Howyoudoin wrote:It can't be easy being a United fan at the moment. At least if you support a middling team you don't know what it's like to stop winning stuff.
Oh, I don't know. Since Fergie left we've won three trophies (Europa Cup, League Cup, FA Cup). Less than we've become used to, though that's still three more than Liverpool and Tottenham combined over the same period (and most other teams).
We've been stuffed by the Glazers dumping a colossal amount of debt on the club when they bought it (I believe that something close to £1.5 billion has been extracted since 2005 in interest payments and debt repayment). Many of us realised that we were on the skids when they hired Moyes and then let him fire all of the backroom staff (hiring his mates instead) as he turned us into Everton Mark II. Almost all of the big name managers we approached didn't want the job; replacing Fergie was going to be a tall order but the influence of the commercial department put most of them off. We should have hired Mourinho back then (he did want the job) but we didn't.
We have a lot of problems. Massive debt. A CEO who signs players for their commercial appeal rather than for what they actually do on the pitch. Sanchez isn't even good enough for the reserves yet he's paid superstar wages, which has stirred up all sorts of conflict between players and broken the wage structure, seriously damaging team morale and cohesion in the process. Several of our big-name players clearly don't want to be here and have been going through the motions for the last couple of months.
For example, a major reason for signing Lukaku was that we were also going to sign a winger to supply him with decent crosses. Mourinho wanted Ivan Perisic, who we didn't sign for marketing reasons, but we still signed Lukaku even though that tactic was going to be much less fruitful.
"Inter were holding out for £50m for Perisic, but United refused to budge on their £47m bid. Woodward reportedly did not think Perisic was a marketable enough player to generate revenue and pulled the plug on the deal"https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football ... c-man-utd/If Ole hadn't been signed we'd probably have finished 10th or lower - the situation with Mourinho and the players had become that bad. Anyway, we'll be back, it'll just take a few more years (and someone to buy the club).
It helps to follow many other sports. Last Sunday for me the IPL final took priority over the football (cricket is my number one sport). I didn't even bother to find out our result against Cardiff until after watching Newport County v Mansfield in the playoff.
