Manchester United FC Official Thread

You got me.

Congratulations on your trophy.

van Gaal is finally out of Moyes's shadow.

Keyser Söze wrote:van Gaal is finally out of Moyes's shadow.

Are you Moyes' son?

In all honesty I actually really like van Gaal. Decent manager and a character but not in a contrived or forced way. Maybe because you've been a pretty shitty side it's made him easier to swallow but then again you were bad under Moyes and I don't like him.

United are going to be more detestable than ever under Mourinho. I feel there's a strong chance he'll tank the Club, though. A poor start next season and the pressure will be huge.

What going to happen to the youth? Bye bye Rashford?

Mata? He got rid of him once.

You think they're boring to watch now, just wait until Mourinho gets ahold of them.

Keyser Söze wrote:In all honesty I actually really like van Gaal. Decent manager and a character but not in a contrived or forced way. Maybe because you've been a pretty shitty side it's made him easier to swallow but then again you were bad under Moyes and I don't like him.

With Moyes I felt everything was caked in bullshit, he had an arrogance and level of entitlement about him that was completely unwarranted. I feel Van Gaal's a lot more straight up.

Scott_LFC wrote:United are going to be more detestable than ever under Mourinho. I feel there's a strong chance he'll tank the Club, though. A poor start next season and the pressure will be huge.

What going to happen to the youth? Bye bye Rashford?

Mata? He got rid of him once.

You think they're boring to watch now, just wait until Mourinho gets ahold of them.

The Mourinho hating youth thing is a complete myth. Who was it who dropped Pepe to play Varane? Who gave Davide Santon his debut at the age of 18? Who scored the opening goal in the 2004 Champions League Final? If they are good enough they will play.

Mata may well go.

Boring football is another myth. Do you know how many hundreds of goals his Real Madrid side scored?

I guess that "arrogance and level of entitlement about him that was completely unwarranted" comment is sort of geared towards Mourinho in the sense that he's warranted in acting like that. I can see why some people think that, personally I don't have too much of a probably with it but a lot of the times he comes across as too self-conscious of his "image" as if he's looking for his next meme/soundbite. That I don't like.

In terms of Mourinho and Varane; as far as I can remember it was Zidane that really pushed to sign Varane. And he only displaced Pepe after he got injured. In 2012/13 bar the 1st two games of the season Pepe played every minute of every La Liga game until he got injured at around the turn of the year. That's when Varane got minutes. I guess that's not too dissimilar to van Gaal and Rashford though. Difference is van Gaal seems to have stuck by Rashford whilst in 2012/13 Mourinho played Pepe almost as soon he came back and started playing Varane pretty sporadically in the league. Although he did play every minute of Marids CL knockout campaign, unlike Pepe.


I think the "Mourinho dropped Pepe for Varane" theory stems from an incident towards the very end of the season. Mourinho said something/treated Casillas badly and some of his senior teammates, like Pepe, sided with him instead of Mourinho. That's when things started turning sour at Madrid for him. It seemed like a political move rather than anything else.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:

Keyser Söze wrote:In all honesty I actually really like van Gaal. Decent manager and a character but not in a contrived or forced way. Maybe because you've been a pretty shitty side it's made him easier to swallow but then again you were bad under Moyes and I don't like him.

With Moyes I felt everything was caked in bullshit, he had an arrogance and level of entitlement about him that was completely unwarranted.  I feel Van Gaal's a lot more straight up.

Scott_LFC wrote:United are going to be more detestable than ever under Mourinho. I feel there's a strong chance he'll tank the Club, though. A poor start next season and the pressure will be huge.

What going to happen to the youth? Bye bye Rashford?

Mata? He got rid of him once.

You think they're boring to watch now, just wait until Mourinho gets ahold of them.

The Mourinho hating youth thing is a complete myth.  Who was it who dropped Pepe to play Varane?  Who gave Davide Santon his debut at the age of 18?    Who scored the opening goal in the 2004 Champions League Final?  If they are good enough they will play.

Mata may well go.

Boring football is another myth.  Do you know how many hundreds of goals his Real Madrid side scored?

Lmao.

Look at their Squad compared to yours. They have Ronaldo, ffs.

When Mourinho won the League with Chelsea most recently, they scored 73 The season before, 71.

It's not a myth at all. Look at the tactics he uses in every big game lol. Boring as fuck. Any achievements will have an asterisk next to it saying *but parked the bus like a pussy.

