United Thread 2015/16

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coleridge said:
It seems to me that the business model is typical of Emirati thinking. In the timescale of top level football. for the first ten years are about investment and then increasing success and revenue. The next decade is about consolidation and further commercial expansion. I have always expected ADUG to receive a return on their financial input one day. I can see significant profits arising within the next couple of years or so, not all of which necessarily needs to be directly re-invested. That is then a sustainable model. Compare this to the Rags, who are beginning to remind me of a former heavyweight who still has a large fan base although his best days are behind him and is now addicted to celebrity status rather than the fights to come.
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That's a good analogy at the end - and as you allude to, the business MO of our owners should militate against any chronic complacency, so I'm hopeful we won't repeat the same mistakes as united. Let's not forget that before WW2 City were a 'bigger' footballing institution than united. That dynamic changed at united's behest because of astute management (Busby), happenstance (Munich), effective financial management (M. Edwards) and being in pole position when English football was rejuvenated after the 1990 World Cup and went global at the time when telecommunications technology allowed it to. A benevolent (for united) cocktail of good luck and judgement.

What supreme arrogance to assume that the forces of change that brought that about could not operate against united if they did not prepare adequately for such an outcome. Perhaps this, more than anything else, encapsulates 'the united way'. Too slow, too smug to see what was coming and respond to it.

"Not in my lifetime".

Yeah, right.
 
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Prestwich_Blue said:
I just think it was really nice that Ed Woodward went all the way over to Barcelona, in person, to tell Pedro the rags didn't want him. That shows real class. Even the deluded hordes on the caff aren't buying the Neymar story. I think the Sun must have misheard Turtlehead when he said about buying no-marks.
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I imagine he'll stay in Spain to finalise Benzema's move to Arsenal
 
It's all a misunderstanding. The turtle is trying to learn our various dialects and colloquialisms. This week, he's been learning Yorkshire speak and Scouse speak. When his mum rang him to ask if he's looking to buy anyone, he said "nay ma "



And no, I won't get my coat.
 
image.jpg
 
Ring ring...

"Hello"
"Hello Mr Neymar"
"who is that"
"Its Mr Woodward from Manchester football club"
"Manchester you say :-)"
"Yes and I want to offer you a good deal"
"well I would love to play in Manchester"
"that's great news!"
"yes I love watching you play, Silva, Yaya and Agüero are great players"
"I'm from Manchester United you knowJanujaz, Jones, Young and Valencia"
"um I need to go and uhhh wash my hair"
"hello Mr Neymar, hello?"
 
Here's some little lite comedy from the Caf's City thread :-

Lots of quality and can mix it when they need to. Only 2 games in but you can't help but being impressed. We aren't that far off them but we need to get players playing their right positions.
 
IH8MUFC said:
Ring ring...

"Hello"
"Hello Mr Neymar"
"who is that"
"Its Mr Woodward from Manchester football club"
"Manchester you say :-)"
"Yes and I want to offer you a good deal"
"well I would love to play in Manchester"
"that's great news!"
"yes I love watching you play, Silva, Yaya and Agüero are great players"
"I'm from Manchester United you knowJanujaz, Jones, Young and Valencia"
"um I need to go and uhhh wash my hair"
"hello Mr Neymar, hello?"
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Rarely open this thread but that is funny!
 
Just found this beauty on their City thread

I think we've beat them in the window this year tbh. And I don't think anyone else has done better than us, maybe on par with us at most. Our defence has transformed, our midfield is the strongest in the league defensively, and as for attacking options we lack a certain sharpness/end product, but with depay/mata/januzaj/hererra/young, it's up there with even Manchester City's imo.
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gordondaviesmoustache said:
united, like so many leading 'brands' in corporate history, fell into the trap of thinking that their hegemony was uneluctable. That it would simply go on forever, no matter what. A toxic conflation of arrogance and indolence.

If you cast your mind back to 2008, even after the takeover, any suggestion that City could overtake united in any meaningful sense was met with howls of derision, both from their supporters and the wider footballing world, especially the media.

The role of our owners in reversing that state of affairs should not be underestimated, but nor should that of united as an institution. Rather than focus their efforts on thwarting our rise by making themselves better through investing in the playing staff and infrastructure of the club, instead, the club adopted an MO of dismissing our club outright and the threat it posed. Until it was too late. A couple of years ago they woke up to the reality of where they found themselves in relation to us and Chelsea, upon which they went about throwing money about in the fashion of a sailor on shore leave. To use another nautical metaphor they are displaying all the hallmarks of a rudderless ship, without any discernible leadership anywhere to be seen. It really is a thing of beauty.

Like the hare in the fable, by the time they woke up it was already too late to do anything to alter the outcome.

What an appropriate outcome for a club that had become so bloated by its own-self importance. What a wonderful piece of poetic justice for that banner which was used to mock for so many years.

It's what makes our laughter so much more real. Long may it continue.
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Post of the day GDM. God how I love karma.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
united, like so many leading 'brands' in corporate history, fell into the trap of thinking that their hegemony was uneluctable. That it would simply go on forever, no matter what. A toxic conflation of arrogance and indolence.

If you cast your mind back to 2008, even after the takeover, any suggestion that City could overtake united in any meaningful sense was met with howls of derision, both from their supporters and the wider footballing world, especially the media.

The role of our owners in reversing that state of affairs should not be underestimated, but nor should that of united as an institution. Rather than focus their efforts on thwarting our rise by making themselves better through investing in the playing staff and infrastructure of the club, instead, the club adopted an MO of dismissing our club outright and the threat it posed. Until it was too late. A couple of years ago they woke up to the reality of where they found themselves in relation to us and Chelsea, upon which they went about throwing money about in the fashion of a sailor on shore leave. To use another nautical metaphor they are displaying all the hallmarks of a rudderless ship, without any discernible leadership anywhere to be seen. It really is a thing of beauty.

Like the hare in the fable, by the time they woke up it was already too late to do anything to alter the outcome.

What an appropriate outcome for a club that had become so bloated by its own-self importance. What a wonderful piece of poetic justice for that banner which was used to mock for so many years.

It's what makes our laughter so much more real. Long may it continue.
Click to expand...

Not in my lifetime.
 
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