Glazing over
Seeing as everyone is having their say on Man United, I thought I would chip in my ha’penneth. Because here’s the thing I’ve come to realise – players come and go. Managers and coaches come and go. Fans are there forever but have little (if any) influence on what happens on the pitch. The only person or group of people in any club who have both power and consistent presence are the ownership and front office staff (barring eye-watering purchases by oil-rich nation states or oligarchs of course). So if you have a club like United, whose turnover in playing and coaching staff since Ferguson has been immense, you have to start wondering about what is really the common denominator in underperformance. It seems that more and more people are realising that the issue is with the Glazer family and Ed Woodward.
As well as being a grateful ST holder at the wonderful new White Hart Lane, I’m also an NFL fan of some 30 years and more specifically a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan. As a Buccs fan, I can promise you that the Glazers have no particular interest in on-field success. The Buccs have finished bottom of the NFC South table seven times in the last nine years and that’s despite a recruitment system in the NFL Draft that is supposed to prevent teams from being consistently poor. What the Glazers care about is financial success and herein lies the rub.
A very interesting set of calculations popped onto my Twitter feed this week from @SwissRamble over Champions League income that might give an inkling to the attitude of the Front Office at Old Trafford.
The UEFA coefficient system used to distribute the prize money in 2018/19 is based on each club’s performance in UEFA tournaments over the last ten years. I am sure we could have a healthy debate about that because it basically rewards historically “big clubs” where the rich always get richer. But that aside, it is the system in place. According to the big Swiss fella, assuming no further progress in the competition for any club, what it means is that Liverpool will earn €92m from this season, Spurs will earn €86m, meanwhile Man City will earn €93m and Man United will earn more than any of them at €94m, even though their performance this year has been poorer than the other three teams.
Your own Ian Watson nailed the issue in his article on F365. The club has been counting its riches for years. The fact is that they don’t have to do all that well for the cash tills to keep tinkling. Woodward told shareholders that “playing performance doesn’t have meaningful impact” on the business in May and SwissRamble has worked out the numbers to prove it.
Yes, Solskjaer needs to be assert his authority. Yes, there’s dead wood in the squad. Yes, the Pogba issue is there. Yes, they need to rediscover the United brand of football. The football staff of United will have to deal with all those things. But ultimately, all these patterns of disappointment and failure will keep repeating because the owners and businessmen who run United don’t actually have a great deal of concern for achievement on the pitch beyond a certain level of ‘Top Four’. They don’t need to. They still get paid.
Unless that attitude changes, United fans better get used to the prospect of the same levels of underachievement and mediocrity as I have endured with the Buccaneers for the best part of a generation. It sucks, but that’s the Glazers for you. Money talks.
Father Dave, Maidstone (THFC, it’ll always be White Hart Lane to me)
I think the Glazers want to do enough to be competitive, but couldn't give to shits about winning. And we have bought a lot of players since SAF retired, but very few have been the right players. I'm someone who used to get endless flack on this board because I was the number one poster in the transfer section, always proposing purchasing well known players, only to be told that's not how United does things. Since SAF that does seem to be what we do, we buy big name players, who generally happen to be in a situation where they are desperate to get away from their current clubs, or are free, or available for loan, etc. But we seem to be buying players that are probably going to sell a lot of shirts, but might not be the right position or mentality for the club. I hate to use the shirtseller term on here because it makes me sound too much like Ray, but it's an undeniable reality, generally speaking these are the types of players we've bought, Mata, Falcoa, DiMaria, Sanchez, Lukaku, Zlatan, etc.Sigmar wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 9:26 pm@RElly
What that Spurs fan fails to take on board is two fold, or maybe more, so excuse me while I rant !
Firstly Spurs have spent more time in the wilderness bar the odd FA cup than United ever have, so he is obviously sore about he distribution of UEFA cash.
Secondly and most importantly he is wrong about how UEFA distribute the cash they receive from TV rights and advertising, the latest figures available are for the 2017-18 season. The system he refers to was stopped ( I think) in in the 2014 - 15 season.
The money is now distributed among the participating teams, from qualifiers to final, the nett amount a team could win last year was £57m. On top of that there is a "Market Pool Pot" , which is distributed to the participating leagues in England, Spain, Germay or Italy.
This market pool is shared between the top four teams of each league, based on that leagues "Market Value"
So if an English team wins the ECL then the four teams from England would get the lions share of the pool, ( split four ways) and the winners would get the winners bounty, in all about £100m.
https://www.totalsportek.com/money/uefa ... ize-money/
So in summing up his rhetoric is entirely wrong, the further United go in the competition, the better it is, but United along with any other English club, only get a slice of the market pool, if an English club win the ECL, so it remains true for the next three years at least ( including 2018 - 19) that and English club wins the ECL !
The moral of this story is don't believe what Spurs fans tell you.
