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The 2024-2025 Football Thread

United were very very wrong to tell Amorim they needed him now rather than wait till the end of the season because his is proving to be worse than ETH was. What I also find utterly idiotic if the fact that a number of players are saying they are struggling to adapt to Amorim's style of play. These are supposedly highly experience players who are earning millions a year and they are saying they cannot adapt to a new style of formation. If such a thing was to happen in the private sector, highly experienced people employed to do a job but when the company needs to adapt to market forces and change, the highly experience employees are expected to be able to adapt to changes because of the level of experience they have. If they said to their boss they could not adapt to the changes they would be sacked. But not in the case of a footballer, they stay employed whilst it is the manager that gets sacked.

The ONLY reason United are getting rid of players is not because they cannot adapt to Amorim's new formation of play but because they are close to falling foul of financial fair play rules and thus need to offload players to bring the wage bill down. It would not surprise me if Amorim was sacked at the end of the season and a new manager found to replace him.
 
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Silencio said:
Even though United is in 15th place, you'll notice I said four teams worse than them. I'm not counting West Ham as one of them, which goes to show how dire things are at Old Trafford right now.
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Well yes it's not good for them (or us), but we are not considered one of the biggest clubs in the PL. But as we both have said I believe we will both be okay (just!).

That said Arsenal up next for us!
 
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If INEOS sack Amorim at the end of the season, well — there is no hope for Man Utd under their leadership. Surely both INEOS and Amorim knew coming in to this arrangement that Amorim's tactics are not a great fit for the squad as it's currently constructed, and that it'll take a few transfer windows to offload unsuitable players and bring in new ones who are more fit for purpose.

All this chopping and changing between managers is the reason the squad is such a mess to begin with. Pick a direction and stick with it a few years, at least. I generally like what I hear from Amorim, and I can actually see what he's trying to do on the pitch, unlike the absolute mess that marked the end of ETH's tenure. We need some patience and some transfers.

One thing Amorim needs to do is focus on integrating the youth players. I can understand him not bringing any of them off the bench at Tottenham while chasing the game: the upside to throwing young midfielders and defenders into that situation is low. Train them with the first team for a few weeks and get them ready to go.
 
Silencio said:
If INEOS sack Amorim at the end of the season, well — there is no hope for Man Utd under their leadership. Surely both INEOS and Amorim knew coming in to this arrangement that Amorim's tactics are not a great fit for the squad as it's currently constructed, and that it'll take a few transfer windows to offload unsuitable players and bring in new ones who are more fit for purpose.

All this chopping and changing between managers is the reason the squad is such a mess to begin with. Pick a direction and stick with it a few years, at least. I generally like what I hear from Amorim, and I can actually see what he's trying to do on the pitch, unlike the absolute mess that marked the end of ETH's tenure. We need some patience and some transfers.

One thing Amorim needs to do is focus on integrating the youth players. I can understand him not bringing any of them off the bench at Tottenham while chasing the game: the upside to throwing young midfielders and defenders into that situation is low. Train them with the first team for a few weeks and get them ready to go.
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Amorim will not last purely for the fact the owners of United are not prepared to accept long term solution because they want short term success. When Ralf Rangnick was brought in as interim manager for the last few months of the season and laid it bare the problems at the club nearly everyone involved in football said what is required at United is a rebuild and such a build would easily take 5-7 years before United would be challenging for trophies like they used to. They got in a manager who they thought could do just that in ETH. But as it turns out the club were not prepared to wait for success because into his 3rd term as manager he is sacked. This just shows the stupidity of the club owners because nearly everyone in football said the team needs a complete rebuild and it will take at least 5 years to get them winning or close to winning the league, 5 years. No one said it could be done in 3 or 4 years but 5 years and above but 2 and a half years in they sack ETH because the owners were not happy with the teams performance. How in the hell is a United manager supposed to rebuild the team if they are not given time to do it. Do they honestly think a new manager is going to get the team winning the league or the champions league within 2 years!!!. If the owners are thinking like this then the club is forever doomed whilst they own the club.
 
Liverpool two points dropped.

Arsenal can close the gap to 5 points on Saturday but I cannot see Pep’s team doing Arteta a favour on Sunday.

I still believe Liverpool got this but as an Arsenal fan one can hope …
 
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Read an article about Man United's finances and it appears they are heading into serious financial difficulty because the clubs debt has gone beyond £1 billion. The reason I say financial difficulty because many companies, even very big name companies, have gone into liquidation because of debts of over £1 billion. They have also made another year of losses which puts them in the crosshairs of the FA's FPP and UEFA's FPP. The club is hemorrhaging money on wages, the football ground needs repairs and if left unrepaired there is the possibility the local council could deem the ground to be unsafe. Does Ratcliffe have the money to save the club? in my opinion no. Yes he has a lot of money but not enough to bring financial security to the club.

There is no chance of United getting into Europe which means they will not be able to rely on that money coming into the club which is why in my opinion Ratcliffe has taken the measures he has to try and drastically reduce costs at the club. Over 200 employee's sacked, the club trying to offload players who are on very high wages, many of the clubs perks have gone,

I am sure many can see how this is going to end. The costs at the club will spiral out of control and be so high that the Glazers will have no choice but to sell the club again and this time to sell it proper with the Glazers no longer having any control of the club.

