How many MAN UTD players leave after this season? - and, what will happen to United

[ScottishCanuck]

I’m talking about right now how hard is that to follow. Really?

But he's French..

 

[Burner Account]

#Pogbackandforth

 

[Evilo]

But he's French..

Oh, great argument.

So you think Lloris can't touch the top 5 goalies too?
Please use arguments instead of throwing shit.

 

[Artorius Horus T]

Very gloomy times in the red side of Manchester.

 

[Gecklund]

I really hope United buy smart this summer. They can fill every position of need if they do. They don't need superstars.

RB-Djibril Sidibe, Youcef Atal, Joao Cancelo*
CB-Boubacar Kamara, Jemerson, Malang Sarr, Nikola Milenkovic, Daniele Rugani, Joachim Andersen
LB-Dalbert
DM-Thiago Mendes, Lucas Tousart, Jordan Veretout, Marco Benassi, Marcelo Brozovic,
CM-Maxime Lopez, Wylan Cyprien, Adrien Rabiot, Nicolo Barella, Jakub Jankto, Stefano Sensi
RW-Federico Chiesa, Keita Balde, Federico Bernadeschi, Domenico Berardi

*If the rumors are true and he's available for cheap

This is just real quick going through Serie A, Ligue 1 rosters. Now not all of these players will be cheap but they aren't going to cost the 100+M that some of the superstars they are going to be linked with are going to be.

 

[Live in the Now]

CM and CB would be the first and most important things, even if they spend their whole budget on those positions. I think Liverpool and City proved that buying quality over quantity and leaving some weaker positions for a while works.

They need a CM like Fernandinho or Fabinho, someone who can absolutely dominate the game.

 

[les Habs]

United should go for Skriniar, but lack of CL might be hindrance there.

 

[I Eat Crow]

United should go for Skriniar, but lack of CL might be hindrance there.

Even with CL, I don't think Skrinar would want to leave. Especially to go to play in a more combustible situation than Inter in United.

CM and CB would be the first and most important things, even if they spend their whole budget on those positions. I think Liverpool and City proved that buying quality over quantity and leaving some weaker positions for a while works.

They need a CM like Fernandinho or Fabinho, someone who can absolutely dominate the game.

RW is also a very important need. United haven't had a first team quality natural right winger in over five years.

As for CB and CM, I'd throw blank checks at Varane and Ndombele. Signing Rabiot on a free to replace Herrera won't hurt either.

 

[Gecklund]

CM and CB would be the first and most important things, even if they spend their whole budget on those positions. I think Liverpool and City proved that buying quality over quantity and leaving some weaker positions for a while works.

They need a CM like Fernandinho or Fabinho, someone who can absolutely dominate the game.

I wouldn't really say Liverpool or City in that. They bought players that fit. That's what I'm saying they do. I'm saying they shouldn't go out and drop 75M on Bale or 50M on Kovacic or anything like that. I'm saying they should actually buy smart and those were just a few players I think would fit the bill. I would also like to throw Dybala in there to play in the Firmino sort of role as a false 9 with Rashford and Martial as the wingers.

 

[hatterson]

CM and CB would be the first and most important things, even if they spend their whole budget on those positions. I think Liverpool and City proved that buying quality over quantity and leaving some weaker positions for a while works.

They need a CM like Fernandinho or Fabinho, someone who can absolutely dominate the game.

I'm not sure City is a good comparison. The only position they potentially "left weak" was their back line, but that's not for lack of trying. Pep has spent several truckloads of money buying defenders. Other than that they're incredibly deep and talented everywhere.

Unless you meant City of the late 2000s, but still it's not like they intentionally left anything weak. They spent everything they could.

Liverpool also isn't a great comparison. They didn't add Allison and VVD (the break the bank transfers) until they already had the incredible front line in place and wanted to take the next step and the front line buys were all smart purchases instead of bank breaking purchases. Yea they've gone quality over quantity in terms of depth, but their only real "weak" starting position is midfield and they've still bought 3 players they want to be starters there (OX, Keita, Fabinho) Basically the only thing they've intentionally left weak was depth.

Even if United add Koulibaly or Varane and an elite CM, there's still two glaring holes in the starting lineup (RB, and RW) and that's assuming two of the other front 3 are Rashford/Martial/Lukaku and frankly that mix hasn't been good enough this season.

