http://www.hasmoyesbeensacked.com/

poor utd fans born between 1985 and 2005

this is like when gordon brown was PM

i didn't enjoy that tho

it's like when Dönitz was fuhrer, is my comparison of choice

it's like when Gerald Ford was president

it's like when William Henry Harrison was president

Man U - hiccup or serious long time decline?

ManYoo's sixth league defeat this season, as many as the whole of 2000-01. Their third in succession and their second home defeat in successive Saturdays. Ninth in the table. 11 points behind Liverpool, who have a game in hand.
"It's over, it's over now, it's over, it's over now, it's over, the game's shut down, sorry!"
*unusually bold prediction for me*
Liverpool's first title in 12 years awaits them. I can smell it.
― Robin Carmody, Saturday, 8 December 2001

Annoyingly the one guy who's still here, MJ, is the most otm.

Actually isn't that the Invincibles season? Hardly any excitement about them there.

No, the invincibles was two years later, this was the first title won by that Henry-Pires team. This was the season United signed Van Nistelrooy and Veron in the summer and Ferguson announced he would be retiring at the end of the season, then United inexplicably became shite until mid-December and lost left, right and centre (before improbably storming to the top of the table, then faltering again and eventually giving Arsenal the title at OT).

The invincibles season was the mirror image of that: United had their highest points haul ever by the midpoint of the season and were narrowly ahead of Arsenal and Chelsea, then turned to utter dogshit in the second half of the season and lost to all sorts and finished a gazillion points behind Arsenal.

Anyway we'll soon know the answer

starting this thread was as much about lolwebsites thrown up like www.hastorresscoredyet.com or whatevz that have become p popular in football these days as much as lol moyes at utd.

not that lol moyes at utd isn't p funny in itself.

a friend posted on my Facebook today: "He's listened to what the public think and is Cleverley translating that into real improvement in people's enjoyment of United's performances."

With the team now one defeat away from a first Ashes series loss since 2006-07, Boycott believes England are in decline. "They are like my side, Manchester United," he added ahead of the third Test in Perth, which starts on Friday. "I think the glory days have gone. I don't think they are there as a team. It is all beginning to unravel."

That cannot be right

There wasca lot of talk about him when the glazers joined iirc

I wish he'd get stuck into the Keane/Ferguson beef

took me 43 minutes to get darragh's joke, think it's home time

Wait, what is it? (I'm already at home)

Decades, centuries from now, philatelists and philologists will pore over each of my posts, the new joyce, theyll call me, if, indeed, joyce is remembered at all after me

Oh right, it's just a window thing? I spent equally long trying to draw out a wasca/WACA nexus from that.

a lot of talk about "Boycott" when the Glazers took over

Well you could've just told me ffs, there's an afternoon I'm not getting back

And I look foolish to boot

i was on me way home

a window thing???

(Boycott is a United fan, fwiw)

the simple typesetting error 'wasca' (a fleck on the manuscript where the author had merely left a space between words was written as the intervening 'c' by an ignorant turk, the like of which cheap labour being favoured at the time in the great printworks of paris) was at the time held to be a great misfortune- and yet in the end the discussion it (and many other similar confusions) may well turn out to be integral to the building of my reputation as one of the great (indeed, if not the great) irish postmodern football punners.

at the time, at the time

(and that's not how you spell 'punters')

xp iirc Boyc's famously nasty divorce episode involved his wife throwing his stuff through their bedroom window, or maybe vice versa. Hence need for glazers.

Darragh works on so many levels, I doubt we're even seeing the half of it.

at every futile attempt at ulysses thus far, i bitterly suspect joyce of genius in only one field for some weeks afterwards- the encouragement of such readings in the besotted^

bump

This is no time to be hasty imo

still in 3 competitions

He needs time, it's ridiculous to expect a new man to come into any club and get results straight away. It took Ferguson 7 years, Mancini 3 years, Wenger 18 months, even Mourinho didn't win anything for a year. He's had six months ffs.

*cough* - Charity Shield

there's charity then there's just patronising imo

#bony2014

worth looking at manchester united forums to see some serious cognitive dissonance

He needs time, it's ridiculous to expect a new man to come into any club and get results straight away. It took Ferguson 7 years, Mancini 3 years, Wenger 18 months, even Mourinho didn't win anything for a year. He's had six months ffs.

That's true, but Moyes inherited a title-winning squad (minus Paul Scholes). Fergie inherited a team near the bottom of the league. Wenger and Mourinho were already doing substantially better at this stage of their tenures.

Title-winning squad is an interesting point in all this, something the Second Captains touched upon in yesterday's podcast. Obviously that's undeniably what they are but the mystery here is less "How has Moyes fucked up this title-winning squad so badly?" and more "How did Fergie whip this shower of shite to the title in the first place?"

