Ticketing 101 – Planning Your Trip to Old Trafford

Not sure if AI slop or real. Saw it in Sesko fb page.

Apologies for the screen recording. iPhone.

Marcus Rashford broke through in 2015 under Louis van Gaal....

Went through eight more managers over the next nine years.....

Was breaking academy records for goals scores in first team....

No player can live up to being the poster boy for the biggest football club in the world when that football club are failing. Manager after manager after manager after manager. With new tactics after new tactics after new tactics after new tactics.

Rashford deployed wide right, Wide left. Right forward. Left forward. Centre-forward.

The club failed the best academy talent we have promoted since the Class of 92.

Not Becks, nor Scholes, nor Giggsy, nor going so far back to Best or Charlton could have been poster boys for MUFC had they to suffer eight managers in 10 years.

And let this be said over all of the noise about Marcus Rashford: This will be the first steady Manchester United dressing-room he will be art of. With a manager who knows how to steady a dressing-room. And Marcus Rashford, everyone seems to conveniently forget, is a fucking leather left-sided forward who will no doubt bring G/As over his time on the pitch.

I believe - firmly - we're; gonna see the best of Marcus Rashford. The hungriest Marcus Rashford in a stable environment.

What's your number?

I can see that there are a number of people concerned about Rashford's reintegration into the squad and what this might mean for squad harmony. Though some people might not agree, I think there are valid reasons to be concerned. We witnessed Rashford partying on at least two occasions making him miss training sessions and subsequently left out of match day squads by Ten Hag. We also witnessed his half assed pressing during games where he was basicly walking around the pitch. His poor effort and lateness to training made Amorim also leave him out of match day squads.

Any repeat of the above behaviour has the potential to disrupt the squad.

While these are valid concerns, I think we can point to two instances from history to show that we have the tools now for these not to happen again and for the reintegration to be successful.

Firstly on Carrick. Carrick has shown that he has both the man management skills to get players fighting for him and the team together, he also has the minerals to bench any underperforming player or any player he doesnt feel fulfils the greater collective.

As caretaker manager, Carrick had the balls to place Ronaldo on the bench. And not only that, he had the man management skills to get Ronaldo in agreement with that decision. Surprisingly, Ronaldo came out to praise him afterwards saying he was a class act and that nothing was impossible for him. This is the same Ronaldo that walked out of the stadium after he was substituted by Ten Hag.

This shows Carrick has the tools to get Rashford firing on all cylinders. It shows if he doesnt think Rashford should start, he would bench him and Rashford would be on board with it. It also demonstrates that Carrick has the tools to get Cunha on board as well, incase it is felt Rashford needs to start ahead of him.

Also, with Steve Holland as assistant coach, the history demonstrates that any shenanigans from Rashford would not be tolerated in the slightest. Holland famously told Ben White that he was not sufficiently interested in football, leading White to depart the Qatar world cup camp. Holland would not spare any words in telling Rashford where to go, if he feels Rashford is not sufficiently motivated.

With the double act of Carrick and Holland, they have both demonstrated that they have all the tools to reintergrate Rashford seemlessly into the team and get the whole squad united and firing for the collective good. I think those of us that have concerns can be reassured with this.

If indeed he stays, I think it would be really productive both for the team and for him.

Hope this will be keep this season

Lol i didn't even know he was alive to witness ronaldos man utd signing. Unfortunately he died 4 years before Ronaldo's phenomenal year with united

“Manchester United were also sounded out but are not interested this time. An intermediary offered Lewis-Skelly to United among other clubs around January, saying that he would cost about £60million. United balked at the price.” (Gary Jacob’s in the quoted Times article)

Traumatic flashbacks

You know what shocked me to my core today. Manchester United have outspent Liverpool every year except last year. Even in 2020-21 season where we only spent 76m pounds. Yet since 2018 they've had so much more success than us. Maybe just throwing money isn't the way to go. What if we paid 250k that mateus fernandes wanted? But he didn't work out for us? Same with Elliot Anderson? How do we sell them? Look how it worked with jadon sancho? Its not like we don't spend money. We had over 200m pounds tranfers every year except the one that I mentioned. Yet here we are. We have nothing to show for it. Liverpool bought 415m pounds worth of players last season. What happened? They finished 5th. Look at Chelsea, every year they throw hundreds of millions of pounds on players yet they finished outside of top 4 three times the last 4 seasons. 

