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

Worst coached team - it's a bit of a headline grabber, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear Amorim say it himself. He has said we're the worst United team... so there's a clear recognition that something isn't clicking and coaching has to come into that.

He was a very frustrated figure on the sideline for the first half against Leicester, he knows whatever he is coaching them to do isn't transferring to the pitch.

I mentioned it after the Southampton game iirc but it's either the players aren't following his instructions (or aren't able to follow his instructions) or he isn't communicating his instructions clearly. I would tend to think it's the players more so but he needs to figure out a way to make it work as the main man responsible.

Would agree with what you've said. We are winning games due to that little bit more individual quality... Or moments of quality than outplaying teams.

He has had a bit of time and I'm not expecting us to be playing excellent football anytime soon, but it is time enough that we start to see some material improvements. The likes of Southampton and Leicester can't be coming to OT and playing us off the pitch. We couldn't pass our way out of our own half against either, worst coached team in the PL would be an accurate statement for me at this moment in time. That's not to say Amorim can't turn that around soon enough.

Are the players and is the team performing better on the field than they were under Ten Hag?

Be honest here, on field performance, has it gotten worse or better?

But we score less and concede more now?

Ten Hag in the first 9 PL games of the season had a higher PPM than Amorim does in his 13 PL games since?

As for the eyesight test, I genuinely don't know how anybody watches the recent games and not be very, very worried.

You have your opinion and I'm not about to say its right or wrong, but I definitely don't see how you came to the conclusion.

Just like they wouldn't give Ten Hag a new contract for the sake of it? Or hire Ashworth for the sake of it?

Whether INEOS know what they are doing or not is very much an unknown right now. I mean, a factual summary of the summer is that they extended Ten Hag's contract despite the poor performance, bought him 200m worth of players, then sacked him 2 months later and appointed a manager who was the current media darling despite that manager saying he would prefer not to come in mid season. All this at the same time as sacking Ashworth after waiting 6 months for him. And then followed that up with a January transfer window that did basically nothing to help the manager.

I keep being told that both INEOS and Amorim know what they are doing, but I prefer the old movie thing of "show don't tell".

There’ll be some budget freed up in the summer with a number of non-contributing big earners gone. But a question likely to arise is - would you be happy with selling Mainoo and Garnacho for a combined £150~£160m to give a Amorim a proper war chest in the summer to get players in that fit his system and allow him build the team he really wants?

I will riot if they try and sell Mainoo!

Garnacho on the other hand is a different scenario, if we get a big offer in for him, you'd reckon they'd seriously consider it, but ideally I wouldn't want us selling off young talent.

This…we all know we need players for Amorim's style of play but I just can't see the club getting those players in and thus we probably (and it's only a probably) be in as bad a place as we currently are.

I didn't say the PSR situation can't change, I was saying that it won't have changed enough by the summer to make the wholesale changes needed.

But ok, if we are now saying that Amorim doesn't need to replace the players, that he is going to coach himself out of this, thats just fine by me.

We can expect to see some signs of this happening soon, right?

Do you know how PSR works?

After June 30th we're into another new year completely. The finances clearly weren't there to spend in this financial year, but could very easily be improved and have already been improved with a reduction in wage budget. Add in some sales that we'd expect, Rashford, Antony, Malcia, Sancho (already done) possibly Garnacho. Lindelöf, Heaton, Evans, hopefully Casemiro and you've drastically reduced the wage budget giving a massive boost to our ability to spend.

He's obviously going to want to bring in some of his own players, every new managers want this, but he believes that he can coach some of the existing players to work in this model. This with some additions and we could be looking at a much improved team next year.

You seem to want instant results, sometimes patience is needed. We were told to expect it to get worse and it's been up and down. We have won 6 of our last 8 though so it could be a hell of a lot worse.

Ineos are learning on the job, no doubt, but what they re doing is putting foundations in place to get us back on top. They are creating a structure at the club and they seem to be recruiting best in class in every position they can. Dan ashworth and ten hag were errors, however we simply cannot expect them to get every decision correct.

I think patience is needed over the next few years, Ineos cant fix everything instantly. No doubt they will make more errors cause the club is such a mess. I'm just so happy we don't have bankers deciding who we buy anymore and am happy to give them time because from the outside they look to be trying quite hard to fix the wrongs over the last decade.

Paywalled as it's an Athletic article so I've added the details below for anyone who's interested.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6080398/2025/01/23/manchester-united-transfer-cash-problem/

How does all this relate to PSR and FFP?

Financial fair play regulations — and particularly the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) — have dominated discussion of every top-flight club’s finances over the past 18 months or so, with United no exception.

Senior Old Trafford figures felt PSR compliance for the 2023-24 cycle would be ‘tight’. Despite an approximate pre-tax loss of £313m over the three-year cycle, United were able to apply deductions to bring that figure under the £105m limit and were not charged by the Premier League.

That should bring confidence of compliance for the 2024-25 test, too. It also helps that, for the current three-year cycle, United’s £150m loss during the 2021-22 season has been replaced by last season’s mere £131m deficit — an extra £19m’s worth of room compared to last season’s test.

United still need to be cautious, however, and the need to comply with both the Premier League and UEFA's regulations is informing almost every decision the club makes.

It was telling that Erik ten Hag cited spending rules as the reasoning behind academy product McTominay’s £25.7m sale to Napoli, which United will benefit from in the 2024-25 cycle.

Triggering the extension in Harry Maguire’s contract will also give United a little extra wiggle room in their PSR calculations, reducing the annual amortisation charge of his hefty £80m transfer fee in the accounts.

There's no official figures released but if the club seemed genuinely worries last year and we've hardly been raking in the revenue with a reduction revenue and sponsorship deals due to not being in the Champions League.