Same as it Ever Was
In this week’s show Ed & Paul look back on United’s first game of the season – a demoralising defeat to Swansea at Old Trafford – and ahead to next week’s fixture with Sunderland. United’s 2-1 home loss against the Swans came after a successful pre-season in which the Reds secured six victories in succession. But United’s performance against Swansea was every bit as laboured as any during David Moyes’ disastrous period in charge last season. There’s a look forward to United’s game against Sunderland next week, with the Reds having not always enjoyed positive results against the Mackems in recent seasons. Finally, your questions… on Louis van Gaal, transfers, performances and more!
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new rant cast day?
Cant wait too listen to this now at dinner! Top work as always guys
Agree with the view that Welbeck is important for United, he gives us an outlet in terms of his pace. RVP and Rooney haven’t got much pace and Welbeck’s speed gives defenders a different problem, the problem we had against swansea was that we played in front of them and couldn’t get behind their back 4.
Excellent – ‘schmashed’!!
Piers Ansorge
Loving the immediacy of a Monday night pod, but the rest of the week will be dull, unless Ed pulls his finger out of his arse.
Why was Wilson not on the bench? A kid full of confidence and already a better
all round player and as good a finisher as Chicha. If you watch the Manchester Senior Cup it is Wilson and then 21 others on that pitch, he was electric. That doesn’t obviously translate up l appreciate, but it means he is ready for a chance. We need pace and this kid has pace and quality. Get him in.
Would just like to clarify that it is Ed Woodward that needs to ‘pull his finger out of his arse and not Ed of Rantcast fame.
Presumably, van Gaal knows the players that he wants, so Ed Woodward should get out there and buy them. Perhaps he needs to be reminded of what happened to his namesake in ‘The Wicker Man’ when he upset the locals.
Or to his namesake in “Breaker Morant” for his hardline tactics against Boer guerillas in the South African War — for which we could substitute his hardline avoidance of the transfers we need, much upsetting the huge South African contingent of Man United supporters (including many descendants of combatants on both sides in that war who utterly love United).
Yes, but van Gaal has just decided after the loss to Swansea that he needs more players. Don’t blame Woodward.
Woodward wanted to bring in more players some 6 weeks ago but could not because van Gaal wanted to give his current players a fair chance to impress him in pre-season games. He said this was only fair to the players. Now that he has got a good look at this current squad, he is just now saying he needs players.
I don’t know why he waited this late, but Woodward has now got his work cut out!
Liverpool are in the process of signing Cavani so as I see it now, its going to take a miracle to get into the top 4 this season.
Are you Ed Woodward writing under the alias of the real deal, which would be quite ironic based on the lack of real deals we are seeing.
I am just giving you the facts! I have all of van Gaals’s interviews on tape. He is to blame for not bringing in more players sooner. Too many United fans think van Gaal is some sort of messiah. There was no need for van Gaal to have a look at Smalling, Jones and Evans as center backs when we’ve just lost our 2 main experienced center backs. It was just common sense to buy early 2 world-class center backs to replace them. And what club in their right mind would pay 27 million for an 18 year old left back. Liverpool paid 12 milion for the best left back in Europe. Its no wonder that van Gaal is looking for another left back for more experience because he is not impressed with Shaw. van Gaal did not have anything to do with the Shaw deal or the Herrera deal, that was in the works under Moyes and the club just followed it through. These 2 players would not be of any interest to van Gaal. I picked that up from an interview, when questioned, he did not say too much about them.
Suprisingly positive for once! I enjoyed that. I hope its not because you can’t accept Davi Moyes was right all along….”this will take time”…How di we end up this mess? on MNF last nigth the analysis of transfer spend by G Neville was painful. Only PSG have spent more than us!! How are we still in this position with all that money spent?! How depressing.
I used to think it was Scousers that were bitter about recent history, yet hopelessly optimistic about the immediate future – and that Mancs were the polar opposite.
The lads on the podcast have just predicted another victory for the coming weekend. They did it for almost every upcoming game last season and they did on the other United podcasts as well.
Meanwhile, Redcafe is full of wise old heads who think that Vidal and Di Maria are going to put United right back into the hunt for the title. They would probably be good signings, but United are miles away from being competitive and a couple of signings aren’t going to sort out a club in disarray. There is a good chance that they will need a year to adapt, if not more. Remember Veron? Even players like Mata, who has been good in the Premier League, can look hopelessly lost when they are at a club that is in a mess.
