i liked scholes better when he didn't speak tbh

Mourinho is still not managing his own squad in the way Pep is doing at City. He is managing a ragbag collection of players, thrown onto the pitch like a Jackson Pollock painting by the last 4 managers. Definitely an advertisment for value of the Director of Football role.



United squad -

10 players signed or debuted by Mourinho
7 by LVG
5 by Fergie
4 by Moyes (Shaw and Herrera were Moyes players that LVG ok'ed whilst at the 2014 World Cup)


De Gea - Fergie
Lindelof - Mou
Bailly - Mou
Jones - Fergie
Pogba - Mou
Sanchez - Mou
Mata - Moyes
Lukaku - Mou
Rashford - LVG
Martial - LVG
Smalling - Fergie
Grant - Mou
Lingard - LVG
Pereira - LVG
Rojo - LVG
Fred - Mou
Young - Fergie
Dalot - Mou
Herrera - Moyes
Romero - LVG
Shaw - Moyes
Valencia - Fergie
Fellaini - Moyes
Matic - Mou
Darmian - LVG
McTominay - Mou

City Squad

14 signed or debuted by Pep
6 by Pellegrini
2 by Mancini
1 by Hughes


Bravo - Pep
Walker - Pep
Danilo - Pep
Kompany - Hughes
Stones - Pep
Sterling - Manuel
Gundogan - Pep
Aguero - Mancini
Laporte - Pep
Mangala - Manuel
De Bruyne - Manuel
Delph - Manuel
Sane - Pep
Bernardo - Pep
David Silva - Mancini
Mendy - Pep
Fernandinho - Manuel
Mahrez - Pep
Otamendi - Manuel
Ederson - Pep
Jesus - Pep
Zinchenko - Pep
Foden - Pep

If you look at the "carry-over" players from the managers before the previous one, it is literally club legends - Aguero, David Silva and Kompany. Contrast that with United - De Gea, Shaw, Smalling, Jones, Young, Valencia, Fellaini, Herrera, Mata. Only one of those players will be considered a great, and only one other (Valencia) would make the top 100 United players ever.

Decisions Against United 18-19

Giving Mourinho a new contract and then failing to buy the players he wanted. 10th place awaits.

And look who’s back

All those words to state the bloody obvious.

+1

when things go bad for United everything descends into a circus and scholes is just adding fuel to the fire, he should know better.

I'll take United to finish 9th or better.

Based on historical evidence 10th place will only be possible if they drop mou at christmas; then there is a chance.

JD, good to hear from you. There must be a quote from last summer where mou is 100% satisified with their transfer business as he was in his first summer.

Not sure if serious.

Top 100 United players in your lifetime, maybe.

fellaini was an ex-man utd player until jose okayed the new contract after publicly begging him to sign it. cant blame moysey for that one

That Man City documentary seems like the biggest piece of evidence so far in favour of BAIDS theorem

Swansea v Leeds just kicking off. Should be decent.

Went with Derby-Leeds double. Swans looked terrible in 1 game I've seen them in. It is enough time for me to judge any team/manager. Players I usually need 25 minutes or so

Remind me what the baids theorem is

Managers dont matter. Money does

Wut!? Didn't you see Pep telling them to play for David Silva? That talk surely won the game.

I think it is around 80-20. Maybe 75-25?

I mean it aint hard to see why having the opportunity to get the best talent around makes your EV of winning that much higher.

"The title is right in front of your face so take it!" speech surely must be why they won the league last year

more evidence of Pep managerial genius:

Surely he is taking the piss. Like when hazard said cech is good at stopping pens. Or anyone that said Mourinho is the special one

i don't think scholes has any obligation to not add (hilarious) fuel to the fire.

but the "leader" stuff is always so boring. like what matters is you have some angry guy pointing and shouting instead of the quality of your football. like mascherano could still shout and look as angry as ever, but when he could keep up anymore he was still just trash

.

managers dont matter = shorthand for managers barely matter wrt results (but obv matter a lot wrt style of play, lol mun)

stuff like whether your central midfielder can complete a pass under pressure is what decides games, and money is the biggest determinant of whether you have a central midfielder that can complete that pass (luck = #2 factor)

also, if 75/25 is anything even in the stratosphere of correct then all teams are massively misallocating their resources

city's investment in pep so far has been what, £70m or so? aka less than one half of the money which barca have committed to ousmane dembele project

doesn't make a lick of sense if the balance is anything close to 75/25

also, lets talk about the triple gold star approved narrative of pulis single-handedly guaranteeing survival for ****e PL teams. each year of survival is worth £100m+ easily, therefore the services of the bloke who headbutted james beattie in the shower without benefit of clothing are worth many tens of millions of pounds per year.

as. if.

(hair theoroid is also a bit misunderstood but will have to go over that another time)

interesting enough it puts baids in conflict with der markt which thinks guardiola as a coach is worth as much money in wages as a good footballer. he tries to hand-wave this away with a story about how it's all marketing or whatever like it's guardiola face you see on the new man city lunch boxes they sell in china

city's investment in pep (rough guessing: 10m signing bonus (x2) + 15m/year for however long his contract is) = less than, erm, basically everyone else in that dressing room

kyle walker (45m to spuds, signing bonus, agent fee, wages over the course of his contract) for example is more than any reasonable estimate of pep's take home

john stones

ELAQUIM MANGALA probably, that dude was 40m right off the bat to whoever they bought him from

hes prob on substantially more than brandon ashton the kit man to be fair altho im not sure he adds very much more value. kit man by all accounts keeps the players relaxed and loose

If that really was the case, you'd think clubs would've realised that by now. It's almost as if you're talking bollocks