 

[YNWA14]

They should buy James Rodriguez, Kieran Trippier, James Tarkowski, Ryan Fraser and Callum Wilson. Fingers crossed.

 

[Evilo]

I could see James going there since nobody wants him right now.

 

[Gecklund]

They should buy James Rodriguez, Kieran Trippier, James Tarkowski, Ryan Fraser and Callum Wilson. Fingers crossed.

Don’t want any of those except James... maybe Fraser but rest aren’t good enough and will cost too much.

 

[Los merengues]

ManU needs someone to take charge of the football side of things. Club has no direction, no central philosophy that they build around. So a replacement for Woodward first of all.

If talking about players: Whole new defence line (maybe you can keep Lindelöf). New CM and DM, Wide attacker or switch Rashford Back on wing and new CF that scores 20+.

Won't matter what they do though. Top 4 is definitely out of reach and Ole will get The sack at some point next season. This is a manager of Molde! He came into The Clubs worst moment in ages and is charged with fixing itm People blame Jose but I think he just quit on the club before the season even started cause he saw what was needed to really compete with City and Pool. Nothing at ManU will change for better untill competent people are in charge of The football operations.

 

[Corto]

Utd are in a horrible position right now. Their best players will want out apparently (DDG, Pogba) and I really don't see any elite players being drawn to play for them.

I think they'll need to put in an overachieving season with some "B list" players in order to attract the "A list" names again.

This is the thing about Mourinho... He won trophies with this bunch. Finished 2nd ahead of Liverpool and Spurs.
And only NOW are people realizing that the players on that team just might be really mediocre.
I don't know how many of his buys were his and how many were "consolation prizes", but Mou's problem was never getting the most out of his players - but recruiting the right players was/is questionable.

 

[YNWA14]

Utd are in a horrible position right now. Their best players will want out apparently (DDG, Pogba) and I really don't see any elite players being drawn to play for them.

I think they'll need to put in an overachieving season with some "B list" players in order to attract the "A list" names again.

This is the thing about Mourinho... He won trophies with this bunch. Finished 2nd ahead of Liverpool and Spurs.
And only NOW are people realizing that the players on that team just might be really mediocre.
I don't know how many of his buys were his and how many were "consolation prizes", but Mou's problem was never getting the most out of his players - but recruiting the right players was/is questionable.

I think Mourinho's biggest problem is that he's not a long term manager. He knows how to set up his teams to get the most out of them for a short period, but he's not a fun manager to play for and he loses the room generally pretty quickly (relatively, anyway).

Also some people could see that the United team was relatively mediocre, but it took some time for people to come around on it. Partially because people didn't want to give credit to Mourinho for the job he did with that group, but also because United is one of the most popular teams in the world, has a very strong reputation and recently had finished 2nd and won Europa (not to mention the money they spent on some of these players).

As you said...outside of Pogba and de Gea that team is very, very average, and they're going to have a really hard time fixing that in the current state.

 

[Evilo]

I wonder how people can say that with a straight face and then see that a newbie coach, with basically zero high level coaching experience can get this same roster to perform MUCH better with MUCH better results.

 

[YNWA14]

I wonder how people can say that with a straight face and then see that a newbie coach, with basically zero high level coaching experience can get this same roster to perform MUCH better with MUCH better results.

I don't think the team has been performing much better though. I think they had a new coach boost, and the team was trying a lot harder, but since then they've looked pretty terrible. This was also in probably the most favourable stretch of the season.

 

[amoboko]

I reckon Lukaku will leave now Pogba is gone as well.

 

[hatterson]

I don't think anyone except the homerest of homers thought the squad was good enough to compete for the league or anything. However they should be able to compete for the top 4 despite the holes they have given that 2 of the other teams also have issues and Spurs have serious depth questions which can hinder them on a long campaign.

Since OGS was hired, even with their brutal run of form lately, they're still competing for top 4. I can't recall if they'd be in it or not, but if they're outside it they're only out by a couple points instead of the ~10 they were outside it under Jose.

 

[East Coast Bias]

Here’s the table since OGS took charge.

 

[YNWA14]

I don't think anyone except the homerest of homers thought the squad was good enough to compete for the league or anything. However they should be able to compete for the top 4 despite the holes they have given that 2 of the other teams also have issues and Spurs have serious depth questions which can hinder them on a long campaign.