They're deficient in so many areas, can Moyes really take the flak for all of this? Of course he's not doing anywhere near well enough, the recent run of results has been appalling. But he's definitely been shafted by Fergie leaving him a pretty whack squad to work with while in the meantime every other contender besides Spurs seems to have upped their game this season. Some not so much (Chelsea) but others (City, Arsenal, Liverpool) all looking loads better. Even Everton, really.

It's a strange thought (and kudos to Fergie for throwing up such an effective smokescreen) but you look at the squads on paper now and I'm really not sure that United's squad is that much better than Liverpool's, maybe just a bit deeper. Which is fucking bonkers considering how they both did last season.

i think the relative crapness of the squad he inherited is unarguably true but no doubt some would argue it. Moyes' saner critics can fairly point to some of the tactical decisions he's made and his general approach to the team within the context of that squad tho, and they probably have fair grounds for complaint. i think there'd be less (a bit less) complaints if United fans had some sense of what Moyes is trying to do - at the moment what's lacking more than anything is an ethos or a style i reckon.

still think it's ludicrous not to give the man at least 2 seasons to develop the side to his own liking but let's be honest i'm biased to the extent that it's hilarious if he fails

Yeah best case scenario from a neutral's perspective here is that no one manages to arrest the rot and the party goes on for a good long while. Statler and Waldorf grimacing in the rafters at the ongoing incompetence of Kermit and the rest of the Muppets.

Certainly I'm hoping that Fergie makes it a personal point of pride (Moyes being his Chosen One etc.) and properly goes to bat in order to keep Moyes in the job. A mid-season sacking and a few signings to strengthen in the transfer window would be zzzzzzzzz

he seems to be caught between a knowledge that he's inherited top 6 squad with a few gems and changing that in his own style

and

knowing ferguson won leagues with these chancers and just copying that badly

Another point not really raised is that Fergie may have done really well with the lower points of the squad and still struggled with its better parts. Nani, Kagawa and Hernandez all have the ability to title winners and yet weren't what made the team. As shit as parts of Utd are, Moyes has the players there if he can use them effectively to win regular matches.

That's the thing, the early Rodgers period at Liverpool was pretty shaky really, but what he managed to do was convince fans that he had a plan for the team, something that Hodgson failed to do, and Moyes is the same at United.

There's also the central and largely uncommented-upon fact that the Glazers have totally boned United by having spent years doing the bare minimum of squad investment required to stay competitive on the assumption that Fergie would basically see them alright. Van Persie papered over a lot of the cracks last season as well.

Suarez is papering over a lot of cracks in that Rodgers plan this season.

Except our pts per game were p good when he was suspended this season and last.

Point wasn't really about Suarez as such - having a good forward player score lots of goals isn't papering over cracks, it's something winning teams have.

Lack of RVP and to a lesser extent TWP this season has no doubt damaged Man U's results but I think the biggest problem is that they've been running on fumes for years with Ferdinand, Vidic, Giggs and Scholes struggling to stay fit and on form at the top level. Have they bought a single player in five years for any of those positions as good as any of those at their peaks?

Don't think they've bought a CM good, bad, or indifferent for about 6 years?

Fergie's last five season's worth of signings, half of whom barely kicked a ball:

Fabio
Rafael
Berbatov
Tošić
De Laet

Valencia
Owen
Obertan
Diouf

Vermijl
Smalling
Little Pea
Bebe
Lindegaard

Jones
Young
De Gea
Veseli

Kagawa
Powell
RVP
Buttner
Henriquez
Zaha

Yeah, one or two keepers in every window but mostly dreck. Kagawa and Jones the closest they've come to buying a centre mid in five years?

Fellaini barely counts btw

nick powell's an amc/cm... young but even now probably as deserving of a game or two as cleverley

Has he not been on loan pretty much since they bought him though?

Something quite totemic about Cleverley as England regla under Hodgson. An almost spectacularly mediocre player.

He's the new James Milner.

Last five years' worth of Chelsea signings looks mostly dreadful on paper as well, even allowing for Hazard and Mata. Most top clubs bring in a load of fringe players who never make it.

xp idk, at least I can look at Milner and identify a number of vaguely positive traits that make him useful for his position as a squad player in a big team. Not sure I can say the same for Cleverley

Cleverley had something about him a while back - short-passing, imaginative movement. He's been ground down into a water-carrier

Yeah maybe. He interests me. Lots of them interest me actually, opinions on the talents and prospects of Cleverley, Hendo, Wilshere seem to be shifting and morphing all the time. might try and do a thread about English centre-mids under the age of 25 and what we think about them at some point.

Shelvey / Rodwell / Ward-Prowse future first choice England midfield