DE.

Should have sold him in the summer and put that money into other areas of the team. It was obvious his heart wasn't going to be in it this season after he made it so blatantly clear he wanted to move on.

What a difference a week makes, don't think United could have had a much better opponent than Spurs after a 5-0 thrashing though.

First half Derby didn't turn up for whatever reason. We could and probably should have been out of sight by then. They woke up in the second half but didn't have the quality to even the score. Second half was disappointing from a Rovers perspective, but we held on so I'll take it and move on. In a way I'm glad we didn't move into 5th or 6th, as being outside the playoffs might delay the next death spiral a little longer.

ROH is going on "hiatus" but a good chance it's finished. They claim to be coming back in April but have released all of their talent from contract and their tape library from 2012 to the present is for sale to the highest bidder. Even if they do come back it will barely be the same entity at this point. Personally I've watched barely any ROH as I've always found their production values below what I can tolerate, but early ROH especially has left a huge legacy on the industry in terms of some of the stars it produced.

If he's referring to himself in third person like that then it is indeed!

It seems like they treat our FFP obligations in the same way the treat everything at the club - haphazardly and only reacting when they absolutely have to. Our finances had spiralled in 2015 to the point where we did enter a proper embargo and apparently were using emergency loans to cover expenses. At that point some action seemed to be taken as we were out of the embargo by January and they hired those two auditing firms - in summer 2016 if memory serves? After that it seems to have gone back to the old ways of letting us sail close to the wind in regards to FFP, and then acting when we were under the 'soft' embargo, perhaps using this buy and lease back 'trick' at the last minute to keep things balanced.

Sponsorships, merch, etc... it's been a while since what was happening on the pitch was #1 priority at Man Utd.

A shame they don't have the 'better to do something than nothing' attitude with the manager!

If it's related to creative FFP avoidance I'm not sure why you'd do it now as opposed to x amount of years ago. It's not like this loophole hasn't been known about before. If it was just for the sake of doing it before that loophole was closed then okay, I guess, but it seems like shuffling deck chairs on the titanic. They will need to drastically slash the club's running costs going forward, or it won't be long before FFP becomes an issue again, and next time they won't be able to buy another club asset to offset the costs. I was going to add 'or they could genuinely fund a promotion push with a proper manager' but we all know that's never happening.

I mean, it's no secret the club's structure is a joke. I've been banging on about it since the Bowyer days. The #1 issue at the club is not the manager, it's the inability of the owners to implement any kind of coherent foundation for any manager to have any success with. Mowbray has been financially backed to some degree, that much is true, but there is so much more to running a successful club at this or any other level. Being allowed to throw £7m or £5m at the odd player, regardless of ability, doesn't mean much when the fabric of the club itself is so obviously flawed. With that said there are things the manager does that are ridiculous, irrespective of how the club is structured. If Mowbray is regarded as a top coach by people in the game then good for him, but that doesn't excuse the way he speaks about some of our players in public, the bizarre formations and choices of personnel in certain positions, digs at the fans regarding the past or nonsense about formations not being important or not looking at the league table. At a normal club Mowbray would have been out on his arse some time ago after some of the horrendous runs we've endured under his watch, so whilst it must be difficult working for Venky's, he's also been very lucky in being allowed to continue here for as long as he has. In many ways he's benefited from the owners' inexplicable management style - even when getting the job in the first place. So, for me it goes both ways. The club is a basket case no matter how 'stable' things appear on the outside, and I do not foresee us ever being successful with the current owners at the helm. However, Mowbray has made plenty of big mistakes even taking that into account. His overall performance can be debated until the end of time, but there's no question he has gone stale here and like any manager who has been at a club for a long period of time, it eventually comes time to move on and try something else. The frustration comes from that obvious fact not being acknowledged by those in charge of the club, despite them acknowledging it before with the likes of Bowyer and Coyle. It leaves the impression of a rudderless ship being helmed by people who know their time is up but are willing to cruise along as we slowly sink beneath the waves. Although, with the amount of players out of contract this summer, we may not be too far away from suddenly capsizing completely.

Didn't have much of a choice considering what he paid for him tbf. Same with Gallagher - not sticking with them would have been a pretty horrendous look for Mowbray.

Arsenal are actually an interesting one too - horrible start to the season and calls for Arteta to be sacked, but they seem to have turned it around somewhat recently. You still get the impression any half decent team will destroy them though. Technically Arteta had even less managerial experience than Solskjaer when appointed.

The manager has form for being a dick in public to players who aren't his favourites, especially when it looks like they're leaving the club. It's a wonder any of the players outside of the inner circle show the slightest loyalty to him as he has form for throwing players under the bus, whilst never taking so much as a shred of responsibility on his own shoulders. Not the kind of leader I'd want. How is Rothwell still a 'young lad' learning his trade? He's 27 in January ffs.

From what I remember he was initially brought in as a stop-gap, a caretaker manager who could get the fans onside for a little while due to the history he has at the club. However, Solskjaer did much better than anticipated and suddenly a lot of fans were clamouring for him to be given the role permanently. A strong board would have stuck to their guns and brought in the best possible replacement to take over from Ole, but United's board were weak and caved in to the demands of the crowd. Truth be told it's gone better than anyone at Man Utd could have realistically expected up until this point, but Ole's limitations are becoming painfully apparent now. He could still get them into the top four, but when 4th becomes your goal it isn't long before you end up like Arsenal.

