Maureen
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A friendly nickname maybe?
Mourinho to the hacks two days ago:
I think Mr Wenger has that respect from all of you, I don’t think I have.
Mourinho yesterday:
‘It feels like a defeat and, for sure, for Arsenal it feels like a victory,’ Mourinho told reporters.
‘So finally I lost against Arsenal. Finally I lost against Arsenal. Finally I lost against Arsenal.’
Maybe he's not just showing himself to be the absolute tit that he is. Maybe he thinks he's being really clever. Which ought to worry his bosses even more.
I think Mr Wenger has that respect from all of you, I don’t think I have.
Mourinho yesterday:
‘It feels like a defeat and, for sure, for Arsenal it feels like a victory,’ Mourinho told reporters.
‘So finally I lost against Arsenal. Finally I lost against Arsenal. Finally I lost against Arsenal.’
Maybe he's not just showing himself to be the absolute tit that he is. Maybe he thinks he's being really clever. Which ought to worry his bosses even more.
No way. Ferguson is everything Mourinho is with an extra dose of poison mixed in.
Woah. Mourinho Worse than Baconface?
That's a debate nobody wins.
Let's just hate them both
That's a debate nobody wins.
Let's just hate them both
Ferguson was brighter than Mourinho, and, as an ex-player, not quite as neurotic. They were both colossal bellends, but at least Ginsoak started from a basic position of hard-earned self-confidence. Mourhino will forever be the clipboard-clutching PE master trying to bluff his way through a training session with people who can actually play. He should ignore hacks but he keeps showing them that they can hurt him. Huge mistake.
A ten-page thread about this cunt spangle. Fuck me.
I was just going through some stuff and found the best man's speech my mate delivered at my wedding, in which he says at school we were drawn together not as much by friendship as a mutual loathing of everyone else. I do get a lot of joy from my hatred of various things so I'm happy with ten pages of bile for this fuckwad.
So Mourinho is asking for patience as he rebuilds the squad – seems reasonable at first, however there are several problems with this:
- Jose has never been known for a particularly sharp eye when it comes to transfers or even much interest in that side of management. I actually read Mourinho's autobiography some years ago and I don't recall any mention of transfers or pride in players he's scouted or signed – he is much more focused on tactical and psychological aspects of the game. At Porto and Chelsea he worked with well-oiled transfer set-ups, where manager's voice was not decisive. At Inter he was given a bit more power and I remember him mainly pushing for buying 2 new wingers – Quaresma and Mancini, both of whom failed miserably. At Real it was again largely out of his hands. So in executing that "rebuilding job" he will rely on Woodward's judgement, which brings us to the next point.
- As a Liverpool fan, I've been very pleased with United's transfer strategy ever since Woodward took over. Every summer they dominate the news headlines and raise expectations only to come some way short of the hype. This is what I wrote in a post from 2014:
Now Mourinho is asking Woodward to focus on signing "superstar" players, which is essentially what they have already been doing for the last 4 years. That's great; they are doubling-down on a faulty strategy. - The most viable part of this United team IMO are the young players who will likely be the main casualties of this "superstar-based" model. They might not quite have the Beckham-Scholes-Giggs generation, but they do have some decent young talents (which Van Gaal wasn't afraid to give a chance, to his credit) who could have given them a solid base and an identity. Instead, it's seems like they will continue their rather pitiful imitation of Florentino Perez's galactico strategy and never create a team that is more than a sum of its (very expensive) parts. I really don't think they will win anything substantial until they start producing rather than buying superstars, like they did in the 90's.
- Good luck attracting genuine superstars in their prime to a club outside the CL. They did get Pogba this summer (albeit by massively overpaying), but if they fail to make top 4 yet again this season, he might be the last such player for a good while.