Keyser Söze wrote:I guess that "arrogance and level of entitlement about him that was completely unwarranted" comment is sort of geared towards Mourinho in the sense that he's warranted in acting like that. I can see why some people think that, personally I don't have too much of a probably with it but a lot of the times he comes across as too self-conscious of his "image" as if he's looking for his next meme/soundbite. That I don't like.

In terms of Mourinho and Varane; as far as I can remember it was Zidane that really pushed to sign Varane. And he only displaced Pepe after he got injured. In 2012/13 bar the 1st two games of the season Pepe played every minute of every La Liga game until he got injured at around the turn of the year. That's when Varane got minutes. I guess that's not too dissimilar to van Gaal and Rashford though. Difference is van Gaal seems to have stuck by Rashford whilst in 2012/13 Mourinho played Pepe almost as soon he came back and started playing Varane pretty sporadically in the league. Although he did play every minute of Marids CL knockout campaign, unlike Pepe.


I think the "Mourinho dropped Pepe for Varane" theory stems from an incident towards the very end of the season. Mourinho said something/treated Casillas badly and some of his senior teammates, like Pepe, sided with him instead of Mourinho. That's when things started turning sour at Madrid for him. It seemed like a political move rather than anything else.

Yes, you can act like you are the best if you are the best, you really can't if you're David Moyes.  Maybe he's a bit too conscious of his image but fuck it I like it.

I think he showed more faith in Varane than his successors have.  Maybe it was political but he's hardly the only young player who he's given a chance to.  Apart from De Bruyne - who couldn't really be in the same club as Courtois for extra-curricular reasons - I don't think there's been anyone who he's sold who you could really say proved he was wrong not to give a chance to.  People use Lukaku as a stick to beat him with, but he sold Lukaku and bought Costa who won him the league.  Can't really argue with that.

Scott_LFC wrote:

ResurrectionRooney wrote:

With Moyes I felt everything was caked in bullshit, he had an arrogance and level of entitlement about him that was completely unwarranted.  I feel Van Gaal's a lot more straight up.



The Mourinho hating youth thing is a complete myth.  Who was it who dropped Pepe to play Varane?  Who gave Davide Santon his debut at the age of 18?    Who scored the opening goal in the 2004 Champions League Final?  If they are good enough they will play.

Mata may well go.

Boring football is another myth.  Do you know how many hundreds of goals his Real Madrid side scored?

Lmao.

Look at their Squad compared to yours. They have Ronaldo, ffs.

When Mourinho won the League with Chelsea most recently, they scored 73 The season before, 71.

It's not a myth at all. Look at the tactics he uses in every big game lol. Boring as fuck. Any achievements will have an asterisk next to it saying *but parked the bus like a pussy.

Yes, they have a very good squad, but so did Barcelona and his Madrid scored more league goals than they did over the 3 years.  The question isn't of squad quality, it's a question of how that squad is geared to play football.

73 goals is still more than anyone scored in the league this season.  It's 20 more than we scored.

Yes, he tends to uses defensive tactics in big games, so what?  United have been doing that frequently for the last 10 years.  I've looked at the honours list for that period and I'm pretty sure there are no asterisks next to the 5 league titles, UEFA Champions League title and World title we won doing it.  I've also looked at Mourinho's honours list where he's won 3 Premier Leagues, 2 Serie A, 2 Champions Leagues, La Liga, 2 Portuguese titles and many other smaller cups and I can't see any asterisks there either.

Does Liverpool's runner up finish in 2014 after Mourinho trampled all over your dreams at Anfield have an asterisk next to it saying "*But they played really good football!"?

He will tank the Club.

Btw, I found out that you're officially diagnosed with Aspergers.

Couldn't find any info on Keyser, unfortunately.

Lmfao at disappearing.

There's very little point in replying to you. As soon as you start losing the argument you just change the subject and start talking nonsense.

Mourinho official #GGMU #Champ21ns

Stranger wrote:Mourinho official #GGMU #Champ21ns

If Mourinho wins the League with United, I'll give Vela £10,000.

The absolute turnaround in opinion regarding Mourinho I've been seeing from United fans is fucking unbelievable lmfao. United fans used to slate him at any chance they got, called his tactics pathetic, called him boring, said he was childish, loads said they'd never want such a dispicable person in charge of United.

Now look at the comments they're coming out with Even RR is trying to say his boring style and lack of youth play-time is a myth, lmfao. Reminds me of when they all wanked themselves silly over the LVG signing, in particular, when he subbed on a GK before a penalty shootout.

Tactical genius.

Pep's gonna wipe the floor with him.

