What a load of bull. All foreign owners buy into EPL not for passion. All for tax evasion. Money laundering. Image building. Diversification.

You think Vincent tan got passion for Cardiff city? Vichai loves leicester?

Of identity, culture and tactics

There are not many clubs with a pre-defined club identity in the way most fans think of it. Most would associate club identity around style of play, but very little clubs have such a self defined club identity. The most obvious would be Ajax and Barcelona with their possession based style of play. Even this identity was adopted after the influence of Johan Cryuff. Before him, the style of play differed with the manager and the times.

Club identity doesn't just revolve around style of play. It could be non-tactical reasons too. Take Athletic Bilbao. Since 1912, they have a policy of only allowing plyaers born in the Basque country or have learned their football skills at a Basque club to play for them.

Real Madrid. They are not definied by any footballing philosophy. Their club identity revolves around being the best club in the world where the best players come to play.

Chelsea. Abramovich famously hired Carlo Ancellotti with a brief to instil a club identity of possession football as Chelsea at the time came to be defined by the personalities of it's players. Terry. Drogba. Lampard. Being hard nosed, methodical, hard to beat. That ended up with Carlo's sacking even though he was winning games. It is not something that you do within one or two years. If anything, I would say Chelsea are efficient. They go about their business in a very efficient manner. New manager? We will get the signings you want. Bang. Transfer done. Bang. Transfer done. Bang. Transfer done. That's just the last transfer window. And the manager gets what he wants. But if he doesn't perform? Bang, he's out. Lampard in half a season. Ruthlessly efficient.

Liverpool. They have history but less of a defined club identity. Even their Gegenpress style of play is very recent. Started by Rodgers and revolutionised by Klopp. I can probably dive into this story next time.


What of Manchester United? What is our club identity?

Winning titles? That is not an identity.
Some fans would say playing with wingers in a 4-4-2. The same people who criticised Carlos Queroz for tinering the formation into a 4-3-3 in the early naughties and breaking with 'tradition'. Until 2008 at least. Then these bunch were mostly silent.

I would like to think Manchester United represented youth. For the past 80 years since 1937, Manchester United have played at least one academy graduate is represented in the matchday squad. The Busby Babes. The Class of 92. This is our success and something the club stands for.

Van Gaal is probably the manager that has done the most for youth after Sir Alex. He has offerred chances and integrated youth players into his squads.

How does our current manager measure up this season?

I will exclude Greenwood because his talent is such that he will walk into most first team squads in the Premier League.
Plus, our non-existent RW makes me struggle to name any other players challenging for that slot.

We have Axel Tuanzebe. Brandon Williams. Shoretire recently.

All whom I feel have been handled poorly. With the poor squad rotation in favour of grinding out results, youth have not been really given a chance.
Tuanzebe did well locking down Neymar & Mbappe in Oct, and I expected him to start a few games after but he was dropped for weeks after. He only came back into the team in Dec and unfortunately deflected an own goal. The thing with football players is, you cannot keep them out of the team for weeks and throw them in expecting them to be 100%. Especially youth. Tuanzebe has been missing ever since. Which is unfortunate.

Brandon Williams was so concerned about his lack of match time that he requested to go out on loan in January. Which was blocked by Ole for squad cover reasons.
We still have not seen him.

Shoretire is given a token appearance so I have nothing to say here.

It genuinely pains me to see the Tuanzebe situation now. Who knows, he could be the fast CB we have been dying for. But we will never know as Ole doesn't trust him enough. I won't be surprised to see him leaving for another Premiership club and doing well there. I really think he is good enough.

But perhaps I cannot put too much blame on Ole.
The modern manager has to worry about their job first as a poor run of results can see them sacked. And job security first, youth second is increasingly the more common choice.

I hope once he signs his contract and he knows his job is safe, we will start to see some academy youth on the field again.
Otherwise, we will see more Angel Gomes style movements away for opportunities.

I don't agree lvg emphasise youth. The only reason rashford debut is because everyone got injured and he has no choice. Then rashford hands him a lifeline.

Chelsea identity is roman himself hehe

Academy players who debuted under Van Gaal.

1. Jesse Lingard.
2. Marcus Rashford.
3. Guillermo Varela
4. Paddy McNair
5. Saidy Janko
6. Tom Thorpe
7. Reece James (Not the Chelsea guy)
8. Tyler Blackett
9. Andreas Pereira
10. Donald Love
11. Regan Poole
12. Cameron Borthwick-Jackson
13. James Weir
14. Joe Riley
15. Timothy Fosu-Mensah


Could be!
Mr Chelsea.

