Are Man Utd an ‘absolute omnishambles’ or should ‘dunderheeds’ be defended?

Manchester United appointing Michael Carrick is making nobody giddy while the VAR call on Tuesday night was a disgrace.

Send your mails on any subject – and any manager – to theeditor@football365.com

Thursday 9am. Press conference held to announce interim manager.

In walks Carrick. Picks up the mic.

‘MANCHESTER UNITED’ he shouts. A cheer rises from the seated journalists.

The door opens. Its Rooney. He gives Carrick a manly hug then takes the mic.

‘MANCHESTER UNITED’ he screams, spittle hitting Laurie Whitwell, who stands and cheers anyway. Others stand now. The atmosphere is electric.

Rooney sits next to Carrick. They look over to the door as it creaks open.

Its Neville riding on Keane’s back like a child. He’s in full kit. He doesnt need the mic. He lifts up his voice.

‘MANCHESTER. UNITED.’ he cries, thick creamy tears running down his face.

Andy Mitten explodes.

City win 11-4.

I saw it in a dream. Anon, Arsenal Fan

Man Utd have f***ed it either way

With Carrick installed as caretaker manager, it only further underlines how utterly inept United are as an organisation.

If he does worse than Amorim, it will be clear that sacking Amorim in January was a mistake and that it would have made far more sense to wait until later in the season, or even until the end.

If he does better than Amorim, then the former Middlesbrough manager, who guided them to 10th before being sacked, will have outperformed the man United handpicked as their top candidate and backed with bundles of cash.

Either way, they are an absolute omnishambles of an organisation. Mike, LFC, Dubai

There is always a very common term for a football player that goes “one season wonder”, and iconic players like Michu, Benni McCarthy & more perfectly fit that category. There is nothing wrong with that, but that’s all they are. It is common knowledge that spending a 100m on a player that has just 1 good season behind him would be a fool’s errand. So why are these one season managers being given some of the world’s top jobs left right and center?

You can take your pick of these one season wonder managers, from Amorim, Ten Hag, Nagelsmann, Alonso and to an extent Slot. Winning a league is a great thing no matter what, but to win it once, and to win it consistently over time, across teams and leagues, is another. and there is a very very wide gap in the talent required to do the former vs the latter.

The above managers have all been found out and been shown that being a consistently top manager is no joke, and a very very hard thing to do. That does not mean that they will not be a top manager in the future, but the fact that blindly backing these managers is not the sensible thing to do for most top clubs.

You are better off finding your own gem in the dirt ala Barce with Pep or Madrid with Zidane or maybe Arsenal with Arteta if he wins the league, or hiring managers who have consistently proven that they are World Class like Ancelotti, Tuchel, Flick, Klopp, Enrique & more who have won titles across years, multiple cups & showcased their ability across a time period to prove it wasn’t a one off event. It’s the same way you’d rather find your own Harry Kane from the academy or go on and buy a Suarez, Lewandowski etc. Players who have shown consistency in their ability to be world class.

United need to learn from this, and stop hiring these random one season wonders in the hope of hitting the jackpot. Either make your own top class manager from the ground up, or hire a proven world class winner. Anything in between just feels like more of the same.

There is no proven formula, as even Mourinho & LvG failed, but their failure is finishing 2nd, winning multiple cups & more. So that is an acceptable level of failure considering where United are now. That’s just my two cents on what clubs like Madrid or United need. Aman

Ian Watson seems to suggest that no matter how well Carrick does between now and the rest of the season, he shouldn’t get the Man U job on a permanent basis because he hasn’t got something called ‘credentials’.

But didn’t Amorim have credentials? Didn’t Ten Hag? Didn’t Mourinho? For the record, I can’t imagine that a fellow who failed at Middlesbrough is going to prove particularly effective at one of the biggest clubs in the world but if I’m wrong, and he gets them into the Champions League, it would be perverse not to ask him to carry on. Matt Pitt

It’s toxic isn’t it, football these days? I say this as a despairing United fan who has spent the past 12/13 years bemoaning his about everything that has taken place at the club.

As far as United go in terms of meeting the standards of its best years – as well as of a club that spends as much as it does on players – it’s bad. But at the end of the day this ultimately all about 22 players chasing a leather/pig skin/synthetic orb around a field. It should never be at the point of A) fans abusing players/managers/officials and B) an entire industry made up of (often contradictory) articles decrying where everyone is going wrong. In United’s case at least, B) often contains elements of A) (see Nicholson calling everyone at United a “dunderheed” ).