I think Lampard knew as well as anybody that it wasn't going to be a long-term thing unless he had some serious success very quickly - which was unlikely as from what I remember they were under some kind of transfer ban at the time. Considering his inexperience, and Chelsea's situation when he arrived, Lampard did fairly well imo, but once they were able to sign players again it was a matter of time until a top manager was brought in as Lampard had a ceiling and Chelsea weren't prepared to wait years for him to gain the experience needed to raise that ceiling. Lampard knew better than anybody how ruthless Abramovic is, so I doubt he was particularly surprised when he was moved on. Solskjaer is basically at United for the same reason Lampard was at Chelsea - nostalgia. Managing Molde and relegating Cardiff isn't exactly a CV that screams 'top level manager'. I actually think up until this point Solskjaer has overperformed based on his experience and ability, but his ceiling has also become painfully obvious. With the amount of time he's been in the job and the money spent on players (United's much maligned backline cost close to £200m to assemble) there's no way they should be getting dicked 5-0 at home to Liverpool. It wasn't even a case of being unfortunate either, they were totally ripped apart and embarrassed. I don't think it's a case of players downing tools (except Pogba, possibly) as the midweek game against Atalanta suggests they are still playing for the manager. Solskjaer is just way out of his depth compared to top managers and unless United are willing to accept being also-rans for the foreseeable future they will need to make a change to get back into contention. Personally though I hope Ole continues on for a long time to come!

Neville isn't exactly lacking bias when it comes to Solksjaer. Pretty sure he'd have a very different opinion if it wasn't one of his mates in the dugout. Carragher in this instance is correct, United need a better manager than Solksjaer, just like Chelsea needed a better manager than Lampard before Tuchel was appointed and dramatically improved everything almost instantly.

He's been there since 2018, so he's had plenty of time to build a team that doesn't get destroyed 5-0 at home by the club's biggest rivals tbf. But I agree, hope Ole stays there for another 3 years at least. United are lucky Liverpool took it easy (or easier) once Pogba got sent off. Could have been 8 or 9 if they'd stepped it up a gear at any point in the second half. Salah looked visibly annoyed that his team mates weren't going for more, as I'm sure he knows he could have had another two or three at least. Can't really blame Liverpool for seeing the game out though, no point risking injury or expending any more energy than necessary considering the scoreline.

I guess Pogba wants Ole out as well 😂

You'd imagine this is it for Ole. Even if they get a couple back and it ends 4-2 that first half was a sackable offence in of itself.

There are teams in the PL who have shown you can be competitive in the division (for most clubs this just means avoiding relegation) without having huge resources - Burnley being an obvious one. Norwich can't use that as an excuse, especially when you consider how Brentford have taken to the top flight so far. Either the model at Norwich is incompatible with what is required at PL level, or Farke just isn't the manager needed for the situation they're in. Hearing them talk about accepting relegation a couple of seasons ago was embarrassing and as a fan I would have been furious with that kind of attitude. Even if you're fighting against the odds to survive, there's no excuse for accepting defeat as essentially inevitable. The problem at Norwich is that they aren't even doing the absolute basics required when you're an underdog in a division - closing down, keeping a compact shape, making it tough for the opposition to break you down. Farke can set up a team to do well when his team are one of the best in the division and don't have to focus too much on the defensive side of things (from memory they conceded the most goals of any Championship 1st placed team in the past decade plus), but seems to have no answer when his team are the underdogs and need to be more careful and detailed in their approach.

I think you're probably right. I have a lot of respect for Mick as a manager and how he generally goes about his business, but if I was recruiting it would be difficult to overlook him presiding over Cardiff's worst run in their entire history. I'd probably invite him in for an interview so that he could give his side of the story in regards to what happened, but I think the way it ended at Cardiff will have been a real hammerblow to his reputation. He's only 62 so in managerial terms he isn't ancient, and in fairness his record pre-2020 is still very good. It's just been a tough couple of years for him. He's someone I'd want to talk to if I was in charge of hiring a new manager, but I'd definitely need reassurances regarding what caused Cardiff's total and utter collapse under his watch.

Weather is turning cold, think we may have to prepare for Ayala being gone for a while unfortunately.

As I've said before, I believe our general first 11 are good enough to get into the playoffs. It's the manager and squad depth that are our major blockers to achieving that. Anyway, good that the death spiral is over for now and nice to get a clean sheet.

Surely McCarthy can't continue there much longer. Judging by the stats Cardiff are getting battered, again, at home to Boro. If they lose today it will be their 8th loss on the spin, which is ridiculous. Also only scored a single goal during that entire run (against us, naturally). Something has obviously gone badly wrong there, for whatever reason.

It's the same demeanour he had during our 2 wins in 17 run last season, when I think even Mowbray assumed he was going to be removed. It's crazy that he's still here, really, and he is probably as confused as the rest of us as to why he's being allowed to continue.