General Premier League Thread 2023-24 Mod Note in op 27/6/23 And 21/05/24

I know it’s the EFL Cup, but Ten Hag must be feeling it now. This joke semi takeover will put an end to him.

It is a toxic atmosphere but he isn’t without blame. Antony, Martinez, Malacia, Mount, Casemiro….He has to go. How can any manager stand over that?

Martial isn’t Ten Hag’s fault. But Antony? How can you sign a player like that having worried with him previously? He didn’t just develop that attitude overnight.

There are obviously mitigating factors, Shaw, Varane out injured. But the rest of those players are throwing him under the bus too and he seems unable to halt the slide. Big match away at Fulham now. Lose it and he’s going to be under serious risk of losing his job.

United just seem to be a mess behind the scenes. They’ve needed a rebuild for a while but their inability to move players on really hinders that. It’s crazy to me that players like Martial and Maguire are still there.

Getting players in doesn’t seem to follow any real strategy either. What was the thinking behind getting Mount? They have a player that plays in that position and knew they were under FFP restrictions and surely the priority would be a proven goalscorer. Seems like they went for Mount because they could get him, rather than actually needing him.

Culturally too, it seems off. Very little motivation for players to perform, once things start to go bad they just get worse until a new manager comes in and gets a short term bump - but then it settles back into the same routine. No players showing any leadership during games knowing full well the manager will be the one to take the hit.

Was at a Liverpool talk a year or so ago and Raphael Honigstein was there who had recently worked with Rangnick, and when asked about it simply said “however bad you can imagine it, it’s worse”.

Dont see the point in getting rid of ETH, whoever comes in will have the exact same issues as he’s having, that Ole and Mourinho had previously had. Until there’s wholesale operational and cultural changes this will be the norm for them.

Think they have 5 out of 6 games away from home upcoming, including 2 in CL. Might suit them to play away, but it’s a huge period for them and Ten Hag.

Yeah there is a bad culture 'upstairs' in the offices alright, and that sort of culture can seep throughout the club. The terrible culture within the dressing room often gets masked because the one of the directors masks it so often. The Glazers are not forcing the players to have bad attitudes, full of petulance, and divisions. While they create the 'office' culture, that can seep down throughout but there hasn't been a big enough character within the dressing room to stop it since Jose. Except the problem there is that Jose festered a bad culture and made it worse. What followed was weak characters who couldn't stop the rot but it was too late as the players within the dressing room had lived this negative dressing room culture under Jose and then grew it.

Those players are exploiting the ownership situation, for their own personal gain, and getting away with it. They are not being held accountable enough IMO. The last 10 years, just look at the prominent characters within the dressing room, and an awful lot of them have heavily exploited the situation - DDG / Pogba / Lingard / Bailly / Martial / Rashford / Ronaldo / Casemiro are the big ones IMO. You can also throw in the likes of McTominay / Shaw / Maguire / Bruno / Lindelof / Dalot to the list who have all been there the last 5 or 6 years too and not actively tried to combat this terrible dressing room culture, from what I can see. They're not young kids, they are first team players. Shaw did one post game interview where he was angry at the players after a loss but one interview shouldn't mask a few years of average performances followed by 3 good months and a new contract on a higher wages.

Those players like DDG / Pogba / Rashford went through enough managerial changes where they were playing very badly and then made a massive jump in effort when the manager changed. One of them was captain, one of them a world record transfer (and academy player) and the other was the hometown hero. And that's how they treated the club. Rashford is on bigger wages than every player at Liverpool, and for what?! A purple patch last Spring. 1 good season in 3. He knows what he's doing. Those players want that player power. Those 3 are the most culpable for the dressing room culture IMO, and it hasn't changed since 2 of them left. How would it? Bruno is the captain now and he spends more time flailing his arms around the place than anything. Whinging, crying, diving. Leader.

How did Bruno become captain? Because the current manager axed the previous one. Nice way to harmonize the squad. Especially after what had gone at the club previously with divisions.

Rangnick talked about the lack of team spirit within the dressing room, and the example of Ronaldo and 8 or 9 others not bothering to show up to a team meal only proves that. There was also the example of the fake injury when he was dropped for a big game, just so he wouldn't have the embarassment of sitting on the bench. That sort of 'leadership' is lumped onto the existing players. They think they can act the same way and get away with it, because others do. There was obviously cliques in the squad in the last couple seasons, one of them clearly led by Ronaldo. Ronaldo threw his toys of the pram for ETH and under Rangnick, he undermined him by trying to force a formation change that would cut Sancho out of the team. He got his way. Player power.