Let’s take a look at those “dunderheeds”.

Now I grant you, Ratcliffe is probably not best placed to run a sporting club, let alone one the size of United. But are we calling a self made billionaire stupid? There are many things you could say about him fairly in describing his approach to business, politics and humanity, but stupid is not one of them.

And then Berrada has definitely made mistakes – keeping Ten Hag and then pushing for Amorim notably – but he’s had a distinguished career at Barcelona and Manchester City before coming to United.

On the business side United were supposed to be reducing costs to make the club more profitable after years of mismanagement by Ed Woodward. This has been a painful process but wages are down and losses have been reduced dramatically. If you thought United were suddenly going to start making massive profits immediately then you were foolish. The trajectory is a good one though we really need someone to put their hands in their pockets and pay that debt off.

Credit to Ratcliffe where it’s due on that point as he in fact did put £300M of his own money into the club. The person to do so that I can remember (other than the fans who have been rinsed over the years). Lots of negatives too but were they unpopular decisions or were they mistakes? There’s a business case for making staff redundant and raising ticket prices as difficult as those things are to stomach. Should they have focused on staff redundancies whilst sacking managers and spending a fortune on players?

Sacking managers costs money but the cost in and of itself doesn’t affect the profitably of the organisation as much as underlying staff costs. And when the managers have you playing terrible football what does that do for profitability?

The bigger questions are on the football side. What exactly was the deal with the Ashworth pursuit and eventual sacking? I could have told you he wasn’t worth pursuing in the first place but at least United can be said to have failed fast here. I would question why he was replaced by Wilcox and not a world class proven Sporting Director. That said, I’m not sure what Wilcox has done wrong so far – aside from not signing a midfielder in the summer, though United were short of goals and that seems to have been addressed.

I think recruitment has been generally good – younger players (Dorgu, Sesko, Lammens) or those approaching their peak and proven in Our League (Mbeumo, Cunha). Players moved on when they’ve needed to be (no one wants Malacia it seems). Going for Lammens over Martinez was a brave call but a smart one in the long term and with United’s constraints I think. This all seems to be a significant improvement behind the scenes on what came before.

Question marks on some of the haggling over Mbeumo – should we have pivoted to Semenyo? – whether Sesko will come good and why we didn’t sign a midfielder, but no club comes out of a transfer window without question marks (see Liverpool) and a squad as badly constructed as United’s will take years to rebuild.

I think Wilcox has been wrongly blamed for hiring Amorim in the first place and for some reason the Sporting Director can’t suggest changes to the head coach even though literally everyone questioned why Amorim when back to 3 at the back for the Wolves game after beating Newcastle with 4 at the back. But then what do I know? I’ve never been a Sporting Director. And neither has anyone at F365. When Monchi or Begiristain comes out with their own F365 Says pieces about every mistake Wilcox has made I’ll sit up and take notice. Until that point he probably doesn’t deserve to be known as a “dunderheed”.

And on a final point, I’ve been really disappointed that Shea Lacey’s sending off has been used all over the place to somehow encapsulate United’s entire plight. Even Nicholson referenced it, though indirectly. This guy’s is EIGHTEEN. He doesn’t deserve any abuse from anyone for anything that he does on the football pitch. Was he a bit silly? Yes. But do you know what? He bounced a ball into the ground metres from anyone in the 91st minute of an FA Cup tie. This wasn’t a seasoned professional, it was an over exuberant young man who’d spent the last twenty minutes showing his peers exactly how football should be done. Ref could’ve been a bit less exuberant himself.

Maybe we should think about whether it wasn’t Shea Lacey that was a bit silly but the rules themselves or even the game itself. I suggest we all have a think about whether it is in fact us that are all rather silly for putting so much weight on the actions of 22 much younger men chasing a ball around a pitch and those that profit from it.

My point? In a world of Trump, climate catastrophe and pending AI apocalypse, isn’t this all a bit silly? Isn’t our anger best directed somewhere other than at people that kick a ball around or arrange said kickabouts? The problem is not necessarily those running and playing football but us for being so easily distracted – and too eager to be distracted from – the important things.