It's like they've all forgotten what happened at Chelsea. He became a joke. Suddenly he's amazing again. I can invision some serious cancer infiltrating the Club now.

I've always been in Camp Mou.

You were in camp LVG too Let's hope Maureen follows the same trend.

Keyser and I warned RR about LvG.  He did not heed our warning.

Van Gaal wasn't that bad. I don't know who you think we should have got instead.

Someone please post his thoughts at the time.

Don't get me wrong, I thought it would be a lot better, I certainly didn't anticipate two battles for fourth position, but I still think he was the right appointment,

Glen Miller wrote:Keyser and I warned RR about LvG.  He did not heed our warning.

Indeed. The WC inflated him in a lot of United fans eyes, I'd like to think some of their more rational minded fans would have seen his shortcomings more clearly had it been during a normal post-season.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:Don't get me wrong, I thought it would be a lot better, I certainly didn't anticipate two battles for fourth position, but I still think he was the right appointment,

In the 11 years since leaving Barcelona in 2003 till he came to you guys, he'd managed a top club side for just under 2 years.

I still stand by my comments of liking him and thinking he's a good manager, but in the same way I think those things about Sacchi, Capello, Hitzfeld, Wenger etc.... Historically good and could probably do alright for a season here or there, but over the long term they can't operate in the modern game.

In a simplistic way it makes sense why you appointed, to combat the Moyes hiring. But you'd think the decision makers at a club like United would be a little more sophisticated than that and as a result one mistake was compounded and lead to another.

Keyser Söze wrote:

Glen Miller wrote:Keyser and I warned RR about LvG.  He did not heed our warning.

Indeed. The WC inflated him in a lot of United fans eyes, I'd like to think some of their more rational minded fans would have seen his shortcomings more clearly had it been during a normal post-season.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:Don't get me wrong, I thought it would be a lot better, I certainly didn't anticipate two battles for fourth position, but I still think he was the right appointment,

In the 11 years since leaving Barcelona in 2003 till he came to you guys, he'd managed a top club side for just under 2 years.

I still stand by my comments of liking him and thinking he's a good manager, but in the same way I think those things about Sacchi, Capello, Hitzfeld, Wenger etc.... Historically good and could probably do alright for a season here or there, but over the long term they can't operate in the modern game.

In a simplistic way it makes sense why you appointed, to combat the Moyes hiring. But you'd think the decision makers at a club like United would be a little more sophisticated than that and as a result one mistake was compounded and lead to another.    

Who would have been a sophisticated appointment?

Not a sophisticated appointment. Just more sophisticated criteria than "we hired an manager without a track record of winning and that went badly so the next manager we hire has to have that track record". That's what it amounted to, really. Even a lot of the buzz words/statements coming out at the time were alluding to that narrative. Without the sigma of Moyes the club could have hired an unknown quantity and had him become a success through United rather than the other way around.

When they hired van Gaal United couldn't have envisaged that Mourinho would be available in the short term, Pep looked certain for City, Klopp went to Liverpool even though you could have gotten him and the same with Ancelotti and Bayern. So if this freak occurrence with Chelsea and Mourinho hadn't transpired who would the board have hired instead? I don't see the foresight in hiring van Gaal in the 1st place even when you think 3 years down the line.

Why risk an unknown quantity?  To manage United you should need a proven track record of success, that's obvious, almost all big clubs follow this.  Barcelona are exceptions but even their guys normally have experience with the B teams.

On the second point I think there were a couple of long term plans involved.  First of all note that Van Gaal was given a three year contract.  Mourinho had been given a four year contract in 2013.  There was always a reasonable chance Mourinho would be out of work in 2017, given his and Abramovich's track records.  

Second, there was always an obvious plan B - although it's not one I would have gone with - and it's one that Ferguson has been trying to make happen all year.  Van Gaal was given the job but not without conditions, Giggs was his assistant and as far as Van Gaal was concerned he was also his successor.

On the broader point if there's nobody you really want available I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with going for a steady pair of hands for a couple of seasons.  Highly rated managers become available all the time - Guardiola, Mourinho, Ancelotti and Heynckes in 2013, Van Gaal in 2014, Ancelotti, Klopp and Big Sam in 2015, Guardiola and Mourinho now.  If you get a guy in and wait for the right guy to become available that seems more sensible to me than giving it to some guy who is an unknown quantity.

Manchester Derby is gonna be cracking. Pep vs Maureen again.

Wonder if DDG will get as much grief from RR as Sakho did.

Scott_LFC wrote:Wonder if DDG will get as much grief from RR as Sakho did.

For doing what?