What I find truly appalling about the Glazers is that reading financial articles about the club over the years they've owned the club, the Glazers have not spent a penny of their own money at the club, not once. They bought the club using loans, they never put any of their own money into buying the club and ever since then, the profits from the club have gone into buying things, repairing things and updating things.

United desperately need the money you get from being in European competitions because without that extra income and also the exposure of being in those competitions the club will not be able to command high value of sponsorships and without all that extra money the clubs debt will get higher and higher. Also the club would not be able to afford quality players because they would not be able to afford not only the transfer fee but the players expected wage demands.

The club is in for some hard times these next few years.
 
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2:00 today
 
I cannot remember who it was but not long ago there was a manger that was sacked after approx. 40-50 days because every game was a loss with the chairman of the club admitting that he made a mistake and that the manager was not the right person for the job. It takes guts for a chairman to admit such a mistake. Just because Amorim did well at his previous club does not mean he is the right man for United. He is currently doing worse than ETH. He has a favored 3-4-3 system and critics are saying the players seriously struggling to adapt to his system. Now the question is, are the players really struggling to adapt to his 3-4-3 system or are they being stubborn and do not want to adapt to he system and are therefore being awkward in pretending to struggle. We will never know but what we do know is that is how players get managers sacked, they find ways to not work with them because they do not want to. Is this what is happening to Amorim? players are stuck in their ways and therefore not putting the effort in to change?.

The club will have money to spend on players but it wont be top quality players they will be buying because the club would not be able to afford them. It will be bargain basement players.
 
laptech said:
I cannot remember who it was but not long ago there was a manger that was sacked after approx. 40-50 days because every game was a loss with the chairman of the club admitting that he made a mistake and that the manager was not the right person for the job.
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Personally, - and this is a general observation - I have long deplored this sacrificial footballing culture that demands a scapegoat (in the form of a sacked manager/coach) for perceived footballing failure.

However, - and this is key - it is easier by far to blame, fire (and buy off) one person, - that is, the manager - when things are not going well, (or, when things are going very wrong), rather than fire (blame and sell) eleven (or more), in other words, the team (and squad).

In truth, with Manchester United, the problems go far deeper - and are far greater - and have lasted far longer, than can be addressed by one person, such as a manager, in anything under (at the very least) four transfer windows.

While these problems are often said to have started with the departure of the sainted Sir Alex, I would argue that Ferguson's skill (and bullying personality) as manager successfully masked a number of problems that had already begun to emerge by the time his tenure drew to a close.


laptech said:
It takes guts for a chairman to admit such a mistake. ......
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No, it doesn't.

Sometimes, this is simply a case of stating the blindingly obvious.

To do otherwise suggests that one may be subject to a rather delusional state of denial.
 
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I’m not really sure where this equation for managers and transfer windows came from, but for me it’s rubbish.

Give a manager no money, have his best players sold and not given the funds to invest. It won’t matter how many transfer windows he has.

Give a manager a team a few players short of where they need to be and a bottomless budget, one window should be enough.

It’s too simplistic to state how many windows a manager needs before he can be judged.
 
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Apple fanboy said:
I’m not really sure where this equation for managers and transfer windows came from, but for me it’s rubbish.

Give a manager no money, have his best players sold and not given the funds to invest. It won’t matter how many transfer windows he has.

Give a manager a team a few players short of where they need to be and a bottomless budget, one window should be enough.

It’s too simplistic to state how many windows a manager needs before he can be judged.
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It is too simplistic, yes, agreed, to reduce this to an arbitrary - mathematical - formula, but I suspect that it arose largely to make the point that a team cannot be redeemed - or rescued - in a matter of weeks or months, and, therefore, that in the context of a football season and the ability to bring about change in a team with the introduction of fresh blood in the form of new, or different, players, the logical unit of time measurement is not just by the season, but by the transfer window, now that it is no longer possible (as it was when the Premier League started) to introduce fresh players at any stage throughout the season.
 
Man United will not get relegated but with Wolves winning and West Ham winning I can see United ending up in 17th place, one place above relegation.
 
Well, Arsenal embarrassed themselves (worse, at home) against West Ham, when we were defeated by West Ham today (and good luck to West Ham, well done them).

Nevertheless, I sincerely - nay, devoutly - hope that this wince factor doesn't evolve into a sense of excruciating embarrassment that may arise from fatuous attempts to blame the ball, state of the pitch (that is on us, of course, as we played at home), the ref, the acoustics, for an unwelcome result.

I don't know why @Apple fanboy was so worried - for, I was worried, too; yes, West Ham have injuries to key players, but so, too, have Arsenal, along with (smother, and stifle an unseemly snigger) Manchester City (among many others).

Quite honestly, I'm not entirely sure that Arsenal could have successfully found (let alone, put the ball in), the opposition goal (in open play, set pieces are different) even with the assistance of an on-field GPS system, or metal detector, or water divining rod this afternoon.

Now, of course, why anyone would entertain the thought that Raheem Sterling would be - could be, should be - any sort of an asset to any team utterly baffles me.
 
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