To paraphrase Fergie – “youse are f*cking dunderheeds”. Ashmundo

Hi Jimmy, no issue taken here! I still 100% stand by the changes, and I think we’ve looked a lot better for it. We’ve conceded fewer shots on target with a back four than a back 6.

Burnley scored a freak deflection and finished with 2 goals from their 1 shot on target. Meanwhile we absolutely battered them and looked very good in attack (indeed, we scored the winning goal). Against Brighton, we kept them to 2 shots on target until late game, but unfortunately they scored both, while we had 19 chances and 8 on target but unfortunately two of the best fell to Dalot. Bad result, but we still looked the better team overall, the negative chat mostly comes from frustration.

Mainoo, meanwhile, putting in decent numbers for his role – only Bruno created more chances than him against Brighton, while his passing was mostly on point, only a couple of missed passes across two games (in spite of the baseless narrative that he couldn’t pass).

The core issue remains, as it has been for years, with players like Dalot and Casemiro, while Mount completely doesn’t suit this set up and Cunha is looking like the one season wonder I feared he might be at the beginning of the season. Thankfully, Mazraoui is back soon, along with Amad and Mbeumo who have been our best two.

Maybe I’m weird like that, but I don’t think a week under a guy in his first temporary senior management gig is long enough to judge, especially when people have spent the last 14 months doing brilliant mental gymnastics to defend the terrible. I don’t know if it’s a factor, but I have previously expressed concern around telling players that the guy they’re working under won’t be around long.

I’m disappointed to be out of the cups, but I’m positive about the rest of the season and future. Top 4 here we go! Badwolf

So Haaland is deemed offside for a “subjective” offside decision whatever the chuff that means!!! …….just wondering what happened to that 50mm tolerance Wirtz got a week or so back……

Sh*tty tolerance aside I can’t for the life of me figure out how that goal has been disallowed. I’ve really done my best to not criticise VAR too much as it’s here and it is what it is…..but that is utterly f***ing ridiculous. Paul, Manchester

…Top level football becomes more of an embarrassment by the day. What was offside, a flake of skin from Haaland’s heel that had detached itself and drifted out of his sock?

I guess it must be me; clearly for the 38 years I’ve been alive I’ve been misusing the words ‘clear’ and ‘obvious’.

Hull are doing wonderfully well this season, but part of me hopes we don’t make the playoffs if this VAR nonsense is part of the reward for promotion.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall when the officials all pat each other on the back for a job well done. Genuinely embarrassing decision. Robert Welbourn

So me and the boys were just having a text discussion – cause what else is there to do when you don’t feel like actually doing your paid job on a Tuesday late-morning – about whether or not young players are burning out at a faster rate than in the past (funnily enough, not one of us is older than 35…).

It prompted me to look at how many minutes (for the senior team) the following played in their age 17-20 seasons:

Messi – 6442′ Foden – 6646′ Saka – THIRTEEN THOUSAND AND 42 MINUTES (also played 126′ at age 16 but negligible in this context)

I am ever so slightly concerned by those numbers to say the least. MAW, LA Gooner (For the love of god please give Nwaneri some minutes.)

There is a huge scale of difference between Crystal Palace donating their share of 6,000 seats at Moss Rose, and City being asked to donate their half of the Etihad’s ticket money.

There is also a massive difference between Palace voluntarily doing it and the Exeter Official Supporters Trust publicly asking for it and trying to shame City to do the same as Palace. Personally, someone trying to make me do something, means I’m much less likely to do it.

And even if City did donate the money, that now sets a precedent without definition. Do City now need to donate their cup gate receipts to all teams from League One and lower? What about Wigan and Bolton in League One, which are much bigger clubs and used to be in the Premier League? Do they still get the money? Or is it based on the ground capacity, so Exeter with less than 10,000 capacity get the money but bigger grounds do not? What about 12,000 capacity Oxford in the Championship? Do you see the point?

It’s easy to be snarky and play the moral high ground without considering the bigger picture. In my opinion the Football League clubs should have agreed this in advance when the FA decided to remove all FA Cup replays as that benefits the bigger clubs and specifically the PL clubs in European competitions. Something like a none PL club gets to keep 75% of the gate receipts if they play a PL club that is in Europe that season. Then we add clarity and remove begging, public shaming and less false moral high grounds. Andy D. Manchester. MCFC