- One big reason why galactico strategy works for Real Madrid and, to an extent, for Bayern is that they purposefully weaken the competition by scooping up the best talents from around the league (and in Real's case also weakening the rivals financially by not giving an inch on a highly unequal TV deal). So whenever Real or Bayern are having a bad season, they are still 2nd or at worst 3rd in their league, still in the CL and largely retain their glamour. If Woodward were smarter, he would have tried to do the same – go all in for Spurs' best players, buy Kane and their whole defense one by one and knock them out of the top-4 race; buy Mahrez and Payet and Lukaku, see if any Arsenal players can be persuaded to switch. Make a move for Yaya Toure while he's having a conflict with the manager – even if you don't get him, you unsettle a rival. This is how a rich sociopathic club who everybody in the country hates is supposed to behave! United got the rich and hated part all right, but they clearly don't have the balls to take on the rest of the league, so they best they can do is get fleeced by agent after agent as they bring highly expensive (and often mediocre or misfit) players from abroad, which makes them only more disjoined and lacking in identity. Long may it continue.
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United transfers under Woodward:
2013 – Fellaini (€32M), Mata (€45M)
2014 – Di Maria (€75M), Shaw (€38M), Herrera (€36M), Rojo (€20M), Blind (€18M), Falcao (€7.5M loan fee), Valdes (free)
2015 – Martial (€75M), Schneiderlin (€35M), Depay (€34M), Darmian (€18M), Schweinsteiger (€9M), Romero (free)
2016 – Pogba (€105M), Mkhitaryan (€42M), Bailly (€38M), Ibrahimovic (free)
Most of the 2013-15 purchases will probably be gone by next summer.
15 out of 19 major signings came from abroad and only 1 was English. 14 of the 19 were 24 or older at the time of purchase. This is truly a master-class in how NOT to do transfers.
Each of the these purchases individually can be justified to some extent – even 18M for Darmian. A well put-together squad can absorb a few duds. It's the cumulative effect that is the killer – if most of the players you sign turn out to be misfits and they stay in the club, then there comes a point when the misfits become the majority and the team loses all character and identity. I'm sure some relatively sensible United fans (the old-school variety rather than the younger glory-hunter types) are looking at their team right now and thinking: "who are all these people and what are they doing here?"
2013 – Fellaini (€32M), Mata (€45M)
2014 – Di Maria (€75M), Shaw (€38M), Herrera (€36M), Rojo (€20M), Blind (€18M), Falcao (€7.5M loan fee), Valdes (free)
2015 – Martial (€75M), Schneiderlin (€35M), Depay (€34M), Darmian (€18M), Schweinsteiger (€9M), Romero (free)
2016 – Pogba (€105M), Mkhitaryan (€42M), Bailly (€38M), Ibrahimovic (free)
Most of the 2013-15 purchases will probably be gone by next summer.
15 out of 19 major signings came from abroad and only 1 was English. 14 of the 19 were 24 or older at the time of purchase. This is truly a master-class in how NOT to do transfers.
Each of the these purchases individually can be justified to some extent – even 18M for Darmian. A well put-together squad can absorb a few duds. It's the cumulative effect that is the killer – if most of the players you sign turn out to be misfits and they stay in the club, then there comes a point when the misfits become the majority and the team loses all character and identity. I'm sure some relatively sensible United fans (the old-school variety rather than the younger glory-hunter types) are looking at their team right now and thinking: "who are all these people and what are they doing here?"
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It is quite exciting. It is also reminiscent of what we did post Kenny, although then it was mainly in the British transfer market. We consistently bought the latest greatest thing without building a coherent squad.
That Falcao deal is magnificent.
If those fees are accurate , that's nigh on half a billion euros in transfer fees in THREE years.
ffpsaywhat
Did we? I think you could argue we missed out on more than we got. Collymore I guess was considered a big catch. Souey lost out to the mancs when Roy Keane was available (and that non-transfer probably sealed our fate). Uncle Roy turned down the chance to buy Robbie Keane. Actually I'm struggling to think of any really big prospects we got or tried to get.
