Just another day at MUFC I suppose 🤷.
What a time for all this to come out as well.
It was all a bit quiet which is not something we often get in regards to United in this age yet was very welcome.
We also laid to rest one of our greatest-ever players in the King Denis Law yesterday afternoon with the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, captain Marvel Bryan Robson, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Ruben Amorim, Harry Maguire, Bruno Fernandes, CEO Omar Berrada and others in attendance to pay their final respects to a true legend.
Can this day not be just about him?
Of course it can't as the usual 'PlAyErS wAnT a SyStEm ChAnGe' crap came out last night from Chris Wheeler of the Daily Mail.
He says that "Some Manchester United players have discussed amongst themselves whether a change of plan that is better suited to their style of play might be the best way forward.
There is growing concern among some players that the teething problems they have experienced under Ruben Amorim are not going to improve unless he considers at least tweaking the system."
It's what we heard when Erik ten Hag was in charge, it's what we heard when Ralf Rangnick was in charge, it's what we heard when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was in charge.
Just over 2 months into his time at United, we've now heard it while Ruben Amorim is in charge.
The others at least got some time before shit like this came out.
Before anyone thinks that this is the beginning of the end for the Portuguese in that he will lose the confidence of players, Wheeler adds that "there is no suggestion that Amorim risks losing the dressing room."
Ok, so we can all calm the fuck down.
That was sarcasm btw because whether he loses the dressing room or not, the fact that they want him to potentially change his approach is a problem. It may not signal that there are problems in the dressing room now, should this complaint from the players persist though, maybe he will lose the dressing soon?
It's what happened with previous managers and a lot of these players were here for them.
I think gone are the days where fans back the players and agree with them that the manager is at fault.
Ole's first three months were spectacular after Mourinho was sacked which made us all believe that it was truly the manager who caused the team to be so bad.
After those three months though, things took a complete 180 and we were absolute shit.
We remained this way under Solskjaer for a while despite improvements in the COVID-hit seasons of 19/20 and 20/21. However, it was never good enough resulting in United winning fuck all.
The Norwegian got the sack, Rangnick took over as interim, had to deal with the most toxic dressing room perhaps in football history before he too was given the ax despite his actual job being a consultant rather than a coach.
ten Hag followed him and famously said that we will never see the football we saw at Ajax at United because "I can't play like Ajax because I have different players". The whole reason for bringing the Dutchman in was because we wanted to see Ajax ball at United.
His first two (heavy) defeats eventually caused him to abandon his approach and go with something more route one of defend and counter which ended up working for a while.
Once we built some momentum, ten Hag wanted to try and implement 'ten Hag ball' once again but these players couldn't do it as they can only play a system and style that is very basic.
The Dutchman was then caught between a rock and a hard place of 'do I do what these players are capable of and get results' or 'do I try to play my style knowing the risks?'
As he ended up being neither here nor there, he was sacked and now we have Ruben Amorim.
He is facing the same problems.
This is where the club have to come in and back the manager.
INEOS made the call of getting rid of ten Hag and bringing in Amorim (mid-season as well) so this is their guy and were their first major decisions.
In order to make it work, they have to do all they can to make Amorim successful as they won't want to have a failure as their first appointment. People will then believe that nothing has really changed under the new regime.
A lot of these players have not been good enough for a while and what's more, their attitudes are pathetic. We have moved on some that needed to go like Rashford and Sancho (who are prime examples of this) but it is not enough.
More have to go as it will show that the manager and club aren't playing any games and that perhaps that cultural reset we've all been asking for will happen.
This is what I believe is the true problem at United: the culture.
Hopefully Amorim finds out who these players are and could actually work in his favor in trying to remove them. This makes me back the manager even more.
The good thing is we know that he won't change his style. Amorim has remained defiant that he will stick with his 3-4-3 and look to make it work even if it leads to his downfall.
A lot of these players aren't even his and as I posted yesterday, the squad are on trial except for a few.
We ain't falling for this crap from the players again ❌.
They can't even do the basics as we've been saying for a while so why would we listen to them about a system change?
Clearly, they have a low IQ, something else that we've complained about for a long time.
As for the co-ownership, how they've handled operations since joining the club in December 2023 hasn't gone down well with the fan base. Well, most of their operations.
Mike Keegan also of the Daily Mail has come out and said that the co-owners "plan to make another 100-200 redundancies at #mufc.
The move is aimed at freeing up cash for Rúben Amorim to spend on the first team."
Getting money for Amorim to spend = good ✅.
Sacking another 100-200 staff to do so = bad. Very bad ❌.
Apparently those staff don't even know that they're potentially getting sacked as they will only be made aware of this formally "at some point in the near future."
