Fred, Lingard, Mata, Pereira

£80m down the shiiiiiiitter because Maguire’s a good lad. Only facking Manchester United would be so stupid.

But at least we’re seeing some good football with the ball moving from defence. We’ve really benefited from Maguire’s strengths on the ball and at set pieces.

comment by Mason The King Greenwood (U10026)
posted 11 hours, 4 minutes ago
Yeah I’m sure Ed just said ‘nah, mate, fack the midfield here’s Maguire”. You need to stop making excises for the manager’s transfer just because Ed is a fackwit. They clearly have a big influence on signings. Just liok at all the players previous managers signed.
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Yeah, based on what happened to Moyes, and what LVG and Jose - both of whom I defended *on this point* - as well as Ed have said, I’m not going to do that.

They have all been completely facked over on transfers by Ed and his posse of clueless and incompetent accountants, and if what has been said is true, any given manager under their regime is going to get a completely free pass from me when it comes to signings, renewals and squad building.

Equally, if we eventually end up with what looks like a title challenging squad, I will happily defer all credit to Woodward, because it will be him who has ultimately built it. Not that that will happen.

comment by Bobby Dazzler (U1449)
posted 12 hours, 42 minutes ago
Ole’s biggest mistake was not sorting out the defence and midfield and attack in the summer
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Lmao.

They all made bad transfers of their own accord as well. And this has again been the case with Ole. Just because Woodward isn’t useless doesn’t mean they aren’t responsible either. The excuses you make for them is a little embarrassing, to be honest, and I hate Woodward as much as the next man.

Well, how many managers do you want to see come and go?

Let’s try out Allegri and Howe and Poch and whoever is the next hot property around the corner and watch them fail.

Is it LVG’s fault that he inherited a squad that didn’t suit the kind of football he wanted to play and then only had something-of-a-say over who was brought in?

Exactly the same applied to Mourinho. He didn’t have the squad for the game he wanted either. By the time he was done he was able to make some of the changes he wanted (if not all the decisions through the few windows he had) and left an even worse mess of a Frankenstein squad given that the new manager wanted to change emphasis completely again.

Ole inherits the likes of Matic, Lukaku, Sanchez, Young, Mata, Pogba, Smalling and Jones, none of whom are any use to him whatsoever. He has change his approach completely, or tear the squad up and start from a base of about seven or so players, yet again.

He’s had one facking window ffs. One window working under an incompetent egomaniac who thinks he understands the game but can only manage to negotiate one deal at a time. What’s he supposed to do?

I will take any criticisms of his training regime, match day squads and lineups, tactics, in game management, etc. But not his squad management. Not yet at least.

Pep or Klopp might do better, fine. Although I think they’d probably walk out if they were stupid enough to take the job. How many others?

They’ll all fail under this ownership. But that’s not reaply an argument for sticking with a coach that has the team in a similar run of form to the Cardiff team he got sacked from. That’s not Ed Woodward’s fault.

And he certainly does deserve criticism for squad management. If you don’t want take any criticism of that then it’s up to you. Just as it’s up to me to ignore all your excuses. You’ve become like the anti-RDD with regard to this subject.

To be fair, if my eulogy were to open with, “He was the anti-RDD in many ways...” then I’d feel like I’d done a half-decent job

Seriously though Dazza, one window without (if all characters actually involved are to be believed) complete control of transfer policy or priorities? It’s harsh, right?

The rest I can accept. I’d keep him on for the rest of the season, at least, for sure. But I can understand (if I don’t agree with) people’s arguments for wanting rid on the grounds of performances.

I refuse to believe that he wasn’t consulted on priority and why the midfield issue is his to own. And his defensive signings make no sense when he’s supposedly wanting us to play a high line with attacking full backs. So I’ve got to question his judgment with regard to this fack up of a transfer window. He’s not wholly resonsible, but he’s highly influential in it. Which makes it difficult to place any more faith in his ability to rebuild the squad when he had such a hand in completely facking it up in one summer. But Woodward wants to persist without a director of football because he thinks this model is working.

I’m past caring who is the coach for the rest of the season as I don’t think the type of coach we need will be brought in midseason. But objectively Ole should have lost his job by now. At a club that knew what the fack they were doing he would have anyway. Though if thatw as something we did know he wouldn’t have got the job in the first place. But here we are.