The demise of Manchester United

**Nineteenx** · 28th January 2020, 05:35 PM

Originally Posted by ianlfc

Barca are now in talks with Fernandes. That should be a hard choice for the lad ��

Lolz lolz lolz

**ianlfc** · 28th January 2020, 05:41 PM

Lingard > Messi 😂😂

**Taksin** · 28th January 2020, 06:01 PM

Nineteenx, you’re talking about the decisions that need to go on upstairs. But they are currently incapable of making those decisions. That’s what’s behind their demise.

**Nineteenx** · 28th January 2020, 06:05 PM

Originally Posted by Taksin

Nineteenx, you’re talking about the decisions that need to go on upstairs. But they are currently incapable of making those decisions. That’s what’s behind their demise.

And long may that continue

Ole must stay and then when they belatedly sack him off after Rashford goes to Real in the summer, they should open the door for Mark Hughes to come back into management, knows the club, managed City, knows the importance of the rivalry, the perfect fit

**Nineteenx** · 29th January 2020, 04:55 AM

Lol Solksjaer prattling on about the FA Cup and their treble, they won the league with 79 points

Seventy Nine points it'd be very easy to go for every competition and rest or rotate a lot more in the league if you could win the League with 79 points, they were only 5 wins short of what it takes to win the League in the modern game, they also had a fully experienced squad with 2 or more recognised senior players of similar levels for every position

Part of me really wanted our lads to do the quintuple this season, just to shut the cunts up for good, because it would be absolutely unprecedented and likely never ever to be repeated, except maybe by our lads next season

but we don't roll with that size of squad or depth of squad by choice and I'm happy for us just to focus on the League and Champions League and give fringe players and a few of the less used first team squad the cup games, the domestic Cups just aren't worth the risk given the intensity and mentality you need to play with in every league and champions league game in the modern game, the bar's a lot higher,

The FA Cup would only ever be worth bothering about if we had favourable draws throughout and got to the quarters using only lesser used senior players and up and coming youngsters and the league was mathematically won by the time of the quarter finals, so we could rotate more in our last few league games, I'd never risk our best players otherwise, the League and Champions League come before everything else, always. It might be worth bothering with if we do expand our squad size of experienced players by 3 or 4 in anticipation of UEFA expanding the Champions League in the future and when our youngsters are a couple of years older having had the benefits of this season's experiences and next and we've recruited very well and players with very sparse injury history and had a good season in that respect with very few

The league then didn't have a good Liverpool side, a Man City, a Chelsea as they are now, a Wolves, a Leicester, a Sheffield United and the game wasn't as intense, there were easy league games and Champions League games back then in which you could rest 3 or 4, players still went out on a Friday night and played Saturday or Sunday, I know because I'd go out in Manc on a Friday 2002-2005 a see 4 or 5 of their lads in the club sharking now and then, in the modern game all the players have to eat, live and train like all the very best top athletes, and with internationals increased they rarely get a summer off or any rest and muscle injuries are far more common because of the levels of fitness athleticism and intensity

**dicko1969** · 29th January 2020, 05:58 AM

Originally Posted by Taksin

They have more money now and they always did have more money in the old days too. They used to outspend us even when we were winning everything and they were also rans (that’s how I remember it anyway). It’s not about net spend - this is the thing that should be becoming obvious by now. Their net spend is currently miles ahead of ours - only City are further ahead - but it isn’t being spent wisely.
The fans are against Edwards and their walkout is against the club executives, not the manager or even the team.
That dynamic could take much longer to fix than one might imagine. Remember Mourinho was making noises about this as a pundit a few weeks ago - how well LFC and City are run and how that is the context within which the manager succeeds or fails.

1980 MUTD spent £1.25m on Garry Birtles
1981 £1.5m on Robson
1981 £900k on Stapleton
1981 £450k Gidman
1981 £600k Moses
A whopping £3.4m+
1981-82 finished 3rd ; knocked our cups 2nd round and 3rd round

1981 we spent £575k on Johnston and £900k on Lawrenson

1981-82
League winners
European cup 1/4
League Cup winners

Man u used to out spend us through the 80s

Perhaps the exception in 1987 with the £3.2 m sale of Rush

And we bought £1.9m Beardsley £900k Barnes and £800k Aldo (earlier) and Houghton £800k (later)

And didnt we spend well 🙌

**dicko1969** · 29th January 2020, 06:07 AM

1989 ManU spent £6.5m+

Pallister Ince Wallace Neil Webb Mikd Phelan

1989 we made a £600k profit
(Hysen in / Aldo out)

**justincredible** · 29th January 2020, 09:24 AM

Oh dear oh dear.....

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/51290264

**Taksin** · 29th January 2020, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by dicko1969

And we bought £1.9m Beardsley £900k Barnes and £800k Aldo (earlier) and Houghton £800k (later)

And didnt we spend well ��

When we bought Aldridge and Houghton from Oxford United I thought we were finished. Turns out our philosophy and method was still working a treat.

Yes, thanks for confirming they always were bigger spenders, even in the pre-Premiership era when they were still under performers. When the Premiership was invented, with all the new TV rights and exposure to the TV fan from Surrey, they were perfectly placed to capitalise. Luckily for them Ferguson turned out to be a genius at the 11th hour but their ownership-business-development model was perfect for the time. Ours was an anachronism. We hadn't caught up.

Now they still have the Premiership / Sky era, they have had excellent, arguably genius managers but they are all at sea upstairs. Their model looks like it is falling apart. I can only speculate that when an organisation has success, people get lazy, complacent. They think all that's needed is to be Man Utd and all the best players will just show up. But the current era includes the oligarchs and Arab states - that's new. We are looking like the only team to point towards a different model - the US franchise type model when excellent planning and market awareness triumphs pure big money.

Even Barca and Real look to be fading in the current market. It will be interesting to see which models start to rise. I don't know much about Juventus but they seem to be making a long term improvement at the moment. And then there's also luck and fate. Most on here, including me, thought our team wasn't good enough to win the league this year. I'm not sure exactly why it turned out the way it did, but the club seems to be on top of things.