Man Utd vs Soton - 23/1/16

I just refuse to read some of the garbage that has been written.

Yeah we lost and yeah it's a ridiculous situation, but let's not get carried away with the drama.

First of all, I'd like to point out that it is extremely annoying to me when people and papers keep bringing up 300m. Yes, we did spend over 250m for transfers but we have to take into consideration the massive overhauling that was undertaken by Van Gaal. (Arguably to some) reconstruction was needed after Ferguson, whether Moyes was not given the money or he didn't know what to do with it we'll never know, but he barely did anything. So I've taken some numbers (off of transfermarkt, not sure how accurate but let's say rough estimate):
Season 2014/15 the total spent on arrivals is 155.05m, gained from departures 98.77m. Then in 2015/16 total spent on arrivals 104.11, gained on departures - 135.29. Add those up and we've spend a total of 259.16 over two seasons and made 234.06m by selling players = 25.1m net. When you see that number I'd say it's pretty spectacular.
For the same two seasons, for example, City have spent around 250m and gained 165, leaving them at 85m net spent.
So let's not pretend like it's some incredible amount of money.

It's the performances and recently the results too that haven't matched the standard. And Van Gaal should probably go for it, but it's not the end of the world and it's not the end of the players' careers and what not. We're still within reach of top 4 and with or without Van Gaal we should be able to get to it. Hold it until the end of the season when other manager options would be available and we'll have a serious choice to make.

Rant over cause I'm too lazy to type.

Top 4 is moving further away with every point dropped. No doubt we're going to have to up our game for the rest of the season considerably now as neither Leicester or Spurs appear to be going anywhere. If we continue to play in the same way we have for the last few months barring the odd match I think we can forget top 4. We're simply not playing well enough.

It's alright looking at the fixtures and saying we should win that, we should win that, oh we'll get 3 points from that one. It's not happening. I thought we'd beat Southampton. So that's 3 points I guaranteed us getting in my mind already gone.

Now, not getting top 4 is not the end of the world. I think with how competitive the league is getting and how much more money the lesser teams are set to earn in the future we're going to see more surprises in seasons to come in terms of sides challenging for the top 4.

That's not enough of an excuse for our failings though or even a side like Chelsea's. Fact is, as much as these lesser teams are starting to earn, we still earn substantially more and with the correct investment in both management, youth and players we should be consistently in the top 4 and for that matter challenging for the title. Any season we don't has to be seen as a failure.

The most unfortunate thing about this all is the next manager will also need time, which he'll get from me as the first 2 managers have. But by this point (3 years after Fergie's retirement) the rebuilding job should be pretty much complete and it would've been if we didn't dick around with Moyes and then had to go for a guy to steady the ship like LVG. We're now in the exact same position we were 2 years ago. Neither manager has showed progress, which is why one was sacked and the other will be.

Moyes maintained the same level of awful football with his terrible demeanour all season and was rightfully sacked. Never a Man United manager in a million years.

LVG in a way has been a much bigger disappointment because he has shown signs in these 2 years that he's the right man for the job but has ultimately failed. I can't believe this is an improved squad to that which performed so well towards the end of last year. We blew City away, dominated Liverpool twice, got it tactically perfect against Arsenal. I really thought we'd push on this season and have a right go at the title. He made some quality early signings in the window: Memphis one of the biggest talents in Europe and the 2 Sch's which gave us the best looking midfield we've had in years. Then the thing which I think was his first big mistake, which was not strengthening the attack enough during the summer despite offloading a huge number of attackers. Despite this we started the season ok. Weren't blowing teams away but were solid, were winning games and never really looked like losing an awful lot. I was convinced it was only a matter of time before the attacking displays clicked but it hasn't happened and as the season has gone on the solidity has gone as well. We've taken about 3 steps back from where we were at the end of last season.

I'd have completely accepted a young inexperienced manager straight after Fergie providing they showed progress. If Moyes had shown an ounce of progression he'd have kept his job despite finishing 7th and I wouldn't have been against it. I keep thinking what was the plan after he retired? Just throw enough shit at the fan in the hope that eventually some will stick? If Giggs has always been a future plan then why wasn't he persuaded to vacate his playing duties or even take on a player/coach role for Fergie's last few years, to get him ready to take over once he retired?

I'm all for Giggs now and will accept more disappointments in future seasons if it all leads to a bright future but to even be in this position and contemplating that is ridiculous 3 years after his retirement.

Top 4 is becoming pretty irrelevant for me now this season. We have to be looking at the future which is why I keep harping on about just giving Giggs the job now if he is the future plan. Fuck Pep and Jose off. Short term fixes which will leave us looking for a new manager in 3 years time and could possibly have us in a similar mess.

Give Giggs the job. Get Rene and Phelan back in. Fergie only a phone call away whenever he needs advice. He's in nowhere near as bad a situation squad wise as Moyes and LVG were. The one thing LVG has done is put a decent squad together which just needs tweaking in a few areas.

Yep. There's plenty of sensible options out there to help guide an inexperienced Giggs in the early stages. It makes so much sense to me now. Much more sense than it would make doing it at the end of the season. There is really nothing making us keep LVG any longer. Top 4 is in doubt regardless of who the manager is.

I wish I had as much confidence in Giggs as you do Jamie and I completely get how you'd like to skip the next stage of another 1-2-3 years of managerial mix and match and go straight to Giggs. But Moyes was supposedly a long-term replacement too and that didn't go down well... then Van Gaal with a short-term rebuilding job, which looking at the team is far from complete, so giving Giggs the job now would destabilize the club further in my opinion. We need to make sure we have reached some type of consistency in order to be able to take risks with an unexperienced manager. I'd give him the job now until the end of the season and see how it goes, but ultimately I'd like to see someone take over and finish the overhaul, bring a few years of stability and then see if and how ready Giggs is.