I don't know anything about how the American Football Draft system works, but I would imagine it works similar to our transfer system, in order to get the best players, you have to be successful, if you are not you are left with the also rans, old stagers and near retirement players, ( yes that does sound familiar).
It's literally the opposite in American sports. The way it works is that last place gets first choice for draft picks the next season. That's why in American sports you don't get teams that dominate year after year. Generally speaking, I am not a handegg fan, but I do realize the Patriots have dominated for quite a while now, but before Brady and Belichek they were a nothing team.
Despite what Ray or anyone else says or thinks, for the Glazers to carry on earning their billions, the team has to be successful, you don't get a lot of prize money in mid table or below, and the Europa League pays out about half that of the ECL, so it is in the Glazer economics interest to invest in the team, even if it is through "Shirt Sellers", they may have taken £1bn out of the club since they took over, but ask the question, how much was paid out in share dividends in the same period prior to that ? for one I always loved the day my divi cheque landed on the mat !
Before the Glazers took over, if the club didn't have the money to buy players, the shareholders had to stump up the cash, or the chairman on his own via bank loans, shareholders gave up dividends to pay for players, thats what causes clubs to go bust, the inability to pay debts.
Now you can dispute the figures, but if they are to be believed since Ferguson retired the club has had 3 managers and 8 ? Transfer windows, with a spend of £650m.
With the managerial changes that have happened not all those players bought have fitted into each managers idea of the team, and how the game should be played.
Ole has inherited players from Moyes, LVG and Mourinhou, and those managers have let players we could do with now, Depay, and Blind especially go.
So Ole needs time, fans need to stop hitting the panic button when we have a string of losses, Ole needs to be given the same time Fergie was, 5 yrs, and don't forget in those first five years, Ferguson could buy and sell at almost any time of the season, Ole can't do that.
I'm truly hoping for some kind of clearout this summer, yes he will probably have to sell before he can buy, however he needs at this moment to be working on Hererra, De Gea, Lindelhof, Dalot, and Shaw, tying them down to long term deals, the rest he really needs to sit and think who has the club at heart, and who is here purely to draw a wage.
I'm willing to suffer a few years in the wilderness, because if we keep that revolving door to the managers office, it will be like going back to the seventies.
If you don't like Martial ask yourself who just gave him a new long term contract
He honestly can ... No José, no rows, new contract, and just like that he loses all motivation. What a waste of talent.
Hussain
They're probably sick of playing with him tooraycreative wrote: ↑Fri May 10, 2019 11:55 am
I am also hearing that Herrara never wanted to leave but is sick of playing with shit players
PossiblySandies wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2019 5:58 amThey're probably sick of playing with him tooraycreative wrote: ↑Fri May 10, 2019 11:55 am
I am also hearing that Herrara never wanted to leave but is sick of playing with shit players
I have just had another think about thisSandies wrote: ↑Sun May 12, 2019 5:58 amThey're probably sick of playing with him tooraycreative wrote: ↑Fri May 10, 2019 11:55 am
I am also hearing that Herrara never wanted to leave but is sick of playing with shit players
That's just sour grapes from Jose. He is jealous that OGS is more likable than him and plays the Manutd Way and got the club off to a flyer and lifted the spirits and didn't lose as much as he did. Or did he?raycreative wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 12:34 pmDid anybody read Jose's interview with L'Equipe?
He suggests,correctly imo, that people now know what a season he had when getting this club to second
He suggests that if Ole is a nice guy he cannot succeed as the club will use him as a puppet.That is happening already
He suggests that the problem is not the players,although he suggests some are trying in on with a weak manager but the main problem is the clubs organisation and ambition ie are we trying to build a team or a business? and are we run by footballing people or bottom line men?
Answers on a postcard eh
I don't think he's jealous of what Ole achieved since taking over. Not that it was that much eh. He just could never forgive the club hierarchy for not letting him fulfil his biggest dream as a football manager. Jose doesn't give a f**k if he's loved or not as long as he's succesful. After all, in footballing terms, he's a bottom line man too.RED3bution wrote:That's just sour grapes from Jose. He is jealous that OGS is more likable than him and plays the Manutd Way and got the club off to a flyer and lifted the spirits and didn't lose as much as he did. Or did he?raycreative wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 12:34 pmDid anybody read Jose's interview with L'Equipe?
He suggests,correctly imo, that people now know what a season he had when getting this club to second
He suggests that if Ole is a nice guy he cannot succeed as the club will use him as a puppet.That is happening already
He suggests that the problem is not the players,although he suggests some are trying in on with a weak manager but the main problem is the clubs organisation and ambition ie are we trying to build a team or a business? and are we run by footballing people or bottom line men?
Answers on a postcard eh
You're bad at it. It's impossible to tell your tone or what the fornicate you are talking about 99% of the time.RED3bution wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 10:23 pmI was told it was only Ray who doesn't get sarcasm.....or am I just that bad at it?
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