United might get a result at Sunderland, but I can’t remember the last time they played well in a game that mattered. Right now, any side is going to fancy their chances and have a go. That’s the problem, as any teams that run at United now cause them trouble.
We also know that Van Gaal likes to take credit for defeats and blame losses on the team. You are going to see plenty of the latter this season, which is only going to cause more resentment and lack of motivation.
United’s worst days are ahead of them, not behind.
The person who is most responsible for the mess we are in is, believe or not Cristiano Ronaldo. This one-in-a-billion footballer came to us a young raw recruit with a lot of potential — had a few dud months and then blossomed into one of the greatest players we have ever had or seen. Somehow people at United convinced themselves that this was the way forward, Luis Nani, Anderson, Smalling, Jones … all of them could, by some wondrous process of alchemy be turned into the utterly brilliant product that was CR7 in his final years with us. Perhaps also that enduring myth of our team — that once you put that famous red shirt on you become twice as good as you were before had something to do with it. So we stockpiled these young players waiting for the time they would come good … and they never did. Indeed some of them soon went in the opposite direcvtion and lost what raw talent they had had to begin with. And that leaves us with nobody in certain key departments — and yet very good players sitting on the bench because we are oversubscribed in other positions (most notoriously, at the number 10 playmaker in the hole role). It is currently at centreback that the pain is being felt, but what happened at the club in its total neglect of central midfield has been our longest running disaster. Even when we won the league two seasons ago, we all recognised that somethign was radically lacking and it was a kind of 38 game freak result, since we had not played well in any substantial number of games, nor had we dominated teams. We just so happened, by hook or by crook to win. And now, here we are. A list of elite players who we were after but lost to other clubs makes interesting reading: Nasri, Fabregas, Hazard, Bale, Robben, Mikel, Alcantra, Silva. Now will we have to add Di Maria and some other names to this list?
What? Ronaldo is to blame for our malaise??! Really?!
Hahhahahh what? That is utterly ludicrous.
We haven’t signed a midfielder because of the Glazers. Simple as.
Looks as if we are playing the blame game.
I blame Blatter.
If not for his pesky World Cup, we would have got our manager a couple of months earlier and preparations would have been much further advanced by now.
@UtdRantcast depressing but accurate analysis. I gave Woodward some leeway last season but this is now plain embarrassing. #MUFC
excellent pod
When I look at this whole picture, the problem has not been the Glazers or Woodward. It has been Alex Ferguson and now van Gaal. SAF wanted to prove that you don’t need to spend millions on players to win the title. SAF won the EPL by 11 points with a very medicore team. He proved his point and then retired. Man United could have bought any player that SAF wanted but he was not interested, just like van Gaal. SAF always felt he had enough quality there to win the EPL. Now that van Gaal has got a rude awakning in his first game, at this late hour he is now just looking for more players.
Are you sure you are not Ed Woodward or a Glazer? To suggest that a manager with the experience of van Gaal accepted this job without discussing his transfer targets, or at least getting a feeling/commitment of what could be spent is absurd. I would bet my house on the fact that he’d watched the majority of our games from last year before taking the job, and would have a fair idea what was needed. Why would he not want Hummel’s, or Kroos, or Reus, or Vidal? Any new manager has to give his current squad the belief that they will all get a chance and to be fair, with a few exceptions, he was good to his word. However if you think that Woodward didn’t have a shortlist of targets then you are delluded.
The problem is that just because Ed Woodward may be the one of the worlds most talented sponsorship execs, as demonstrated by various transactions, most notably the kit deal with Adidas, when it comes to transfer dealings he couldnt close a barn door. He has no network and a procurement strategy that involves little more than outbidding anyone for B list targets, whilst we appear to nickel and dime the major targets. Frightening.
You are also kidding yourself if you think the blame for our current predicament is anyones fault but those parasites who are profiteering at our, and our great clubs expense, to do nothing but line their own pockets in Florida. I find it amazing when l read Glazer supporters on various United sites like you. Wake up!
Love having the podcast earlier in the week, and hope it continues. When it comes out on Friday, it is often difficult to have the time to listen to it before Saturday games.