Since OGS was hired, even with their brutal run of form lately, they're still competing for top 4. I can't recall if they'd be in it or not, but if they're outside it they're only out by a couple points instead of the ~10 they were outside it under Jose.

I'm sure if Jose had stayed on for that really easy stretch his numbers would have looked better before he left.

But again, Mourinho seems to lose his team around now so it's not surprising they were looking bad before OGS was hired. The underlying numbers though didn't take some huge hike after he left however. I agree that they can compete for the top 4 but the argument was that they had the best roster outside of Liverpool/City which I just don't think was ever true - I had them on par with Arsenal and Chelsea, but Chelsea getting the nod for having Hazard (which I was crucified for, again).

 

[les Habs]

I wonder how people can say that with a straight face and then see that a newbie coach, with basically zero high level coaching experience can get this same roster to perform MUCH better with MUCH better results.

Exactly. Mind-boggling and absolutely zero context to boot. Must be the Madrid nostalgia, but Lord knows why.

 

[YNWA14]

Context indeed. Even with the easiest of schedules to work OGS in after Mourinho's falling out they were vastly overperforming -- and not in the 'get the most out of the team' overperforming. They were putting up results that weren't likely, and this regression was always on its way (made worse, as it seems like the players are giving up on OGS already, though that is entirely speculation).

Some five years later, all signs were pointing toward OGS being appointed as the full-time manager of one of the three richest clubs in the world. Seeing this possibility set in motion and and moving down the tracks toward reality, a Dutch analyst named Sander IJtsma said something that made a lot of people mad on the Internet:



It’s an absurd thought: Rip up the contract for your dream job, coaching the club at which you spent the best part of your playing career. Pass up a sum of money that’ll put your grandkids through college. (Although perhaps Elizabeth Warren will hopefully soon make the previous sentence moot!) But really, it was just a provocative way to point out what was really happening: United were getting incredibly lucky. In the first 11 games in the Solskjaer era, they scored 26 goals on just 20.8 expected goals, and they’d allowed just seven on 13 xG. In the Palace match, United were outshot, 17-13, and the expected goals total also favored the hosts: 1.7 to 1.0. Look back at the highlights, and you’ll see three United goals and three impressive, tight-angle, tough-to-replicate finishes. Great plays by talented players, but not the kinds of things you can rely on, week after week

Since the Palace game, United went on to beat Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, thanks to an improbable 3-1 victory in France, with all three goals aided by a succession of bizarre errors from PSG players. Then, they hired OGS full-time. And then -- well, they haven’t won a road game and are just 2-4 on the whole since letting Ole permanently take the wheel. They went out of the Champions League meekly, 4-0 on aggregate to Barcelona. And with Manchester City coming to Old Trafford tomorrow, their Champions League hopes will be completely blown out with just the tiniest gust of wind. FiveThirtyEight gives them a seven percent chance of finishing top four.

There’s regression to the mean, and then there’s getting punted into outer space by Lucas Digne and the boys at Goodison Park.

 

[hatterson]

I'm sure if Jose had stayed on for that really easy stretch his numbers would have looked better before he left.

But again, Mourinho seems to lose his team around now so it's not surprising they were looking bad before OGS was hired. The underlying numbers though didn't take some huge hike after he left however. I agree that they can compete for the top 4 but the argument was that they had the best roster outside of Liverpool/City which I just don't think was ever true - I had them on par with Arsenal and Chelsea, but Chelsea getting the nod for having Hazard (which I was crucified for, again).

That really easy stretch still included a league win away at Spurs and a draw against Liverpool both of whom had murdered the Jose led side earlier in the year. It also included Leicester away, which although it isn't on the level of the top 6 is still far from a gimme, and has away cup wins against Arsenal and Chelsea. Given where the team was under Jose, the chances of that happens seem to be about 0.

Ultimately I think we agree on the talent level of the roster. I think they're a bit better than Arsenal, about equal with Chelsea on talent with Hazard making the difference although Chelsea suffers due to mindset and mismanagement issues. Starting XI is clearly worse than Spurs, but Spurs depth is almost non-existent so seeing United compete with them over the course of a season shouldn't be shocking if Spurs are making runs in other comps or suffer injuries (as they did both this year).