I loved Tuanzebe aggression, pace and position but he lacks playtime. Ole won't give much playtime for him since he loves so much Lindelof and Maguire combo that lacks pace.

The only good the combo is Lindelof long pass is somewhat good that can create chances from behind, for me remind of Daley Blind. If United not getting any CDM, I do think Lindelof is a desperate option can be CDM

Maguire can do monument at CB, no one can replace his place he is Ole favourite unless he is injured or a red card.

Manchester United are the old Liverpool

Does anyone remember the 30 years before Liverpool won the League last season? Liverpool fans were alreadys thinking they were a big club and talking about successes of the past. We would talk about the rivalry but realistically we were more worried about Arsenal, Chelsea and then Man City. It was easy to point at their lack of a League championship and get the to shut up. Well in 2 years, it will be 10 years since Manchester United last won the League. A common trope from the club is that we are the biggest club in the world. Getting familiar?

It also extends to the way we run the club and appoint managers. We used to laugh at how Liverpool were a cup team clueless on how to build long term success. They would flop around alternating between appointing ex-club players in hopes of bringing the 'culture' of past successes (Graeme Souness, Roy Evans, Kenny Dalglish) and foreign tacticians to desperately win something after a barren run (Houllier, Benitez). Houllier and Benitez would win the Cups, and the Champions League in the case of Benitez, but the League would always elude them.

And now we have our own ex player (Ole) and our own foreign tacticians to win the cups (Mourinho - Europa, Van Gaal - FA). Manchester United are a cup team at the moment.


I am still hopeful we will see some sort of success out of this strategy of appointing ex players to key positions. Although it does not sit well with me.
Instead of the biggest club in the world appointing the best people in the world, we seem to be giving out positions to players who will come in thanking Woodward for an opportunity and building loyalists in the ranks. Darren Fletcher as Technical Director is one such appointment. The biggest club in the world gave a Technical Director position to a person with a blank CV for that position, for no other reason than he used to play at the club. Isn't this a bit of cronyism going round the Old Boys Club? I'm sure they will roll out the "United DNA" keyword.

While I have my reservations, I am still backing this setup until at least the summer because I feel they should be given a proper chance at the job.
It is just hard to ignore the glaring gaps in club management.

daley blind was a good dm for us when he plays there...

ok la, we are not scoring from counter as much as we thought haha





our strikers quite pathetic thou lol

u subscribe to athletic kah?

Anyway nice information sharing there

So ole is not counter team lol

Nice info, great we can see United scored by open play 👍

Looking at how Haaland's father and his agent shopping for the new club next season makes me feel like thank god woodward did not spend the cash on him that time. I remember alot of us flame woodward for not getting the job done on Haaland lol.

Kaaaaaayuuuuuuu hahaaaaa

We all know how greedy this agent is, rumors flying around Pogba will be sell off by this summer too.

Now he is trying to milk from Haaland deal

milk or no milk. We need Haaland more than he needs us. And that means, I will pay 9 figures for the boy. Euro or GBP.

I would prefer to avoid all Raiola's clients, regardless how good they are.

Whether Pogba goes this summer is not up to the club. It is not up to Pogba or Raiola too.
It is up to if any club is able to cough up the transfer fee, and then be able to pay Pogba above his current pay packet. In the current economic climate, it looks to be no.

If no club turns up, Raiola and Pogba will stay and wind down the contract. In his final year, expect even less from Pogba as he needs to look after himself first.
In his final year, it will be a bidding war. And like it or not, Manchester United is still one of the clubs that can offer Pogba that massive wage packet. Who knows, maybe 400k or 500k per week.

Ultimately, Pogba may stay and sign a contract in his final year. But it will be for the money and a big fat agent's fee for Raiola.
Which is why Raiola is focusing more on Haaland this year.

Ya. Prefer avoid raiola regardless how good the player

I don't think we have the financial power for him, i'll rather choose a CB, DM and RW.

Agent still get 5% of their pay IINM, either Raiola is trying to increase Pogba wages above 300k to milk one last contract or just selling him off to Juventus and get that commission.

Juve is the prime destination this summer but there are real doubts on Juve's financial capabilities to pay a transfer fee AND offer Pogba an acceptable pay packet. Especially with Ronaldo still on their books.
Perhaps they may try two birds with one stone and offer Ronaldo to us to clear up the wage bill to free up some room for Pogba.