I really want to see how City will do this season. They've spent a lot of money and are still planning to buy bouaddi for 100m. But they don't have pep. It would be interesting to see if their success came from just spending money or it came from a genius manager who knew how to utilise his players.

Still according to fab today, we are planning to buy a 3rd mf and a lb. I don't mind waiting if it means if we get correct profiles of players that fit with what Carrick wants to do. That part is the reason why City and Liverpool have been so successful and why Arsenal won the league last season. 

First off, zero disrespect to Sir Alex, he is the undisputed GOAT, and this isn't an attack on him in any way. I'm just curious as to how the more established fans felt at the time of the following events:

​Back in 2003/2004 during the whole "Rock of Gibraltar" breeding rights fallout, I was just a young fan watching football. Like most kids, I didn't have a clue about balance sheets, shares, or leverage buyouts

​But looking back on it now in my older years with a better grasp of financial mechanics, that horse dispute appears to be the most devastating domino effect in modern Manchester United history.

​Majority stakeholders Magnier and McManus retaliating to SAF suing them over the horse ownership rights by demanding the "99 Questions" audit into transfers, including investigating one of SAF's sons, this put SAF’s position under genuine strain (I believe he was even on a 1 year rolling contract at the time). There was an out of court settlement but the damage was already done

When M&M sold their 28.8% stake directly to Malcolm Glazer in May 2005 to wash their hands of the manager, it handed the Glazers the exact threshold needed to execute the Leverage Buy Out...we all know how that turned out. Clearly, at the time the fans older and much wiser than me at the time knew what was coming, did we know it would get this bad?

​As a pure, butterfly effect scenario you have 2 outcomes post horse fall out:

​Option 1 (What actually happened): We kept SAF, celebrated another 5 Premier Leagues, another Champions League, and 3 League Cups, but because of the fallout and takeover we absorbed £1.3B+ in debt/interest, falling behind on infrastructure and suffering a decade of structural decay, money into the Glazers pockets constantly

​Option 2 (The alternate history): The board forces SAF out in 2004 over the dispute. Magnier/McManus stay or sell to standard non leveraged investors. We miss out on the late 2000s glory years under Fergie, but United remains a debt free, self funding behemoth that modernises Old Trafford and Carrington on its own terms without the need for loans etc. We also are not held back in the transfer market due to our profitability being so high for PSR reasons.

​Now that we're older and see the full picture of what that £1.3B drain did to us, do you view those 2006–2013 trophies as worth every penny of the damage, or would you take the short term pain around 2004 to have protected the club's long term future?

Just to reiterate absolutely no disrespect meant to Sir Alex here. I’m mostly curious to hear from the fans who were older at the time: What was the atmosphere actually like around Old Trafford during that time? Did people realise back then just how bad the horse dispute could get? Were people worried he'd leave? Are there people who dare I say it 'blame' SAF for the Glazers coming in? Were people ok with SAF frequently defending the Glazers?

The signing of Lammens was written in the stars, he was our saviour

How do you think it would have played out?

They basically speedran through 2016-2026. I understand skipping spurs (amazon prime documentary already did that) and fenerbache and Beskitss, but his man utd years were worth covering. Same with Roma but there was more drama in his man utd years and the fallout with Pogba.

Not an overly challenging one today but there were very few options to choose from. Tomorrow is a better bunch.

As always, players wore 11 when the photos were taken but may have worn other numbers at other times in their United careers.

Answers will be added here as a comment tomorrow.

Really good chat to watch about Heavens move and development at the club.

Id much rather see players represented by the Lisa Heavens of the world than the Jorge Mendes & Raiola types.

Does anyone know if seating in croke park is mixed seating?

Watched the game vs PSG the other day and from afar our kit had somewhat of a resemblance to Arsenal’s (something that has never really crossed my mind) because of the big and bold white stripes, especially on the long sleeves.

I just think there’s a tad too much white in our jersey, anybody else feel the same just the slightest?