Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours 2019/2020

DM_7 wrote: »

Your either or scenario makes no sense. You came up with a theory yet when questioned go with a how do you know this response.



I could have went with a how do you know response to your original post, instead I asked for examples to show how such a claim could be as I could not think of examples.

I can understand frustration with the Glazer and Woodward regime. They have not shown any desire to focus on resale value though.

If you said they only want players who will provide value as they will be on the books for a long time effectively reducing their cost then it would make sense. Both in a football sense or an accounting one via amortisation.

To be honest I’ve explained it many times here and while it’s based on looking at the owners motives and their actions which I think is a very rational way to try and fill in blanks and get a reasonable grasp of how they really run things. You keep saying “they have shown no desire to focus on resale value” but offered no evidence to back up this view. You can’t accuse me of not providing evidence and then just make statements with absolutely no meat.

We are all working off the same unclear information, so in the absence of cold hard facts I’m looking at what we know about the owners and Woodward and seeing where their motivations lie. I think when you don’t have complete clarity, peoples motives can tell you a lot. The glazers Having to pump money into the football team is the same annoyance banks get having to serve customers. It’s not a primary goal of theirs to make United successful on the field , it’s to do the bare minimum and balancing that off with their commercial interests. They are closer to Mike Ashley in how they have run the club then Liverpool’s owners, that’s where they are as far as I am concerned. Even LVG said that SAF confided his own frustrations about the commercial aspect of the club. Why would He care if it didn’t affect his own plans or preparations?

They’ve made a balls of the footballing side of things the last 7 years, like it’s actually kind of fawlty towers bad, how much they have wasted the clubs resources over that period. Any other position at the club would be sacked but people making excuses for incompetent owners is just frustrating to read.

A terrible transfer/manager strategy, a disjointed and unclear club philosophy (saying one thing and doing the other - Jose = United tradition of youth?!) , a CEO who has been named by multiple experienced managers as a problem, the club has sacked multiple managers With no obvious playing style philosophy which leaves us with a mish mash squad with no spirit , drive or team ethos. And yet no real change has happened, not even a token gesture PR position. So what does this tell us about them and where their primary goals lie? How concerned are the glazers about the first team?

Surely they would make some drastic changes if they were really worried about how things are going? I think You can also tell a lot about people’s motivations by their response to problems. They’ve put an inexperienced, cheap as chips, fan favorite in to steady the ship. Yep, that’s really taking things seriously and making the kind of changes that one of the worlds most expensive clubs. It was such a populist PR stunt it’s not funny. The fact that people defended it shows what the owners are all about, optics.

And despite all this chaos the club value was never higher then when they didn’t spend much last season (August 2018 I believe was the highest share value). So what did that say to the glazers? Why do any fans think that the glazers have to buy players that will work out for the first team? Theyve made a balls of the first team for to for the last 7 years and it’s not worked out bad for them at all, sure hasn’t the value of the club gone up A billion during that 7 year bad period ? So success and team performance (as Woodward said in conference calls to investors) doesn’t matter, like he promised.

And then there is their tenure at their American football team. The way that club went and united have gone are remarkably similar. But I’ve already explained that, it gives us a very interesting insight into the owners and how they run things and it’s not in the interests of the first team. Nobody ever responded to it because people aren’t interested in really discussing the owners because there isn’t much we can do about them. It’s easier to blame a manager because of the potential a change in manager promises.

Thats not even factoring in the club debt , unhelpful pre season tours, and stadium degradation. And I’m quite sure if I dug deeper I could find a lot more that tells us where the owners priorities lie. They’ve normalized the abnormal. Debt at the club is normal. Low expectations are normal even though only 2 clubs in the world can match our finances and City (in terms of competing directly with united). Players under performing and getting contract extensions is normal. Mediocrity at the club is normal. It’s normal for United fans to worry (certainly on here) about spending and salaries! Why? They’ve indoctrinated people into believing an awful lot of their crap.

No club in England is worth more. Only city can bid more for players. How can fans minimize the damage being done and defend these owners on any level?

DM_7 wrote: »

I know you have explained your general position many times. You do it to the point of soapboxing though. Even here, in this very attempt to discuss one point that United buy players for resale value you can't help yourself. It makes it very difficult to discuss any point.

Back to evidence about resale value. United have paid massive fees for players like Di Maria who left at a loss. Of course when paying massive fees it is a consideration that if it does not work out a large part of the fee can be recouped but that is something any club would do. The suggestion you made was the club were focused on resale value though when United have never shown they have that focus.

Matic, Herrera, Mata, Ibra, Bastian, Rojo, Darmian were not signed for such reasons.

Younger ones like Martial, Shaw, Lindelof, Bailly, Memphis were bought early in development for good fees, the club thought they would grow as players and price the early investment worthwhile but not with a view to selling them on later.

Di Maria, Lukaku, Fred, Pogba, Wan Bissaka, the biggest fees the club has ever paid. One left at a loss. Fred I can't explain. Regardless, if profit or resale value is a focus you don't start off paying a massive fee to start with, you look for more modest ones to sell for profit.

Signs a club operate like that are many signings in and many out year after year. Many signings won't work out but they will have some big ones that make it all worthwhile. They sell players they develop (like Rashford) instead of giving them new long term contracts.

If you want to stay on the topic great but if it is just going to go off into the broader discussion you keep going off on I will leave this as my last attempt to discuss the resale value.

Soapboxing? Sigh.....

And Did you even read what I said?

Drumpot wrote: »

I’m not saying all players are bought for resale value but that there is a very different way that the owners weigh up who to buy then what fans think. It would go along way to explaining why the team has never been even remotely close enough for a consistent period of time.

It’s you who isn’t staying on topic, I even spelled it out for you, I’m not saying all transfers were just for resale value, I clarified that resale value was one commercial side of how they decide to sign players.

You picked out one sentence in comprehensive topic I’ve discussed many times and ignored everything else. I see great value to looking at the owners actions, their motivations and their history with other clubs when trying to work out why the club is in such a state. If you don’t see that then that’s your business but don’t say it’s off topic, it couldn’t be more relevant as far as I’m concerned as the owners are the only ones who can turn things around.

DM_7 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply anyway.

You are right I have ignored most of what you posted since I have read it so many times before. Especially the bits about how only some (you) can see the bigger issues while others have accepted how things are via, how you put it before, Stockholm syndrome. Even in your last post you went down the 'if you can't see it route'. We can all see the problems, we don't need to post the same problems every day as nothing has changed!

On that basis it should be okay to talk about how things actually are, what has happened lately or how things could improve within the current system. Any time people try to do that it triggers one of your Glazer and Woodward, value of the the club, why can City pay more, only interested in commercial aspect posts.

So you ignore most of what I say and pick out bits you don’t like without clarifying the context of these statements? Ok, I will try to readjust my settings to see if I can fit into talking about the things you and others want to talk about.

So how are things at the club? What realistic changes will be made that you think will turn things around ? What do you predict is a realistic expectation for this season?

I think that last question is possibly the most interesting. I haven’t a clue what to expect from this season. Doesn’t matter who they bring in if the majority of the squad is retained and the same toxic flip flopping of form continues. How do you think Ole addresses the issue of the club isn’t replacing and offloading players? Why do you think we are so slow to offload players not good enough? How much influence do you think Ole has over this aspect?