United Thread - 2021/22

[salford blue 62]

Talking of puddings. I watched the first half of the game at home last night and I thought at halftime I would go to the chippy for some tea.
So I bought pudding chips peas and gravy and I thought I watch the second half in my local boozer and wind a few rags up.

Gets in the pub orders a pint and started eating my tea but couldn't resist quipping - "just said on the radio Ronaldo should have been sent"... "STFU ya blue ****" - was the reply from Alan who i know. I just burst out laughing at his twisted face of anger. His wife Flo apologised straight away. I told her not to worry about it. He then got up and shook my hand and said sorry mate. All I did was walk in the pub for a quiet pint: )

The pub lets you take your own food in ?

 

[BlueMoonRisin’]

The pub lets you take your own food in ?

Yes because they don't serve food being a proper old style drinkers pub.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Every business goes through four phases of a life cycle: startup, growth, maturity and renewal/rebirth or decline.

We all know where the rags are in this cycle, owned by a bunch of distant, know nothing parasites, they're trapped in a rhetoric of renewal that fails miserably to mask their on field decline. The situation is made even worse by the weight of their history, or more accurately the mythology they've spun around that history, the "United way", "Theatre of dreams", "class of 92" blah, blah, blah...

The peculiar nature of football fandom means that Utd are partially insulated from the consequences of their dismal football failure, but only partially. The rags' coffin nails are being hammered home everyday, from Cheltenham to Chittagong, by every little nipper who rejects them and chooses instead to run around in a City shirt.

Meanwhile the Stretford Walking Dead are stumbling through the five stages of grief....Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

The poor f**kers are trapped between bargaining and depression, they're incapable of acceptance. They're already sloping off in numbers, muttering that they've fallen out of love with football, which is rag speak for Utd no longer give meaning to my miserable, meaningless existence, so I'm going back to Pimlico and Pornhub.

You are 100% spot on. I have made this same point about business lifecycle. The wonderful (and by wonderful I mean HILARIOUS) irony here is that not too many years ago the megalomaniac alcoholic who used to manage that club was writing books about leadership and giving lectures to Harvard MBA students. Yet sooner or later someone is going to write a business school case about the FAILURE of this organization as a lesson in laurel-resting, unwillingness to invest, hands-off ownership, and ignorance/arrogance about competitive threats, especially when in a semi-closed system as you note. I’ve often likened the rags to an old school, hard-asset tech company who fails to see what a threat a novel venture-capital funded cloud-based start-up can pose. It’s like a brick and mortar retailer failing to recognize the threat of an online competitor.

And it’s glorious.

 

[salford blue 62]

Yes because they don't serve food being a proper old style drinkers pub.

Gotcha,....still unusual though.

 

[West Yorks Owl]

Was there ever any punishment for the abandoned game Vs Liverpool?

When Blackpool fans invaded the pitch to protest against the Oystons against Huddersfield Town in last game of the 2014/15 season, they were fined £50,000 and given a 3 point deduction suspended for 2 years.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Very eloquently put Gordyola.

So just to summarise; the rags are in a bit of a pickle and there's not much light at the end of the tunnel for them.

Oh! Happy Days!

Oh, it’s even better than that. Their fans, the press, and their ownership all THINK there’s a light.

But there isn’t. Not until they break the entire club down and rebuild which will require some years wandering the desert. Or until the Glazers sell.

 

[malg]

And you think dropping him wouldn't lead to disruption?

Sponsors and social media wouldn't be happy.

 

[citizen_maine]

Sponsors and social media wouldn't be happy.

Nor would the player. And he wouldn't take it lying down

 

[mat]

I am beginning to get worried as more and more people are looking at Ronaldo as their problem - we have to hope they don't rumble him at the swamp and grow a pair and drop him........ we need him there disrupting them and getting highly paid to do so

Its time for pep to tell Slimy Stone how much he admires PR37 and it's great to see him playing in the PL. That'll make him undroppable.

 

[Winchester]

Talking of puddings. I watched the first half of the game at home last night and I thought at halftime I would go to the chippy for some tea.
So I bought pudding chips peas and gravy and I thought I watch the second half in my local boozer and wind a few rags up.

Gets in the pub orders a pint and started eating my tea but couldn't resist quipping - "just said on the radio Ronaldo should have been sent"... "STFU ya blue ****" - was the reply from Alan who i know. I just burst out laughing at his twisted face of anger. His wife Flo apologised straight away. I told her not to worry about it. He then got up and shook my hand and said sorry mate. All I did was walk in the pub for a quiet pint: )

Local rags eh? Amazing