I'm thinking 91-5 ish. So Collymore, Paul Walsh, Dean Saunders, Nigel Clough, Scales, Ruddock, Babb, Redknapp. In each case there was a lot of buzz around the players as being top drawer, and the next big things in the league.
Point 5 is bollocks.
Real's "Galactico" strategy is nothing to do with weakening the competition in their own league. At all. It's entirely about creating an ethos and mystique, driven by marketing and brand values, of buying the biggest superstars in the world. They don't actually WANT players from their own league.
They want to transcend the local market, and pluck the best players from every OTHER league. And that level of branding and appeal can be used to cushion them from the problems of Barca or AMadrid winning the league, or whoever beating them in Europe. They are still a glittering, star-studded team.
The only Galactico that they ever signed that also weakened the competition was Figo. Nearly every other "Galactico" or similar was signed from another league - Kaka, Bale, Ronaldo, Rodriguez, Kroos, Beckham, Other Ronaldo, Zidane, Alonso, Di Maria, Coentrao, Modric, Benzema, Kovacic.
And Real gave been winning or coming second in La Liga for fucking DECADES. That's never changed. Now and again a smaller team will come along (valencia under Benitez) and upset the usual order, and lately A Madrid, but generally, Barca or Real are one or two. And always have been.
United have been buying players from Spurs - and wherever - for ages too; Carrick, Berbatov, Sheringham. But they have never had the lack of competition and unparalleled access to funds that Real enjoy. Chelsea and City have put paid to that. They can't simply pluck their best players from those teams, because they can't easily outpay them all, and they don't have the pull of Real or Barca. They've never been a side that wants to buy like that anyway. Perhaps Di Maria (or possibly Veron) was the first real attempt, and that was a fucking disaster.
Before that, they generally spent massive amounts of money on younger players., and I don't think it was an exercise in "weakening the competition" - Pallister, Rooney, Carrick, Ferdinand, Keane etc.
As for being a rich, sociopathic club, that isn't really the way they've ever behaved.
That's been the MO of the newly-rich cunts like Chelsea and now City. Before that, the interchange of top players, and/or buying surplus players to frustrate and weaken the competition didn't exist. And those two are the ones who do it most, still. And abroad, you mentioned Bayern, who DEFFO buy to weaken the opposition.
United have always been about trying to nurture youth and bring players through. About buying "potential" supplemented by the required amount of "battle-ready" players.
Clearly the rapid turn-around of managers and systems and philosophies has left them in a fucking mess, but they still did try and ensure their big purchases were mixed in with players that had the potential to grow and improve at the club; Depay, Martial, De Gea, Shaw etc.
And as for last summer, plenty of people and fans and experts said they did very good business indeed, bringing in Pogba, Bailly, Mikitikitaryan, massive zlatan.
As for buying Toure. Fuck's sake.
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Yeah, Collymore, Saunders, Babb and Scales were each arguably the most highly sought after and often expensive players in the UK
Christ – date well out with Walsh.
Fuck your FFP
Wasn't there some mention around that time that we went for Desailly but were turned down because he wanted to live in London?
Agree otherwise. We went for good players (at least they were until they arrived at Anfield) but few great ones.
The Real Madrid chat got me curious so I looked at their transfer history out of interest. Below is a snapshot of recognisable names that were signed from clubs within La Liga.
Luadrup
Redondo
Mijatovic
Suker
Makelele
Figo
Solgado
Helguera
Ramos
Baptista
Albiol
Negredo
Illaramendi
Isco
Danilo
I presumed Makelele arrived from France. I would have forgotten about Suker and Redondo too. A lot of these were before the Galatico area though.
Luadrup
Redondo
Mijatovic
Suker
Makelele
Figo
Solgado
Helguera
Ramos
Baptista
Albiol
Negredo
Illaramendi
Isco
Danilo
I presumed Makelele arrived from France. I would have forgotten about Suker and Redondo too. A lot of these were before the Galatico area though.
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