Well I suppose that that is useless as they now know thanks to this news being put out there.
Club can't even do it to them directly 🤦.
See how this club like to ruin our day? Some of those staff members may have been having a good time yesterday and also saying goodbye to Denis Law but now they have to think whether they will have a job or not.
Even when they aren't playing, United still screw us.
Adam Crafton of The Athletic adds further fuel to this INEOS fire as he says that "#mufc staff argue that botched INEOS decision-making with regards to Erik ten Hag and Dan Ashworth, as well as a questionable £200m summer transfer spend on Matthijs de Ligt, Joshua Zirkzee, Leny Yoro and Manuel Ugarte, has left ordinary workers at risk of unemployment."
This one I won't put as much blame on INEOS.
While I wasn't overly convinced of Dan Ashworth as Director of Football, he was still not a bad choice. After hearing why he was sacked just 5 months into his role, I sort of understood why INEOS did it as to apparently not want Amorim as manager and instead prefer Gareth Southgate, was a sackable offense in itself.
Ashworth was also said to be an advocate of bringing in English players rather than foreigners which was another reason to let him go IMO.
He and Sir Jim Ratcliffe ended up having some sort of beef because of their disagreements and when this happens, your boss is probably going to fire you.
So I had no problem with that even if it did make the co-owners look a little foolish to spend all that time, money and have that public battle with Newcastle for Ashworth's signature only for his gardening leave to last longer than his actual role.
Bold of INEOS 👀.
Keeping ten Hag as manager was also a decision I agreed with not just because I was a fan of his and wanted it to work out but because after somehow managing to win the FA Cup against the odds against that City side despite all the injuries and off-field issues we had throughout last season, was an incredible achievement.
It's crazy to think how he actually managed to pull that off considering where we are now.
Backing him in the transfer window was also correct in my opinion.
As he was going to stay, you might as well give him what he needed to make it work, right?
Zirkzee is still a bit unknown and is perhaps the one out of the five summer signings that has the most doubt; Yoro is one of the top young defenders in football as Real Madrid were heavily linked with him showing his quality; Mazraoui was an absolute steal as he has been one of our best players this season, the same with De Ligt. Both are also highly experienced and were exactly the character of player needed at United.
And finally, Ugarte.
This team was crying out for a midfielder like him. That old school destroyer of a CDM was necessary in our midfield because we were being cut through like a hot knife through butter.
Ugarte may have not hit the ground running but as we've seen in the last few months, he is one of the most important players at United and has been one of the best under Amorim. He was also starting to show signs of improvement just before ten Hag left.
Zirkzee (23), Yoro (19) and Ugarte (23) are all quite young and relatively inexperienced (especially at the highest level) so it was always going to take time with them but as I said, Zirkzee is the only one who has the most question marks over his head.
I don't think the signings have been a problem.
With all that being said, the fact that letting go off ten Hag and Ashworth meant that regular staff members had to be sacked as well in order to make up for the financial losses is something that the club should've thought about before they made the calls to ax the manager and DOF.
They also didn't really back Amorim in January and with all these issues of the system not working (which is on the players because they're shite), INEOS may as well have kept ten Hag. At least he knew those players, the players knew his system (even though it wasn't going too well with a 4-2-3-1) and there was the option of Amorim joining at the end of the season.
They could've let go of ten Hag then and had a proper reset under Amorim. This would've meant that the Dutchman would've only had 1 year left on his deal after signing the extension last summer. Instead, by letting him go in November, it was as though he had almost 2 years left which meant that more money would've had to be paid to him upon his sacking.
While these two sackings of ten Hag and Ashworth may have been right, the rashness and rushing of them could've be the problem and why they'rehaving to let go off regular staff at the club.
But the we keep players like Luke Shaw and Mason Mount who are forever injured and earn a combined wage of £400k-a-week.
Maybe if we move them on then we don't have to sack people?
How much money are we going to save with these removals anyway? Which players will we be able to buy with those funds?
This is NOT Man Utd. This is similar to trying to sell Garnacho and Mainoo. We are losing sight of who we are with these co-owners.
And we have players moaning again about play style because they're shite. They still get paid for this crap!
As I said, they still couldn't play well under ten Hag's four at the back so what are they crying about?
It is absolutely sickening 🤮.
This is just United in a nutshell for you though. Unorganized, all over the place, making calls that most oppose, players doing what they've always done, the manager being hung out to dry and us fans having to pay the price for watching a terribly run football club, play terrible football and fall further behind in trying to get to where they want to be.
Good lord we're fucked!
Background Image: Man Utd squad in training | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)