situation, and twist it into some form of metaphoric toss. In my opinion anyway.

The most irrelevant and basic of things, he tries to twist into a narrative that everything is a meticulous plan, and has a defined purpose.

I check in on Ogdon for because of his links to the club in the hope he can break some news, but following him more closely this year, I find a lot of his writing and articles are conjecture and trying to make articulate assumptions for things that really arn't there.

Yeah, I never really bothered reading his articles because The Torygraph is a hack of a paper. I just assumed he had some sources in United but obviously I was wrong.

greendom

EuropeanSon wrote: »

I don't think predicting Arsene's transfer decisions on what everyone thinks we need is a very reliable system

Last summer:
Board: So, we've only got one striker, and one spare centre back, who should we sign Arsene?

Arsene: Two midfielders, of course!

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jan/17/arsene-wenger-julian-draxler-arsenal

Cesc it is then !

kryogen

greendom wrote: »

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jan/17/arsene-wenger-julian-draxler-arsenal

Cesc it is then !

I'd prefer Draxler at this point I think

KH25

kryogen wrote: »

I'd prefer Draxler at this point I think

Why not have both? :P

Cantona's Collars

Great to hear Van Gaal NOT using words like "hopefully" & "try".He's already aiming for winning the league in his first season at United.

Despite no CL football,I think we'll do ok in the transfers dept.Asking a player if he'd like to play at United under LVG is certainly more attractive than asking if he'd like to play for Moyes.

Burt Macklin

Probably already been posted but worth a read all the same. An article about 'anti-Moyes' van Gaal in yesterday's Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/may/19/louis-van-gaal-manchester-united-anti-moyes-disciplinarian

bucketybuck

beno619 wrote: »

I dont think any player who can perform to his best when there are personal issues surrounding him.

For all we know Herrera's poor form was just a dip that players like Rooney regularly have, might have had nothing to do with the collapse of the transfer.

On the contrary, there are lots of players that perform to their best when going through off-field issues. The problem is that you don't know about them, because they don't let the issues affect their performances.

I wouldn't be holding Rooney up as any sort of benchmark here by the way. His tendency to perform poorly when suffering off-field issues is not one of his finer points, just the opposite in fact.

Mars Bar

sigmundv wrote: »

One final question and I'm off: When will the club upgrade their website? It has looked the same forever and needs an overhaul to catch up with modern web design.

Did anyone notice that they changed the entry page? The link to enter the site is now on the right and not the left.
It's bloody pathetic.

brinty

Jeez lads, looking at Aaron Ramsey and how he has developed..we missed out there big time...

I suppose looking at Shaw (and Carvalho to a lesser extent) in that kind of a light i'd hope we don't fcuk it up and he goes elsewhere and turns into the player people hope he will and we're going well fcuk it in a couple of years time, why didn't we sign him

Looking at the 30m fee, over 10/15 years if he spends that much time with us would work out at 2/3m a season plus his wages. That'd be a great investment. I'd assume the 30m would include a fair portion based on performances/progress/trophies won etc so i'd say we should go for it..

We have the cash reserves in place so if all deals this summer are structured to include a potrtion based on specific targets we could get some great players in now and only have to pay a lot of the money based on future performance..


If we could do that and get a Kroos/Vidal/Fabregas in midfield as well that'd bolster the team and hopefully not break the bank..

I'd expect LvG to bring in some Dutch players and i've seen mention of some young Feynoord players. If they can be got at a reasonable price now that'd be ideal. We'd know in a couple of years they'd be off but we'd hopefully be selling them at a significant profit when they'd be looking to move on when Louis blows a gasket

These are some of my musings and opinions..i'm not claiming any of these will happen for certain but might be worth considering

ericzeking

Re. The Ogden article, which I think is quite good by the by, you could say he's making an article about a load of assumptions but equally you could say that he is drawing some fairly logical conclusions from stuff that we all know...has there actually been any word from Fergie in the last 24 hours? It's notable in my opinion that he hasn't said anything, I imagine he is quite put out over pretty much everything.

Any word from Gary Neville? I was quite busy yesterday evening and every time I looked at SSN Dwight Yorke was on talking his particular brand of nothing.

Mitch Connor

glued wrote: »

The Telegraph

What an awful load of tripe. That article is complete nonsense IMO

I thought the bit at the start and end regarding where Woodward sits, and it being part of a power battle was tripe alright - but the rest of it is bang on the money based on the snippets UWS and RedIssue have been saying over the last month. Moyes was a Fergie choice, LVG is very much a Woodward choice, and bring in LVG (and reducing the 'King Maker' role Fergie enjoyed) has been a flexing of his muscles so to speak.

I believe Bob Cass has written/spoken about Fergie becoming isolated at OT of late, and Ogdens article is simply furthering that thread.

Cantona's Collars

RedCafe are celebrating LVG's appointment.

homerjay2005

zerks wrote: »

RedCafe are celebrating LVG's appointment.

speaking of Red Cafe - only 12% of our fans on there wanted Moyes as our manger 12 months ago when the discussion started to replace SAF. the rise in support for Moyes then came after the Swansea game once fergie gave his speech but lets be fair while people were happy to support Moyes, im pretty sure very few people actually were happy with him.

in contrast, Van Gaal is at 94% on the current poll today. That is some difference.

irishfeen

zerks wrote: »

RedCafe are celebrating LVG's appointment.

I best one I've seen so far has been on here and a poster describing him as the "Iron Tulip" haha I couldn't stop laughing at that last night

Lucas Hood

irishfeen wrote: »

I best one I've seen so far has been on here and a poster describing him as the "Iron Tulip" haha I couldn't stop laughing at that last night

That's a common name for him.

Sheepy99

Of the players ye've been linked with, who do ye think Van Gaal's appointment adds genuine pulling power to?
I'd say someone like Robben, him being Dutch too and all but it doesn't seem like he'll be leaving Bayern anytime soon.