ETH did well to get Ronaldo out, but then also tried to force out Maguire and Sancho. This has caused another division again. The murmurings coming out in the media are that Sancho is not happy that 'other players in his position' can train half-arsed and still start every game without fail and get away it whereas he gets the massive public shame for not training as a sub. He is either talking about Rashford or Antony. One has a history of being up and down when he feels like it, part of the bad culture for years, and the other is the teachers pet big money signing. They say that Sancho is prepared to 'wait it out' until ETH is gone which sounds like it's inevitable, rather than give in to him. McTominay refused to move too this summer gone, but doesn't get half of the abuse that Maguire gets. It's very ironic as it's McTominay and Maguire that have kept ETH in a job this long.

ETH has caused this last situation. He solved a big Ronaldo problem but created a new problem at the same time. He stripped the captaincy of Maguire and gave it to the petulant Bruno and at the same time publicly shamed Sancho and promotes Antony. Gary Neville used to keep all the Man Utd players together at the same table in the England training canteen. Don't let anyone else in. Created a clique. If Sancho was even allowed to eat lunch in the training ground canteen, I'd guess he would be sitting alongside Maguire in the 'I hate ETH' table. I'd harbour a guess that ETH trying to bring Greenwood back into the squad didn't help things either.

TL:DR;

Whatever about the ownership, and that is a massive contributing factor. Nothing will change as long as those key characters stay in the dressing room. As long as Bruno & Rashford etc stay as the main men, problems will exist. Bad transfers in terms of ability, but worse transfers and decisions in terms of player characters - Ronaldo / Antony / Casemiro / Varane / Bruno / Martinez. They are full of petulance and/or chasing the money. Klopp's first summer, he got rid of Sakho cos he was late for a team training session and was clowning around too much to the club video/photo guys. A player widely considered to be first choice at the time. A replacement wasn't signed but a message was sent to the dressing room. A 'no dickhead' policy was placed on the squad. From what we know, no dickheads have been signed since. It helps.

Those players have got multiple managers sacked now, and they'll do it again. Just wait for the leaks about training etc. They're not playing for the manager, again.

He wouldn't last one episode.

United have blown hundreds of millions but its pretty clear that the pot is now dry, its why they haven't gotten rid of the wasters and didn't properly strengthen where they needed to in the summer.

So the next manager will yet again have to try and make lemonade out of those **** lemons. They wouldn't listen to Keane, he wouldn't be able to replace them, tools would get downed and another manager would very quickly take his place under the bus.

I thought those 2 ould duffers owned United?

An internal salary and purchase price cap would do no harm at all at United. Who gives a **** if it means they can't sign Mbappe, its the £80/90m transfers that has killed them this past decade, that price point is horrible value so just stop wasting big money on that sort of player.

Dump the ego, recognise where the club is at and start trying to find value in the market so that the team can be developed organically. If that means walking away from Antony or Sancho then walk the **** away and find an alternative.

This United stuff is very enjoyable, tremendous stuff altogether!

Don't have any real opinion about ETH, but as I suggested about 2 or 3 months ago and I got castigated for it, there is a rotten culture at the club, and he hasn't really dealt with it in his time. He's going to pay the price too, with lots of leaks and briefing in the media over rhw last 24 hours, a well established method for both the players and management to distance themselves from the guy going to take the fall.

10 years and counting for United, and they are as far as ever from winning the league again. Only the FA cup to play for now.... Tremendous

It wasn't a good look to publicly shame sancho for having the wrong attitude in training and then for Ten Hag to keep starting players(rashford,martial to name two) who have a similar attitude on the field. It stinks of double standards. Also re the comments on Maguire,why say them when he was still a United player? Again very poor management from Ten Hag.

So seemingly the players are going to throw him under the bus,does this include all the players he brought in himself since the start of last season? Surely they are willing to fight for him because if they are not you would wonder why he bought them in the first place?

Several of the players who came in are clients of ETH's agent;nothing new for United managers of course to have seeming conflicts and a leg on both sides of transfer deals of course, but it does raise questions about loyalties and what drives the deals.