Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 26.09.24

If you read The Athletic article it seems that SJR wasn't impressed with Ashworths lack of decisiveness regarding the new manager. He also wanted to outsource something that SJR felt Ashworth as an expert in his field shouldn't have required outsourcing. Pair that with Berrada, Wilcox & Vivell seemingly doing some of his work and you can see why it hasn't worked out.

I have no doubt the billionaire businessman isn't easy to work with. That doesn't mean it's a bad decision to part ways so soon.

Edited to add that Ashworth also apparently didn't feel comfortable cutting staff under his watch and he's missed the past two ExCo meetings for varying reasons. It just seems like he wasn't aligned with the rest of the ExCo and IMO it's better he leaves now than dragging it out for the sake of appearances.

Love this post.

Yeah I get that those are the 2 managerial decisions the other person is referring to, Im just curious how they've come to the conclusion that it's "two for two in managerial fuckups". Why is the other person ignoring all the (seemingly) good decisions INEOS have made so far with managerial positions, such as hiring Amorim, getting rid of Arnold, getting rid of Murtough, hiring Berrada.

Did Ashworth feel that he needed to start outsourcing since Ineos gutted the place, I wonder? They have fairly slashed the staff, a move that if it was the Glazers, people would have been up in arms.… asset stripping etc.

Just trying to play devil's advocate. I haven't any cause to fight Ashworth's corner. Personally, I don't know how a director of football didn't address two glaringly obvious positions this summer. That would have been my number one reason for letting him go.

Getting rid of Ashworth may be a brilliant decision, but it can also reflect very poorly on the guys that hired him.

Rather than putting out the negatives about Ashworth via the club mouthpieces, it would be refreshing if Ineos just came out and said we got it wrong.

But how could they stabilise United better?

I just don't think it works like that. I don't think you can make a managerial appointment that you don't foresee as being the long term candidate. It's overly complicating things and kicking the can down the road.

You either think it's the right appointment or you don't, it just brings massive uncertainty doing it any other way.

Not a bad comparison but I would argue that each appointment that City made at the time was who they felt was the best available candidate—I don't think that it was part of a grand master plan leading to Pep. I also think if they could have got Pep at the start that they would've done it. It's not like he was left with the perfect squad by the time he arrived either.

The footballing structure behind the scenes was perfect for him though and it very much remains to be seen if that can be said for Amorim and United!

Another angle to look at it would be that Pep had achieved enough that he was in a position to pick the right move for himself. I don't think he would have joined them if he wasn't confident that the structure and team was going to get there very quickly.

Amorim wasn't in that position. I know he was in demand but football can be fickle, and I think he had to jump once we came in for him.

I don't think knowing the players is so much the issue, its the players knowing the system. irghtly or wrongly.

He has said that if you start the match, you can't train fully for two days - so that is a (selfimposed?) limitation on the amount of training ground work that can be done. He isn't rotating players in just to see them - but so there is a mix between intensive work on systems on the training ground and playing 70+ minutes. On top of that he is trying to manage the return to fitness following injury of a number of players.

If the players are constantly just playing, then recovering, with maybe 1 session or 2 sessions to properly train, the time it takes them to get up to speed will be higher overall. While the fringe players do more training ground work that stands them to little cause they don't play much.

We do also have to somewhat accept there is a need to take a look at some players in some positions to see if he can get a tune out of them. You could say EtH couldn't get a tune out of Amad and he is arguably our most impressive performer under Amorim. I think EtH couldn't get a tune out of Ugarte but both RVN and Amorim are. We spent 105million on two strikers, have to see if he can get a tune out of them - EtH struggled but his entire tenure was marred by an inability to create chances with any regularlity or predictability - Amorim could suffer the same with the same players but maybe the way he coaches the attacks will see more usable patterns and chance creation.

He's also said the team aren't athletic enough, and is trying to work on that - but that is also something we heard day 1 from Solskjaer so it is bizarre that it is STILL the same complaint all these years later.

Personally I think he will need to adjust the approach sooner rather than later so that more often, and certainly in the bigger matches, we are seeing the team that best gives us a chance of winning or getting a result. Malacia LWB vs Saka, and then having to make a preplanned half time sub because he's not fit enough yet, is not the type of call I want to see going on much longer.

Jim cancels the Christmas party.

I'm not a fan of them myself and rarely go to my own work dos, but feck me, what grinch.

Hes a miserable ol git 😅

I wouldn't be calling Omar Berrada a good hire just yet either. There's the small matter of 115 breaches of PL rules by his former club and what consequences there might be.

You can say that about any appointment though until success is delivered. Is nobody meant to express an opinion on it until the club has won the league or something? It's a very positive appointment imo. It could go tits up but I've no doubt it would have gone tits up with some of the other names touted.

Who would you have viewed as a 'good appointment'?

why?

Why would we hope we only ever go after unemployed people?